An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day, Part 3

Author: Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1038

USA > California > Los Angeles County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 3
USA > California > San Diego County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 3
USA > California > Orange County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 3
USA > California > San Bernardino County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 3

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

funega is about three bushels), of which "ster- ile" San Diego had produced but thirty! This mission also came last in the matter of new neophytes, showing a list of ninety-seven only, while some of the others had more than 200.

Father Junipero when he arrived in Mexico had found the new viceroy, Bucareli, well dis- posed toward the California colonies, and many of the points of the president's memorial were acted upon. Fajes was removed from the gov- ernorship, and in his stead was appointed Cap- tain Rivera y Moncada, instead of Ortega, who would have been chosen by Father Serra. Or- tega was given brevet rank as lieutenant, and put in command at San Diego, now to be a regular presidio.

Father Junipero, President Serra, arrived at San Diego March 13, 1774, on the return voy- age from Mexico. On August 4, Fajes, tlie deposed governor, sailed from the same port.

San Diego did not become a regular presidio until the new reglamento went into effect in 1774, although the stockade was in one sense, practically, a presidio, having two bronze can- non there mounted, one pointing toward the harbor, and the other toward the rancheria.

The records show little of note in the history of San Diego for some months. The letters of Ortega to Rivera complained of a lack of arms and servants at the presidio; supplies were brought by land and by water, and hostile In- dians gave some little trouble on the frontier. At the mission, removed, it will be remembered, some six miles up the valley, affairs were bright and promising. A well had been dug, new land was prepared for planting, and new buildings were erected. Moreover, on October 3, sixty converts had received the rite of baptism. But a heavy blow was impending. So satisfactory, however, were the apparent conditions that, in 1775, Father Lasnén, with a force gathered from the other missions was at a point between San Diego and San Gabriel, for the purpose of establishing the new mission of San Juan Cap- istrano. The natives there were well disposed, the buildings were under way, and all ap-

HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY.

peared in favorable condition, when there ar- rived, on November 7, tidings of a disaster at San Diego, that called the whole company back to that presidio, abandoning the work in hand, and burying the bells designed for the mission, to guard against their possible destruction.

At the Mission San Diego, on the night of No- vember 4, the inhabitants of Spanish blood, eleven in number, had had a rude awakening a little after midnight. The buildings were ablaze, and they were surrounded by a multitude of fiercely yelling savages. At the first aların, the two ministers, Padres Luis Jaume and Vicente Fus- ter, accompanied by two lads, the son and the nephew of Ortega, rushed forth from the build- ing. Padre Jaume turned toward the Indians with the accustomed salutation, " Amad à Dios, lıijos " (Love God, my children), and then he was seen no more by his companions, who ran to join the soldiers at the barracks, which they succeeded in reaching. José Manuel Arroyo, the blacksmith from the presidio, had come to make a visit to his confrere of the mission, and the two were sleeping in the smithy. Arroyo, who was ill, was the first to awake, and seizing a sword, he too rushed out of doors, but im- mediately staggered back into the shop, crying to the other, "Comrade! they have killed me!" and fell dead instantly. Romero, being awakened by that dread cry, sprang from his bed, caught up a musket, and, shielding himself as best he could, he killed one of the assailants at the first shot, and then, favored by the resulting con- fusion, escaped to join the soldiers. The car- penter, José Urselino, had already made his way thither; but not without having received two arrow-wounds, which a few days later proved fatal. The mission guard consisted of three soldiers-Alejo Antonio Gonzalez, Juan Alva- rez and Joaquin Armento, under Corporal Juan Estevan Rocha. There was a fourth man iu the guard, but he was ill at the presidio. There was no sentinel posted, and the soldiers were aroused by the sounds of the attack. Being re- enforced by the surviving friar, Padre Fuster, and by the blacksmith and the wounded car-

penter, the guard defended themselves for a time, but were soon driven from the barracks, which were of wood, by the progress of the flaines. They accordingly fell back to a room of the friars' dwelling, where Padre Fuster sought in vain for his priestly companion. This shelter was also soon rendered untenable by the fire. Thence they ran to a small enclosure of adobe, where they made a last despairing stand. The opening through which poured a dreadful shower of arrows, they barricaded as best they could with two boxes and a copper kettle. By this time, all of the little party were wounded, two of the soldiers and the carpenter being dis- abled. The wounded exerted themselves to the utmost to ward off the fatal missiles. There was a sack containing fifty pounds of gunpow- der, and the burning brands showered upon them, with the sticks and stones, menaced a dreadful calamity from this source, and Father Fuster covered it with his cloak and threw himself upon it, that his body might be inter- posed between it and a spark of fire. All the while he continued to pray unceasingly, as men can pray only in such an extremity of peril; and fasts, masses, and novenas were offered, in promise for preservation. It was these prayers, the fathers declared, rather than their human exertions for defense, that saved thein. They asserted that after the utterance of these vows no one was touched by an arrow. The black- smith and one of the men kept reloading tlie muskets, while Corporal Rocha discharged thein with effective accuracy into the horde of sav- ages, and the astute old soldier, with wily tac- tics, at the same time kept shouting so many orders that the Indians doubtless thought their prey had found reinforcements, and they slunk away when the slow-coming dawn at last ren- dered them clearer targets for sharpshooting. The white survivors, inore dead than alive, crept out of their shelter, and with the neo- phytes and the Lower Californians sought for Father Jaume. All too soon they found him in the dry bed of the creek, stripped and mnti- lated, beaten with stones and clubs and pierced

HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY.

by eighteen arrows. Besides Father Jaume and the smith Arroyo, the carpenter, Urselino, died from his wounds a few days later. The mission defenders felt much alarm for the presi- dio, as they were told the Indians had sent a party to attack there also; but the garrison, consisting at the time of fifteen men, was found unharmed and ignorant of the hostilities. Had the presidio been attacked it would have been utterly destroyed, in all probability, as Ortega's absence left a garrison of only a corporal and ten soldiers, of whom two were in the stocks and four on the sick list. The few men avail- able hastened to the mission, and returned with the lacerated body of Padre Jaume and the charred remains of the smith. The few cattle left were driven down to the presidio, and a few neophytes who came creeping ont from their retreat were left to fight the fire and save what little might be saved.

Two days later the dead were buricd and funeral rites performed in their behalf. On the morning of the 8th the San Juan party re- turned. On the 9th the wounded carpenter died, and on the 10th he was buried. The in- vestigations which were at once instituted showed that the uprising had been instigated by two brothers, apostate neophytes, who had absconded from the mission, probably because a charge of theft was pending against them, and they had visited all Indians for many leagues around, inciting them to revolt and kill the Spaniards, on the ground that these would convert all the rancherias, in support of which they cited the recent baptism of sixty persons. Some of the rancherias refused to join the plot, but mostly they entered into it, and some 800 to 1,000 as- sailants had been mustered. These were di- vided into two bodies, for simultaneous attacks on mission and presidio. The mission build- ings had been fired prematurely; and this had caused the retreat of the other party, through fear of detection before beginning their assault. The silence of the neophytes had been secured, either by threats and force, or else, as the Span- iards inclined to believe, by complicity.

The lesson taught by this calamity did not fail to bear good fruit for the mission. The old huts of tule were destroyed, and the families and stores were removed to the friars' dwelling, which was roofed with earth. Letters asking for aid were sent to Rivera at Monterey, and to Anza, who was approaching from the region of the Colorado, and they both arrived early in the following year. Father Serra did not fail to argue from the disaster the need of increased mis- sion guards, although he wrote also to the guard- ian that the missionaries were not frightened or disheartened. On January 11, 1776, Lieuten- ant-Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza, who had been sent at Government expense with a large train of colonists for California, arrived at San Diego, having deflected his course northward in order to come hither, on hearing of the in- surrection of the Indians, whom Rivera, meet- ing him at San Gabriel, had requested him to punish. Ortega and his little command had been, natually enough, in constant fear of further warfare on the part of the Indians; but such danger as had existed in that direction was dissipated by the arrival of re-enforcements. Indeed, so readily were the insurgents subdued, and so effectively were they punished, that very soon Anza was chaffing to carry out his com- mission, particularly as supplies for his immi- grants ran short at San Gabriel. Accordingly, after some preliminary disputations, he left for Monterey on February 12.

In May, 1776, Rivera visited San Diego, but rather with a view to punishing the Indians, than to rebuilding the destroyed mission. On July 11 arrived Father Junipero, the president, who, backed by the judgment of the viceroy, set to work to'conciliate the natives, and restore the mission buildings. Fired by the enthusiasm of the padre, Captain Choquet of the San An- tonio, proffered the work of sailors and his own labors; and Rivera, with some reluctance, fur- nished six men. Work was vigorously prosc- cuted for two weeks, and the mission would have been finished in a fortnight but for a false alarm of attack from the Indians, which caused

HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY.

the force to be withdrawn, at the instance of Rivera. The arrival of troops for the protection of the missions on September 29 facilitated the resumption of the work, and before the end of October the corps were installed in their new quarters, so that Father Junipero, with a mind at ease, could journey northward to found the mission of San Juan Capistrano, on the site whence the workers had been called the preced- ing year by the attack on San Diego. The sit- uation chosen was near a sınall bay, slieltered from all but south winds, with good anchorage, which for a long time served as a port for the mission cargoes. The native name for this place was Sajirit. The bells that had been buried were dug up and chimed, and on No- vember 1 was formally founded another mission under the jurisdiction of the Sau Diego station, and one which became very prosperous.

In 1777 there were divers troubles with the Indians, consequent upon misbehavior of the soldiers, and these led to the first public execn- tion in California-that of four native chiefs, whom Ortega, in April of that year, somewhat arbitrarily, not to say illegally, sentenced to be shot at San Diego for conspiring against the missions.

An event, notable from the ecclesiastical standpoint, was the issuing by Father Juan Domingo de Arricivita, commissary and prefect of the American colleges, of the "faculty to confirm " to President Junipero Serra. Up to this time the Californians had been unable to enjoy the rite of confirmation, as no bishop had visited the country ; nor was one ever seen here until the province had such a prelate of its own, in 1841.

