1 W.S. Bodey and the Yankee Blade Shipwreck By Nick Gariaeff Introduction When I was researching W.S. Bodey , the gold discoverer who froze to death in 1859 at Bodie, California, I was surprised to find he shipwrecked sailing from San Francisco to Panama. The steamship Yankee Blade crashed on the coastal rocks west of present day Lompoc on October 1, 1 854. The D aily Alta California listed crew member " W Bodey" as one of three porters who managed the luggage for the 819 passengers. The Daily Alta astounded me by reveal ing Bodey salvaged gold from the wreck He descended into treacherous swelling waters amongst j agged bottom rocks from the schooner Dancing Feather in a deep - se a diving outfit. "Wm. Body" and another diver, Wm. Austin earned $450 apiece for recovering an 8x8x24 inch box of gold dust worth $17,000 ( $ 648 , 000 in today ' s mone y ! ). Years later, one of Bodey's prospecting partners wrote an open newspaper letter corroborating that W.S. Bodey was at the Yankee Blade wreck and was a salvage diver Bodey ' s New York Origins W.S. Bodey was born in Manhattan, NY , on Friday the 13th His mother, Mary Kitchel Boddy, recorded his birth in her family bible as Waiteman Sipple Boddy, born May 13, 1814 . His father , John was a coach - maker, and his mother was a nurse. Bodey was a tinsmith and , in 1839, a proprietor of a porterhouse (a pub that sells porter). He adopted the "Bodey" and "Body" spellings of his s urname. His name is controversial because of the many spellings of his unusual name People wrote his name as Wa i tman, Wateman, Wakeman, Waterman, or William. I think they just called him Bodey. By 184 2 , Bodey moved to Poughkeepsie, NY, where he worked as a tinsmith and was a volunteer fireman. The Scientific American described a corn dryer that W.S. Bodey invented He failed in his run for C anal Commissioner and Poughkeepsie Overseer of the Poor offices In October 1849 , he bid farewell to his wife Sarah and his boys, aged 8,6 and 3, and his ten - month daughter Mary Ann . Bodey sailed a long and tedious seven - month voyage through the Straights of Magellan aboard the Matthew Vassar to California , seeking his fortune in the gold fields Jacob Statter, a butcher from Poughkeepsie, was his ship mate. Wreck of the Yankee Blade ( as she appeared on the evening of October 1st, 1854, Courtesy Huntington Library, San Marino, CA) Matthew Vassar at Valparaiso John B.Goodman Collection , UC , San Diego 2 California Debts In California, Bodey sent money home with glowing reports of his progress. He got a job in a dry goods store in San Francisco and afterward went into business himself but lost heavily. In El Dorado County , Bodey tried his luck prospecting but evidently did not have much success Bodey accumulated considerable debt from his business ventures. T he Justice of the Peace at Indian Diggings near Placerville ran a weekly notice in the Mountain Democrat for three months. Summoned to appear by November 24, 1854, "W.S. Bodey" was to answer a complaint of a suit to recover $168. Another reoccurring legal notice in the Sacramento Daily Union published complaints for debts of $500 and another for $239. These debts totaled $907 - over $24,000 in today's money! Avoiding paying off debts is a clear motive for sailing home to New York via the Isthmus of Panama The Yankee Blade Disaster Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the Yankee Blade , a three - masted, 275 - foot paddle - wheel steamer built in 1853 Captain Henry T. Randall sailed her from New York around Cape Horn for service in the Pacific between San Francisco and Panama. On September 30, 1854, h e l eft San Francisco en route to Panama. She struck a rock in dense fog about 4 pm the next day by Point Pedernales near present day Lompoc, California. The Yankee Blade had 819 passengers; 32 were women, 31 were children. About 30 thugs stowed away. One of the 122 crew members was " W. Bod e y ." Racing a gainst the steamship Sonora on a $5,000 wager to be the first to Panama , the Blade sank with a total of $153,000 in gold shipped by Page, Bacon, & Co., $60,000 by Fretz & Ralston, plus unknown amounts of