Jacob C. Bogart

Who is Jacob C. Bogart?

Jacob C. Bogart was a ship captain and American Democratic politician from San Diego, California.

Jacob Bogart was born c. 1820 in New Jersey. Captain J. C. Bogart first visited San Diego in 1834 on the ship Black Warrior. He then served as an agent for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company at La Playa area of San Diego. He says of his first visit:

In 1834 it was good to see the hills about San Diego. Wild oats grew upon them to a height which reached above the head of a man on horseback. Cattle were abundant and rolling in fat. Whenever any of the crew of the whaler Black Warrior wished to use a horse, the animal was furnished by the native Californians for a whole day for a dollar. It made no difference if the rider pressed the horse to death, so he packed the saddle back. Horses were too plentiful to be a matter of any consequence.

After a steady stream of people started to travel to San Francisco from Panama during the California Gold Rush, a coaling station was set up in San Diego. Bogart was stationed in San Diego where he was in charge of a coak hulk Clarissa Andrews that was anchored in San Diego Bay. Lt. George Derby of the U.S. Topographical Engineers reported that in 1853 he saw "two crazy old hulks riding at anchor", one of them the Clarissa Andrews, filled with coal for the Pacific Mail Steamship Co., "wherein dwells Captain Bogart, like a second Robinson Crusoe".