page_title: Ajax (1864 ship)
section_title: California Steam Navigation Company
hierarchical_section_title: Ajax (1864 ship) / California Steam Navigation Company
caption_attribution_description: English: In 1854, a group of steamship captains formed the California Steam Navigation Company. Over the next decade, the company established a monopoly on inland water travel in California. Geographic coverage: United States Subjects (LCTGM): Ships; Steamboats Categories: Steamships, ferries and boats; Transportation and communication
context_page_description: Ajax was a wooden, propeller-driven steamship built in 1864. She provided logistical support to the Union Army on the Atlantic coast during the American Civil War. After the war she was sent to San Francisco where she provided freight and passenger services between that city and other ports on the Pacific coast. She provided the first scheduled steamship service between the United States and Hawaii.
context_section_description: At some point prior to her arrival in San Francisco, Ajax was sold to the firm of Wakeman, Gookin & Dickinson, a New York City-based steamship company.  She was advertised for sale on September 18, 1865, not three weeks since her arrival in San Francisco.  On November 2, 1865, her owners held a sea trial for other steamship companies to examine her capabilities.  Most vessels on the California coast at the time were paddlewheel steamers.  There were few propeller driven ships and some skepticism about this new technology.   Evidently the trial was a success.  Later that month, the California Steam Navigation Company agreed to buy Ajax and California, another Wakeman, Gookin & Dickinson ship, for $250,000.  Ajax was moved to Crowell's Wharf to begin a short refitting, for her new owners intended to use her to establish the first scheduled steamship service between San Francisco and Honolulu.
  The fare for the inaugural trip from San Francisco to Honolulu trip was $75 for a cabin or $40 for steerage.  She left San Francisco on January 13, 1866 with 68 passengers, including Samuel Clemens, who reported on the trip using his pen name, Mark Twain.  Clemens was aboard Ajax as a special correspondent for the Sacramento Daily Union newspaper.  He filed 25 letters with the paper that were collected in Letters From Hawaii, first published in book form in 1947.  The first three letters dealt with his trip on Ajax.  He reported that the trip to Hawaii was rough, and claimed that he saw 22 of the 68 passengers vomiting over the bulwarks from seasickness at one point. Ajax arrived at Honolulu on January 27.  She sailed back to San Francisco on February 10, 1866 arriving on February 23.  She carried 34 passengers on this return voyage and a wide variety of agricultural imports including 2,579 kegs of sugar, 807 packages of molasses, 242 sacks of coffee, and 3,621 coconuts.
  On March 7, 1866, Ajax sailed for Honolulu a second time.  She cleared San Francisco with 1,786 sacks of flour, 87 sacks of barley, 57 sacks of oats, 498 sacks of potatoes, paint, guns, kegs of nails, a piano, 6 dozen shovels, and other merchandise valued at $28,192.75. She arrived back in San Francisco on April 15, 1866 with 617 tons of freight, a record for the time for a single ship from Hawaii.
  The ship's two trips were unprofitable, losing between $7,000 and $8,000.  Shortly after her return to San Francisco, the California Steam Navigation Company withdrew he from her Hawaii route, ending scheduled steamship service to the islands.  With the break in her scheduled sailings, she underwent a brief visit to the shipyard for repairs.
  After several months of idleness, the ship was reassigned to the San Francisco - Portland route and made her first trip on February 12, 1867, arriving in Portland on February 16.  She made several additional roundtrips between San Francisco and Portland in 1867, but with competition from the Ben Holladay's California, Oregon & Mexico Steamship Company and the newly launched Anchor Line, the route had too many ships on it and a full scale fare war broke out.  Fares dropped from $45 for a cabin and $25 for steerage to $10 and $3 respectively between 1866 and 1867.  Unable to make money on its ocean-going shipping business, the California Steam Navigation Company sold its entire fleet of seagoing vessels, including Ajax, to the California, Oregon & Mexico Steamship company in mid-1867.
caption: 1867 newspaper advertisement for Ajax's Portland route
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