Spars, Sails and Rigging 

Look up! See the MT standing rigging. As you stand here on the dock, try to trace some lines with your eyes. You will see two masts, the foremast and the mainmast. Each mast is stabilized by standing rigging called stays and shrouds. The standing rigging is not adjusted while under sail, but functions to distribute load across the deck, as there is considerable load on the masts when under sail. 

The sails are set, struck and controlled by a collection of lines called  ‘running rigging’, which is adjusted throughout the sail to angle the sails most appropriately to the wind. This process is the active part of sailing. 

The Matthew Turner has fore-and-aft triangular sails, as well as square sails. This combination of sail types created a ship that was the fastest and most efficient of its time. The square sails give the ship power sailing downwind, whereas the triangular sails are more efficient sailing at a sharp angle up into the wind. 

The Galilee

The Matthew Turner is a 132 foot long ship designed after the Galilee, which was built in the late 1800s by the ship builder and designer Matthew Turner. 

Launched in 1891, the Galilee was known as the “Queen of the Pacific” for almost 40 years. She sailed from San Francisco to Papeete, Tahiti between 1891 – 1896, and was admired as an especially sleek, fast ship. The Galilee set the record for the SF-Tahiti passage on her maiden voyage, clocking 19 days from SF -Tahiti and 22 ½ days on her return passage, where it typically took 35 days to make the journey. This record has never been broken by another wooden sailing ship. 

In 1905, the Galilee was selected to conduct the Carnegie Institution’s Oceanic Magnetic Survey of the Pacific Ocean, as a metal-hulled vessel would interfere with scientists ability to determine the deviation caused by the Earth’s magnetic field. The Galilee completed three expeditions on the Pacific, then was sold in 1911 and re-rigged as a three-masted fishing schooner. 

Beached in Sausalito in 1933, at what is now known as “Galilee harbor” she was central to the bohemian artist live-aboard movement that developed in the wake of the Great Quake of 1906. Her transom was removed and brought to Fort Mason, where it remains on display to this day. 

Matthew Turner – Shipbuilder (1825 – 1909) 

Born in Geneva, Ohio in 1825, Matthew Turner travelled to California to pursue prospecting during the Gold Rush. His efforts proved worthwhile, and he was successful enough in his endeavors to purchase a schooner, the Toronto, with his gold fortune. Industrious and ambitious, Turner employed his schooner in the lucrative lumber industry, shipping timber down to San Francisco from the Mendocino Coast to supply the rapidly growing city. After upgrading his ship several times, he established a successful trading company which brought goods to California from Tahiti. 

The first ship Turner designed was the Nautilus in 1868, having found existing ship designs too slow for his preference. The Nautilus proved to be so fast and efficient that Turner launched into the shipbuilding trade in the 1870’s, establishing a base near Hunter’s Point. This shipyard eventually expanded to Benicia in 1882, where Turner oversaw the construction of practical and efficient ships that would transform the industry standard. 

Matthew Turner designed and built more sailing vessels than any other American shipbuilder. He launched 228 ships in a period of 33 years, 154 of which were built at his Benicia shipyard. 

Shipping & Trade: Brigantines in the Late 19th Century

The brigantine is a model of sailing ship developed in the 17th century as a faster and more efficient evolution from the galleon and caravel, which were used by Europeans to explore and chart the first maps of the California coastline during the Age of Exploration.

Trade Items

In the 19th century, it was a common route for ships to sail from the East coast of North America to California via Cape Horn, often carrying an assortment of manufactured goods and household items to exchange or sell. These ships would then fill their hold with cattle hides, tallow and sea otter pelts to be brought back to the East Coast. 

In this era, before the Transcontinental Railroad or contemporary road systems were established, ships were the primary means of travel and transport for trade-goods across oceans, and remained predominant until steam ships began to replace sail in the early 1900’s. 

Indigenous History of California

We acknowledge that the Indigenous people of North America have populated this land for over 10,000 years. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Coast Miwok lived north of the Golden Gate in present-day Marin and Sonoma Counties, while the Ohlone (Costanoan) peoples lived along the San Francisco Peninsula and south toward Monterey. They lived in close relationship with the natural world, sustainably managing the land through hunting, gathering, and traditional ecological practices long before European colonization.

Spain began colonizing Mexico in the 16th century, but did not discover the San Francisco Bay until the Portola expedition in 1769. The Spanish established the Mission San Francisco de Asis, or Mission Dolores in 1791, making it the oldest intact structure in the city, as well as the Presidio military post. 

The Spanish Mission system sought to convert the Native peoples of California to Christianity and subjected them to widespread oppression of cultural traditions, forced labor, family separation, poor living conditions, and inadequate nutrition. By the 19th century, over 60% of the indigenous population had been killed by epidemics of European-bourne disease, including smallpox, syphilis, and diphtheria, to which they had no historical exposure or natural immunity. European-introduced livestock destroyed the native flora and brought invasive plant species, disrupting the Native people’s ability to independently subsist off of the land using their traditional practices. 

Mexico subsequently gained independence from Spain in 1821, and the territory of California remained a part of Mexico until it was ceded in a vast swath of land in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which marked the end of the Spanish-American war in 1848. 

California was quickly admitted as the 31st state in the union on September 9, 1850, but violence against Native peoples continued. Between 1846 and 1870, California’s Native American population declined from 150,000 to 30,000 people (Madley, American Genocide). 

Alcatraz Island is a significant landmark in the history of the San Francisco Bay. Used as a penitentiary and a prison since the time of the Spaniards, many Native Americans were imprisoned here, including a group of 19 Moqui Hopi in 1895 for resisting the forced matriculation of their children into U.S. Boarding Schools. In 1969, a 19 month occupation of Alcatraz Island was organized and led by Richard Oakes, and a group of Native American college students and activists from the Bay Area. United under the banner of “Indians of All Tribes” this act of defiance was intended to bring Native American history, identity, and the fight for self-determination, tribal sovereignty and traditions to the attention of the American public. While the occupation ended with a forcible intervention from the US Government, it marked a turning point in the national dialogue surrounding Native American rights. 

There are currently 109 federally recognized Native American tribes in California.