ney by bad debts, by
depreciation of stocks and collaterals, that became unsalable, if
not worthless.

About this time (viz., February, 1855) I had exchanged my house on
Green, street, with Mr. Sloat, for the half of a fifty-vara lot on
Harrison Street, between Fremont and First, on which there was a
small cottage, and I had contracted for the building of a new
frame-house thereon, at six thousand dollars. This house was
finished on the 9th of April, and my family moved into it at once.

For some time Mrs. Sherman had been anxious to go home to
Lancaster, Ohio, where we had left our daughter Minnie, with her
grandparents, and we arranged that S. M. Bowman, Esq., and wife,
should move into our new house and board us, viz., Lizzie, Willie
with the nurse Biddy, and myself, for a fair consideration. It so
happened that two of my personal friends, Messrs. Winters and
Cunningham of Marysville, and a young fellow named Eagan, now a
captain in the Commissary Department, were going East in the
steamer of the middle of April, and that Mr.. William H.
Aspinwall, of New York, and Mr. Chauncey, of Philadelphia, were
also going back; and they all offered to look to the personal
comfort of Mrs. Sherman on the voyage. They took passage in the
steamer Golden Age (Commodore Watkins), which sailed on April 17,
1855. Their passage down the coast was very pleasant till within a
day's distance of Panama, when one bright moonlit night, April
29th, the ship, running at full speed, between the Islands Quibo
and Quicara, struck on a sunken reef, tore out a streak in her
bottom, and at once began to fill with water. Fortunately she did
not sink fast, but swung off into deep water, and Commodore Watkins
happening to be on deck at the moment, walking with Mr. Aspinwall,
learning that the water was rushing in with great rapidity, gave
orders for a full head of steam, and turned the vessel's bow
straight for the Island Quicara. The water rose rapidly in the
hold, the passengers were all assembled, fearful of going down, the
fires were out, and the last revolution of the wheels made, when
her bow touched gently on the beach, and the vessel's stern sank in
deep water. Lines were got out, and the ship held in an upright
position, so that the passengers were safe, and but little
incommoded. I have often heard Mrs. Sherman tell of the boy Eagan,
then about fourteen years old, coming to her state-room, and
telling to her not to be afraid, as