Brother Jonathan was a paddle steamer that struck an uncharted rock near Point St. George, off the coast of Crescent City, California, on July 30, 1865. The ship was carrying 244 passengers and crew, with a large shipment of gold. Only 19 people survived, making it the deadliest shipwreck up to that time on the Pacific Coast of the United States. Based on the passenger and crew list, 225 people are believed to have died. Its location was not discovered until 1993 and a portion of the gold was recovered in 1996. The ship was also instrumental in setting off the 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic, which killed thousands of Indigenous people in the region. Initial construction The ship was built by Perrine, Patterson, and Stack in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and launched on November 2, 1850. It was commissioned by Edward Mills, a New Yorker who tried to operate a shipping business during the California Gold Rush, and was named after Brother Jonathan, a character personifying the region of New England. When built in 1851, it was long and wide. Its route was from New York to Chagres, Panama, and on its first journey set a record for the then-fastest round-trip31 days. Passengers would cross the Isthmus of Panama and make their way north to California via another ship. In 1852 the ship was purchased by Cornelius Vanderbilt, who operated a competing line, to replace one of his ships that had been wrecked. Vanderbilt had Brother Jonathan sail around Cape Horn and used it on the Pacific side of the route. Vanderbilt also had the steamer modified to accommodate more passengers. Uses Vanderbilt's company had had an exclusive contract ferrying passengers across the isthmus through Nicaragua, but in 1856 the Nicaraguan government cancelled the agreement. The ship was then sold to Captain John Wright, renamed Commodore and put on West Coast routes, including from its new home port of San Francisco to British Columbia, as gold prospectors travelled to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. The ship played a small but symbolic role in the history of the state of Oregon. After President James Buchanan signed the bill admitting Oregon to the Union on February 14, 1859, the news was wired to St. Louis, carried by stagecoach to San Francisco, and loaded on Commodore on March 10. On March 15, the ship docked in Portland, delivering the official notification of statehood to