Lost Harbor: The Controversy Over Drake's California Anchorage

by Warren L. Hanna

Published to commemorate the quadricentennial of Sir Francis Drake's 6-week visit in the summer of 1579 to a port near San Franciso, often called the lost harbor of Nova Albion. The author provides a keen judicial analysis to the unraveling of this 400-year-old mystery, presenting each of the landing site possibilities, reviews all the evidence, and draws conclusions about the validity each claim, evoking a feeling of intimacy with Drake and with the search for the true landing site. Illustrated throughout with maps and photographs. xvii+ i , 459+ 1 pages. cloth, dust jacket. 8vo..

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1979

Reviews

[Augustus · Rating 4 out of 5]

On June 17, 1579, the English Captain Francis Drake sailed his ship, the Golden Hind, into a harbor on the California coast for re-fitting. He claimed the surrounding country on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I and called it Nova Albion. For over five weeks, Drake's crew scraped off barnacles and re-caulked the planks of his hull. They also interacted with local native people, who provided supplies and traded for small English goods.

Having become a notorious celebrity in the Spanish New World, Drake was preparing his ship to escape by sailing west across the Pacific Ocean, ultimately completing a circumnavigation of the globe in 1580. But where exactly did he visit the California coast? That is the subject that Warren Hanna examines in detail in this 1979 book published by the University of California Press.

Hanna's first six chapters provide a general narrative of Drake's visit, introducing several venues as principal "candidates" (i.e. Drake's Estero near Point Reyes, Bolinas Lagoon farther south on the coast, and San Quentin Cove inside San Francisco Bay). He then painstakingly reviews each of the twenty "tenets" (i.e. pieces of evidence) that were advanced in defense of one location or another in a 1974 debate sponsored by the California Historical Society. He examines multiple maps and narratives from the 16th and early 17th centuries, explaining how each of them has been offered as evidence for a particular location. He also considers the controversial inscribed metal plate that a department-store clerk named Shinn discovered near Point San Quentin in 1936.

The book is illustrated with numerous map details and photographs. A series of appendices reproduce key historical narratives, allowing readers to assess the evidence for themselves. For those who enjoy solving mysteries and evaluating clues, this book is a fun read.

[George Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who like historical mysteries. Someone found an inscribed brass plate and claimed that it was left in the San Francisco Bay area by Sir Francis Drake during one of his documented cruises. The solution to the mystery will not be found in the book in spite of its reasoned analysis, but in sources dated long after this book's publication in 1979.