The Buried Ships of San Francisco

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[00:12] KAMI: Hi, I’m Kami. 

ELLIOT: And I’m Elliot.   

KAMI: Welcome to San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.  

ELLIOT: We’re both interns here at the park, and right now we’re in the museum building. 

[00:21] KAMI: One of our favorite objects here in the museum is the stern of the Niantic. Have you heard of the Niantic? It is one of the many ships buried underneath downtown San Francisco. That part of the city, and its surrounding neighborhoods, are popular destinations for people from all over the world. But did you know that that stretch of land from the Ferry Building all the way to the Transamerica Pyramid was once a shallow cove called Yerba Buena? Most people don’t, but it’s true! Much of downtown San Francisco was built on that shallow cove during the Gold Rush over 150 years ago.  

[00:56] JAMES DELGADO: San Francisco happened almost as an accident of history. With 1848 and the discovery of gold, everybody suddenly realizes, “Here’s the lottery. I can win it.” And so off they go. Close to 800 ships leave American ports for San Francisco, and that’s joined by several hundred from elsewhere. So what you have in ‘49 and coming in to ‘50 is you have not only hundreds, but now you’ve got over a thousand ships in the harbor. And what’s particularly important is it’s not just people, it’s goods, it’s things, because people know that there’s a market, that here’s this city that’s growing up on the edge of the gold fields. They have no idea that they’ve got to go 30 miles up, and then get into the rivers, and continue on. And then, once you get to Sacramento or Stockton, then get into the foothills themselves. San Francisco is where they’re headed. 

[01:52] ELLIOT: See, Yerba Buena Cove was a mud flat at low tide, and a shallow pond at high tide. To avoid the mud flats, it became a goal to extend the original shoreline so that ships could unload more easily into deeper water. Piers were built about a thousand feet out into the bay, and, through a legal loophole, if you could fill in a plot of shallow water, the plot could be yours. People began doing this on purpose—to own land. This process became known as scuttling.  

[02:16] JAMES DELGADO: So the ships are an easy source for buildings. You get the town jail with the tiny little brig Euphemia. You get warehouses. And then, after that, in fast progression, other ships. And there’s probably close to a hundred that end up being more or less permanently moored, while the others are out in the stream, moving around. This is happening dramatically. And, it creates this waterfront. And, what I like as an archaeologist, is that that waterfront is destroyed, dramatically, in this fire of May 3rd and 4th, 1851, and it creates this Gold Rush Pompeii that is quickly filled over, encapsulated, not really forgotten, but there it is.  

[03:05] ELLIOT: We now know that there are roughly 40 to 60 ships buried underneath downtown San Francisco. In May of 1978, construction in downtown San Francisco unearthed the remains of a long-buried ship, the Niantic, lying where she was beached about 130 years earlier. The Niantic lies somewhere directly under me at the corner of Clay and Sansome. This was actually where the original shoreline was before it was extended out into Yerba Buena Cove.  

[03:28] ELLIOT: The Niantic was built in 1835 for the China Trade, but later became a whaler in the South Pacific. On a later whaling voyage in 1849, the American Consul in Panama notified the captain that there were thousands of eager gold-seekers waiting in Panama for a California-bound ship. The Niantic picked up 248 passengers in Panama and arrived in San Francisco in April of 1849.  

[03:50] ELLIOT: When they got here, the gold-seekers and crew were so excited to find gold that they essentially abandoned the ship. The Niantic was beached in 1849 at the corner of Clay and Sansome, near where we stand now.  

[04:04] ELLIOT: After being abandoned, investors bought the ship and converted her into a storeship. The owners were able to make a lot of money this way until the Niantic was partially destroyed in the fire of May 1851. Fortunately for the owners, the mast was halfway underground, and a hotel was erected on the remnants. The hotel was regarded as one of the best in the area, but was eventually torn down in 1872.  

