Adventures of a Sea Hunter_ In Search of Famous Shipwrecks - James P. Delgado [59]
The fire that destroyed General Harrison was intense, flashing over the ship so quickly that some items fell into the flooded hold and the tidal shallows next to the ship, landing in the mud practically unharmed. Using hoses, we slowly wash away layers of ash, cinders and mud to reveal a door with its brass pull-ring still bright and shiny—and with traces of paint on the wood. A broken box bears the partial trademark and name of a company that we cannot decipher, but which appears to say “Freres,” indicating a French origin. It is a reminder that California’s gold attracted the goods of a world market.
Then, as the water washes away more of the thick black sediment, I spot the corner of a small pine box. Carefully, and yet eagerly, we work for the next two hours to slowly free it from beneath fallen timbers and piles of broken glass. It is an intact crate. Finally, once the box is clear of debris and cleaned, we photograph and measure it, and survey its location on our site map. Only then do I carefully open the lid. Inside are twelve bottles, packed in straw. Soggy and stuck to the bottles, the straw easily yields as I pick up one bottle. The cork in it is covered with a silver foil cap. The label has disintegrated, but as I wipe the bottle clean and hold it up, the sun illuminates the wine inside. It is now red from oxidation, but the style of the bottle and the cap indicate that it is a German white wine, perhaps some of the “Rhine wine” that Mickle advertised for sale just months before the fire.
Even more bottles—of Madeira, brandy, sherry and Champagne— some still full of liquid, emerge from the mud. The fancy foods inside the store ship were probably all destroyed, I think, but we find what might be samples of pâté. Then I reach down and pick up a perfectly preserved peanut, still in its shell and only slightly singed. Other surprises include rolls and bolts of charred cloth, lying next to melted and fused kegs of nails and tacks. A glint of bright red reveals a bag of small red glass beads, and bits of hardware provide a hint of what was once nice furniture.
Our work reminds me of earlier digs in San Francisco—the store ship Niantic, destroyed in the same May 1851 fire and discovered in 1978, yielded a variety of well-preserved objects from linoleum rolls to a leather jacket folded by its owner and placed atop a crate. Faber pencils from London, sausage and truffle pâté and French Champagne from Rheims, mixed in with crockery and hardware, made the Niantic site a gold-rush Pompeii. Later, in 1986, Pastron and his crew, myself included, excavated an entire half block of buildings that had fallen, still on fire, into the bay’s shallows during the May 1851 fire, and were encapsulated in cold, thick blue mud. We gently washed away the mud to reveal crocks filled with butter, bags of coffee, chests packed with tea leaves, bottled preserves—a jar of cherries was still bright red—and crates of army surplus rifles and ammunition: debris now made priceless by the passing of time and their near-perfect condition, thanks to their being sealed beyond the reach of air and light.
My career as an archeologist immersed me in the gold rush so fully that those times seem alive to me. When I walk the streets of downtown San Francisco, in my mind’s eye I see the wharves, tent buildings and crowds of strangers from all lands as ships daily discharge more men and goods into this great