Nova Albion

Since I’m here in Nova Albion for a few more weeks before driving back across country to the east, it is interesting to note some of its history.

Back in the middle 1930's, Beryle Shinn, a San Francisco store clerk was picnicking on the beach north of the Golden Gate Bridge. He found a corroded brass plate measuring five by seven inches. There was some old writing scratched on it.

Shinn sent the piece of brass to Dr. Herbert Bolton at the University of California. He carefully cleaned it and read it. It was dated June 17, 1579. In old Elizabethan English it read in part: "...in the name of her majesty Queen Elizabeth of England and her successors forever I take possession of this kingdom now named by me and to be known unto all men as Nova Albion." It was signed Francis Drake.

Historical accounts of Drake's travels put him in what is now California in 1579. Drake reported he landed near "white banks and cliffs". There were no landmarks like that near where the brass plate was found.

Scientific and scholarly analysis eventually authenticated the plate as real except where were the "white banks and cliffs".

Enter William Caldeira. He convinced authorities he was telling the truth. He said he found the plate four years earlier at Laguna Beach, thought it was Chinese writing, kept it for awhile and eventually cleaning out his car, threw it away near where Beryle Shinn found it.

The place where Caldeira found the brass plate is called Drakes Bay. It has white banks and cliffs.