[04:26] KAMI: It is also possibly the most famous of all the buried ships. Maybe you’ve even heard of it. This could be because it was the first to be converted into a building, or because it has been rediscovered and uncovered a total of three different times. The first rediscovery was in 1872 when the old Niantic Hotel was torn down. Then, after the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906, the remains were exposed for a second time. And, finally, in 1978, the remains were exposed for a third and final time during construction next to the Transamerica Pyramid. It was this third discovery that allowed for the excavation of the artifacts. A lot of these artifacts are now housed in our collections, as well as in the Maritime Museum, or in our Visitor Center.  

[05:12] KAMI:  A block west from the Niantic, on Battery Street, lies the hull of another Gold Rush vessel, the General Harrison. If you walk by this spot, you can see the outline of the vessel in the sidewalk. This outline allows you to imagine the size of the ship beneath your feet, which was pretty big. There is also a plaque and a sculpture on the side of the building above the General Harrison that you can check out when you walk by.  

[05:35] KAMI: The General Harrison started her career in April of 1840, in New England. As a large merchant ship, she could carry up to 409 tons of cargo, which was a lot of stuff. After news of gold reached the East Coast, the General Harrison left Boston and then, seven months later, landed in Yerba Buena Cove. Her crew sold her cargo, and then her passengers left for the Gold Rush. She was ready to go on another voyage, when her crew also deserted her in hopes of finding gold.  

[06:02] KAMI: The General Harrison was then bought and used as a storage warehouse in 1850. But then, in May 1851, the same fire that destroyed the Apollo and the Niantic also got her. Her remains were covered up and new buildings were built upon her. The General Harrison was basically forgotten about for years, until she was uncovered in 2001—150 years after the fire.   

[06:26] KAMI: We spoke with John Muir, the Curator of Small Craft at San Francisco Maritime, about seeing the buried ship.  

[06:32] JOHN MUIR: I came in pretty much in the last week of the excavation. They were just wrapping up details. So when I showed up, it was—there was an amazing sight, really—it was the ship laid bare and just imprinted in the soil, and in the middle of downtown. I mean, it was a striking, striking place.  

[06:55] JOHN MUIR: So we went down with tape measures and strings and spent a few days taking cross-sectional shapes as they were sort of scrambling to wrap up the excavation. I was down there at sunset, and I was alone in the hull, which was the last moment anybody was there to enjoy it, before it was destroyed and buried forever the next day. And it was beautiful. It was super sad too, though. You just had this sense that this was a thing of cultural importance to everyone, and extreme beauty, full of history—this rich, beautiful thing, and it was going to be gone. It should be saved for everyone. It just felt so wrong to uncover this thing, and understood what it really is, and have no voice to saving it. 

[07:42] JOHN MUIR: It’s something about the depth, and the kind of nature of a hull, opening up to this huge historic piece right below your feet. You’re just like: okay, this is bigger than you know, a photo in a book, or in a report, or a small artifact. It really kind of communicated that, that’s it’s a very present history, that we’ll all be learning about, and continue to learn about. 

[08:09] KAMI: Just two blocks away from the Niantic lies another storeship known as the Apollo. Unfortunately, there is no plaque that marks her spot, but you can visit her final resting place. She is buried underneath where we are standing right now, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.  

[08:24] KAMI: Like many other Gold Rush vessels, the Apollo was in the European trade before she set out West after she heard news of gold in California. In September 1849, the Apollo landed in San Francisco after a long journey. After arriving in San Francisco, the crew of the Apollo abandoned her for the promise of gold. So, like the Niantic, the Apollo became part of the growing city.  

[08:47] KAMI: Unlike the Niantic, the Apollo has never been fully excavated, even though she has been uncovered three different times. The last time she was uncovered was in 1925. She hasn’t been seen since, and the Federal Reserve Bank is still standing above her. Crazy, huh, that this ship has not been for almost 100 years? Do you think she’ll ever be fully excavated and seen again?  

[09:10] ELLIOT: Have you ever taken the N, K, or T trains here in San Francisco? If so, you’ve likely passed through the hull of a historic ship without even knowing it. That’s right. That MUNI tunnel runs directly through the hull of a historic ship called the Rome.  

