1849 Niantic Storeship

The San Francisco shoreline has dozens of Gold Rush-era ships underneath its buildings and skyscrapers. The Niantic storeship burned in one of six major fires that swept through the city.  The ashes and charred remains of ships and buildings were dumped into the bay and used as fill.  Gold Rush Port: The Maritime Archæology of San Francisco's Waterfront is a great book on the subject.

The San Francisco Maritime Museum, operated by National Parks, has some items that have been retrieved on digs that were usually found by construction crews uncovering ship hulls!  My senior paper in college was about mid-nineteenth century material culture, specifically on Gold Rush era California items.  The museum and library were closed for renovation when I was writing my paper back in 2006, so it was fun to see items that I had read about and seen sketches of, like the duck head paper holder below!

Niantic items

ID chart to items in display

Dug relics from various storeships