A Gold Rush Enterprise: Sam Ward, Charles Mersch, and the Storeship "Niantic"Author(s): James P. Delgado and Russell FrankSource: Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 321-330Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3817517 .Accessed: 29/12/2010 13:01

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A Gold Rush Enterprise: Sam Ward, Charles Mersch, and the Storeship Niantic

by James P. Delgado with translation by

Russell Frank

One of the strangest aspects of San Francisco during the Gold Rush was the frequent use of ships as buildings. Perched "high and dry" on the mud flats of the city's shallow waterfront, or moored in deeper water, often housed over and subdivided, were dozens of formerly proud vessels serv- ing as hotels, restaurants, offices, warehouses, the town jail, and a sailors' church. The conversion of the ships was not historically unique; ships had served as buildings in the past, notably in England where old hulks moored on the Thames had housed Napoleonic prisoners of war and British sub- jects found guilty of various infractions of the law.' The practice had waned by the time of the California Gold Rush, but several factors led to its revival on the western shore of the North American continent. By 1850, over seven hundred vessels of various sizes, rigs, and registeries had cleared for San Francisco. Upon arrival most were abandoned by gold- mad crews and left to rot in the stagnant backwaters of Yerba Buena Cove along the San Franciso shoreline. This glut of available vessels, many of which could be procured for little cost, helped solve a desperate shortage of buildings.2

Evidently, the first to seize upon the possibilities of the abandoned hulks were Sam Ward, Charles Mersch, and Adolphe Mailliard, friends and business partners who had met during Ward's prolonged tour of Europe between 1832 and 1836. Mersch had emigrated to the United States in 1838 as an impoverished scholar from Luxembourg to join Ward in New York as his secretary. Mailliard, a Frenchman living in England as an attache to Joseph Bonaparte, the exiled king of Spain, soon followed, eventually becoming Ward's brother-in-law. The trio had come to San Francisco in 1849 in hopes of earning their fortunes.

Ward, Mersch, and Mailliard purchased the whaling ship Niantic of War- ren, Rhode Island, and had the 119 foot long wooden vessel hauled onto the mud flats of the waterfront at the foot of Clay Street during the sum- mer of 1849. There, the fourteen year old blubber hunter - a veteran of both the China trade and the Pacific whaling grounds - was converted

321

Huntington Library Quarterly 46(1983) 321-30

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into the city's first "storeship." Her masts were removed, her decks hous- ed over and she was partitioned into two large warehouses entered by doors cut into her oaken hull. Over the doors was the painted legend "Rest for the Weary and Storage for Trunks."3 The Niantic's new appearance was certainly cause for comment, and several descriptions of the vessel ap- pear in contemporary accounts of San Francisco. William Kelly, a visitor to the city, wrote one such report in March 1850:

On inquiring where my friend, Mr. S--m, was located, I was told that I could be landed at a stair-foot leading right to it; and was not a little surprised when we pulled alongside a huge dismantled hulk, surrounded by a strong and spacious stage, connected with the street by a substantial wharf, to find the counting house on the deck of the Niantic, a fine vessel of a thousand tons, no longer a buoyant ship, surmounted by lofty spars and streamers waving in the wind, but a tenement anchored in the mud, covered with a shingle roof, subdivided into stores and offices and painted over with signs and showboards of the various occupants. To this base use was my friend obliged to convert her rather than let her rot at anchor, there being no possibility of getting a crew to send her to sea. Her hull was divided into warehouses, entered by spacious doorways on the sides, and her bulwarks were raised about eight feet, affording a range of ex- cellent offices on the deck, at the level of which a wide balcony was carried around, surmounted by a veranda, approached by a broad, handsome stairway. Both stores and offices found tenants at higher rates than tenements of similar dimensions on shore would, and returned a larger and steadier income, as my friend told me, than the ship would have earned if afloat.4

The Niantic Warehouse, as the converted vessel was called, had been adver- tised as being ready for business just one month prior to Kelly's visit. On 2 February 1850, the San Francisco Alta California carried the following advertisement:

The owners of the ship Niantic announce to the public of San Fran- cisco, that said vessel is now ready to receive storage upon the most favorable terms. From the facilites offered of receiving and deliver- ing goods, both afloat and on shore, with security against rain and fire, they confidently recommend these warehouses to the attention of the mercantile community. Terms of storage-$1 per month per barrel of 196 Lbs., or thereabouts; $10 per month per ton of 40 cubic feet. Goods are received and delivered from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. Two large lighters of about 50 tons, to let. Apply on board to WHITEHEAD, WARD, & CO.

