Museum Highlights Seafaring Days of the Past

Entering this city’s Allen Knight Maritime Museum is like opening a chronicle of the sea. Here on display are nautical memorabilia tracing the port’s past dating back to its Spanish days when Monterey was the Spanish capital of California; the era of Mexican rule, and its history following its acquisition by the United States.

The extensive collection includes many ship models, bells, compasses, lanterns, navigation instruments, steering wheels and scrimshaw. There are thousands of ship pictures and an extensive library used by writers and artists. A ship’s name-board, the Flavel, hangs on one wall, a reminder that the ocean and the craggy shores of the Monterey Peninsula coast line can be a destructive force.

On Dec. 14, 1923, the Flavel, a schooner out of Aberdeen, Wash., with a cargo of more than 1 million board feet of lumber, struck rocks near Monterey during a heavy fog. As the vessel broke up, boards were scattered like flotsam along the beaches. Fortunately, the crew was saved.

A Prized Exhibit

One of the museum’s most prized exhibits is the giant Fresnel lens that was once in the Point Sur Lighthouse south of Monterey. Originally designed in 1822 by Augustin Fresnel, a French physicist, the huge lamp was installed at Point Sur in 1889. The Coast Guard replaced the light in 1972 with an automated beacon. The old lens was later placed on an extended loan by the Coast Guard to the museum.

Richard D. McFarland, the museum’s curator and a retired Army colonel, recalled how the lens was dismantled and moved to Monterey:

“The old lighthouse had been boarded up. It sits on a a promontory overlooking the ocean. Accompanied by two Coast Guardsmen, we went to work with screwdrivers removing the prisms. There were eight of them, each weighing 200 pounds. In the center of each panel is what is called the bull’s-eye. This magnifies the light from inside. The seldom-used road descending the cliff was now but a trail. We had to push our fragile cargo down to a waiting truck by wheelbarrows. It took three days.”

McFarland paused to run his hand over the glass. “We got it back together here,” he continued, “but it was a tight squeeze. It almost touches the ceiling. There are a couple of slight nicks in the glass. These were made by someone on a passing boat. Can you imagine anyone shooting at a lighthouse?”

The Maritime Museum was established in 1970 by the Monterey History and Art Assn., which named it in honor of the late Allen Knight of Carmel whose many nautical artifacts formed the nucleus of an ever-growing collection.

Colorful Sea Career

Rear Adm. Earl E. Stone USN (Ret.) serves as the museum’s director. The admiral, 89, had a career at sea as colorful as many of the adventurous sea captains who commanded the great wooden vessels during the age of sail.

A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy’s class of 1918, he served aboard the Cleveland in World War I. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Stone was the executive officer of the USS California, which was struck by torpedoes and bombs, sinking in her Ford Island berth. Repaired, the ship later rejoined the fleet. Stone next became executive officer of the heavy cruiser Salt Lake City.

Stone was promoted to captain and placed in command of the Wisconsin, which was launched on Dec. 7, 1943, the second battleship to bear the future admiral’s home state’s name. Stone grew up in Milwaukee. The huge dreadnought towered higher than a five-story building. The ship normally carried a complement of more than 2,000 officers and men.

The Wisconsin joined a task force in the reconquest of the Philippines. It was around this time that the fleet was caught in the center of a violent typhoon. Three American destroyers capsized and sank. The Wisconsin proved her seaworthiness by surviving the storm to participate in a number of major engagements.

During the Korean War, Stone commanded a division of three cruisers from 1950-51. The admiral retired in 1958.

He was now seated at a table, a re-creation of one found in the captain’s cabin of an old sailing vessel. Behind him, a glass case was filled with models of sailing ships of assorted types and riggings.

“Basically, our objective is to portray that sailing ship era,” he pointed out, “the old fishing and whaling days in Monterey and our own local naval history, which began when a U.S. squadron landed here in 1846 to occupy California.”

