in sailingsteps valparaiso

Around the world: Valparaiso

In sailingsteps of my ancestor captain Jacob Bouten




1 Kees Bouten © 2012 Sailingsteps

Sailingsteps Valparaiso

After being in Valparaiso for more than a week, I was walking from the Plaza Bolivar through the Prat

and at a certain moment I noticed a sign for the Dutch Consulate. I thought, why not ask them if they

have suggestions on how to find out more about Valparaiso of 160 years ago, but on entering the building

everybody was leaving for the day. Going there once again the next day I got to speak someone who

advised me to go to the Camara Comercio at nearby Ross 149 and to ask for Rosita, because they had

published a book about their history from 1858-2008. Rosita appeared to not understand much English,

but there happened to enter somebody from Peru who did speak English and who has been a great help to

me for translation. Someone else from the Camara Comercio came to help both of us and during the time

she was in discussion with the man from Peru, I looked through the very interesting book. They could not

provide me with any other material, but I could buy the book (which I did) and they advised me to go to

the El Mercurio, a newspaper at the Esmeralda around the corner, since they had helped them with

historic information for the book.

On arriving at the El Mercurio, again I had to first make contact with somebody who could understand

English, and after some time somebody working for the El Mercurio advised me to ask for the Director

Juan Pablo Toro. By contacting his secretary, I made an appointment with him for 3 pm that afternoon.

Upon my return at 3 p.m., I was told that the director would have only 5 minutes maximum for me. I

think I spoke with him for half an hour but he could not help me with any pictures, graphs, drawings, etc..

However he suggested “why not come back tomorrow to have a look into our archives of newspapers

from those days, because we used to publish the arrivals of ships sailing into Valparaiso”.

And yes, on Wednesday 31st of March 2010, I found:

in the newspaper El Mercurio [4] from 27 October 1849, that captain Jacob Bouten arrived in Valparaiso

26 October 1849 with the barque “Jan van Hoorn”, 590 tons, from Dordrecht in the Netherlands, with

cargo for Serruys &Co.




EL MERCURIO 27 de Octubre 1849

“Entradas, - Dia 26

De DORDRET fregata holandes JAN VON HOORN, de 590 tonelades, capitan Bouten, cargamenta surido, consignada a E. y J.Serruys y Ca”.

Note: Their voyage from Holland to Valparaiso took them 104 days according to what Jacob Bouten writes in

‘his lifestory to his children’, four days less than as can be deduced from the announcement in the NRC from 11

July 1849 in the Netherlands and the El Mercurio from 27 October 1849 in Chile.

In the NRC is written: "Rotterdam, 10 juli. Wij vememen, dat de volgende Nederlandse schepen naar Chili en

Californie zijn vertrokken: ..... Gereed om te vertrekken van Dordrecht naar Valparaiso het barkschip JAN

VAN HOORN, kapt. J. Bouten”, what does not make sure that the “Jan van Hoorn” did leave July 10th

indeed.

Anyhow, it’s a difference of 4 days only.

The “Heren Sorucco” as Jacob bouten writes will be the company “Serruys &Co” I suppose.

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On Saturday 20th March 2010, around 2 pm, I arrived in Valparaiso by bus from Santiago, after

coming from the City of Sails, Auckland in New Zealand.

Auckland International Airport

I left Auckland International Airport on Saturday 20 March 2010 at 4:40 pm on flight number LAN800,

on an Airbus340-300 from LAN Airways, to Santiago in Chile.

I was 56 years young and on my trip around the world “In the sailingsteps of my ancestor Captain

Jacob Bouten” who lived from 1815 – 1894, during a sabatical year after loosing my job in Antwerp

because my company closed down in 2009, due to the financial crisis (they said). I have been travelling

around the world by plane, nowadays a comparable transport to the ships Jacob Bouten sailed 1½

centuries ago.




Next I will provide some details about my flight, comparable with those from his voyages around the

world.

