The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches Part 4

To see what California might have been, we have only to turn away from the mission counties to the foothills of the Sierras, where the mining-camps of the Anglo-Saxon bear such names as Fiddletown, Red Dog, Dutch Flat, Murder Gulch, Ace of Spades, or Murderer's Bar; these changing later, by euphemistic vulgarity, into Ruby City, Magnolia Vale, Largentville, Idlewild, and the like. Or, if not these, our Anglo-Saxon practically gives us, not Our Lady of the Solitude, nor the City of the Holy Cross, not Fresno, the ash, nor Mariposa, the b.u.t.terfly, but the momentous repet.i.tion of Smithvilles, Jonesboroughs, and Brownstowns, which makes the map of the Mississippi Valley a waste of unpoetical mediocrity.

So the Spanish names const.i.tute our legacy from the Mission Fathers.

It is now nearly three hundred and fifty years since Alta California was discovered, one hundred and twenty years since it was colonized by white people, and a little over forty years since it became a part of our republic. In 1542, Cabrillo had sailed up the coast as far as Cape Mendocino. In 1577, Sir Francis Drake came as far north as Point Reyes, where, seeing the white cliffs of Marin County, he called the country New Albion. Better known than these to Spanish-speaking people was the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino, who, in 1602, had coasted along as far as Point Reyes, and had left a full account of his discoveries.

The landlocked harbor which Cabrillo had named San Miguel, Vizcaino re-christened in honor of his flag-s.h.i.+p, San Diego de Alcala. Farther north, Vizcaino found a glorious deep and sheltered bay, "large enough to float all the navies of the world," he said; and this, in honor of the Viceroy of Mexico, he called the Bay of Monterey. To a broad curve of the coast to the north, between Point San Pedro and Point Reyes, he gave the name of the Bay of San Francisco,[2] dedicating it to the memory of St. Francis of a.s.sisi. A rough chart of the coast was made by his pilot, Cabrera Bueno, who left also an account of its leading features.

For a hundred and sixty years after Vizcaino's expedition, no use was made of his discoveries. In Professor Blackmar's words: "During all this time, not a European boat cut the surf of the northwest coast; not a foreigner trod the sh.o.r.e of Alta California. The white-winged galleon, plying its trade between Acapulco and the Philippines, occasionally pa.s.sed near enough so that those on board might catch glimpses of the dark timber-line of the mountains of the coast or of the curling smoke of the forest fires; but the land was unknown to them, and the natives pursued their wandering life unmolested."

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, Father Salvatierra, head of the Jesuit missions in Lower California, fixed his eye on this region, and made plans for its occupation. In this the good Father Kuhn--a German from Bavaria, whom the Spaniards knew as "Quino,"--seconded him.

But these plans came to naught. The power of the Jesuit order was broken; the charge of the missions in Lower California was given to the Dominicans, that of Upper California to the Franciscans, and to these and their a.s.sociates the colonization of California is due. The Franciscans, it is said, "were the first white men who came to live and die in Alta California."

And this is how it came about. One hundred and thirty years ago, the port of La Paz, in Baja California, lay baking in the sun. La Paz was then, as now, a little old town, with narrow, stony streets and adobe houses, standing amidst palms, and chaparral, and cactus. To this port of La Paz came, one eventful day, Don Jose de Galvez, envoy of the King of Spain. He brought orders to the Governor of California, Don Gaspar de Portola, that he should send a vessel in search of the ports of San Diego and of Monterey, on the supposed island, or peninsula, of Upper California, once found by Vizcaino, but lost for a century and a half.

There they were to establish colonies and missions of the Holy Catholic Church. They were "to spread the Catholic religion," said the letter, "among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure darkness of paganism, thereby to extend the dominion of the king, our lord, and to protect this peninsula of California from the ambitious designs of the foreign nations."

