Father Crespi who was present on the expedition wrote:
“All Saint’s day and All Soul’s day. The two of us said mass here, and on All Saint’s day after Mass by the governor’s order Sergeant Ortega set out with eight soldiers to scout for three days’ march, wherefore we remained here until the 3rd, when they arrived back at night from scouting. At this place there are limitless very lush brambles, many rose patches, and all kinds of lush plants, very plentiful. Shortly after we here there came over to the camp a good sized village of very well behaved friendly natives (Indians), most of them well bearded and brought us a great many large dark-colored tamales, very rich, which the soldiers say are very good and would go well in a pipiánfricassee. There must be many villages all about this rich harbor, for we have seen many smoke [columns] from here; mussels are also very plentiful here, and very large, and the soldiers have brought back a great deal of them. Many deer have been seen upon the hills here. Bear tracks and droppings have been seen here. Our sick men have been improving everyday and are now all riding on horseback, thank the Lord Who has granted them this relief.”
On November 2, 1769, Portolá’s party climbed the eastern side of Sweeny Ridge and documented the large waterways that led to an open ocean. Yet despite their astonishing discovery of the San Francisco Bay, Portolá was convinced that he had failed in the objectives of his mission. He turned his expedition south to retrace his steps back to San Diego, arriving safely on January 24, 1770.
Six years after Portolá’s discovery of San Francisco by land, and in the same period when Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were completing the first draft of the Declaration of Independence in the new America, Juan Manual de Ayala, a young Spanish naval lieutenant, commanded the San Carlos on a voyage to chart the waters of the San Francisco Bay.
After so many explorers had sailed right past it in their search for safe harbors, Ayala would be the first to log the discovery of the island of Alcatraz in 1775. Here is an excerpt from the ship’s log of the San Carlos:
August 11, 1775: The boat was launched and I set out to search for better anchorage for the ship. I went out toward the island I named de los Angeles (Angel Island), which is the largest in this harbor, in search of proper moorings for making water and wood; and though I found some good ones, I rather preferred to pass onward in search of another island, which when I reached it proved so arid and steep there was not even a boat-harbor there; I named this island La Isla de los Alcatrazes (Island of the Pelicans) because of their being so plentiful there. After this I attempted to reach the SW shore at the mouth of the of the inlet running to the SE, in order to examine a bight, but neither wind or current allowing it, I returned aboard the San Carlos at 5:30 p.m.
An original survey chart drawn in 1775 by José Cañizares, the First Pilot of the vessel San Carlos. This detailed chart of San Francisco Harbor was surveyed from a small boat during a forty-five-day expedition.
Nevertheless, the Spanish maps of the bay waters would mislabel the names and locations of Alcatraz and Yerba Buena. It would not be until 1826, when British Naval Captain Frederick Beechey secured permission to survey the San Francisco Bay and surrounding waters that the names would be properly assigned. There also is still considerable speculation as to why the bay went undiscovered for so long, despite a series of explorations that sailed in close proximity to the inlet. A United States Survey Map from 1851 indicated that the Farallon Islands might have played a role in the deception. This survey suggests that the Farallons may have influenced explorers to stay clear of the coastline, since they indicated hidden reefs lying close by, which could have kept the mariners sailing in deeper waters far from shore. Along with the near perfect positioning of Alcatraz across the mouth of the bay, and the textured blending of the East Bay Hills, this may have been what kept the Golden Gate from discovery for several centuries.
This United States Survey Map from 1851 illustrates how Alcatraz Island masked San Francisco Harbor. The combined factors of the near perfect positioning of Alcatraz across the mouth of the bay, the textured blending of the East Bay Hills, and the frequently foggy weather conditions may have hidden the Golden Gate from explorers for several centuries.
Alcatraz –The Fortress
When the territories of Mexico were granted their independence from Spain in 1822, the Mexican Government inherited the land title for California. Despite the development potentials of Monterey and San Francisco, the government’s focus remained on developing the lowlands within the southern regions of California.
On May 13, 1846, when relations dissolved between the United States and Mexico, the U.S. Congress officially declared war against its southern neighbor. In June of 1846, John Charles Frémont and Kit Carson led an attack to seize a Mexican garrison in Sonoma, and declared California’s independence from Mexico. In their victory, they raised a makeshift flag with the claim seal entitled in bold print, The California Republic. The flag was made from white cotton sheeting fabric, with a broad strip of red flannel and a woven California Grizzly Bear, representing power and strength. The flag was later officially adopted by the territory, and is flown today as the state flag of California. Frémont also took Colonel Mariano Vallejo, one of the most respected Mexican military officers, as a prisoner. This event would go down in history as the Bear Flag Revolt.