Captain: Contreras Canales Pablo (CMD),

Cockpit crew: Silva Diaz Gerardo (CP), Cortes

Albornoz Herhan Luis (FO) en Reinbach Hoffmann

Martin Herbe (FO),

Cabin Crew: TJ: Rodriguez Martinez M. Macarena,

TCE’s: Terrazas Helmke Loreto Alejand, Jimenez

Munoz Paulina Isabel, Kohrs Carneyro Karen and

Rudloff Larenas Consuel. TC’s: Vergara Calvo Claudio,

Munoz Montero Jorge Patricio, Gallardo Fernandez

Andres, Pozo Jimenez Matias Andres, Lerchundi Soria

Ariel and Pradenas Arriagada Cesar Danie.

At 4:50 pm we were airborn, heading east across the Pacific Ocean.

1¼ Hour after take off.

9 Hours after take off (we went faster then planned).




After a comfortable flight of 11½ hours we touched ground at Comodoro Arturo Merino Benitez

International Airport Santiago in Chile, at 11:23 am local time on Saturday 20 March 2010, on the same

day and 5½ hours before I left Auckland!

My ‘cabin’ and my ‘ship’

Notice how the world has changed !?

The distance from Amsterdam to Valparaiso is comparable (by air) with from Auckland to Santiago, both

of us did it by fast means of transport in his own era, it took him 104 days (nearly 11.000 miles) and for

me less than 12 hours!

After settling in to my hotel Alcala, I strolled around in the area of Puerto (the area of the old harbor)

Valparaiso and after dinner in my hotel, I met Sebastien and Josué, both waiters of café/restaurant La

Poéta. They were interested in my story although the restaurant was about to close, so after 11 pm (local

time) we first went to a nextdoor pub, then to the house where Sebastien lives and finally to some friends

of Sebastien (and Charlotte) in another studenthouse. I left them around 3:00 a.m. to go back to my hotel

after a day of nearly 48 hours (I had some sleep during the flight).

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Valparaiso 1837 (Charles Wood) [5]

About Valparaiso Jacob Bouten writes that it has a beautiful bay that can be found very easily

and where 1000 ships could well be anchored. When he came there October 1849 they saw a

‘forest of masts’, as he named it, in the bay.

Everything else he is writing is about their trading. Bad prices in Valparaiso due to too many

ships and thus investigating alternative destinations instead of going to China to take the new

harvest of tea to Holland. They got knowledge of that there had been a big fire in San

Francisco where they had lack of everything and especially wood to built houses.

Some history:

The first European discoverers of the Indian village arrived in 1536 with the “Santiaguillio” under the

command of Juan de Saavedra, who named the town after his native village of Valparaíso de Arriba in

Cuenca, Spain. In 1552 it became the main port for Santiago but the village started only to grow after

the colonial period. In the 19th century it became the main harbour for the nascent Chilean navy and it

achieved spectacular economic growth on from 1817 as an important South-American harbor. It

became an important centre of Pacific commerce and in 1849, a year after the Californian gold rush

started, it was possible to count upto 800 ships at anchor preparing for the final stage of their voyages

to the western coast of the US. The importance of Valparaiso got less after the opening of the Panama

Canal in 1914.

My ancestor Jacob Bouten came to Valparaiso in 1849 when it was a town in development in a country

and on a continent which was completely new to him. By the time I visited Valparaiso it had become a

World Heritage Site by UNESCO, thanks to its historical importance, natural beauty (large number of

hills surrounding a picturesque harbor), and unique architecture (particularly, a mix of 19th century styles

of housing), in a country and on a continent where I never had been before. I enjoyed Chile very much,

and if I visit it once again I will learn Spanish before I go.

When I came to Valparaiso it was just three weeks after one of the bigger earthquakes (8.8) in Chile and

the world, in the area of Constitucion 300-400km south of Valparaiso and Santiago. I have been lucky to

continue my trip around the world to Chile (one week earlier the airport in Santiago had yet to re-open)




and the damage due to this earthquake was not as disastrous as I feared. The worst damage I saw were

fronts of buildings with plaster or glass damage or cracks in the plaster.