[09:22] ELLIOT: The Rome arrived in San Francisco in 1850 with a crew full of gold-seekers who promptly left to search for gold. The ship then sat abandoned in what was then San Francisco’s port and was eventually scuttled for land on Market Street, between Stuart and East streets, which is now the Embarcadero. The spot is in the vicinity of Justin Herman Plaza, where we are now, somewhere directly under the bocce ball courts right behind me.   

[09:47] ELLIOT: Archaeologists surveyed and collected artifacts, but determined the ship was too large to fully excavate. After whatever excavation was deemed appropriate, they simply built the tunnel through the forward hull of the ship.  

[09:57] JAMES ALLAN: I think it was pretty obvious to everybody that trying to recover that ship would have been extraordinarily expensive, and unnecessary for the project. I don’t want to say it wasn’t worth the expense, but the process of recovering a ship like that and bringing it up is one thing, conserving it is an entirely different story. You’re talking about multi-millions of dollars. And to what end? The best we could do was to reassemble those portions that we did recover, basically rebuild the ship out of three-foot-long segments, but there were too many gaps.   

[10:33] ELLIOT: Next time you take an N, K, or a T train, you can imagine traveling through a piece of the past.  

[10:39] KAMI: We chose to talk about these four ships because of their detailed stories and fascinating histories. But, as you can see from the map, there are multiple more ships buried underneath San Francisco. We encourage you to learn more about these ships.  

[10:52] JOHN MUIR: So I imagine there’s more of the story to tell. I’m sure there’ll be more ships coming down the pike in future construction efforts, and it should be interesting to see what happens with them.  

[11:05] JAMES DELGADO: San Francisco is a maritime city. It is the port, I argue, that created not only San Francisco, but really helped catapult America into greater prominence on the world stage. And that history is reflected in this big, massive artifact that is San Francisco. 

Descriptive Transcript

[00:01] [Upbeat background music]  

[00:12] KAMI: Hi, I’m Kami. 

ELLIOT: And I’m Elliot.   

KAMI: Welcome to San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.  

ELLIOT: We’re both interns here at the park, and right now we’re in the museum building. 

[00:21] KAMI: One of our favorite objects here in the museum is the stern of the Niantic. Have you heard of the Niantic? It is one of the many ships [sound of ship’s bell tolling] buried underneath downtown San Francisco. That part of the city, and its surrounding neighborhoods, are popular destinations for people from all over the world. [Sound of waves on shore.] But did you know that that stretch of land from the Ferry Building all the way to the Transamerica Pyramid was once a shallow cove called Yerba Buena? Most people don’t, but it’s true! Much of downtown San Francisco was built on that shallow cove during the Gold Rush over 150 years ago.  

[00:56] JAMES DELGADO: San Francisco happened almost as an accident of history. With 1848 and the discovery of gold, everybody suddenly realizes, “Here’s the lottery. I can win it.” And so off they go. Close to 800 ships leave American ports for San Francisco, and that’s joined by several hundred from elsewhere. So what you have in ‘49 and coming in to ‘50 is you have not only hundreds, but now you’ve got over a thousand ships in the harbor. And what’s particularly important is it’s not just people, it’s goods, it’s things, because people know that there’s a market, that here’s this city that’s growing up on the edge of the gold fields. They have no idea that they’ve got to go 30 miles up, and then get into the rivers, and continue on. And then, once you get to Sacramento or Stockton, then get into the foothills themselves. San Francisco is where they’re headed. 

[01:52] ELLIOT: See, Yerba Buena Cove was a mud flat at low tide, and a shallow pond at high tide. [Sounds of wind and waves.] To avoid the mud flats, it became a goal to extend the original shoreline so that ships could unload more easily into deeper water. Piers were built about a thousand feet out into the bay, and, through a legal loophole, if you could fill in a plot of shallow water, the plot could be yours. People began doing this on purpose—to own land. This process became known as scuttling.  

[02:16] JAMES DELGADO: So the ships are an easy source for buildings. You get the town jail with the tiny little brig Euphemia. You get warehouses. And then, after that, in fast progression, other ships. And there’s probably close to a hundred that end up being more or less permanently moored, while the others are out in the stream, moving around. This is happening dramatically. And, it creates this waterfront. And, what I like as an archaeologist, is that that waterfront is destroyed, dramatically, in this fire of May 3rd and 4th, 1851 [sound of fire crackling], and it creates this Gold Rush Pompeii that is quickly filled over, encapsulated, not really forgotten, but there it is.  