"The land must be fertile for everything," says Galvez, "for it lies in the same lat.i.tude as Spain." So they carried all sorts of household and field utensils, and seeds of every useful plant that grew in Spain and Mexico--the olive and the pomegranate, the grape and the orange, not forgetting the garlic and the pepper. All these were placed in two small s.h.i.+ps, the San Carlos, under the gallant Captain Vila, and the San Antonio, under Captain Perez.

Padre Junipero Serra, chief apostle of these Spanish missions, blessed the vessels and the flags, commending the whole enterprise to the Most Holy Patriarch San Jose, who was supposed to feel a special interest in this cla.s.s of expeditions. His early flight into Egypt gave him a peculiar fondness for schemes involving foreign travel. Galvez exhorted the soldiers and sailors to respect the priests, and not to quarrel with each other. And thus they sailed away for San Diego in the winter of 1769.

At the same time there was organized a land expedition, which should cross the sandy deserts and cactus-covered hills and join the vessels at San Diego. That there should be no risk of failure, Don Gaspar de Portola divided the land forces into two divisions, one led by himself, the other by Captain Rivera. These two parties were to take different routes, so that if one were destroyed the other might accomplish the work. In front of each band were driven a hundred head of cattle, which were to colonize the new territories with their kind.

Padre Serra went with the land expedition under the command of Portola.

A barefooted friar, clad in a rough cloak confined by a rope at the waist, looks comfortable enough in the cool shade of an Italian cathedral; but the garb of the Franciscan order is ill-fitted to the peculiarities of the California mesa. For the vegetation of Lower California makes up in bristliness what it lacks in luxuriance. Bush cactuses, so p.r.i.c.kly that it makes one's eyes smart to look at them, and bunch cactuses, in wads of thorns as large as a bushel-basket, swarm everywhere. Before the barefooted Padre had traveled far, so Miss Graham tells us in her charming little paper on the Spanish missions, he had made the acquaintance of many species of cactus.

Horses in that country become lame sometimes, and people say that they are "cactus-legged." And soon Father Serra became "cactus-legged,"

too, so that he could neither walk nor ride a mule. The Indians were therefore obliged to carry him in a litter, for he would not go back to La Paz.

But the Father felt great compa.s.sion for the Indians, who had enough to do to carry themselves. He prayed fervently for a time, and then, according to the chronicler of the expedition, "He called a mule-driver and said to him: 'Son, do you know some remedy for my foot and leg?'

But the mule-driver answered, 'Father, what remedy can I know? Am I a surgeon? I am a mule-driver, and have cured only the sore backs of beasts.' 'Then consider me a beast,' said the Father, 'and this sore leg to be a sore back, and treat me as you would a mule.' Then said the muleteer, 'I will, Father, to please you,' and taking a small piece of tallow, he mashed it between two stones, mixing with it herbs that grew close by. Then heating it over the fire, he anointed the foot and leg, and left the plaster upon the sore. 'G.o.d wrought in such a manner,' wrote the Padre Serra afterwards, 'that I slept all that night, and awoke so much relieved that I got up and said matins and prime, and afterwards ma.s.s, as if nothing had happened.'"

But Father Serra did not show his faith by such simple miracles as these alone. In one of his revival meetings in Mexico, Bancroft tells us, he was beating himself with a chain in punishment for his imaginary offenses, when a man seized the chain and beat himself to death as a miserable sinner, in the presence of the people. At another time, sixty persons who neglected to attend his meetings were killed by an epidemic, and the disease went on, killing one after another, until the people had been scared into attention to their religious duties. Then, at a sign from Padre Serra, the plague abated.

At one time the good Padre was well lodged and entertained in a very neat wayside cottage on a desolate and solitary road. Later he learned that there was no such cottage in that region, and, we are told, he concluded that his entertainers were Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.

Suffering greatly from thirst on one of his journeys, he said to his companions, who were complaining: "The best way to prevent thirst is to eat little and talk less." In a violent storm he was perfectly calm, and the storm ceased instantly when a saint chosen by lot had been addressed in prayer. And so on; for miracles like these are constant accompaniments of a mind wholly given over to religious enthusiasm.

