The captain, Wilcox, calmly took the helm himself, steered toward the bank and ordered his men to leap to the ground from the jib-boom, carrying the kedge anchor.

By this means the mad rush of the vessel was stopped, and by the use of logs and cables she was kept a safe distance from the bank.

When the stores were finally landed they turned gratefully but apprehensively toward the sea, which they happily reached again without serious mishap.
A little later this same year (1851) George A.Johnson came to the mouth of the river on the schooner Sierra Nevada with further supplies for the fort, including lumber for the construction of flatboats with which to go up to the post.

Johnson afterwards ran steamers on the river for a number of years, but he was not the first to attempt steam-navigation here, that honour resting with Turnbull who built the Uncle Sam.
Many of the emigrants, dreaming of ease and prosperity as they trudged their long course across the desolation of the South-west, never lived to touch the golden sands of wonderful California, but expired by the way, often at the hands of the Apache or of some other cutthroat tribe.
One of the saddest cases was that of Royse Oatman, who, en route with his large family, was massacred (1851) on the spot now known as Oatman's Flat, not far below the great bend of the Gila.

His son, left for dead, revived and escaped.