The Man Who Invented Aztec Crystal Skulls. Jane MacLaren Walsh

      Exhibiting a courage and zest for adventure that would characterize him throughout his life, soon after his sister’s wedding, Eugène Boban decided to look for work far away. His great-grandfather and grandfather had moved from Angers to Paris seeking employment, but the capital apparently held little opportunity for him at this stage. His sights were set on California.

      His father, René Victor, joined him in this great adventure, leaving his wife, Laurence Michelle and three young daughters on their own. Marie was eighteen years old, Julie was fifteen, and the youngest, Charlotte, was twelve. It could not have been easy for their mother, a 42-year-old unemployed laundress with four mouths to feed. She may have received some assistance from her eldest daughter, Rose Louise, and her son-in-law, the gainier. Her husband’s half-sisters may have helped as well. However, later events indicate that the departure of the two males of the Boban family had a devastating effect on the women left behind.

In notes now in the collections of the Hispanic Society of America in New York, written in his own hand, the younger Boban briefly describes this momentous journey—not the setting out or the voyage itself, but rather the destination (HSA: B2240 Box I, folder III). Despite the fact that there are some fourteen boxes of handwritten notes, correspondence, and unpublished manuscripts in the Hispanic Society’s collection, they contain very little about his personal life or his family, and only a few pages about his sojourn in California. Given the timing of the journey, he was undoubtedly seeking his fortune. Additionally, and perhaps more important, Eugène was less than a year short of the age when he would almost certainly have been drafted into the French army.¹

      How he traveled to California is not known, although there were a variety of possible methods. One could sail across the Atlantic and then cross the North American continent. Other options were to sail around the horn of South America or to sail to Veracruz, Mexico, cross the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and then board a ship to San Francisco. Yet another route was to sail to Nicaragua, disembark and travel overland to the Pacific Ocean and then take a ship north to the gold fields.

      None of these would have been an easy journey, as noted by historian H. W. Brands. “California was about as far from the centers of Western civilization as a land could be. The sea voyage around South America from New York or Liverpool or Le Havre required five or six months, depending on the conditions off Cape Horn, which could terrify the most hardened unbeliever to prayer” (Brands 2002: 25–26).

      The “shortcut” route developed in the late 1840s, which took less time if one was lucky, was no easier. Harris Newmark, a European traveler, left for California at just about the same time as Boban. He sailed from Liverpool on 10 July 1853 and arrived in New York some six weeks later. From New York he sailed to Nicaragua, continuing up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua. The next leg of the journey was long and arduous, particularly crossing the narrow strip of jungle between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. Crossing the isthmus had never been easy, but as Spain’s oversight dwindled through the early decades of the nineteenth century, it became more and more dangerous as “outlaws, freebooters, adventurers, and other undesirables flocked to this crossroads of two continents and two oceans and made merry havoc” (Brands 2002: 74).

      By the time Harris Newmark sailed into the harbor at San Francisco, more than three months had elapsed since he had embarked in Liverpool, even though he had successfully taken the “shortcut” to California. No land routes existed from San Francisco to Los Angeles, so after arriving at the larger port it was necessary to take a smaller ship for a four-day voyage to this more southern boomtown (Newmark 1916: 16).

      Aside from the question of which route Eugène Boban took to America is that of how he paid for his passage, which could have cost a thousand francs or more, a considerable amount of money, particularly for someone of Boban’s station (Brands 2002: 95). And the passage was just the beginning of the potential expenses. As he may have learned by reading journalist Étienne Derbec’s letters from San Francisco and the California gold fields, published in the popular Journal de Débats in 1850, “Those emigrants who plan to come to California must prepare themselves, for without doing so, many regrets await them when they arrive here without money and without help. … It is necessary that they know that from San Francisco to the first mines it is not less than 60 to 80 leagues, and that it is necessary to have a well filled pocket to make the trip” (Derbec 1964: 79). Derbec goes on to say that double-decked steamboats ply the waters between San Francisco and the interior of the state, but that the fares range from $30 to $60. At a conversion rate of five to one—which had become the standard for all foreign currency—that represented a cost of 150 to 300 francs. Added to that considerable expense was the cost of transporting any baggage, for which travelers were charged $2 (or 10 francs) for a 14-ounce pound (Derbec 1964: 83).

      Given the manner in which the Boban family pulled together in later years, taking care of and supporting each other as much as possible, it is likely that they pooled their resources for the funds necessary for Boban’s California adventure. Numerous other publications available at the time offered differing opinions and advice to miners about what they should bring to the gold fields. Aside from proper tools, several pamphlets suggested bringing things they could sell, like clothing, shoes, etc., since these were hard to come by and brought enormously inflated prices. It may be that aside from money to help transport their nephew to America, his aunts, the Duvergé sisters, also provided him with men’s shirts from their small factory, which would have brought a considerable sum in San Francisco and the other California Gold Rush boomtowns.

      Despite the perils and expenses of the journey to get there, by 1853, California had become a haven for French adventurers and gold seekers. France was the first country to establish a foreign presence in the California territory after Alta California declared independence from Mexico in 1848. This diplomatic gesture occurred in 1852, a short time after Louis Napoleon became Emperor Napoleon III. His purpose was to create a toehold for a potential new colony in North America since Spain’s influence over the area was dwindling and the United States’ claims had yet to be fully established. He also had an eye to developing a new market for French