Frémont and Carson continued their migration south, ultimately engaging in another attack, and taking the Mexican Fort in San Francisco. They again raised their flag, announcing the independence of the newly founded republic. Soon two United States warships arrived in San Francisco, and announced to Frémont and his men that the territories were now under martial law and that California was under jurisdiction of the United States. The Stars and Stripes were then raised over the flag of the California Republic. In another of his more notable acts, Frémont would also take credit for naming the Golden Gate. As he wrote in a personal memoir, he would christen the grand entrance to the bay Chrysopylae, or Golden Gate for the same reason that the harbor of Constantinople was called Chryoceros, or Golden Horn.
John Charles Frémont, the disputed first governor of California, purchased Alcatraz Island for a mere $5,000 in 1846. As a military officer, Frémont recognized the strategic importance of the barren island as a potential site for military fortification.
Several years prior to the war, Mexico had passed legislation allowing governors to grant coastal land titles to Mexican citizens who would agree to develop the land. On June 8, 1846, the last Mexican Governor of California, Pio Pico, granted the title for Alcatraz to Julian Workman, a Mexican national. Workman had petitioned Pico for use of the island stating that “Alcatraces, or Bird Island, has never been inhabited by any person, nor used for any purpose,” and sought the right to develop the land. Alcatraz was granted to Workman under the sole condition that he “cause to be established as soon as possible a light, which may give protection on dark nights to the ships and smaller vessels which may pass there.” It is also documented that Workman never visited the island and never made any attempt to establish a lighthouse as he had agreed. In 1846, his son-in-law Francis Temple sold the island to John Charles Frémont, “in the terms of a bond for the purchase money in my official capacity as governor of California,” for the price of $5,000. The property was eventually conveyed to Palmer Cook & Company, but the money was never paid to Temple.
The earliest known photograph of Alcatraz, taken in 1853 from Nob Hill. This picture shows the island’s original topography, with soft desolate features, prior to any development or habitation.
United States Commodore Robert F. Stockton, a grandson of one the signers of the Declaration of Independence, eventually appointed Frémont, a man with strong political ambitions, as California’s Governor. However the U.S. Government disputed Frémont’s appointment, and later formally ruled that he did not have the authority to make purchases of land as an agent of the United States. Palmer Cook & Company eventually sued the U.S. Government, but they lost th
eir case. The government insisted that even if the land had been rightfully purchased by Frémont, he had made the purchase under the name of the United States Government and therefore had no right to claim it. Frémont would later be court-martialed in Washington D.C., and his unauthorized purchase claims contributed to the trial verdict.
Despite these conflicts, Frémont did make the important observation that Alcatraz was strategically positioned to be a premier military fortification for the protection of San Francisco. Shortly after the signing of the peace treaty with Mexico in February of 1848, the United States Military took notice of the Rock and its strategic value as a military fortress. First Lieutenant William Horace Warner of the Corps of Topographical Engineers had begun conducting geological surveys on Alcatraz a year earlier in May of 1847. Warner was stationed out of Monterey under the command of Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny, who had been in the forefront of the dispute over Stockton’s appointment of Frémont as Governor.
Lieutenant William Warner’s 1847 Survey Map of Alcatraz.
The Gold Rush
The discovery of gold in Coloma California in 1848 caused a worldwide frenzy and families from around the globe journeyed to the region with dreams of striking it rich. The population of San Francisco surged from four hundred in 1848 to thirty thousand by late 1849.
The California Gold Rush is remembered as an extraordinary episode in San Francisco’s colorful history and it also influenced the government to find the means of protecting its land claims from other powers. On a cold and crisp morning on January 24, 1848, mill carpenter James Marshall walked down a steep path to a river clearing where his crew was building a mill for John Sutter. Marshall wrote of what followed:
One morning in January – it was a clear, cold morning, I shall never forget that morning – as I was taking my usual walk along the river after shutting off the water, my eye was caught with the glimpse of something shining in the bottom of the ditch. There was about a foot of water running then. I reached my hand down and picked it up. It made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold!
The tiny nuggets that Marshall had found that morning in Coloma, California had little value – their total worth was less than fifty cents. But Marshall’s discovery would change California history. Marshall’s find at Sutter’s Mill stirred little excitement from local newspapers and it was a Coloma general store owner named Sam Brannan who would become the mastermind behind the gold frenzy. Marshall told Sam about his find, and soon Brannan had collected several nuggets that he gathered into a small medicine bottle. Riding horseback into San Francisco along old Montgomery Street, he shouted to passing patrons, announcing his gold find in the American River. In January of 1848 the entire population of San Francisco was less than four hundred, but by the following year the populace would explode to over thirty-thousand and Brannan would become exceptionally wealthy from selling mining equipment to the new settlers.
As word spread around the globe of abundant riches in California, the United States Government would evoke security measures to protect its land and mineral resources from seizure by other countries. San Francisco developed into a principle port of U.S. commerce, second only to New York’s grand harbor. The incentive to safeguard San Francisco using the United States Military had now become a key priority. A commission was appointed to select sites for military fortifications, and Alcatraz seemed to be a strategic gift from nature.