In due season, Padre Serra and his party arrived at San Diego, having followed the barren and dreary coast of Lower California for three hundred and sixty miles, often carrying water for great distances, and as often impeded by winter rains. The boats and the other party were already there, and in the valley to the north of the _mesa_, on the banks of the little San Diego River, they founded the first mission in California.

Within a fortnight of Serra's arrival at San Diego, a special land expedition set out in search of Vizcaino's lost port of Monterey. The expedition, under Don Gaspar de Portola, was unhappy in some respects, though fortunate in others--unhappy, for after wandering about in the Coast Range for six months, the soldiers returned to San Diego, weary, half-starved, and disgusted, failing altogether, as they supposed, to find Monterey; fortunate, for it was their luck to discover the far more important Bay of San Francisco. It seems evident, from the researches of John T. Doyle and others, that the company of Portola, from the hills above what is now Redwood City, were the first white men to behold the present Bay of San Francisco. The journal of Miguel Costanzo, a civil engineer with Portola's command, is still preserved in the Sutro Library in San Francisco, and Costanzo's map of the coast has been published. The diary of Father Crespi, who accompanied Portola, has also been printed.

The little company went along the coast from San Diego northward, meeting many Indians on the way, and having various adventures with them. In the pretty valley which they named San Juan Capistrano, they found the Indian men dressed in suits of paint, the women in bearskins.

On the site of the present town of Santa Ana, which they called Jesus de los Temblores, they met terrific earthquakes day and night. At Los Angeles, they celebrated the feast of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels (Nuestra Senora, Reina de Los Angeles), from which the valley took the name it still bears. They pa.s.sed up the broad valley of San Fernando Rey, and crossed the mountains to the present village of Saugus.

Thence they went down the Santa Clara River to San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara, their route coinciding with that of the present railroad. Above San Buenaventura they found Indians living in huts of sagebrush. At Santa Barbara, the Indians fed on excellent fish, but played the flute at night so persistently that Portola and his soldiers could not sleep for the music. They next pa.s.sed Point Concepcion, and crossed the picturesque Santa Ynez and the fertile Arroyo Grande to the basin-shaped valley of San Luis Obispo, with its row of four conical mountains. At the last of these, Moro Rock, they reached the sea again. Above Piedras Blancas, where the rugged cliffs of the Santa Lucia crowd down to the ocean, they were blocked, and could go no farther. Crossing the mountains to the east, they followed Nacimiento Creek to below Paso Robles, then went down the dusty valley of the Salinas, past the pastures on which the missions of San Miguel and Soledad were later planted. Below Soledad, they came again to the sea.

They then went along the sh.o.r.e to the westward, past the present site of Monterey and Pacific Grove, and on to the Point of Pines itself, the southern border of the Bay of Monterey. Yet not one of them recognized the bay or any of the landmarks described by Vizcaino. At the Point of Pines, they were greatly disheartened, because they could nowhere find a trace of the Bay of Monterey, or of any other bay which was sheltered, or on which "the navies of the world could ride." Father Crespi celebrated here "the Feast of Our Father in the New World"; "or," he adds, "perhaps in a corner of the Old World, without any other church or choir than a desert." Portola offered to return, but Crespi said: "Let us continue our journey until we find the harbor of Monterey; if it be G.o.d's will, we will die fulfilling our duty to G.o.d and our country." So they crossed the Salinas again, and went northward along the sh.o.r.e of the very bay they had sought so long.

Then they came to another river, where they killed a great eagle, whose wings spread nine feet and three inches. They called this river Pajaro, which means "bird," and devoutly added to it the name of Saint Anne, "Rio del Pajaro de Santa Ana." To the memory of this bird, the Pajaro River still remains dedicated. Farther on, they came to forests of redwood--"_Palo Colorado_," they called it. Crespi describes the trees "as very high, resembling cedars of Lebanon, but not of the same color; the leaves different, and the wood very brittle."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Record of Junipero Serra.]