THE STORESHIP NIANTIC 323

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324 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY

The venture was apparently a success, housing many businesses and inspiring duplication. By 1851, over one hundred and forty "storeships" were located on San Francisco Bay. After a short career, the Niantic was destroyed by fire on 4 May 1851, when one of the frequent conflagrations to sweep the Gold Rush city took her. Her charred bones were buried beneath the expanding city and soon lay some twelve blocks from the open water and under some twenty feet of sand and mud fill at the intersection of Clay and Sansome streets. Construction activity at the site unearthed the Niantic's remains in 1872, 1907, and 1978. On the last occasion, two- thirds of the vessel still holding over two thousand items left in the hull after the 1851 fire was removed and placed in the museum storage facilities of the National Park Service's San Francisco unit, the Golden Gate Na- tional Recreation Area, where they remain as of this writing.5

In addition to the preserved remains of the Niantic and her collection of Gold Rush artifacts - guns, stationery supplies, food stuffs, champagne, clothing, and mining implements - there are many documents and records pertaining to the Niantic's long career. Log books, drawings, letters, and maps attest to her many voyages and her subsequent years on the San Franciso waterfront. Unfortunately, there is little documentation of her operation as a storeship, save a few scattered accounts and advertisements in contemporary newspapers and the recollections of pioneers written years later. One important primary account still exists, however, a detailed six page letter written in French by Charles Mersch to Sam Ward and preserved in the collections of the Huntington Library. Dated 16 July 1850, the let- ter gives Mersch's account of his various dealings regarding the Niantic on behalf of Ward, who had left California for New York on 1 January 1850 to establish a main office for the firm of Ward & Price, "Bankers and Agents for California."6 Of particular interest are Mersch's astute assessments of the value of waterfront property, the dangers of fire (a pro- phetic statement) and the value of fresh water in a large city plagued by a lack of permanent water supply. But of special interest to historians are the facts pertaining to the ownership of the Niantic; for the first time it became clear that Ward, Mersch, and Mailiard had "silent" partners in their pioneering venture.

San Francisco, 16 July 1850 My Dear Friend,

The last couple of weeks have been richer in events of mutual con- cern than the entire period since you left San Francisco. Since the last fire,7 the street extending from Wharf Street8 has opened, and has increased considerably the value of our Sacramento Street prop- erty. I will tell you later the various transactions which have taken place between Godeffroy and me. For the moment, it will suffice for

THE STORESHIP NIANTIC 325

you to know that I have sold to Godeffroy all our interest in the Sacramento Street lots for $57,714.58, of which 7,714.58 is payable in cash, $ 5,000 in drafts on New York in 30 days; 1000 in drafts on Hamburg in 60 days; 3,000 by next October; 5,000 in drafts on Hamburg due February 21, 1851; and the rest payable in San Fran- cisco in monthly payments of 1000 piastres each beginning November 8 and ending April 8.9 This makes $ 27,714.58, which we will be paid in silver between now and next April 8. As for the $ 30,000 which remains, we will take back Godeffroy's part in the Niantic, him paying the $3,000 due October 8 as if the property had never changed hands.

Our position as a result of this transaction is a little like the follow- ing: we own half of the Niantic, released from W?hitehead's mortgage, and approximately $ 20,000 in bills payable between now and next April. But in return, we no longer have any property in town, that is to say, in Sacramento Street. Godeffroy no longer has a share in the Niantic and owns all that we had in Sacramento Street when you left.

I had a number of reasons for making this deal one of these was Whitehead's dissatisfaction following the sale that we made to Messrs. Godeffroy & Co., and the desire to be able to act on an equal footing with the old Don.

On the other hand, since the city is advancing rapidly on the mud flats and will continue to advance until she arrives at deep water, I thought that the Sacramento Street lots could no longer increase in value, whereas the value of the Niantic property must increase considerably as a result. It is true that before this day comes the vessel and all the improvements could fall prey to flames and make us suf- fer a considerable loss. This risk is diminished by the $15,000 insurance which is on Godeffroy's quarter and which will be insured for us if the Hamburg company is disposed to transfer the policy in our favor.

