Lodgepole Pine

 

If you were curious about the voyage of the sailing ship Brooklyn – I certainly was – here’s a little more of the story: Eleven passengers and one crewman perished during the trip. They’d hoped for fresh milk along the way, but the cows they brought didn’t last long. Both were killed during the first violent storm. They’d planned to stop for fresh food and water at Valparaiso, Chile, but were prevented by another storm. Instead, they paused at the Juan Fernández Islands, where Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe was set. They passed the long hours reading 179 volumes of the Harper’s Family Library. When they arrived in California, they nearly tripled the size of the town that would become San Francisco. Theirs was the first wheat crop in the area, the first school, bank, library, post office and newspaper. The journey of the Brooklyn is believed to be the longest religious sea pilgrimage in recorded history.