At Santa Cruz, on the San Lorenzo River, they encamped, still bewailing their inability to find Monterey Bay. Going northward, along the coast past Pescadero and Halfmoon Bay, they saw the great headland of Point San Pedro. They called it Point Guardian Angel (Angel Custodio), and from its heights they could clearly see Point Reyes and the chalk-white islands of the Farallones. These landmarks they recognized from the charts of Cabrera Bueno. Crespi says: "Scarce had we ascended the hill, when we perceived a vast bay formed by a great projection of land extending out to sea. We see six or seven islands, white, and differing in size. Following the coast toward the north, we can perceive a wide, deep cut, and northwest we see the opening of a bay which seems to go inside the land. At these signs, we come to recognize this harbor. It is that of our Father St. Francis, and that of Monterey we have left behind." "But some," he adds, "cannot believe yet that we have left behind us the harbor of Monterey, and that we are in that of San Francisco."

But the "Harbor of San Francisco," as indicated by Cabrera Bueno, lay quite outside the Golden Gate, in the curve between Point San Pedro on the south, and Point Reyes on the north. The existence of the Golden Gate, and the landlocked waters within, forming what is now known as San Francis...o...b..y, was not suspected by any of the early explorers.

The high coast line, the rolling breakers, and, perhaps, the banks of fog, had hidden the Golden Gate and the bay from Cabrillo, Drake, and Vizcaino alike. By chance a few members of Portola's otherwise unfortunate expedition discovered the glorious harbor. Some of the soldiers, led by an officer named Ortega, wandered out on the Sierra Morena, east of Point San Pedro. When they reached the summit and looked eastward, an entirely new prospect was spread out before them.

From the foothills of these mountains, they saw a great arm of the ocean--"a mediterranean sea," they termed it, according to Mr. Doyle's account, "with a fair and extensive valley bordering it, rich and fertile--a paradise compared with the country they had been pa.s.sing over." They rushed back to the seash.o.r.e, waving their hats and shouting. Then the whole party crossed over from Halfmoon Bay into the valley of San Mateo Creek. Thence they turned to the south to go around the head of the bay, pa.s.sing first over into the Canada del Raymundo, which skirts the foot of the mountain. Soon they came down the "Bear Gulch" to San Francisquito Creek, at the point where Searsville once stood, before the great Potola Reservoir covered its traces and destroyed its old landmark, the Portola Tavern. They entered what is now the University Campus, on which columns of ascending smoke showed the presence of many camps of Indians. These Indians were not friendly. The expedition was out of provisions, and many of its members were sick from eating acorns. There seemed to be no limit to the extension of the Estero de San Francisco. At last, in despair, but against the wishes of Portola, they decided to return to San Diego. They encamped on San Francisquito Creek, and crossed the hills again to Halfmoon Bay. Then they went down the coast by Point Ano Nuevo, to Santa Cruz. At the Point of Pines they spent two weeks, searching again everywhere for the Bay of Monterey.

At last they decided that Vizcaino's description must have been too highly colored, or else that the Bay of Monterey must, since his time, have been filled up with silt or destroyed by some earthquake. At any rate, the bay between Santa Cruz and the Point of Pines was the only Monterey they could find. According to Washburn, Vizcaino's account was far from a correct one. It was no fault of Portola and Crespi that, after spending a month on its sh.o.r.es, it never occurred to them to recognize the bay.

On the Point of Pines they erected a large wooden cross, and carved on it the words: "Dig at the foot of this and you will find a writing."

