Note: For serious researchers only.  Very hard to read, as is the original.

Route as traced via Google Maps.

Audio excerpts from the entire letter (mp3 format) Voiceover by Nancy Burnett (burnetnc@oneonta.edu), Communication Arts Department, SUNY College at Oneonta.

1851 Letter from Harvey Seaman to parents in Delancey, Delaware County, NY describing a trip by sail from NY to California via Cape Horn. Excerpts from page 6:

"The wind being fair, ere the night the tallest hills were lost to our view, and we were again wanders on a trackless ocean..."

"We also saw here the Albatross they are a bird of the largest class, often measuring 16 or 18 feet from tip to tip..."

" My time grew weary and I cared not how soon my voyage ended..."

"But on Monday Augt 9th when directly off the Cape we met with a Storm, that made our hairs stand almost erect, the waves rolled to a frightful height, the wind blew a perfect gale, it seemed as if old Mother Ocean was trying to do her best...Yet it was a scene that I wished to see, nor was I deceived in respect to it grandure, power, and sublimity..."