Site of Ship Niantic

The ship has been dug up three times. Demolition of the Niantic Hotel in 1872 reportedly turned up baskets of champagne in the burned hull; rebuilding after 1906 exposed it again; and in May 1978 excavation for an office tower at Clay and Sansome struck copper-clad timbers twenty feet down and stopped for two weeks. The Maritime Museum took the stern, the rudder, the windlass and one last basket of champagne. The rest of the hull was broken up and sent to the dump. No state plaque stands here, only the Native Sons' tablet.

What the plaque says

Site of Ship Niantic The emigrant ship Niantic stood on this spot in the early days "when the water came up to Montgomery Street." Converted to other uses, it was covered with a shingle roof with offices and stores on the deck, at the level of which was constructed a wide balcony surmounted by a verandah. The hull was divided into warehouses, entered by doorways on the sides. The fire of May 3, 1851, destroyed all but the submerged hulk which later was utilized as the foundation for the Niantic Hotel, a famous hostelry which stood until 1872. This tablet was placed by the Historic Landmarks Committee of the Native Sons of the Golden West, Sept. 19, 1919.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muir Beach Overlook — 11 mi
  A cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.
• Muir Woods National Monument — 11 mi
  A redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.
• Earthquake Trail — 27 mi
  A short loop along the San Andreas, where a broken fence shows how far Point Reyes moved in under a minute in 1906.
• Kule Loklo — 28 mi
  A Coast Miwok village built in the 1970s to honour a people its builders were told had died out. They had not.

More markers nearby

• Long Wharf — steps away
• Landing Place of Captain J. B. Montgomery — steps away
• Site of What Cheer House — steps away
• The Montgomery Block — steps away