A bird’s-eye view of the City of San Francisco, rendered in 1868. Alcatraz Island is clearly visible at the center of the bay with a dense crowd of vessels congregating at the city’s eastern crest.
By 1849, the Port of San Francisco had become tremendously active. Establishing a lighthouse became an immediate priority, to help ships navigate into the new western shipping harbor. Since the military had not yet begun development of the island into the promising military fortress that it would become, the construction of the first western lighthouse was contracted to a Baltimore firm. The crew arrived in San Francisco on January 29, 1853 and immediately began work. The design was for a Cape Cod style two-story cottage with a central light tower and the fifty-foot lighthouse was to be painted white with black trim. The fixed third-order lens did not arrive until October of 1853, and budget problems would delay its installation until June 1, 1854. A fog bell would be added in 1856, after it became clear that frequent fog layers often rendered the light ineffective. The original fog bell had to be rung by hand, but later versions were equipped with a clockwork mechanism that automatically struck the bell at prescribed intervals. As the city of San Francisco continued to grow, a new flashing fourth-order lens was installed, which aided mariners in distinguishing the lighthouse from the city lights.
Alcatraz was the site of the first lighthouse on the Pacific Coast, which commenced operation on June 1, 1854. The structure featured a Cape-Cod-style two-story cottage with a central light tower. The optical lens concentrated the luminance from the flame of a whale-oil lamp into a powerful beacon that could be seen from nearly twenty nautical miles out at sea. The small signpost visible next to the planter indicates that this building also served as a post office.
A full view of the original lighthouse, surrounded by the fort’s arsenal of cannonballs. A close study shows what appear to be children and their mother (left) sitting atop the pile of fifteen-inch cannon balls, each of which weighed over four hundred pounds. Also visible (far left) is the post headquarters.
An early San Francisco defense map drawn in 1863 shows cannon firing ranges from various strategic locations. As the port and city of San Francisco continued to flourish, the military established a concentrated system of fortifications to protect the prosperous settlement. Clearly visible is the triangular defense pattern, which was anchored by the strategically located Alcatraz. Hostile ships entering the harbor would first come under fire from both Lime Point and Fort Point, and would eventually progress into the operative firing range of all three positions. It was an effective and lethal schematic.
On November 1, 1850, a joint Army-Navy military commission presented a report detailing a military defense plan to guard San Francisco from unfriendly powers. Their report stated: “The first consideration in conjunction with defense would be to prevent the passage of hostile vessels through the channel of entrance.” This would be achieved by creating two lines of defense:
“The outer one at the Golden Gate to consist of a fortress at Fort Point of one hundred and fifteen guns and a battery of one hundred guns directly opposite on Lime Point; the inner to consist of a fortress at Alcatraz with batteries at Black Point (now Fort Mason), and Angel Island.”
The aim was to create a gauntlet of cross fire, which could pour down a continuous barrage of shell all the way from Point Lobos to Telegraph Hill, a distance of about seven and a half miles – which no vessel of the day could survive. In its report, the commission urged immediate development of the fortresses to solidify authority and enhance protection of the infant U.S. territory.
By 1851, the United States had started preparing detailed plans for the three new forts and batteries. The Pacific Army of Engineers arrived at Alcatraz in the winter of 1853, and began to finalize specific plans for the development. Construction at Alcatraz would commence in 1854, with a $500,000 appropriation from the U.S. Congress. In his first report to Washington, Major John L. Smith gave a description of his initial surveys, writing: “The island of Alcatraces is a mass of rock with a very thin layer crust of soil and bird manure on the surface.” Construction at Alcatraz would commence only months later. First Lieutenant Zealous Bates Tower had been assigned to manage the building of the fortress at Alcatraz, along with his assistant, Second Lieutenant Frederick Prime. The topography of fine-grained sandstone proved to offer more challenges than was originally predicted. Tower would report:
The island is rougher than I anticipated, very rough, steep, and broken on the Eastern Portion of the North West Battery and where the three gun battery is designed to be placed...
The sandstone composing the island is very friable; even where hardened on the surface it can be cut with a hatchet. Wrought iron spikes can be driven into the Rock without much trouble... During the month of October, I expect to finish all of the temporary buildings required for the rapid progress of the work, including water tanks, to build the wharf, to prepare the road at least as far as the guardhouse and to make good progress on the ditch of the South Battery.
A military diagram created in September of 1855, illustrating the plans for the fortification and construction in progress. First Lieutenant Zealous Bates Tower supervised the building of the fort in 1854, and later reported that the terrain of Alcatraz was much rougher than he had expected.
An 1870 Eadweard Muybridge photograph of “Pirate’s Cove,” which is located on the western side of Alcatraz. This photograph illustrates the island’s primitive terrain, which discouraged boat landings. Much of the current geographical contours are the result of blasting and reshaping efforts by the early Army Engineers.
Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years Page 4