SS CENTRAL AMERICA DOOR HARDWARE PARTS AND WOOD DOOR – SSCA EUREKA EDITION GOLD NUGGETS – FIRST CABIN TICKET

SS Central America Side-Wheel Steamer

Tragically Lost in a Hurricane

September 12, 1857

“The Greatest Treasure Ever Found”

– Life Magazine March 1992

This group of door parts belonged to one of the many doors that crashed and broke apart when the S.S. Central America violently hit the ocean floor. It is uncertain if this door was an interior or exterior door, however it well illustrates what an 1857 doorknob and latch looked like on board an ocean steamer. On that fateful day in September, some of the ship’s doors ended up saving the lives of several men. Under captain’s orders, doors were among the large pieces of wood that the men could break away from the ship’s structure and throw overboard to ultimately serve as a raft in their effort to save themselves once the steamer ship began to submerge to the bottom of the ocean. Fifty-three of these men would ultimately be saved while over 400 perished. Miraculously, all women and children survived. They were loaded into three lifeboats, then transported two miles through the treacherous hurricane-churned seas to the brig Marine. Among these women was Mrs. Francis A. Thomas, a first-class passenger who had booked passage from San Francisco to New York. Her cabin ticket, which is shown here, was discovered in the ship’s purser’s safe which was recovered in the second expedition to the shipwreck in 2014.

Wood Door Latch Frame – The smaller piece of wood is a section of wood door frame which housed the metal strike plate for a door lock. It consists of five drilled holes plus two more holes for the strike plate attachment.  

Door Lock – The larger piece of wood holds the brass door lock mechanism, attached by four partial screws. The slightly raised circular area fits the doorknob and socket.

Doorknob – Imagine that this patinaed brass doorknob that sat for 128 years in ocean water was once a shiny brass doorknob in its glory days. 

Solid Brass Doorknob Socket – The solid brass circular object is the socket for crystal glass that would complete a doorknob. 

1.5 grams of Gold Nuggets – Gold nuggets like these were all over the debris field surrounding the SS Central America shipwreck. Much of it was from sources such as gold pokes and a saddle bag from the Purser’s Safe. The more than thirty pounds of dust and nuggets recovered from passenger sources supports the historical data that this raw form of gold was literally money in your hands.