According to Crespi this is what was written:

"The overland expedition which left San Diego on the 14th of July, 1769, under the command of Don Gaspar de Portola, Governor of California, reached the channel of Santa Barbara on the 9th of August, and pa.s.sed Point Concepcion on the 27th of the same month. It arrived at the Sierra de Santa Lucia on the 13th of September; entered that range of mountains on the 17th of the same month, and emerged from it on the 1st of October; on the same day caught sight of Point Pinos, and the harbors on its north and south sides, without discovering any indications or landmarks of the Bay of Monterey. We determined to push on farther in search of it, and on the 30th of October got sight of Point Reyes and the Farallones, at the Bay of San Francisco, which are seven in number. The expedition strove to reach Point Reyes, but was hindered by an immense arm of the sea, which, extending to a great distance inland, compelled them to make an enormous circuit for that purpose. In consequence of this and other difficulties--the greatest of all being the absolute want of food,--the expedition was compelled to turn back, believing that they must have pa.s.sed the harbor of Monterey without discovering it. We started on return from the Bay of San Francisco on the 11th of November; pa.s.sed Point Ano Nuevo on the 19th, and reached this point and harbor of Pinos on the 27th of the same month. From that date until the present 9th of December, we have used every effort to find the Bay of Monterey, searching the coast, notwithstanding its ruggedness, far and wide, but in vain. At last, undeceived and despairing of finding it, after so many efforts, sufferings, and labors, and having left of all our provisions but fourteen small sacks of flour, we leave this place to-day for San Diego. I beg of Almighty G.o.d to guide us; and for you, traveler, who may read this, that He may guide you also, to the harbor of eternal salvation.

"Done, in this harbor of Pinos, the 9th of December, 1769.

"If the commanders of the schooners, either the San Jose or the Principe, should reach this place within a few days after this date, on learning the accounts of this writing, and of the distressed condition of this expedition, we beseech them to follow the coast down closely toward San Diego, so that if we should be happy enough to catch sight of them, we may be able to apprize them by signals, flags, and firearms of the place where help and provisions may reach us."

The next day the whole party started back to San Diego, making the journey fairly well, in spite of illness and lack of proper food.

Though disappointed at Portola's failure, Serra had no idea of abandoning his project of founding a mission at Monterey. He made further preparations, and in about three months after Portola's return a newly organized expedition left San Diego. It consisted of two divisions, one by land, again commanded by Portola, and one by sea.

This time the good Father wisely chose for himself to go by sea, and embarked on the San Antonio, which was the only s.h.i.+p he had in sailing condition. In about a month Portola's land party reached the Point of Pines, and there they found their cross still standing. According to Laura Bride Powers, "great festoons of abalone-sh.e.l.ls hung around its arms, with strings of fish and meat; feathers projected from the top, and bundles of arrows and sticks lay at its base. All this was to appease the stranger G.o.ds, and the Indians told them that at nightfall the terrible cross would stretch its white arms into s.p.a.ce, and grow skyward higher and higher, till it would touch the stars, then it would burst into a blaze and glow throughout the night."

Suddenly, as they came back through the forest from the Point of Pines, the thought came both to Crespi and Portola that here, after all, was the lost bay of Vizcaino. In this thought they ran over the landmarks of his description, and found all of them, though the harbor was less important than Vizcaino had believed. Since that day no one has doubted the existence of the Bay of Monterey.

A week later, the San Antonio arrived, coming in sight around the Point of Pines, and was guided to its anchorage by bonfires along the beach.

The party landed at the mouth of the little brook which flows down a rocky bank to the sea. On the 3rd of June, 1770, Father Serra and his a.s.sociates "took possession of the land in the name of the King of Spain, hoisting the Spanish flag, pulling out some of the gra.s.s and throwing stones here and there, making formal entry of the proceedings." On the same day Serra began his mission by erecting a cross, hanging bells from a tree, and saying ma.s.s under the venerable oak where the Carmelite friars accompanying Vizcaino celebrated it in 1602. Around this landing grew up the town of Monterey.

At a point just back from the sh.o.r.e, near the old live-oak tree under which the Padre rendered thanks, there has long stood a commemorative cross. On the hill above where the Padre stood looking out over the beautiful bay, there was placed one hundred and twenty years later, by the kind interest of a good woman, a n.o.ble statue, in gray granite, representing Father Serra as he stepped from his boat.

