Most of what I write about for this blog are fun items-
little gems with interesting pictures or something just plain delightful I’ve
stumbled across. This though is about
something I found in our collection which was so sincere and heart wrenching
that even though it’s a departure from my usual pieces, I had to share it with
you.
The document is a letter in our archives, Historical
Document Collection 1043. It’s a letter
written by a woman named Jane Proctor who was a nurse at the Army Hospital at
the Presidio. It was written late in the
night of February 22nd, 1901. Ms. Proctor was unable to sleep due to
the deep and overwhelming grief she felt over the wreck the day before of The City of Rio de Janeiro. The City of Rio
de Janeiro was a Trans-Pacific steamship operating between San Francisco and
Asia. On the 21st of February 1901, she was headed into San
Francisco Bay when she hit a reef. She
sank quickly; her holds were completely flooded. 130 people died that night; many of the
bodies washing ashore the next day. Ms. Proctor describes this horrific scene
to unnamed friends back home in harrowing terms.
The full letter is below.
It has been transcribed from the original. The full collection includes a few more items
about Ms. Proctor including a diary entry.
A finding aid for the collection can be found here:
Citation:
Proctor, Jane.
Letter in regards to the City of Rio de Janeiro.Jane Proctor Collection.
HDC 1043.
Museum Archives and Manuscript Collections, San Francisco Maritime National
Historical Park.
