The Panama Crossing
Crocodiles in the Chagres, fever in the air, two boys lost from sight all day on the jungle trail — the family's 1852 shortcut to California.
Before the Panama Canal, reaching California from the East meant one of three terrible choices: six months around Cape Horn, six months across the plains, or the shortcut through Panama — which had terrors of its own.
In 1852 the Plasketts chose Panama. From New Orleans they steamed to the Isthmus, then went up the Chagres River and over the mountains by muleback through dense jungle. Crocodiles slid into the water as they passed; mosquitoes carried yellow fever and malaria. Sarah Plaskett was carried across the Chagres on the back of a strong porter — while her two young boys, Byron and Leonidas, rode ahead on mules and were out of their anxious parents’ sight for an entire day of jungle trail.
Many who took this route never reached California; the jungle graveyards were full of gold-seekers who died within sight of their destination. The Plasketts came through whole — but they never forgot the friends and strangers buried along the way. From Panama City a steamer carried them at last through the Golden Gate.