On December 1, 1994 a crew digging a tunnel 35 feet below the streets of San Francisco uncovered a cast iron anchor. Digging
further they found the anchor attached to a chain. The crew
was digging deep under Market Street to create an extension and turnback
for the city’s Muni Metro subway system, but when bay mud yielded a nineteenth
century anchor their work had to be suspended. San Francisco officials then
called in the archaeological firm, William Self Associates (WSA) of Orinda, CA, to perform an archaeological Environmental
Impact Report. After completing the report WSA contracted with the C.E.
Smith Museum of Anthropology for the permanent curation of more than 14,000
historic artifacts recovered from the project.On December 4, the chained anchor led the archaeologists to uncover the Gold Rush-era
ship, Rome. This discovery allowed the team to recover a portion
of the Romeas well as a large quantitity of cultural debris reflecting
the expansion of San Francisco’s Embarcadero during the second half of the
nineteenth century. Some of the artifacts recovered (such as several botija
olive jars) actually may have come from the Rome,
while most of the others (such as the Frozen
Charlotte dolls) represent historic garbage deposited
while the city’s businesses were spilling into the bay.Ironically the Romewas
sunk intentionally nearly one hundred and fifty years ago in  order
to establish property rights in San Francisco’s bay waters. The Embarcadero
and financial district of today are built on debris and sunken ships
that accumulated there throughout the late 1850s. It was during this
period that merchants built businesses along piers and wharves reaching
into the bay. One of the quickest ways to lay claim to property along
the expanding edge of the city was to have a ship sunk in the shallow
waters of what was once Yerba Buena Cove. |
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The sunken ship Romeechoes the story of ambitious Gold Rush-era entrepreneurs, such as Captain Fred Lawson, who intentionally scuttled several ships for private individuals seeking to claim water lots in the area known today as the Embarcadero. A newspaper article written forty years after the Gold Rush has Captain Lawson telling the story in his own words:
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