11/25/2015
For Immediate Release: Campbell Cove State Beach, Sonoma County, CA, November 30, 2015
Sir Francis Drake’s legendary Elizabethan rock fort identified at the mouth of Bodega Harbor, Sonoma County, CA
Author set to release definitive proof that the ruins of the long-sought stone-walled fortress erected during Drake’s epic 1577-80 circumnavigation of the globe are preserved at PG&E’s aborted 1963 “Atomic Park at Bodega Head.”
In his self-published 1997 hard-cover book Drake's Bay: Unraveling California's Great Maritime Mystery (www.Drakesbay.com), (Facebook.com/brian.kelleher.793), San Jose, CA Environmental Engineer Brian Kelleher presented multiple lines of evidence that in June/July 1579, the notorious Elizabethan seadog Francis Drake and his company of about 60 men spent five chilly fog-drenched weeks refitting their treasure-laden, 100-ton Golden Hind at today’s Campbell Cove State Beach in Sonoma County, CA. While touting the latitude evidence as key (www.longcamp.com/nav.html), Kelleher also announced that he had discovered what he believed to be the ruins of the stone-walled fortress that is mentioned as lying at the foot of a hill in the most important and detailed contemporary account.
The Drake fort is depicted in one of the four insets on the Hondius World Map commemorating Drake's “Famous Voyage,” published in Amsterdam about the time of Drake's death in January 1596. The Portus inset is believed by most scholars to have been prepared in London in 1589 from an original sketch Drake drew by compass while at port and/or a related painting. In relation to the 100-foot long Golden Hind, the fort is about 150 feet across on a deduced NS axis. In his book and website, Kelleher shows that the Portus plan is a near perfect magnetic-north match with Campbell Cove allowing for few transparent errors Hondius made in interpreting what was apparently a faded or tattered original.
PG&E was compelled to abort the power plant project in October 1964 after geologists confirmed that the 70-foot-deep pit dug for the reactor (today’s “Hole in the Head”) intercepted a branch of the nearby San Andreas Fault. PG&E sold the property to the CA Department of Parks in 1973. According to Kelleher, the results of his recent investigations have confirmed that either PG&E transferred the property to the state without disclosing a peculiar item of interest by accident or the state paid no heed to the disclosure. For whatever the reason may be, current state park archeologists and other employees are unaware that in creating the Hole in the Head, PG&E contractors had encountered an approximately 150-foot-long, by 30-foot-wide, by 7-foot-high stone-walled fortress which they had left partly intact and partly in ruins under a protective layer of fill. Those involved in 1963 would have logically assumed it was an unimportant retaining wall built during the Russian American Company occupation from 1809 to 1841.
Within a few years after the book’s release in 1997, the state parks department contracted renowned U.C. Berkeley archeologist Kent Lightfoot to conduct investigations to test Kelleher’s hypothesis. The investigations included a topo survey, a magnetometer survey, and a perfunctory assessment by a Cal State, Sacramento geology teacher. Dr. Lightfoot concluded that the magnetometer readings provided evidence highly suggestive of NS linear arrays of campfire hearths buried immediately behind the alleged Drake fort ruins. He strongly recommended follow-up investigations in his August 1999 report.
Having been recently informed by the state parks archeologist in charge of Campbell Cove that there were still no plans to conduct the follow-up investigations more than 16 years later, Kelleher was on location Friday, November 13, 2015, with a state-registered geologist and state-licensed land surveyor, both seasoned pros. Taking advantage of prolonged drought conditions, the investigations included a topo survey, a ground penetrating radar survey, and the collection of sufficient shallow probe samples to visually confirm that the soils in which the alleged intact section of fort wall is embedded are representative of landslide materials. The geologist is preparing a geotechnical report under his signature and stamp which will include some very revealing geologic cross sections. Kelleher who paid for the investigations himself will be sending the report to the CA Public Utility Commission in the form of a press release with a call to action.
According to Kelleher, the 2015 topo survey revealed that the remains of the fortress that PG&E had buried under fill in 1963 had been partially re-exposed in the late 1970s and early 1980s due to a plugged storm-drain inlet causing channelized storm water drainage to burrow through and erode the area. He reports that the ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey provided the clinching proof of Drake’s illusive Elizabethan rock fort: “The GPR images revealed that in constructing the front wall of the fortress and the floor area behind it, Drake and his company hacked out and leveled off an approximately 150-foot-long by 30-foot-wide area of concrete-like sandstone creating a sharply defined engineered ledge at 17 feet MSL. This level ledge is clearly man made, featuring a near-vertical rear wall, now 3-foot-high, that was originally about 8-foot-high pre-PG&E. Equally exciting is that the images confirmed that the 20-foot-wide floor of the fortress lies under loose landslide materials 3 feet below the PG&E cut line of 20 feet MSL. It does not appear to have been disturbed in the least by PG&E’s excavation contractors. Most exciting by far is that the images revealed the undisturbed floor area to be strewn with all sorts of objects including pieces of metal.” The fort is located exactly where Kelleher had pointed to in his book based on visual indications of landslides caused by the English burrowing into the bluff.
What’s next? - Kelleher has sent a private communication to PG&E asking the utility giant to participate in and fund the next round of work. If PG&E declines, he will seek other private-sector sources of funding and attempt to renew the strong interest Time Team America expressed in 2009 just before the show was temporarily canceled. If funding can be found, the next step would be conducted under the supervision of a qualified state-licensed archeologist. It would likely include brush removal, another round of GPR with detailed 3-dimensional mapping, pot-holing, trenching, carbon dating, and archiving. The parks department will hopefully issue the necessary permit.
Brian Kelleher, Principal
Kelleher & Associates Environmental Mgmt LLC
5565 Silver Creek Valley Road, PMB 281
San Jose, CA 95138
cell: 408-712-1214; email: [email protected]
Attachments: (1) Plan view of Campbell Cove showing the approximate location of the Drake fort ruins within the Atomic Park construction zone; (2) Magnetic N comparison of the Portus Plan’s thirteen shorelines, anchorage and fort with corresponding locations in Campbell Cove.
