Around the Horn in '49

Linville John Hall, a Hartford, Connecticut, printer, was a member of the Hartford Union Company, a joint venture that purchased the Henry Lee and outfitted the ship with supplies and equipment for gold prospecting in California. All but one of the passengers and crew on the vessel in January 1849 were members of the company. Hall remained in California until 1851, returning to Connecticut to become a Protestant clergyman. Around the Horn in '49 (1898) can be divided into two sections. The first and longer section reprints the text of a journal kept on board the Henry Lee and set in type by Hall during the voyage, February-September 1849. There is some reason to believe that this journal may have been written by a member of the company, George G. Webster, a Hartford lawyer. Journal entries for the first portion of the voyage were apparently sent back to Hartford when the ship stopped in Rio, and were printed in Connecticut three months before the Henry Lee reached San Francisco. The rest of the journal was set in type as the voyage progressed, with the last signature set while in San Francisco: this section records the creation of the Company and details the passage round the Horn and landing in San Francisco. The second section is an appendix that continues the story of the company in the gold fields, 1849-1850, with prospecting around Weaverville and other camps. Hall describes his work as an itinerant printer and mining near Placerville. He next describes his work as a printer in San Francisco and gives an eyewitness account of the fire of May 1851.