Presidio Chapel Unearthed: Crucifix, Clay Pipe Tip Archaeologists
By Larry D. Hatfield
Presidio - SF Examiner, July 26, 1996
A tiny silver crucifix, a small clay hand pipe and some telling bits of plaster have been uncovered at The Presidio, convincing Cabrillo College archaeologists they have uncovered the chapel of the 220-year-old Spanish colonial fort. The discoveries capped a hugely successful month-long dig at the sprawling former Army post that sits atop one of the only two forts that protected Spanish colonialism's push up the Pacific Coast that have not been extensively explored by archaeologists. The other fort is the Monterey Presidio.
"The thing that's remarkable is I don't think anybody expected to find so much," said Leo Barker, an Interior Department archaeologist, San Francisco native and UC Berkeley graduate. "And it's great that the public (which was allowed to watch the dig) really had a chance to see the past for the first time, up close and personal."
A series of discoveries in the last two or three days of the dig allowed Barker and a team of students under the direction of archaeologist Rob Edwards from the Archaeological Technology Program at Cabrillo College in Aptos to come to some firm conclusions about the old fort, founded by Jose Joaquin Moraga and some 200 settlers on the northern edge of the Spanish colonial frontier in July 1776. It was taken over by the United States in 1846.
One was discovery of a small, silver crucifix from that period. Another was an ocarina, a small clay hand pipe used to accompany choirs. They were found in a building believed to be the chapel because its stone foundations extended far into the plaza of the rectangular fort. Most of the fort's rooms extend into the plaza the same distance, Barker said, although the chapel traditionally was given more prominence.
The archaeologists also found bits of plaster at the site. Only two buildings in colonial forts were known to have plaster interiors - the chapel and the commandant's quarters. Taken together, the relics and other clues make the identification of the chapel solid. "It's pretty conclusive," Baker said.
So far, the archaeologists have unearthed the foundations of the large, roughly square compound of adobe buildings around the central plaza, floors of the tile packed earth, pottery and cookware.
The Presidio dig, under a parking lot between the Officers Club and the current chapel, wound up Thursday. Barker said a similar dig will be held next summer. In the meantime, the relics will be catalogued and analyzed, then returned to The Presidio as part of an eventual exhibit on colonial history. The dig used funds from various government and private agencies, he said.
The probe of the buried adobe ruins - never before possible because The Presidio was continuously occupied military base until the Army abandoned it last year - turned up some surprises, Barker said.
For one thing, the original fort isn't where maps have always said it was. It's also much larger that the old plans indicate - about 200 yards across on each side. Barker said the evidence suggests that in 1795 or so the commandant decided he wanted to rebuild the fort because it was unfinished, with only three sides, and was deteriorating because of the rain, wind and fog off the Golden Gate.
Likening the process to "the way government sometimes works today," Barker said, funding was sought and denied by the Viceroy in Mexico City. "But it looks like they went ahead and started building it on site anyway," he said. The increased size of the fort raises some intriguing questions, including whether it was enlarged as part of Spain's war effort against nearby American Indians or just another link in the expanding Spanish empire. There are more clues to those questions waiting for next year's dig and at a lot of other sites on the former Army base, now a national park.
"In The Presidio alone, we've identified about 54 areas where archaeological remains would have value to interpretative history," said Barker, who specialized in Spanish colonial architecture while at Berkeley. "The Presidio here and in Monterey are the only ones not well-investigated yet. I'm a San Francisco native, so this has always been of interest to me," he said. "I'm glad we're finding a way to do it with the help of groups like Cabrillo and the Golden Gate National Park Association, along with the national parks Service."
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