doc241 - Schoenherr Home Page in Sunny Chula Vista

1834, Roxana.
1835, Pilgrim.
1836, Lagoda, Loriotte, Catalina.
1836-7, Kent.
1837, Rasselas, Sophia.
1839, Morse.
1840, Alciope.
1840-1, Monsoon.
1841, Thomas Perkins.
1841-2-3-5-7, Tasso.
1842-4-6-7, Barnstable.
1839-43-4, Fama.
1844, Menkar.
1844-5, Sterling.
1845, Martha, Admittance.
1846, Vandalia.
1847-8, Olga.
The hide and tallow trade practically ended with the transfer of California to the
United States. This was a mere coincidence, due to economic rather than to political
causes. New England found that she could get her hides cheaper somewhere else. The
trade had marked the high tide of prosperity in old California days, and supplied an interesting
and romantic episode in the history of the country. Excellent accounts of this
period may be found in the writings of Bancroft, Dana, Robinson, and Davis. The latter,
perhaps the most competent authority, estimates the total number of hides exported
from California at about 5,000,000 and the tallow at 250,000,000 pounds.
Even after the cattle business passed mostly into private hands, the missions
profited largely from it, by means of tithes, a form of ecclesiastical tax scrupulously paid
by the rancheros and diligently collected by the missionaries. This tax was collected, in
some instances, as late as 1850 or 1851. The missions were also the principal customers
of the American ships. Their cargoes consisted of sugar, tea, coffee, rum, silk, furniture,
calico, clothing, and blankets for the Indians, which they sold to the friars for cash
and exchanged for hides. William A. Gale, Alfred Robinson, and William Heath Davis did
a large business with the missions for many years.
In Robinson's Life in California is an interesting account of the pains which were
taken, upon his first visit to San Diego,
Page 105
in 1829, to entertain the good Father Antonio Peyri, founder of the San Luis Rey Mission,
and especially to impress him with the excellence of the stores brought in the
Brookline, from Boston. This entertainment seems to have proven quite profitable, in
the end. The missionaries kept the first, and for many years the only, stores, from which
they supplied the wants of their neophytes and sold goods to such as desired them.
Their success soon stimulated emulation in this, as in other, lines and private fortunes
began to grow. The first storekeeper at San Diego, and the only one for some years,
was Captain Henry D. Fitch, who dealt in furs, hides, and general merchandise. After
the cattle business began to assume importance and private residences were estab-