DRAKE RELIC

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 443, 26 May 1937, Page 2

DRAKE RELIC

CALIFORNIAN FIND Inscribed Brass Plate San Frtancisco, May 10. The interesting discovery of a unique long-lost relic giving a new sidelight on California’s early history was announced at a meeting in San Fran, cisco of the California Historical Society, strangely enough held at the palatial Sir Francis Drake Hotel. The members of the society gazed with wonderment on a brass plate on which Sir Francis Drake, the English explorer and adventurer, claimed the environs of San Francisco, known as Marin Coun y, and annexed the territory by proclamation 357 years ago in the name of Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Aubrey Drury, a prominent member of the society, and boasting British lineage, stated that a party of picnickers had gone to Marin County, and were in the vicinity of the village of Greenbrae, not far from San Rafael, on the north shore of Cor e Madera Creek, an inlet of San Francisco Bay. As the party reached a location about n mile and a half west by north-west of San. Quentin Penitentiary, they halted and casually indulged in playful casting of stones a. objects. Suddenly Beryle Shinn, a shop assistant of Oakland, noticed a flash, an? he picked up a strange object, flat in shape. He and his comrades fancied it was a piece of old iron that had deposited) there, possibly part of a plough. He picked up the object and placed it in the back of his motor car and carried it with him to his home in Oakland, some ten miles distant. Forgotten for Six Months. Shinn forgot about the find for nearly six months, and then, becoming inquisitive, started scratching the metal. He removed a heavy encrustation of adobe mud, which had hardened like cement. Gradually he uncovered some faint lettering La' er he took the object to Dr. Herbert E. Bolton, a member of the California Historical Society, and Professor of History at the University of California. After careful handling the plate proved to be the long-sought relic, which had been placed on la post or tree by the EiEWh explorer to commemorate his arrival in San Francisco Bay in his famous' Golden Hind. The plate was installed by Drake and his crew on June 17, 1579. while they

j * were en route to the Orient. Sought ever since, the inscription on > the brass plate in old English 1« Iter- ' ing *ciaims “Nova Albion,” the name given the Bay region, for “Her Maj- [ esty Queen Elizabeth.” The plate l reads: “Bee it knowne unto all men [; by these presents, June 17, 1579. By - | th- grace of God and in the name i of herr majesty, Queen Elizabeth of : England, and herr successors for 1 ever, I take possession of this kingdom whose king and people freely • resigne their right and title in the > whole land unto herr iriajestie’s keep_ ’ .ng now named by me and to bee ; 1 knowne unto all men as Nova Albion, r (Signed) Francis Drake.” j j A small hole was in the bottom for , I a silver sixpence under Drake’s name. Professor Bolton says he is convinc!£d the brass plate is genuine and tb3t it will form a most interesting . addition to California’s historical re- . lies. The relic has been presented > to the University of California, and . will repose as a treasure in the historical records of the University at Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco. Mr. Drury glaid the members of the historical society had been amazed ar. the clean cutting of ■ the letters after the encrustations of ages had been carefully cleaned away from the surface of the plate. It whs his belief that the ship’s carpenter aboard Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind ’ had been entrusted with inscribing the letters, and that the work had been '.accomplished with a sharp chisel. Efforts are being made to find the missing Queen Elizh.beth sixpence. ,