March 2004 - Society for California Archaeology

35
Articles
rescued and the finders rewarded, he bade farewell to his
benefactors thinking unemployed Silicon Valley dotcommers
had to wind up somewhere and wasn’t it lucky for
him they wound up where they did.
A hardy and dedicated crew then set out to uncover the
inadvertent time capsules left behind by the earliest and
often forgotten inhabitants of this city. These were the pits,
privies, and wells in residential, commercial, and institutional
back yards on lots occupied in some cases from the 1850s.
After water and sewer lines were hooked up, generally no
later than the 1880s, they were no longer needed, and they
became convenient receptacles for all sorts of unwanted
household materials, as well as accidentally dropped objects.
Even back then, no-one wanted open pits in their backyards
for children or older family members to fall into, so these
features would usually be rapidly filled and sealed with a
clean layer of sand, turning them into the time capsules they
were never intended to be. When combined with census and
city directory data, which often enabled the residents on
specific lots to be identified across a time spectrum, the
excavation opened a window into San Francisco’s past with a
view from an angle different to that provided by written
documents alone.
With each city block from the original fourteen assigned
an identifying number, the excavation started on Block 9
(Harrison, Bryant, Second and Third). The site was down near
Third Street between the small side streets of Perry and
Stillman (formerly Silver Street). Situated on the western
slope of Rincon Hill, the highest landform in the downtown
area, this ASA was where the undisturbed surface was found
closest to modern street elevation, at only about 2 ft. depth.
On much of the rest of the project, particularly to the west
sloping down toward the 1850s bay marsh, the undisturbed
ground surface was up to 8 ft. deep. This was due to sand fill
pushed in from nearby dunes and in some cases hauled in
from way up Market Street where the modern hill rises en
route to the Castro district.
Sandwiched between the broader thoroughfares of
Harrison and Bryant, the Block 9 ASA was where Kate
Wiggins, author of ‘Rebecca of Sunningdale Farm’, opened
the Silver Street Kindergarten in 1878. Like almost all of the
project area and a large part of old San Francisco, it burned
down in the fire that followed the 1906 earthquake. The 1906
disaster was marked by debris and burn layers of brick and
concrete building rubble, melted, twisted bottles, and black
charred wood with the underlying sand burnt red. This 1906
horizon varied from about 3 ft. to 6 ft. depth across the project
area.
Residents in the apartment block overlooking the site
were annoyed by the noise and din of the heavy equipment
used to break up the asphalt surface of the Block 9 parking lot
at seven in the morning. Negotiations prevailed and Caltrans
presented the tenants’ association with a copy of the detailed
historical research on the block. The irritated locals
eventually got to like both us and their front row view of the
project as the ASC crew delved into the depths of Block 9
through the fire and earthquake horizon and unearthed the
remains of the Silver Street Kindergarten. Its old wood-lined
privies were filled with the slate pencils and tablets used by
the children. Other privies and wells were excavated
associated with the working class homes crowded in along
Silver and Perry streets from the 1850s. Excavation of deep
wells was achieved with the use of slide-rail shoring. Once
inserted around a well, this created a safe work zone about 14
ft. square. The bucket from a backhoe or a tracked excavator
was then lowered into the shored area. The hand-excavated
well deposits, which had been stored in five gallon buckets
were loaded into the machine bucket, the archaeologists got
safely out of the way and the archaeological materials were
brought to the surface for processing. Once we had excavated
four feet of well deposit, the crew came out of the shored area
and the heavy equipment was used to lower the surface
around the well by another four feet. An RKI Eagle electronic
air monitor was then used to assess contamination levels
before the crew entered the deep shoring box trench. This
process was repeated until bottom was reached at around 25
ft. depth. At about $2000 a week to rent, the shoring system
was expensive but well worth it from the safety angle.
The excavation then moved to Block 5 (Howard,
Folsom, First and Second) on the northern slope of Rincon
Hill targeting the Folsom Street frontage near the
intersection with modern Essex Street. This residential block
was developed in the late 1850s and then devastated by the
1906 earthquake and fire which destroyed everything on it.
More of the logistical problems associated with working
within the freeway right-of-way in an urban environment
became evident. A well was uncovered in a lot that was built
on in the 1850s. It had the potential to contain some of the
earliest historic period artifacts found in San Francisco. But it
was within three feet of a concrete footing supporting a
column holding up the Fremont Street exit-ramp from the
Bay Bridge. After consultation with Caltrans engineers, it was
decided that even with shoring there was the potential for
excavation to destabilize the overhead ramp and the well had
to be abandoned after being excavated to only 4 ft. depth. On
the house lots where we were able to excavate, it was clear,
based on the high quality of the ceramics and glassware
found, that the former inhabitants were fairly up-market.
Block 7 (Harrison, Bryant, First and Second0 was next in
line. This was the site of the Saint Mary’s Hospital complex
built in 1869 on the east slope of Rincon Hill. Run by the
Sisters of Mercy, the four-story buildings of this charitable
institution survived the 1906 earthquake but not the fire that
followed. The ASAs targeted included the Dead House, the
Greenhouse, the Sisters’ Sleeping Rooms, the oven, and part
of the Museum. Initial exploration uncovered substantial
brick wall foundations beneath demolition debris and fire
deposits at depths from 9ft. to 11 ft. Had the foundations been
shallower we would have continued. But other foundations
and associated privies or wells could have been much deeper.
SCA Newsletter 38(1)