The Francis Drake Plate Hoaxsters to be revealed!

[Guest Angus MacVox]

The 20th century hoax surrounding that most famous privateer is finally explained. The answer will be the California History Magazine to be published this week.

Saturday, February 15, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- It turns out that one of the West's enduring mysteries -- a tale of 16th century explorers and a perplexing brass plaque -- was a 1930s prank sprung on a university professor by a group of friends.

Tests in the late 1970s proved that the small brass plate with old English inscriptions was not in fact the one left by Sir Francis Drake when he sheltered just north of San Francisco in 1579.

One puzzle remained: just which 20th century pranksters planted the instant-antique in rural Marin County, and then stood aside as Professor Herbert Bolton rushed to tell the world of what he hailed as "one of the world's long-lost treasures."

After 11 years of investigation, a team of Drake enthusiasts says it has unraveled the mystery.

The answer, to be published Tuesday in California History magazine, implicates five of Bolton's acquaintances in a plot spearheaded by a friend, a fellow member of a society of irreverent intellectuals known to mix drinks with their history.

"There's no evidence that they intended to create a hoax that would last," said Ed Von der Porten, the article's lead author. "The evidence is clear that they intended it as a private joke."

What they got was a practical joke that fast lost its humor.

It apparently began with the desire to believe in something too good to be true.

Historical records showed that the English explorer and privateer left a brass plate on the California coast, about 30 miles north of San Francisco near Point Reyes.

For years, Bolton beseeched his students: if you ever hear such a plaque exists, find it, bring it to me.

It was the perfect Achilles heel for five plotters intent on hoodwinking the eminent scholar.

Von der Porten, a maritime historian and president of the Drake Navigators Guild, won't reveal all the details -- he and his fellow researchers plan to tell all Tuesday. On Saturday, he offered this brief explanation:

San Francisco lawyer G. Ezra Dane knew Bolton was fascinated with the brass plate, and he and four co-conspirators decided to simplify Bolton's search -- and get a laugh to boot -- by manufacturing it and having someone "discover" it.

"It's pretty obvious to us that they intended it to stay within their control," Von der Porten said. "Spring the surprise on him, and, 'Ho ho ho, we'll all have a drink over it."'

That never happened.

Sometime after the pranksters planted the plate in Marin County in the 1930s, a chauffeur waiting for his quail-hunting boss picked it up. Weeks later he tossed it into a meadow near San Quentin State Prison, east across the coastal mountains from Drake's landfall.

There, in 1936, a shop clerk got a flat tire and, as he waited for assistance, hiked around for a good view -- only to find the discarded plate.

Bolton's quest was well enough known that the clerk's friend told him to take it to the professor, who quickly accepted it as genuine.

Problem was, the plotters didn't know until too late that Bolton, a distinguished historian at the University of California's flagship Berkeley campus, had the plate.

By April 1937, he was announcing the find in print and at a meeting of the California Historical Society.

The plotters made veiled attempts to warn Bolton, and even produced a second fake plate. But Bolton dismissed all attempts to rectify the wrong as good-natured jabs from friends.

"At that point, of course, it was too awkward to confess," Von der Porten said. "They were in a position that you don't envy."

All the men are now dead. Save a few scattered hints pieced together by the researchers, they took their conspiracy to the grave.

Bolton, who died in 1953, never learned about the hoax.

It wasn't until 1977, when the 400th anniversary of Drake's landing renewed interest in the artifact, that test after metallurgical test showed the brass was rolled and engraved in the 20th century.

"Every one of us is vulnerable to something like this," Kevin Starr, the state librarian, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Professor Bolton believed it because he wanted to believe. But it does not detract from his work."