Historic Landmarks of San Francisco

The Niantic was an English merchant vessel originally used in the Liverpool-Valparaiso trade. She reached San Francisco July 5, 1849, with 250 Panamanian immigrants. The crew promptly deserted for the gold fields, as was the universal practice at that time. San Francisco's harbor became a forest of the masts of abandoned ships. The Niantic was saved from this ignominious fate when she was purchased by local merchants and hauled into the mud at the foot of Clay Street. There she was permanently moored, given a shingle roof, and divided into stores and offices. The hull was divided into warehouses.

The new owners of the Niantic had no trouble finding tenants. Rentals on board were higher than those in nearby onshore buildings. The vessel made more money for her owners as an office building than she would have as a ship. One of early San Francisco's disastrous fires, that of May 4, 1851, destroyed all of the Niantic but the hull, which was imbedded in mud to eight feet below the water line. The unburned portion became the foundation of the Ship Hotel, purportedly one of the City's finest inns, which was in turn demolished in 1872 to make way for another building.

The Niantic's final resting place is at the northwest corner of Clay and Sansome. The site is now occupied by a 1907 building, 501 Sansome. A plaque, placed September 19, 1919 by the Historical Landmarks Committee, Native Sons of the Golden West, is mounted at the corner of the building, facing Clay Street.