The following interview was published in Vol. 1 No. 1 of the Golden Hindesight in 1975, a magazine project designed by
San Anselmo teacher, Bernie Griff with his students in the 6th grade class at Wade Thomas Elementary School.

THE SPANISH BREAST PLATE - DON PERRY

PERRY: So,how are we doing here now: What do you want me to tell you?

GH: Mr. Perry, do you know anything about Sir Francis Drake and his coming to Marin?

PERRY: Yes, I do, and this is rather interesting that you should ask me, becasue I mentioned Bolinas here a few minutes ago, and when I was a young boy probably 12 or 13 years old, we went on a picnic one time to a place called Dog Town - now Dogtown.

GH: I've heard of that.

PERRY: You've heard of it... well, it's just about a mile and a half north of Bolinas.

GH: I used to live in Bolinas!

PERRY: Oh, you did!

GH: Yes, I heard something that they found Drake's Fort on Bolinas Beach.

PERRY: Yes, just in the last year or so they found that.

GH: Yes.

PERRY: But, anyhow, we were up there, it's called Coppermine Canyon and I guess there were 10 or 12 of us kids around there, and we were playing "Run Sheep Run." And-uh-I was running up the hillside and I tripped over something and fell and I wanted to see what I tripped over, so I went back and pulled this out of the ground. It was all burned except this one corner and it turned out to be a breastplate. Do you know what a breastplate is? That's a piece of armor that the soldiers wore over their chest to protect their chest. It was very small because it fit us. It fit me, a 12 year old kid, almost perfectly and I can remember I that I put the breastplate up on myself and somebody took a stick - you know - and hit me and it didn't hurt. Well, anyhow, we brought the breastplate back to Bolinas to our place there and it sat up on the shelf for 4 or 5 years and finally one day Mr. Whisby - he was an artist - quite an artist over in Bolinas in the early days - came by and asked me about it and I told him. He said he would give me $25 for it. Well, $25 was a lot of money but I thought - no, I'll just keep it. So about 2 years later, why he came back again and said he would like to have that piece of armor, would I consider $50 for it. Well, I think times had gotten pretty tough in the meantime, so I sold it to Mr. Whisby for $50. The next thing I heard is that it had been taken over to the University of California and had been authenticated over there as Sixteenth Century SPANISH Armor which was the armor that Drake's... uh... soldiers had. From there it went to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and, again, it was authenticated as Sixteenth Century SPANISH Armor. Now, as far as I know, it is in the Bancroft Library over at the University of California.

GH: We just went over to the Bancroft Library and got a picture of Drake's PLATE. Do you know anything about that? We didn't see the armor over there, I wonder where it is?

PERRY: Well, you might ask over there because this is years and years on back here, and this is what I am telling you - somebody ought to have a record of it someplace along the line. But anyway, I can remember also that I put back on that armor after we got back form this picnic here. We, as I say, put it on and hit each other with sticks or baseball bats. Then I finally put the armor up against the wall and shot at it with a .22 and the .22 rifle just wouldn't make any dent in it. So I said to my brother, I said, "Brud, you put the armor on and I'll shoot you, so he put the armor on and I took a shot at him. Well, that was the only shot that was ever made because the bullet didn't go through the armor, but the lead splattered all up and caught him underneath the chin which was kind of a nasty little job to get a few pieces of lead out of his chin. So that is my connection with Sir Francis Drake.

GH: Do you know how much that man you sold it to got for selling it to the Bancroft Library?

PERRY: Mr. Whisby probably gave it to the University of California and I don't know what happened to it after that.