However, Chile was struck by an earthquake in 1906 (9.5 Richter) including the area of Valparaiso and at

that time Valparaiso was nearly completely destroyed. This means that nowadays nothing from the 19th

century remains, so I was not able to find any original historical sites from around 1850.

Nevertheless I ‘walked into’ some interesting information to get some idea how Valparaiso has been in

the middle of the 19th century compared to the city of Valparaiso in 2010.

When I arrived on my first day in Valparaiso at the busstation I made an appointment to have a City tour

by car with a driver for the following day. Sunday 21 March at 10 am I left my hotel to go to the eastside

of Valparaiso to start at one of the 45 hills of Valparaiso (may be Cerro Baron) between Valparaiso and

Vina del Mar to see Valparaiso from the same area as next painting (painter unknown).

Valparaiso desde el Almendral, 1835 [5]

This picture gives some idea of how the same area in Valparaiso looks like in 2010, looking SW over

Avenuda Argentina to the hills.




At lunchtime we were at the other side of

Valparaiso on the Cerro Artillera at the westside of

the Puerto area (the former main area of Valparaiso

west of the Almendral area), where nowaday’s the

harbor is still situated.

After lunch we went onto the sea to have a look at

Valparaiso from the sea as a helpful trial from my

guide Mario to show me how it looks now

compared to a drawing I had from Valparaiso from

the bay in 1830. We were not realy succesful, but

it must also be said that Valparaiso does not look at

all like it did 160 years ago!

Valparaiso from sea in 2010 resp 1830

Postcard Valparaiso

The next day I found a tile on the Plaza Sotomayor indicating the shoreline in 1858 what gave me

directions to find out more about the situation around 1850. The Puerto area is situated around the Plaza

Aduana with the original pier (Muelle) and the customs building (Aduana), nowadays the Plaza

Sotomayor, between Cerro Concepcion at the eastside and Cerro Artillera and closer to Cerro Cordillera

at the westside.




View at Valparaiso with Aduana, 1833 [5]

The next painting shows the building of the Aduana with the pier close in front of it.

Vista de la Aduana de Valparaiso en 1837, por Theodore Fischet [5]

At Plaza Sotomayor you can find tiles indicating the shoreline and the start of the pier in 1825, aswell as

where the Capitania del Resguardo was located in the 19th century.




Plaza Sotomayor with tiles indicating some history.

Together with a map of Valparaiso in 1852, that I saw in the Maritime Museum [MMV; Museo Maritimo

Valparaiso] first before I bought a book with historic pictures and maps [Ref 6; Cronologica Grafica

Valparaiso], I finally understood how the shoreline moved during the 19th-century and compared to

Valparaiso in 2010. Between 1692 and 1825 it moved 50m (165ft) and when Jacob Bouten was in

Valparaiso in 1849 and 1852 it was situated slightly backwards from where it was in 1858, another 25m

(80ft) into the sea upto the NE-side of nowaday’s Blanco. Today the shoreline is ~160m (530ft) up

northeast.

Map Plaza Aduana 1852 [6] resp Plaza Sotomayor 2010, and surrounding area.

The map at the left shows the situation when Jacob Bouten visited Valparaiso in 1849 and 1852, with just

some more houses compared to the situation around 1837 which is sketched by Lukas as shown below.




Valparaiso ~1840, Sketch by Lukas [7]

Between 1850 and 1858 the shoreline was extended and on 8 March 1858 the first building of the

Camara Comercio built at the start of the pier, was opened. Since that time the building of the Aduana

became the townhall (Intendencia) and the Plaza was renamed to Plaza Intendencia.

La Tercera Bolsa Comercial [5], picture from 1862




Valparaiso ~1860, sketch by Lukas [7]

Above sketch by Lucas shows the city layout some years after Jacob Bouten was in Valparaiso, with the

Tercera Bolsa Comercial in the front. The townhall at the back still is the same building as the Aduana

from before. The barque ship in front of the pier shows why Valparaiso developed during those years.

Next picture (I got it for free in a bookshop because it was their last one ??) is from around the same year

and it shows Valparaiso seen from Artilleria hill.




