Biographical Essay with Focus on Benajah Jay Antrim’s 1849 Trip through Mexico
A brief biographical essay about Benajah Jay Antrim (1819-1903) with the focus on his journey from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to San Francisco, California, overland through Mexico in 1849 and key life events thereafter.

Benajah Jay Antrim (1819-1903) was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, to a Quaker family and attended a Society of Friends school near Philadelphia. He worked as a mathematical instrument maker in Philadelphia and Baltimore. In 1843 he published Pantography, or Universal Drawings in which he examined the idea of creating a phonetics-based universal language. On February 1, 1849, he departed Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and traveled by sea for Mexico, where on February 21, 1849, he began an overland journey from Tampico via San Luis Potosi and Guadalajara to Mazatlán, arriving at the far coast on April 17, 1849.
Antrim was part of a group of forty men of various walks of life and ages who joined together in Philadelphia in January 1849 to plan the journey across Mexico. They traveled first by sea to the Gulf of Mexico and then overland to the Pacific Ocean. Departing at the beginning of February 1849, they sailed aboard the brig Thomas Walters, and arrived at the river port city of Tampico, Mexico, three weeks later. They then proceeded in smaller parties over various chosen routes by horse and mule train, camping at haciendas, small towns, and rivers. They stayed overnight at ranchos and in village plazas, shopping for fruit, vegetables, and grains from local growers and farmers. They visited cities and isolated residences and passed through canyons and valleys and over mountain ranges, seeing sights Antrim chronicled in his journals and sketchbooks.
The three diaries and two sketchbooks that comprise the Benajah Jay Antrim Journals contain written descriptions and often corresponding pencil or pen-and-ink drawings and watercolor paintings of historic buildings, churches, flora, fauna, people, and landscape scenes Antrim witnessed in his arrival by sea and during the land crossing to California. The collection holds research value for historians of Mexico, urban historians, architectural and cultural historians, historians of western migration and Spanish and American colonialism, those studying U.S.-Mexico relations, and students of social strata, geography, and environmental studies.

The Journey through Mexico to California

Antrim began writing the first volume of what he called his “California journal” (Journey Through Mexico) from 33½ Market Street, Philadelphia, in January 1849. He explained on the first full page of its text that:
“ . . . having been some time impressed with the belief that a trip to California would be beneficial not only in a pecuniary point of view, but likewise to the better regulation of health and future happiness, I resolved about the 1st of January of 1849 to leave my profession that of a Mathematical Instrument Maker and the ever to be remembered monumental city of Baltimore for a trip to the golden shores of the far western El Dorado. Circumstances favoring, I made preparations in Philadelphia foresuming that my trip thither would be made by sea around Cape Horn a distance of 1700 miles. . . .”
He was encouraged by a friend to form a company of “10 or 15 select gentlemen” interested in investigating business and investment prospects. They began with just three: Philadelphia accountant William H. Ogden, Antrim, and businessman William Middleton (who later decided not to participate and remained behind, living in New Jersey). They drew up a contract at a bookstore in Philadelphia and advertised to recruit further members through the Philadelphia Ledger. The newspaper notice attracted several applicants, many subsequently interviewed by Ogden and Antrim, resulting in a company of forty men. They named themselves the Camargo Company after the town Santa Rosalía de Camargo (or Ciudad Camargo/Camargo City), in the eastern part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, which they initially planned would be an assembly destination after arriving in Mexico by sea.

Ogden was elected president of the company and Antrim its secretary. The company chartered the brig Thomas Walters and embarked together for their journey. Though the vessel set off from Philadelphia the morning of February 1, 1849, under conditions of “slight snow, cold and finally sleety rain” there was a good crowd of well-wishers to see them off. Forming the company were two dentists and several merchants, some teachers, manufacturers, craftsmen (a pencil maker, broom maker, tailors, a cooper, a carpenter, and bookbinder), clerks, and a printer/editor. Born in different cities mostly along the East coast, they ranged in age from twenty (a clerk) to fifty-two. A lawyer’s name was entered by Antrim in his diary as the fortieth member, but then scratched out in pencil. The full roster/roll call of names of the participants who embarked for the voyage were recorded by Antrim in volume one of his California Journals. (See also Vol. 3 Mexico Journal, 1849, Camargo Company listing, images 12, 13, 14).
The initial plan was to procure mules at Camargo and set off overland toward the beachfront city of Mazatlán on the Pacific, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, across from the tip of the Baja California peninsula, as their destination. But some argued that route was too risky. Part of the company, including Antrim, settled on a revised route from Tampico via San Luis Potosi. They assembled horses and mules and set off on their guided journey, spending their first nights encamped at a rancho and beside a riverbed, and proceeding on through the often-difficult terrain, dealing with water scarcity, desert land, mosquitos, river crossings, and steep mountain ranges to reach their destination on the far coast.

The plazas, cathedrals, and government buildings of San Luis Potosi and Guadalajara were of particular interest to Antrim as he sketched structures and architectural details of buildings along their way. He also chronicled bridges and roads and passages through mountain passes along their route.

Later Experience in California and Hawaii
After successfully arriving on the west coast in mid-April 1849, and concluding his journals of the overland journey, Antrim continued northward to San Francisco, arriving there by June 25, 1849. He proceeded inland, taking up residence in Sierra County, California. In 1852-1853, he worked as a photographer in various California gold mining camps and towns, including in the Grass Valley area.
He then traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii (then called the Sandwich Islands), to ply his trade, sailing from San Francisco to Honolulu on the Francis Palmer in the spring 1854. Under the name B. Jay Antrim, he operated a daguerreotype portrait studio, gallery, and repair business in Honolulu until 1856, competing at the time with the other leading daguerreian of the city, Hugo Stangenwald (1829-1899). Antrim’s Honolulu studio was located initially in second-floor rooms of the Swan and Clifford ship chandlery at the harbor. He later operated as the Excelsior Gallery on King Street. His portrait commissions at the studio included a portrait image of the young Kamehameha IV, who was intrigued by the daguerreotype process, and others in circles of Hawaiian royalty. In March 1856 he interacted with disembarked officers of the American war ship Vincennes, flagship of the returning United States squadron of Commodore Matthew Perry’s expedition to Japan and China, who stopped in Honolulu on the way to taking port in San Francisco and continuing to the East coast. (For an illustrated account of the Perry expedition, see the William Speiden Journals). The American officers purchased portraits and images of Hawaii in exchange for a box of previously collected Japanese art works they were carrying aboard on their homeward journey.
While at least two portraits taken by Antrim in Hawaii survive in a repository in Honolulu, his collection of daguerreotypes of Hawaiian landscapes are not known to be extant. A handwritten account of his time making pictures in Hawaii, “In the Days of Kamehameha IV,” originally written in a humorous form for his mother, was transcribed later by a family member and excerpts have been reprinted in a 2001 article in History of Photography (see Related Resources). Antrim returned to San Francisco in July 1856 and later lived in various California towns, including Red Bluff (1859), Mariposa (1860), Nevada City (1867), and Cisco (1868-1877), as well as in the state of Nevada, operating a series of small photographic studio galleries in these places.