Ship Becomes Building

NARRATOR 
Stand here today, with your back to the statues and the Transamerica Pyramid before you. Notice the city skyline, the sounds and smells around you, the material beneath your feet. Take a hard look over your left shoulder. Notice that ferny knoll, the hump of dirt beneath the redwoods? Yeah, that one. Keep an eye on that. Now, stand here in 1850. You're at the beach at the edge of the water. Beneath your feet, wood—a wharf of pilings swaying gently with the tides. The musty smell of wood and sticky sweet odor of tar linger in the air as people bustle up and down the street. In front of you, a row of buildings are smushed together. And where that grassy knoll is a ship stuck in between the buildings. Its masts are gone. On top it looks like a house. You're standing in front of the Niantic.

JAMES DELGADO 
In 1851, a visitor remarked that upon visiting Niantic he was struck by a strange spectacle.

NARRATOR 
Maritime archaeologist James Delgado.

JAMES DELGADO 
"Partaking neither of the land nor the sea, but of both, which was a ship shorn of its masts, and housed over with a huge barn-like structure that covered its decks, with doors piercing its sides and painted with the advertisements of its very inhabitants, a floating warehouse and offices." Hemmed in by pilings and anchored in the mud just a few blocks from the beach at Montgomery Street, Niantic was converted into a store ship. A number of firms were there, but the main part of Niantic's hold was subdivided into storage space not unlike your average storage space that you can still rent in downtown San Francisco to this day.

Long before there was a Costco in San Francisco, the storeships were working as the place in which goods from all over the world were being delivered. In the case of the Niantic, a variety of merchants stored their goods inside: a crockery merchant, liquor store. Owners put their spare goods inside the ship as well. And a nearby stationer sold books, pens, pencils, ink, you name it. There was also, according to a sign painted over the door, "rest for the weary and storage for trunks," which meant that not only could you sleep onboard the ship in a hotel type accommodation, but you could also store your spare luggage if you made your way with less baggage all the way up the Bay, up the rivers, and on into the gold digging in the heart of the Sierra Nevada. It is a magic place all the more so because of the circumstances of rapid burial and rebirth as the city is consumed by flames.

NARRATOR   
But before we get to the fire, how did this ship wind up in the middle of the street?

NARRATOR
Head to the park onto Clay Street now and stand on the other side of the fence. You are on the former site of the Clay Wharf. Situated where that mound of dirt now sits, the Niantic was the first recorded instance of a gold rush era ship being hauled ashore and converted into a building. That fate was not the original intent when it landed.

JAMES DELGADO
Niantic's passengers weren't the only ones to come ashore, some of the crew decided to go too.

NARRATOR
Maritime archaeologist James Delgado.

JAMES DELGADO  
The cook actually pulled a knife on the captain to make his way off the ship. And so it passed that by the end of July 1849, all of the crew of Niantic were gone save the sons of the captain and the captain himself. With this, Captain Henry Cleveland faced a very difficult choice. His ship was ready to go back to see if he could find a cargo, but also if he could find a crew with his own men run off to the gold fields and making far more money than they could as sailors. He was in a difficult spot as were so many other captains.

NARRATOR  
So the captain made the only choice and put the ship and its merchandise up for sale. A quote, "fast sailor ready for any voyage," selling at a bargain. A group of investors bought her but not for speedy sailing. A few other ships had been turned into floating warehouses by then, but the Niantic's new owners decided to try something different.

JAMES DELGADO  
They determined to take her to the foot of Clay Street, the principal landing spot for Gold Rush merchandise and beach her in the mud flats.

NARRATOR  
At high tide in August of 1849, Niantic was floated in on empty oil casks strapped to the bottom of the ship. With those and a rope around the keel, the Niantic was lifted up and driven as close to shore as possible. far enough that the water around the ship would only be a few feet deep at high tide, and essentially nonexistent at low tide.

JAMES DELGADO
Firmly anchored in the mud, Niantic's masts were pulled out. As these pilings were driven into the mud to hold the Niantic upright, they struck a freshwater well right off of the stern of Niantic.

NARRATOR
See that building to your right? Its third column down is approximately where the fresh water well was.

JIM DELGADO
The water gushed up fresh and sweet from the middle of the water, and the owners decided to put a small pump in there and use that to sell freshwater to those in San Francisco who wanted it.

NARRATOR 
In January of 1850, the Niantic began its new life as a storeship, but with such a fire-prone waterfront, it was not a life that would last for long.