While waiting, we are trying, on our side, to diminish our risk. The artesian well which last fall was a long term project, is now in full operation - the East Indiaman Lord Huegenforth 11 has at this moment on board for her next voyage, 8000 gallons of fresh water taken from the midst of the sea, behind the Niantic. The artesian well can become a source of profit as well as a strong means of pro- tecting us against fire. I do not yet know the amount of water it can furnish us with, but we have sold 10,000 gallons on two consecutive days. We are at this moment busy installing a pump that we bought for the enormous sum of $1300. This pump is equipped with 150 feet of leather hose with which we can reach all parts of the property.

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The water sells in season for 2 sous'2 per gallon - it is likely that it will not be too long before we recoup the rather considerable sum that the drilling and the pump cost us.13

This artesian well, which because of its position in the sea is perhaps one of the objects most worthy of surprise in this remarkable city, presents the singular phenomenon of being influenced by the tide - at low tide the water rises about 8-10 feet above the level of the sea (2-1/2 feet below the level of the Niantic wharf), and in proportion as the tide rises, the water rises in the well until it begins to overflow from the end of the hose and continues to flow freely for three or four hours of each high tide, exactly as if under the salt sea which in San Francisco Bay is covered with hundreds of ships, there were, in the womb of the earth, another sea of fresh water, obedient to the same laws of attraction, to the same causes which produce the ebb and flow on the surface.14

I hope that we will be able to rent the Niantic and that thus I will be able to leave next August. At this moment, the upper deck of the ship is rented for 1100 a month, the Sullivan house15 for 600, the little pump house, when Godeffroy leaves, will be able to produce $300 more - let's say 2000. The two lower decks of the ship, with the platform that communicates on Clay Street, we propose to rent for 1500, thus leaving a lot 30 x 50 on Clay Street between the ship and Roach-Woodworth,16 and all the lot that we hold from Dr. Jones,17 and then the artesian well that we will be able to rent separately.

I am sending you a money order for $600 on Messrs. Renauld and Francois, N.Y.,18 that I received in payment to the account on the sums above, and that I ask you to apply to my credit or use it for the liquidation of our accounts with Messrs. Ward & Co.,1 also a money order on Messrs. [illegible] & Co. for 500, of which the first [installment?] was sent to you by the steamship of the 1st.20

As it is possible that we still make a deal with Don Diego for his half of the Niantic, I ask you not to dispose of the enclosed money at this moment. The Doctor is very desirous to sell - he will take 50 thousand on conditions very comfortable for us. I will propose to him to reimburse his expenses and 2 percent per month.

Adieu, Ch. Fs. Mersch

Please forward the enclosed letter to England.21

Despite the optimistic tone of Mersch's letter and the apparent good for- tune of Ward, the year 1851 was to prove disastrous. Ward's business failed, and the great fire of 1851, which destroyed the Niantic, destroyed much

THE STORESHIP NIANTIC 327

of what was left of his fortune. Ironically, the Niantic was housing Ward's personal papers and trunks of clothing when it burned, since Ward had returned to California in early 1851. His fortune gone, Ward lingered in California until 1854, when he returned to the east, where he ultimately became a famed Washington lobbyist. Having gained and lost yet another fortune in late life, Sam Ward died while travelling in Italy on 19 May 1884. Mersch retained his fortune, but little is known of his later years; Mailliard also retained his fortune, settled on a large ranch near San Fran- cisco, and today has several prominent descendants in California.2

- US Dept. of Interior, National Park Service, San Francisco

N O T E S

1. See W. Branch-Johnson, The English Prison Hulks (London, 1957).

2. The shortage of buildings and the high cost of construction materials are discussed in Harold Kirker, California's Architectural Frontier: Style and Tradition in the Nine- teenth Century (San Marino, Ca., 1960).

3. For recent treatments of the Niantic's story, see James P. Delgado, "'No Longer a Buoyant Ship' - Unearthing the Gold Rush Storeship Niantic," California History, 63 (1980): 316-25; James P. Delgado, "The Niantic: Participant in Creating a New California," Sea History, 15 (1970): 46; and Joan Parker, "Invincible Amphibian: The story of the Ship Niantic, "The American West, 17 (1980): 48-53. In 1929 historian F. C. Matthews and Niantic passenger John Morland Cushing authored twin articles on the ship. Matthews' "The Earliest Days of the Ship Niantic," and Cushing's "From New York to San Francisco via the Isthmus of Panama, including the voyage from Panama to San Francisco on the ship Niantic," both in Quarterly of the Society of California Pioneers, 6 (1929).

