Talk:Smith Canal

A fact from Smith Canal appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 24 September 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Smith Canal was created to carry food to the Stockton State Hospital, California's first psychiatric hospital?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/September. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Smith Canal.

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California

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Confusion about the Euphemia's history?[edit]

The article seems to imply the ship was initially abandoned by a British crew in San Francisco Bay prior to 1812, having found gold at least 38 years before the gold rush, then somehow seized by the U.S. during the war, in what was then the Spanish Empire, only for it to somehow return to San Francisco? Here's the wording:

"When the crew of the British Euphemia heard of gold deposits in the Sierra foothills, they abandoned ship in San Francisco Bay. During the War of 1812 it was seized by the US, who used it as a cargo vessel in the China trade before it was again abandoned."

The source material does not state this. It does tell the story out of order, but never implies it was the "British Euphemia" being abandoned, and the use of "again abandoned" is not in the article, which further alludes to the unlikely timeline of very early British gold seekers abandoning a ship at a Spanish mission.

I believe a proper timeline based on the source material is that the ship was originally British and presumably in the Atlantic. It was seized during the War of 1812 and at some point began making trips to China. Word of gold in the Sierras inspiring many ship crews to abandon in the San Francisco Bay, this would be when it was abandoned, in 1849, by Americans. San Francisco at this point being a U.S. city, and the ownership of the ship being American, whoever those owners may be, it was purchased and used as an asylum, and the story continues from there. J1DW (talk) 09:31, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]