The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-17

squadron sails and sails, passing and re-
passing in spectral review
Built for a life battle, with her own
grave always below her keel she is the
best, the bravest and the strongest of
human handiwork, and over common
perll-no ship can shun the menace of her
own and her creators possible tomb-she
goes and comes on her noble mission and
wherever she lies at last she is everlasting.
The old ships will all come in when "there
shall bs no more sea-"
Under the big Mantle building at the
corner Of Clay and Sansome streets are the
foundations of former Mantle editice,
and beneath this, far down in the
broken and fragmentary stratum of San
Francisco's eocene epoch, lie the bones of
the Mantle ship buried below the dark
deposit OF the rushing years-the attrition
Of the wasting ages.
The story of this geological derelict
begins when the Mantle first sailed from
her New England ways after the leviathan
of the deep. Her life as a blubber-hunter
was uneventful until the auric dawn of
AS began TO gid the sky, when she took
her place among the fleets of the new
Jason and sought the fleece of gold.
She was then the property OF Moorhead,
Whitehead & Waddington-the latter
afterward a prominent merchant here
who sent her to Panama to catch the pas
sengers and freight then stranded on the
fsthmus.
On July 3, 1919, she sailed in through the
Golden Gate and from the sea forever. In
a few days her crew deserted her for the
wild gulches and ravines OF the Eldorado,
and for some time she waved around her
anchor, manned by the sociable and harm
less Darien cockroaches. The food of pop
r,lat IN cd
and overfiowed the young pueblo Of the
Gringo, and no cubic feet of air went to
waste in the crowded habitations on the
sandhills. Houses were of more use than
ships, and the abandoned craft were
warped into the beach and labeled "To
Let"
This was in that free -and-easy day known
as the "when-the-water-ca me-up-to-M Mont
gomery-street" period. Other fluids came
up to Montgomery street, but their inclined
flow was possibly considered too common
for place in history or the marking. of an
epoch, and no page shows the record of
their motions, though some of the pioneer
mounds on the solitary hill back of town
might bear silent witness of the fierce and
fervid time when the barrels well shaken
(before taken) by the Cape Horn tempests
took upon-and within-themselyes an age
which the peaceful cobwebby years of eel
lar life never could supply.
The Mantle was backed ingloriously
into the beach like a recalcitrant mule
and tied up to sand-dune. The pioneer
did duty as a warehouse, hotel, town hall
saloon, bethel, holding her own against all
kinds of weather and vicissitudes with
that sturdy defiance to hard luck that had
often characterized her work among the
harsh, veritable gales of the horse lati-
tudes. Occasionally she would blossom
out as a gam bling hulk or fandango hall
and many young argonaut, crazed by
low fos1 cd 70 clarrl hH.
gangplank. and the Morgue-but there was
no Morguei When a man died hurriedly
the community resolved itself into Coro-
ner's Jury and decided that he was dead
without any corroborative evidence on the
part of the corpse, and the quiet people
out on Lone Mountain received the new
conner in silence.
As a sailor clearinghouse she was an
unprecedented success, for she drew all
men OF marine inclinations unto her. She
was a city of refuge for runaways from
sister ships, and she opened her doors to
them at night to shanghai them out on
outward bound vessels next morning
The big fire of 81 razed the Mantle down
to her copper-sheathing, and few red
wood logs were upended in the mud
around the charred hulk for foundation,
and upon this the first Mantle building
was perched, and the hrst SEASIDE hotel
was operated. l.. H. Roby was the pro-
prietor, and his lease expired when he
died shortly Afterwards suicide from re-
morse over some act in connection with
his earlier life. One J. l.. Johnson ran the
hulk hotel, then gave away to Daniel Par
IRISH. During this proprietorship guest
was accused of stealing a large sum OF
money, and was sent to San Quentin prison
for the alleged crime. He died on the
point. protesting that he was innocent, and
after his transportation over the bay, a
laborious search was made among the Old
vessels timbers under the house for The
money he was believed to have cached
there The place then passed TO +. L.
Woods H. H. Parkell and Miss Mooney,
sister of Con Mooney successfully, the
latter keeping it from 1864 to 1872. when 1t