[03:05] ELLIOT: We now know that there are roughly 40 to 60 ships buried underneath downtown San Francisco. In May of 1978, construction in downtown San Francisco unearthed the remains of a long-buried ship, the Niantic, lying where she was beached about 130 years earlier. The Niantic lies somewhere directly under me at the corner of Clay and Sansome. This was actually where the original shoreline was before it was extended out into Yerba Buena Cove.  

[03:28] ELLIOT: The Niantic was built in 1835 for the China Trade, but later became a whaler in the South Pacific. On a later whaling voyage in 1849, the American Consul in Panama notified the captain that there were thousands of eager gold-seekers waiting in Panama for a California-bound ship. The Niantic picked up 248 passengers in Panama and arrived in San Francisco in April of 1849.  

[03:50] ELLIOT: When they got here, the gold-seekers and crew were so excited to find gold that they essentially abandoned the ship. The Niantic was beached in 1849 at the corner of Clay and Sansome, near where we stand now.  

[04:04] ELLIOT: After being abandoned, investors bought the ship and converted her into a storeship. The owners were able to make a lot of money this way until the Niantic was partially destroyed in the fire of May 1851. [Sounds of fire crackling.] Fortunately for the owners, the mast was halfway underground, and a hotel was erected on the remnants. The hotel was regarded as one of the best in the area, but was eventually torn down in 1872.  

[04:26] KAMI: It is also possibly the most famous of all the buried ships. Maybe you’ve even heard of it. This could be because it was the first to be converted into a building, or because it has been rediscovered and uncovered a total of three different times. The first rediscovery was in 1872 when the old Niantic Hotel was torn down. Then, after the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906, the remains were exposed for a second time. And, finally, in 1978, the remains were exposed for a third and final time during construction next to the Transamerica Pyramid. It was this third discovery that allowed for the excavation of the artifacts. A lot of these artifacts are now housed in our collections, as well as in the Maritime Museum, or in our Visitor Center.  

[05:12] KAMI:  A block west from the Niantic, on Battery Street, lies the hull of another Gold Rush vessel, the General Harrison. If you walk by this spot, you can see the outline of the vessel in the sidewalk. This outline allows you to imagine the size of the ship beneath your feet, which was pretty big. There is also a plaque and a sculpture on the side of the building above the General Harrison that you can check out when you walk by.  

[05:35] KAMI: The General Harrison started her career in April of 1840, in New England. As a large merchant ship, she could carry up to 409 tons of cargo, which was a lot of stuff. After news of gold reached the East Coast, the General Harrison left Boston and then, seven months later, landed in Yerba Buena Cove. Her crew sold her cargo, and then her passengers left for the Gold Rush. She was ready to go on another voyage, when her crew also deserted her in hopes of finding gold.  

[06:02] KAMI: The General Harrison was then bought and used as a storage warehouse in 1850. But then, in May 1851, the same fire that destroyed the Apollo and the Niantic also got her. Her remains were covered up and new buildings were built upon her. The General Harrison was basically forgotten about for years, until she was uncovered in 2001—150 years after the fire.   

[06:26] KAMI: We spoke with John Muir, the Curator of Small Craft at San Francisco Maritime, about seeing the buried ship.  

[06:32] JOHN MUIR: I came in pretty much in the last week of the excavation. They were just wrapping up details. So when I showed up, it was—there was an amazing sight, really—it was the ship laid bare and just imprinted in the soil, and in the middle of downtown. I mean, it was a striking, striking place.  

[06:55] JOHN MUIR: So we went down with tape measures and strings and spent a few days taking cross-sectional shapes as they were sort of scrambling to wrap up the excavation. I was down there at sunset, and I was alone in the hull, which was the last moment anybody was there to enjoy it, before it was destroyed and buried forever the next day. And it was beautiful. It was super sad too, though. You just had this sense that this was a thing of cultural importance to everyone, and extreme beauty, full of history—this rich, beautiful thing, and it was going to be gone. It should be saved for everyone. It just felt so wrong to uncover this thing, and understood what it really is, and have no voice to saving it. 