Valparaiso ~1860

I finish this part about Valparaiso with a painting of Valparaiso from 1843, which is as close to when

Captain Jacob Bouten was in Valparaiso as the pictures shown before from around 1860.

Vista de Valparaiso desde el Taqueadero, hacia 1843 por Juan Rugendas [5]




Valparaiso 2010, from Cerro Artilleria

Plaza Sotomayor 2010




After the most destructive earthquake for Valparaiso in 1906 the bricks of the destroyed buildings were

shoveled into the sea, thus the coastline moved again and new buildings were built. The new building

Intendencia from that time now houses the Armada de Chile, Commandacia en Jeffe. The building had

some minor plaster damage (in restoration when I was there) by the earthquake of this year. The

Capitania del Resguardo has been replaced by a building that houses the Consejo Nacional de Cultura y

las Artes and where La Tercera Bolsa Comercial was built in 1858, the monument for the heroes of the

battle with Peru and Bolivia in 1879 in Iquique, is located now. Between Prat and Cochrane you can

find the Cuerpo de Bomberos de Valparaiso, at the same place where the first building of the firebrigade

in Valparaiso was built in 1852. At the entrance of the square (facing from the sea) there are buildings

from the Capitania de Puerto de Valparaiso and the Armada de Chile.

Northwest from the square is the former seaman quarter upto the Cerro Artilleria, with nowadays’s

harborarea east of the hill. Southeast from the square you pass the Cerro Concepcion through the Prat or

the Cochrane through the Esmeralda to PlazaAnibal Pinto untill the Bellavista, where the Alemendral

area starts.




Valparaiso is a very colorful city, built on 45 hills surrounding the Armandral and Puerto area (at

landside), and where I met a great number of very nice friends.

Josué and his family at their home Sebastien and Charlotte with their friends

Jaetan, Puri, Kata, Ruben, Patricia and Jaime, some of my Amigos in Pancho Pirata




When I told Josué about my findings in the El Mercurio, he asked me what it had meant to me? Amazing,

that question by him. And indeed, it had given me a very intense and impressive feeling, about which I

had not been thinking yet. Realizing this, it made me emotional when Josué asked me his question.

After I found the arrival of Jacob Bouten in the newspaper from 27 October 1849, it made me continue

and to look to see if I could find something about him leaving Valparaiso again. It took quite some time

but indeed I found that he left 21 November 1849 to Chiloé.

EL MERCURIO 22 de Noviembre 1849

“Salidas - Dia 21

Para CHILOÉ frag. holandesa JAH VAN HOORN, de 590 tons, cap. Bauter, carg. surtido, despachada por E. Y J Serruys y Ca.”

The same day I wrote in my weblog:

' Salidas para Chiloé ', tomorrow 1 April 2010 Today I found in the newspaper 'El Mercurio' from 1849 that Jacob Bouten arrived with the "Jan van Hoorn" on 26 October 1849 and that he left Valparaiso on 22 November to go to Chiloé (Chilivé-island as he called it himself in his biography). He went there to San Carlos in order to get more wood to ship to San Francisco. I arrived in Valparaiso on 20 March 2010 and the same day I had a very nice evening with Josué and Sebastien together with later on Charlotte and many more friends later that night. Tomorrow 1Apr'10 I will be leaving Valparaiso to go to Ancud as San Carlos is called nowaday's after I had a very nice party because of Kata's birthday in Pancho Pirata last night and a number of party's during the time I was in Valparaiso. Valparaiso is a city of "mucho Amigos " and I hope to be able to come back again ! Chao and muchas gracias Josué and Miriam with children, Sebastien and Charlotte with friends, Mario and from Pancho Pirata: Jaetan, Rilmo, Ruben, Kata, Puri and many friends. But also to Rosita from Camera Commercio and from Mercurio: Erika, Juan Pablo Toro and Juan Torres for their help with Valparaiso history.

Chao Valparaiso,

a city of ‘One of a kind’

in sailingsteps valparaiso

Documents

kees bouten

ancestor captain jacob

capitan bouten

van hoorn

interesting book

serruys y

camara comercio

great help