A fortress, or presidio, was built, and Monterey was made the capital of Alta California. But the mission was not located at the town. It was placed five miles farther south, where there were better pasturage and shelter. This was on a beautiful slope of the hill, flanked by a fertile valley opening out to the glittering sea, with the mountains of Santa Lucia in front and a great pine forest behind. The valley was named Carmelo, in honor of Vizcaino's Carmelite friars, and the mission was named for San Carlos Borromeo.

The present church of Monterey was not a mission church, but the chapel of the _presidio_, or barracks. It is now, according to Father Casanova, the oldest building in California. The old Mission of San Diego, first founded of all, was burned by the Indians. It was afterwards rebuilt, but this took place after the chapel in Monterey was finished. The mission in Carmelo was not completed until later, as the Padre was obliged to secure authority from Mexico, that he might place it on the pasture lands of Carmelo, instead of the sand-hills of Monterey.

When the discoveries of Portola and Ortega had been reported at San Diego, the sh.o.r.es of this inland sea of San Francisco seemed a most favorable station for another mission. Among the missions already dedicated to the saints, none had yet been found for the great father of the Franciscan order, St. Francis of a.s.sisi, the beloved saint who could call the birds and who knew the speech of all animals. Before this, Father Serra had said to Governor Galvez, "And for our Father St.

Francis is there to be no mission?" And Galvez answered, "If St.

Francis wants a mission, let him show his port, and we will found the mission there."

And now the lost port of St. Francis was found, and it was the most beautiful of all, with the n.o.blest of harbors, and the fairest of views toward the hills and the sea. So the new mission was called for him, the Mission San Francisco de los Dolores. For the Creek Dolores, the "brook of sorrows," flowed by the mission, and gave it part of its name. But Dolores stream is long since obliterated, forming part of the sewage system of San Francisco.[3]

Thus was founded

"that wondrous city, now apostate to the creed, O'er whose youthful walls the Padre saw the angel's golden reed."

Meanwhile, following San Diego de Alcala and San Carlos Borromeo, a long series of missions was established, each one bearing the sonorous Spanish name of some saint or archangel, each in some beautiful sunny valley, half-hidden by oaks, and each a day's ride distant from the next. In the most charming nook of the Santa Lucia Mountains was built San Antonio de Padua; in the finest open pastures of the Coast Range, San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. In the rich valley, above the city of the Queen of the Angels, the beautiful church of San Gabriel Arcangel was dedicated to the leader of the hosts of heaven. Later, came the magnificent San Juan Capistrano, ruined by earthquakes in 1812. In its garden still stands the largest pepper-tree in Southern California.

Then Santa Clara was built in the center of the fairest valley of the State. Next came San Buenaventura and Santa Barbara, for the coast Indians of the south, and Santa Cruz, for those to the north of Monterey Bay. In the Salinas Valley, along the "_Camino real_," or royal highway, from the south to the north, were built Nuestra Senora de la Soledad and San Miguel Arcangel. A day's journey from Carmelo, in the valley of the Pajaro, arose San Juan Bautista. In the charming valley of Santa Ynez, still hidden from the tourist, a day's journey apart, were Santa Ynez and La Purisima Concepcion. East of the Bay of San Francisco, in a nook famous for vineyards, arose the Mission San Jose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mission of San Antonio de Padua.]

In the broad, rocky pastures above Los Angeles, arose San Fernando Key de Espana, while midway between San Diego and San Juan Capistrano was placed the stateliest of all the missions, dedicated, with its rich river valley, to the memory of San Luis Rey de Francia. Finally, to the north of San Francis...o...b..y, was built San Rafael, small, but charmingly situated, and then San Francisco Solano, still farther on in Sonoma. This, the northernmost outpost of the saints, the last, weakest, and smallest, was first to die. It was founded in 1823, fifty years after the Mission San Diego.