4. William Kelly, A Stroll Through the Diggings of California (London, 1852; rpt. Oakland, Ca. 1950), 147.

5. Specific articles covering the archaeological significance of the Niantic discovery include Isabel Bullen, "A Glimpse Into the Niantic's Hold," Califomia History 63 (1980): 326-33; James P. Delgado, "Buried Ship Yields Champagne Treasure," Wines and Vines, 61 (1980): 52-53; and a study of the artifacts by Mary Hilderman Smith, "An Inter- pretive Study of the Collection Recovered from the Storeship Niantic," (1981), unpub- lished manuscript in the J. Porter Shaw Library, National Maritime Museum of San Francisco.

6. Ward's activities in Califomia during the Gold Rush are examined in Sam Ward in the Gold Rush, ed. Carvel Collins (Stanford, 1949). Most of the text is devoted to 1851 and 1852; there is no comprehensive biography of Samuel Ward. See also Louise Hall Tharp, Three Saints and a Sinner: Julia Ward Howe, Louise, Annie, and Sam

328 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY

Ward (Boston, 1956); Maud Howe Elliott, Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle (New York, 1938); and Frank Maloy Anderson, The Mystery of "A Public Man" (Minneapolis, 1949). Collins and Tharp make some mention of both Mersch and Mailliard. 7. Mersch is referring to the fire of 14 June 1850, which came close to destroying the Niantic. Causing some $5,000,000 in property damage and buming several city blocks, this was the worst San Francisco fire to date. One good result - although it would later prove ineffective - was the establishment of a city Fire Department by Mayor John W. Geary on 1 July 1850.

8. Wharf Street, now known as Commercial Street, was named for San Francisco's famed Long Wharf (also known as Central Wharf), the principal wharf of the city. The street extending from Wharf Street that Mersch refers to is Sansome Street, which bisects Commercial Street.

9. J. C. Godeffroy and Company, of Hamburg, were Ward's personal bankers. Dur- ing his absence, they held his power of attorney. Evidently they were among Ward and Mersch's silent partners in the Niantic; their offices were located on the ship. William Kelly (see note 4) was visiting Godeffroy's California partner, William Sillem, on the Niantic. After the sale of their interest in the Niantic they remained as tenants; a 2 September 1850 advertisement in the San Francisco Alta California for Godeffroy, Sillem and Company lists them at the "Niantic Warehouse, foot of Clay Street."

10. Whitehead was one of Ward's earliest partners in the Niantic venture. He was ap- parently unhappy with the sale of an interest in the ship by the departing Ward, hence Mersch's impetus to buy out Godeffroy. On 9 January 1851, Whitehead, with his part- ners Moorehead and Waddington, advertised in the Alta California that they wished "to purchase a number of good strong vessels for storeships." This was undoubtedly prompted by the Niantic's success.

11. A careful survey of the fragmentary records of the harbormaster at San Francisco for 1849-1850, and the San Francisco Alta Califomia for June through August, 1850 failed to turn up any mention of a vessel with this name.

12. Mersch's usage of foreign currency terms reflects the widespread use of all types of money in Califomia prior to the establishment of a United States Branch Mint in San Francisco in 1854. As one banking historian has noted, "All foreign coins passed rather freely, though at varying discounts....Obviously the great distance separating the new land from the rest of the Union made it impossible to supply the needed cir- culating medium from Eastern mints." Dwight L. Clarke, William Tecumseh Sherman: Gold Rush Banker (San Francisco, 1969), 77.

13. He was not far from the truth. Fresh water was at a premium in a major urban center with no dependable water supply. Wells, water shipped by boat from Sausalito across San Francisco Bay, and water supplied by water vendors who brought the precious liquid into town in casks on mule back had to suffice until 1858, when the city's first permanent water system was placed in operation by George Bensley, who tapped Lobos Creek, several miles from the city, by means of an elevated redwood aqueduct. See James P. Delgado, "The Humblest Cottage Can in a Short Time Af- ford.. .Pure and Sparkling Water: Early Efforts to Solve Gold Rush San Francisco's Water Shortage." Pacific Historian, 3 (Fall 1982) 26-39.

