I found an old map of my area online and down in the lower left corner in very small type one of the harbors on a nearby island is called "Smugglers Cove".
I know the cove well and it is still called smugglers cove. There really isn't anything on the island so I don't think you would be smuggling in and out of the island, but in the 1850's there weren't that many people in this area at all.
Who was smuggling what to where? Would they really have spent time on the backside of this island to avoid law enforcement? Who would have been enforcing the law out here?
Richard Henry Dana mentions smuggling in his book, 'Two Years Before the Mast.'
Basically, American merchant ships in the 1830's would have to go to Monterey, pay duty on their goods before trading with the locals.
The uninhabited Channel Islands were a perfect place for the merchants to meet up with 'ghost ships', with un-dutied goods from the US and China, which could replenish the stores of the legitimate merchants.
Here's an article about it. Dana was pretty discrete, but if you read between the lines, it's clear what's going on.
