CA: Experts dig up nautical past of long-buried 1818 whaler

SFGate.com ^ | 1/28/06 | Carl Nolte

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The bones of an old ship found by workers digging the foundations for a San Francisco high-rise last fall have been identified as the remains of a 188-year-old whaling ship out of the era made famous by Herman Melville's classic novel "Moby-Dick."

Maritime archaeologists are sure the ship is the three-masted bark Candace, built in Boston in 1818, which had a long career in the sea trades and later in hunting sperm whales in the South Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian oceans.

It also was one of the first American flag merchant ships to trade in the Pacific, years before the Oregon Territory and California became parts of the United States.

The Candace turned up in San Francisco after an ill-fated whaling voyage to the Arctic, where it was damaged in the pack ice. The ship had been at sea on a whaling voyage for two years, and Capt. Norman Starr decided to head home for New England. But the ship even then was old; leaking badly, and with the crew working the pumps as if their lives depended on it, the Candace made the Golden Gate on July 4, 1855.

It never sailed again. It was partly dismantled and eventually buried under the growing new city -- forgotten for nearly 150 years.

Its discovery is considered significant enough that the nearly intact hull of the old ship will become the centerpiece of the San Francisco History Museum when it opens in 2008 at the Old Mint in downtown San Francisco.

--snip--

The bones of dozens of old ships lie under the streets of downtown San Francisco -- most of them abandoned after the Gold Rush of 1849. The Candace is the first one to be preserved intact.

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At a construction site at Folsom and Spear streets last fall, workers dig out a ship that turned out to be a whaler built in 1818. File photo, 2005, courtesy of William Self Associates

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1818 California Whaler

2006 California Wailer

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