14. This remarkable well was discovered when the Niantic was beached. One of the pilings driven alongside the hull to secure the vessel was a hollow pump log, which when hammered down "Struck a stream of water, from which flowed good fresh water for several years." The Niantic Hotel, built in 1851 on the site of the old ship, also

THE STORESHIP NIANTIC 329

used this water source. Archeologists working in the hull in 1978 rediscovered the well adjacent to the starboard side of the ship's stem - or "behind the Niantic" as Mersch states. The well, which still flowed in the manner described by the latter, was capped to allow construction to continue on a modem highrise building on this site. See Mat- thews, "The Earliest Days of the Ship Niantic," 143.

15. "The Sullivan house" is probably a small building adjacent to, but part of, the Niantic warehouse and occupied by the firm of Besse & Company (D. B. Besse, E. Root, and G. T. Sullivan). An advertisement in the Alta California on 2 September 1850 mentions the warehouse of the firm where Besse and Company "will give their attention to the selling of vessels and cargoes, merchandise of all descriptions, real estate, etc." The warehouse is listed as being "at the foot of Clay street, on the Niantic wharf."

16. Roach and Woodworth were prominent San Francisco commission merchants. In 1849 they built a large warehouse on pilings some fifty feet offshore of the Clay Street Wharf between Clay and Washington streets near the Niantic. The warehouse was advertised in the Alta California of 31 August 1849 as connected to Clay Street Wharf by a private wharf, "and the two together offer greatly increased facilities for landing merchandise." It is this structure that Mersch mentions.

17. "Dr. Jones," another silent partner in the Niantic venture, was Elbert P. Jones (d. 1852), a colorful and somewhat dishonest real estate speculator and one-time editor of the California Star, San Francisco's first newspaper. Owner of many San Francisco water-lots, Jones was described by a contemporary newspaperman as "a thin, green- spectacled, billious-looking personage.... He was a man of very fair abilities, and his editorials are written with a good deal of nervous energy and a sort of uncouth felicity of thought and expression. . . . a good reputation as a lawyer or an editor was evidently not so precious in his eyes as a notoriety for sharpness and low, vulgar cun- ning." Edward C. Kemble, A History of California Newspapers, 1846-1858, ed. Helen H. Bretnor (Los Gatos: The Talisman Press, 1962), 71. Jones, owner of many city- lots, sold much of his property in 1850 (as indicated in Mersch's letter by his willingness to sell his one-half interest in the Niantic to Warad and Mersch), left Califomia and relocated in South Carolina "with, it was estimated, nearly a million of (sic) dollars. He died, however, very soon after reaching the Atlantic States, and his widow erected a costly monument over his grave" (Kemble, 77).

18. Renauld and Frangois was an importing firm operated by Peter A. H. Renauld and Emanual E. Franfois and located at 21 Beaver Street in New York. See John Dog- gett, Jr., Doggett's New York City Directory for 1850-1851 (New York, 1850), 418.

19. Mersch is evidently referring to a series of debts that Ward had amassed. Accor- ding to Collins, the firm Ward & Price "contracted large debts, including among its creditors Sam's uncle, John Ward, of New York; his uncle, Hall McAllister, Sr., and...Charles Mersch," Sam Ward in the Gold Rush, 15. Uncle John Ward's firm is the 'Ward & Co." Mersch refers to and was located at 54 Wall Street, New York (Dog- gett, New York City Directory, 526).

20. The "steamship of the 1st" was the steamer California, owned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which sailed from San Francisco on 1 July 1850 for Panama. Pacific Mail, the principal steamship line on the West Coast during the Gold Rush years, sailed twice a month from San Francisco to Panama: on the 1st and 15th. Other Pacific Mail steamers in service at the time of Mersch's letter were the Panama, the Oregon, the Tennessee, the Unicorn, the Carolina, and the Columbia. See John Haskell Kem- ble, The Panama Route, 1848-1869 (Berkeley, 1943), 242.

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21. Huntington manuscript RP52, translated by Russell Frank, Curator, INA Museum, Philadelphia.

22. Adolphe Mailliard, who was married to Annie Ward, eventually purchased a large tract of land in Marin County's San Geronimo Valley in 1867, developed a fine horse ranch, speculated in mining, and died in 1896. Adolphe was reportedly the illegitmate grandson of Joseph Bonaparte. See Jack Mason and Helen Van Cleave Park, The Making of Mann, 1850-1975, (Inverness, Ca.: North Shore Books, 1975), 132-35.