Like most of his staff, the admiral volunteers his time, driving to the museum daily from nearby Carmel. “We’ve got a number of retired officers who belong to our museum association,” he added. “There are three more admirals, commanders, Navy captains, Army majors and colonels, and there are always two of them standing watch. They are here to answer questions about the artifacts you see in the museum and Monterey’s maritime history. It’s a rich one and a fascinating story.”

It was Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, one of that band of original conquistadores who served in Aztec Mexico between 1519 and 1521, who was the first to sail with two crude ships up the California coast in 1542, landing at San Diego. From his quarterdeck, he later observed Monterey Bay, but he made no landings, merely noting its location on his chart.

Sixty years later in 1602, another Spanish explorer named Sebastian Vizcaino came with a fleet of three vessels. On his flagship, the crew was so afflicted by scurvy that only two sailors could climb the mainmast. Accompanying Vizcaino was his chronicler, Father Antonio de la Ascension, who left the first good description of Monterey, describing it as a noble harbor and “the best port that could be desired for besides being sheltered from all winds, it has many pines for masts and yards, and live oaks and white oaks, and water in great quantity all near the shore.”

The padre was only partially accurate, which led later voyagers into difficulty. They found an open roadstead at Monterey many decades later, but not the great port Vizcaino had promised. The explorer also noted that the soil was rich and at the ideal latitude to provide protection and security for the treasure-laden Manila galleons returning from the Philippines.

Monterey First Priority

When Spain, fearing British and Russian intrusion on the Pacific coast, finally launched land and sea expeditions to California in 1769, finding Monterey was accorded first priority. Don Gaspar de Portola was appointed governor of California, and headed the exploration party. Reaching Monterey, he viewed the site from a vantage point along the Point of Pines, but he failed to recognize it from Vizcaino’s description. The entrance to Monterey Bay is 24 miles wide from Pt. Pinos to Pt. Santa Cruz. Vizcaino had referred to the location as Puerto (Port) Monterey. This gave the impression that it would be an enclosed harbor similar to San Diego.

Portola’s expedition did have a measure of success. Continuing the march north, one of his sergeants sighted inner San Francisco Bay while leading a hunting party. Portola returned to San Diego for supplies. On April 17, 1770, he left on a new expedition to find the elusive Monterey, this time aboard a ship. He was able to recognize the points that Vizcaino had described. The Mission San Carlos was established, but the colonizing of Monterey and San Francisco did not begin until 1775 when Capt. Juan Bautista de Anza led an overland expedition to California from Mexico. Most of these settlers were destitute families living in Sinaloa.

A change in California’s government came in 1822 when word reached Monterey that the Mexicans had revolted against Spanish rule. The governor ordered the royal flag lowered April 11, and the color of the Mexican flag was raised. An oath of allegiance to the new government was recited by the soldiers of the Monterey garrison. The changeover created little excitement. The military had been neglected for so long that the soldiers hoped conditions might improve under a new government.

Richard Henry Dana was a seaman aboard the brig Pilgrim out of Boston, which arrived at Monterey in 1835 to trade for hides. The young sailor kept a log later to be published in 1840 as “Two Years Before the Mast,” a book that was to become a literary classic. Unfortunately for Mexico, it would further intensify interest within the United States about the lands bordering the Pacific.

The young sailor would note that Monterey was “decidedly the pleasantest and most civilized-looking place in California,” and that the soil was “as rich as man could wish, climate as good as any in the world, water abundant, and situation extremely beautiful. . . .”

Influx of Settlers

Such literature was bound to attract unwelcome American settlers, and an influx was well under way when the outbreak of war between the United States and Mexico proved the catalyst for future immigration.

On July 7, 1846, a crowd of curious residents assembled in front of Monterey’s Custom House to witness the landing of Capt. William Mervine and a party of U.S. Marines and sailors from the sloop-of-war, Cyane, then lying at anchor in the harbor. Ships of the American squadron commanded by Commodore John Drake Sloat thundered a 21-gun salute across the bay, and the Stars and Stripes were soon snapping in the breeze announcing the occupation of California by the United States.