Part 4 (2/2)
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.
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