California Delta

This is Neugerbauer Road waaaay out there in no man's land of the San Francisco Bay delta.  And when I say no man's land, I mean 'founded by buccaneers'.    There's a lot of great history about draining the delta and digging the channels and getting the levees set up (the San Joaquin river is over the bank on the right side of the picture) and it's all quite fascinating so check out the link .  

Buccaneers.  I'll tell the tale of the famous pirate Ned Wakeman, who had to be the funniest pirate you've never heard of.  Ned was a steamboat captain in New York in 1849, puttering up and down the river, living the boring life in a paddlewheel boat called the New World, and his employers were literal scumbags.  We've all had that boss.  One day the sheriff of New York shows up at the dock with a court order and notice of impounding the ship because the owners were stealing things and not paying their debts.  Ned's out of a job in an instant, the old paddle-wheel will paddle no more, and I have a suspicion this wasn't going to be a mere misunderstanding about the terms of billing all to be put right with a hastily written check, because Ned did not take this lying down.  He convinced the sheriff that in order to do the inspection for the court, that the engine's have to be on, and says 'while you're waiting for us to power them up, why not come on down to the ship's saloon and have a drink'.  And the sheriff of New York fell for it.  They were out in the open ocean before he sobered up enough to figure out what was going on.  He hauls out his...hmm let's make it a flintlock pistol and points it at Ned's heart saying 'turn this ship around mister' but Ned stood on his rights according to international laws of the sea and informed the sheriff correctly that 'he was the law out here'.  The crew was more than happy to back this up.  And so they embraced a life of crime on the high seas.

What next you ask?  Well, naturally they marooned the sheriff in a dinghy with a pair of oars and set sail for South America.  In a paddleboat.  Bound for Tierra Del Fuego.  To sail round the horn, and join the gold rush in California.  In a paddleboat.  So Ned is rolling merrily down to Brazil to refuel right in the middle of the Praieira Revolt and Brazil's getting ready to go to war with Argentina so there's warships everywhere and you can bet the Brazilian navy did a double take at seeing a paddleboat sailing the high seas.  Well of course he's got to show up in port sometime and of course you have to show papers when you're in port and Pirate Ned doesn't have any, and he's got a bit of a warrant out for his arrest.  Without those US flagged papers, his ship is getting impounded and put into service for the war effort.  And he's going to die of yellow fever in a Brazilian jail.  Never fear.  Wakeman ostentatiously exits the New World with a shiny brass box placed prominently under his arm, in full view of the waiting arrest party, and starts to row towards the shore.  Half way there, wouldn't you know he stands up and falls overboard with an enormous splash.  Well they drag Mr. Wakeman out of the drink safely but that glorious shiny brass box has utterly disappeared.  The American ambassador promptly volunteers to have Ned issued new papers.  This is so sad it's hilarious.  Ned is now legitimately captain and owner of the New World, and he picks up a passenger cargo of wannabe gold miners to pay for the rest of the journey to California.  And so he sailed a paddle boat around the land of fire, Cape Horn, some of the roughest, most dangerous seas on the planet, and he breezes through in record time, docks in San Francisco, and then sets the New World up as a passenger ferry from San Francisco to Stockton, where it was the fastest ship on the rivers for decades.  

Eventually he struck up a friendship with Mark Twain, and when he was hard up in his later life, the author set about trying to raise enough money so he wouldn't get kicked out of his house.   I don't know whether Mark Twain was successful.  Ned Wakeman died from complications of a stroke in his home in East Oakland at the age of 57 in 1875.  And that's just one of the Delta's famous river pirates.  Library of Congress will let you read his autobiography online for free here. 

And I will let you read Xander's autobiography online for free here.