[07:42] JOHN MUIR: It’s something about the depth, and the kind of nature of a hull, opening up to this huge historic piece right below your feet. You’re just like: okay, this is bigger than you know, a photo in a book, or in a report, or a small artifact. It really kind of communicated that, that’s it’s a very present history, that we’ll all be learning about, and continue to learn about. 

[08:09] KAMI: Just two blocks away from the Niantic lies another storeship known as the Apollo. Unfortunately, there is no plaque that marks her spot, but you can visit her final resting place. She is buried underneath where we are standing right now, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.  

[08:24] KAMI: Like many other Gold Rush vessels, the Apollo was in the European trade before she set out West after she heard news of gold in California. In September 1849, the Apollo landed in San Francisco after a long journey. After arriving in San Francisco, the crew of the Apollo abandoned her for the promise of gold. So, like the Niantic, the Apollo became part of the growing city.  

[08:47] KAMI: Unlike the Niantic, the Apollo has never been fully excavated, even though she has been uncovered three different times. The last time she was uncovered was in 1925. She hasn’t been seen since, and the Federal Reserve Bank is still standing above her. Crazy, huh, that this ship has not been for almost 100 years? Do you think she’ll ever be fully excavated and seen again?  

[09:10] ELLIOT: Have you ever taken the N, K, or T trains here in San Francisco? [Sound of train rushing past.] If so, you’ve likely passed through the hull of a historic ship without even knowing it. That’s right. That MUNI tunnel runs directly through the hull of a historic ship called the Rome.  

[09:22] ELLIOT: The Rome arrived in San Francisco in 1850 with a crew full of gold-seekers who promptly left to search for gold. The ship then sat abandoned in what was then San Francisco’s port and was eventually scuttled for land on Market Street, between Stuart and East streets, which is now the Embarcadero. The spot is in the vicinity of Justin Herman Plaza, where we are now, somewhere directly under the bocce ball courts right behind me.   

[09:47] ELLIOT: Archaeologists surveyed and collected artifacts, but determined the ship was too large to fully excavate. After whatever excavation was deemed appropriate, they simply built the tunnel through the forward hull of the ship.  

[09:57] JAMES ALLAN: I think it was pretty obvious to everybody that trying to recover that ship would have been extraordinarily expensive, and unnecessary for the project. I don’t want to say it wasn’t worth the expense, but the process of recovering a ship like that and bringing it up is one thing, conserving it is an entirely different story. You’re talking about multi-millions of dollars. And to what end? The best we could do was to reassemble those portions that we did recover, basically rebuild the ship out of three-foot-long segments, but there were too many gaps.   

[10:33] ELLIOT: Next time you take an N, K, or a T train, you can imagine traveling through a piece of the past.  

[10:39] KAMI: We chose to talk about these four ships because of their detailed stories and fascinating histories. But, as you can see from the map, there are multiple more ships buried underneath San Francisco. We encourage you to learn more about these ships.  

[10:52] JOHN MUIR: So I imagine there’s more of the story to tell. I’m sure there’ll be more ships coming down the pike in future construction efforts, and it should be interesting to see what happens with them.  

[11:05] JAMES DELGADO: San Francisco is a maritime city. It is the port, I argue, that created not only San Francisco, but really helped catapult America into greater prominence on the world stage. And that history is reflected in this big, massive artifact that is San Francisco. [Exit music.]   

Duration:

13 minutes, 3 seconds

San Francisco became the city it is today because of the Gold Rush, when thousands of people arrived on ships to go search for gold. But what happened to these ships? Many of them were buried under neighborhoods of San Francisco, becoming a part of the city's history. Learn about four Gold Rush ships with Collections interns, Kami Hagemeyer and Elliot Lockwood, as they interview maritime historians and archeologists and explore the city, detailing the ships' histories with photographs and more.

 

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