passenger gold. C aptain Randell tried to find a safe passageway for lifeboats to come ashore and ordered women and children in to the first boat s. Unfortunately, boats crashed on the break ers , and some lost their lives About 275 passengers ferried ashore that night. There were only two lifeboats left because the rocks destroyed four of them Captain Randall stayed ashore that night and left his 24 - year - old son , H enry Jr. , in charge of the ship. Those left behind spent a harrowing night aboard the breaking - up Yankee Blade J im Turne r After many arrests for assault, Jim Turner said he " rendered himself notorious and left for the good of the state. " He escaped an assault charge in San Francisco and stowed away with his band of hoodlums aboard the Yankee Blade . Passengers complained he and his gang took over the ship. Armed with knives and guns, they ransacked baggage in staterooms, stole all the valuables they could find, and attacked passengers. They broke into the liquor supplies, became drunk, and continued their wild riot. The follow ing day at 8:00 am, the steam tug Goliah came to the rescue. A group of Los Angeles Rangers were fortunately on board. They restored order on the Blad e. The Rangers rigged a 3 line from the Goliah to the Blade to ferry passengers in lifeboats, took passengers to San Diego, and came back to rescue more. They put the hoodlums ashore. By the end of the year Jim Turner sailed to the "Five Points" by W.S. Bodey's old Manhattan neighborhood. In California, Turner was a friend of John Morrissey, whom he met during the Gold Rush Morrissey was a powerful political boss in New York Turner became an enforcer for " Dead Rabbits " supported politicians endorsed by Tammany Hall . At a Broadway pub on February 25, 1855 , Turner was one of the men who shot the infamous William Poole ("Bill the Butcher"), made famous by the " Gangs of New York " movie. Bo dey, who ran for office on the anti - immigrant, anti - Catholic Native American Party ticket back in Poughkeepsie, may have known William Poole at the Five Points because Poole was a leader of the Know - Nothing movement there Yankee Blade Salvage The first salvage attempt was from the steam tugboat Caroline , which left San Francisco on October 12 with Captain Randall as the senior salvage team member " Dutch Fred " and another diver descended in their " submarine armor ." They only salvage d a valise with gold, a case of liquor, and some watches because of harsh weather and dangerous diving conditions. The divers were a rough bunch; on October 27, the Sacramento Daily Union reported a dispute on the Barbary Coast; " Man Stabbed in Pacific Street " described how " Dutch Fred " stabbed another diver from the Caroline back from the wreck of the Yankee Blade Another article named the other diver " Oyster Jack. " The schooner Pilgrim brought in two boxes of gold dust on January 1, 1855. An inquisition accused two of t he Pilgrim divers, Thomas Matthew s and Robert Wilson, of stealing $34,000 worth of gold , but the court discharged them The Dancing Feather One of the salvage attempt s occurred with Captain Randall directing operations from t he pilot schooner Dancing Feather at the end of November; after being out for five weeks and hampered by harsh weather , divers recovered four boxes of gold worth $68,000. W.S. Bodey was part of the salvage team on the Dancing Feather . Authorities accused Captain Randall of stealing $17,000 in gold during the salvage operations. On January 26, 1855, the Daily Alta California reported: " U.S. District Court. — Jan uary 25 : The Yankee Blade Wreckers. — Capt. RANDALL ' S Case. — The examination of Capt. Henry Randall was continued before Commissioner Schell, on the charge of plundering the wreck of the Yankee Blade. Mr. Glassell examined the government. Messrs. Crockett and Cook defended. Wm. Austin, a diver who went down on the Dancing Feather , testified to having seen the box brought up. He and another diver, Wm Body had received $450 each for their services from Capt. Randall ' s son . Th eir contract was to have five percent of the plunder. " The next day, the court acquitted