In the early days of the harbor at San Pedro, the channels weren’t deep enough to allow ocean steamships to navigate right up to the two docks in the area, Timms Landing in San Pedro and Banning’s Landing in Wilmington.
The latter was owned by prominent Harbor Area shipping and mercantile magnate Phineas Banning, who had seen the potential of the area as a harbor shortly after arriving there in 1851.
In order to bring goods from the steamers to the shore, it became necessary to use smaller tugboats that could navigate the shallow waters. Banning owned several such utility boats, and in 1861 he bought another one, the Milton Willis.
He renamed her the Ada Hancock after the daughter of his friend Winfield Hancock, a distinguished military general who later would run for president against James Garfield in 1880.
The Ada Hancock made regular runs to ships further out in the harbor. On April 27, 1863, it carried a load of passengers out to the ocean liner The Senator, which would transport some of them to San Francisco.
The remainder of the guests on board went along on the ride to bid the travelers farewell. They included many members of Banning’s family, including his pregnant wife, Rebecca, her mother, Hannah Sanford and Banning’s sons William and Joseph, as well as Phineas himself.
On its second run to The Senator, the Ada Hancock encountered a violent squall which caused the boat to take on water. When the cold sea water hit its boiler, it exploded, causing one of the deadliest West Coast sea disasters on record as of that time.
26 of the 53 passengers on board the Ada Hancock died. The captains of both the Ada Hancock and The Senator, Joseph Bryant and Thomas Seely, perished in the blast, as did Wells Fargo messenger William Ritchie, who was accompanying a shipment of $10,000 that was lost in the explosion.
Also killed were Dr. Henry Myles and his fiancee Medora Hereford, who were traveling to San Francisco to be married. Hereford survived the explosion but died from her injuries the following July.
Other casualties included Banning’s company clerk Thomas Workman, two Mormon missionaries on their way to the Sandwich Islands and Rebecca Banning’s brother, William Sanford.
Rebecca’s mother was seriously injured and survived, as were Banning’s sons, William and Joseph, who also survived. Though also injured, Rebecca herself survived, though the baby she was carrying died shortly after birth the following October, probably from injuries suffered during the blast. (Mother and the unnamed child are buried in Wilmington Cemetery.)
As for Banning himself, he was thrown at least a hundred feet by the force of the blast and suffered some injuries, but survived.
The injured were taken to the base hospital at Camp Drum in Wilmington (now known as the Drum Barracks), whose soldiers also immediately were dispatched to help at the scene of the disaster.
Since it was his boat on which the tragedy occurred, Banning was racked by guilt and paid the expenses of many of the victims. In the decades that followed, he became one of the most influential figures in the development of the Harbor Area. He died peacefully on March 8, 1885.
For years afterward, rumors persisted that as much as $125,000 in gold had gone down with the Ada Hancock and lie buried in the harbor. The treasure supposedly was stolen by Louis Schlesinger in concert with Wells Fargo messenger Ritchie, both of who perished on the ship. Persistent and diligent research by Wells Fargo historians has debunked this myth, however.
The Beat of the Drum: The History, Events and People of Drum Barracks, Wilmington, California, by Don McDowell, 1993.
“A Gold Coin Treasure in San Pedro Bay? – or – Just Another Tale of Wells Fargo?” by Walt Ostromecki, NLG, The California Numismatist, COIN Week website, May 17, 2011.
Find A Grave website.
Grand Ventures: The Banning Family and the Shaping of Southern California, by Tom Sitton, Huntington Library, 2010.
New York Times files.
“Of History and Fantasy,” by Charles Riggs, Guided By History blog, Wells Fargo & Co., May 30, 2008.