Captain Randall Almost a year later , Henry Randall and Thomas Mathews , aboard the schooner Ada , salvaged the last of the documented gold by November 1855 , including a large crate with $60,000 Fretz & Ralston gold and six more boxes of gold worth $17,000 apiece. Murder of William Pool at Stanwix Hall " Recollections of a New York Chief of Police" (1887) 4 W illiam Chapman Ralson The agent for the Yankee Blade was William Ralston , who had just moved from Panama and represent ed Cornelius Vanderbilt ' s shipping interests in San Francisco. B esieged by angry passengers trying to recover their fares , Ralston only reimbursed 25% for 600 passengers Ralston co - founded the Bank of California, invested in the Comstock, and became extraordinarily wealthy. He built the fabulous Palace Hotel in San Francisco. He died mysteriously d uring his regular swim in the San Francisco Bay on August 27, 1875 , just after the collapse of his financial empire Ralston, Uncle Billy & Bodie William Ralston worked on steamships on the Mississippi. In 1849, he helped set up a shipping and banking operation in Panama. Ralston brought along his protégé William O ' Hara, a large black man befriended on a riverboat in Ohio. O ' Hara eventually started the Jenny Lind restaurant in Columbia, California, and made his way to Bodie and Aurora, where he staked miners for their mining claims. In Bodie, O ' Hara, known as " Uncle Billy, " was a respected entrepreneur who bought the North Bunker Hill Claim on August 19, 1873, for $1, 824 but sold it before a cave - in exposed a fabulous vein of gold in 1875 that made Bodie a boomtown. Referred to as " the foster father of Bodie and Aurora, " O ' Hara died a wealthy man in 1880. Bodie Booms People flocked to Bodie, and by 1878, it was a boomtow n. Jos eph Wasson , a Bodie promoter , ran for office representing Mono and Inyo Counties . He published a booklet titled Bodie and Esmeralda , which included a brief history of Bodie. He wrote about Bodey 's demis e: "W.S. Body was returning from Monoville, in company with E.S. (alias "Black") Taylor, he got belated and overtaken by a severe snowstorm, lost his way, and perished. " "He became too much exhausted to proceed further, and that Taylor carried him some distance, but finding the burden too heavy, wrapped a blanket around the man and left him. Taylor came on to their cabin to obtain something to eat, after which he wandered abou t all night in vain for his companion. " Jame s Giles McClinton , a judge and news editor, told Wasson he knew Black Taylor , a half - Cherokee , and where he may have buried Bodey. They searched and found the location A dozen Bodie citizens exhume d his grave Dr. Henry Babington Davison, a Bodie physician, became the keeper of Bodey's bones . Dr. Davison was the Society of the Pacific Coast vice president whose 26 members planned and conducted Bodey's funeral. There was controversy about whether it was Bodey in his grave, but some discounted this because t he y recognized his unique Bowie knife and scabbard that they Joseph Wasson D r. Davison Judge McClinton William C. Ralston 5 found The Bodie Daily Standard published an invitation to Bodie townspeople for the "Obsequies of William S. Bodey." The town turned out for his reinterment and funeral on a November 2 nd Sunday afternoon. The Honorable Robert D. Ferguson gave an inspiring eulogy promoting erecting a monument for Bodey: " Let a marble shaft rise high above with sculptured urn o ' er topping, with the simple name of BODEY there, to kiss the first golden rays of the coming sun, and where his setting beams may linger in cloudless majesty and beauty, undisturbed forever. " Bogus and bizarre stories appeared by people claiming to be Bodey's partner. One whopper came from James Hunt of Carson City, who wrote a long, rambling, bogus story with false claims of being with Bodie. One newspaper compared it to a Baron Münchausen story because of its vast number of provable falsehoods. My les Conway Myles Conway of Gold Hill, Nevada, responded to Hunt's bogus story by writing an open letter to Dr. Davison of Bodie i n the Virginia Enterprise describing his partnership with Bodey. C onway's description of Bodey's whereabouts fit verifiable facts perfectly. Evidence tying the wreck and salvage of the Yankee Blade to W.S. Bodey appears in the letter Conway was born in Westport, Ireland, in the 1830s and immigrated during the California Gold Rush. He was with Bodey in the 1850 s but did not go to Mono Diggings with him. By 1870, Myles was at Gold Hill, working on the Comstock Lode at the Crown Point Mine. The 1873 Edward Hurd photograph obtained from his great - great - nephew shows him wearing a Pacific Coast Pioneer ribbon , showing he was an original 49er, with the California State Bear highlighted in gold and a six - pointed Vigilance Committee badge Myles was known as " Jimmy Two Dogs. " He died at Sonora on April 16, 1897. G old Hill, (Nev.), October 31 To Dr. Davison - Dear Sir: I see in the Virginia Enterprise of today an account of the finding of the bones of the one whom your camp is called after, and who was on three different occasions my partner - first at Poverty Hill, in 1854, after his return from the wreck of the steamship Blade; then at Red Mountain Bar in fluming the canyon; and again in Marlow camp, between the north fork of the Tuolumne River at Turnback Creek – at the later place in 1859 before he came on this side of the mountains. He use d to follow diving as his profession or calling - encased in a suit of gum clothing with helmet. We saw his diving suit and also the portraits of his family - wife and two children; we saw them at the last - named camp ..." Myles Conway 6 Poverty Hill After Bodey's adventure at the Yankee Blade shipwreck, his luck changed dramatically. A t Poverty Hill, now named Stent, W.S. Bodey prospected in Tuolumne County. On November 13, 1856, "Waitman S. Body" recorded a deed to his wife, "Sarah Body," in Sonora for a one - sixth part of a quartz claim. The deed described the site as "what is commonly known as Old Poverty Hill." His first name, spelled as both "Whitman" and "Waitman," appears in the same document. On April 27, 1857, "W.S. Body" of Poverty Hill deeded a one - fourth part of his claim to C.G. Lewis for $600. It was a 700 - foot vein by a s haft 30 yards from the John Adams Blacksmith Shop at Poverty Hill. W.S. Bodey may have helped in establishing the 1857 Poverty Hill School House , which still stands today in Stent According to a 1971 memo from Carlo De Ferarri of the Tuolumne County Clerk's Office , "Mr. Bodey was appointed on a committee to investigate a school matter in 1856." Marlow Diggings After Yankee Blade and Poverty Hill, Bodey was with Myles Conway at Marlow Diggings in Tuolumne County . Bodey's prospecting luck continued to improve a few months before his demise in Mono County. The August 30, 1859, Sacramento Daily Union reported: "Rich Diggings in Tuolumne. — The richest claim that has been struck in Tuolumne says the Sonora Democrat, is that of Bodey & Co. at Marlow Diggings. Two "chispas" — one weighing ten ounces five dollars, and the other nine ounces fourteen dollars — were found, one day week before last; and the company took out, in two days' washing, over $1,200." Conclusion Bodey used his find at Marlow to finance an expedition to the Mono Diggings, the latest strike for which there was "great e xcitement." $1,200 in 1859 dollars would be worth around $35,000 today. I wonder what happened to the money! Five months after he died, t he first known notice of W.S. Bodey ' s death and the spelling " Bodie " was in the May 19, 1860, Daily Alta It reported there were around twelve hundred men at the Mono Diggings : six Chinese wintered there, two died, and " a white man by the name of Bodie was frozen to death. " According to the Boddy Bible, Wateman S Boddey died December 9, 1859, at Mono Diggings at age 45: 6 months and 27 days. The town of Bodie never built the monument intended for W.S. Bodey. They collected money, work began, but when President James Garfield died, the fickle Bodieites used the monument as a cenotaph in the president's honor. I believe they buried Bodey on top of Foundry Hill in Bodie. The grave is unmarked. Poverty Hill Schoo l house, Stent, CA