In 1779 two Indian alcaldes and as many regidores were chosen from among the neo- phytes at San Diego, as well as at San Carlos. In 1780 was completed at San Diego a new adobe church, ninety feet long by seventeen wide and high, strengthened and roofed with pine timbers.

In the beginning of 1781 went into effect the new regulation or ordinance for the government

of California, its chief aim being to bring the establishments here, as nearly as might be, under the system governing the other interior provinces.

Late in 1781 Lieutenant José de Zuñiga took command at San Diego. He remained in charge until October, 1793, and was very popular, trusted by the magnates, churchly and secular, and efficient in controlling the Indians. He was succeeded by Lieutenant Antonio Grajera, whose official record during his term of six years was good, while his private life and in- temperance caused great scandal. He was fol- lowed by Lieutenant José Font, who was the incumbent till his departure in 1803 with a volunteer company.

The white population at this time was about 250, some 160 living at the presidio, the rest at the pueblo and missions San Diego, San Gabriel and San Juan Capistrano. For several years a fort had been projected at Point Guijarros, but it had not been built in 1797. San Diego had little contact with, or knowledge of, the outside world. Wars and rumors of wars were talked of, but with a sense of remoteness and uncer- tainty that must have been at once a comfort and an annoyance. In the winter of 1793, San Diego was visited by the English navigator Vancouver, whose ships were the first foreign vessels that ever entered that harbor. He was received with courtesy by Grajera and Zuñiga, but Arrillaga's severe enforcement of the vice- roy's exclusive policy cansed him to be denied many privileges which he desired, in conse- quence of which he afterward wrote very bit- terly of his treatment at San Diego.

In the winter of 1793 Vancouver anchored near by, but was shown scant courtesy, because of Arrillaga's enforcement of the viceroy's ex- clusive policy. Five years later arrived four sailors from Boston, who had been left on the coast below. Until they could be shipped to San Blas, they were put to earn their bread in the sweat of their brow at the presidio. These were the pioneers of their race at San Diego.

The fifth of the establishments of the southern

HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY.

district was founded on June 13, 1798, at a spot called by the Indians Tacayme. There were present President Lasuen, Padres Santiago and Peyri, Captain Grajera, the soldiers of the guard, a few neophytes from San Juan, and a vast concourse of gentiles. In addition to the usual solemnities, this occasion was marked by the baptism of fifty-four children. Such was the beginning of San Luis Rey de Francia (Saint Louis, King of France), so called in dis- tinction from the northern mission of San Luis Obispo. This church here, still existing, is said to have been the handsomest of all the mission churches. Also the mission became one of the most prosperous. Before the close of 1800 there had been 371 baptisms. At that date the mission owned 617 horses, mules and cattle, and 1,600 sheep, and the agricultural products for the year were 2,000 bushels of wheat, 120 of barley, and six of maize.

At the end of this decade San Diego had passed from a minor rank to that of the most populous of the California missions. The list of neophytes had swelled from 856 to 1,523, with 1,320 baptismns and 628 deatlıs. Only Santa Clara had surpassed this in baptisms for that period. The greatest number enrolled was 554, in 1797. The mission cattle had increased from 1,730 to 6,960, and small stock from 2,100 to 6,000. The average yearly yield of grain was now 1,600 bushels.

It is an interesting fact, as significant of the beginning of intercourse with Americans, that in August, 1800, the American ship Betsy, Cap- tain Charles Winship, tonched at San Diego and took on wood and water. This was fol- lowed in June, 1801, by the American ship En- terprise, Ezequiel Hubbell, master, carrying ten guns and twenty-one men. Orders were re- ceived froin Mexico directing that Anglo-Anier- icans should be treated "with great circumspec- tion and prudence." This and the following year were very uneventful to the Californian colonies.

The utter disregard of American and English traders for Spanish commercial and custom-

house regulations led to several breezy enconn- ters with the authorities. On February 26, 1803, the Alexander, Captain John Brown, de- manded permission to remain for a time in the harbor, to recruit his men from the scurvy. He was granted eight days, and very briskly he im- proved his opportunities for contraband trade for otter-skins, until the night of March 3, when Commandant Rodriguez had seized and stored in the government warehouse 491 skins, taken from the vessel. Brown was then ordered to leave, and he did so. The Lelia Byrd anchored in San Diego harbor on March 17, having come np along the southern Pacific coast, trading and buying otter-skins. She was owned by William Shaler, her master, and Richard J. Cleveland second in command, and their errand was to ob- tain on easy terms the otter-skins confiscated from Brown. Disappointed in this aim, the Americans, who had been civilly treated by Rodriguez, made a nocturnal visit ashore, to try to buy skins against his directions, and the inate and one boat's crew were captured. Cleveland, the next morning, rescued his men at the pis- tol's point, and the vessel ran for the open sea, past the fort's battery, keeping the most dan- gerous positions tilled by the guard that Rodri- gnez had placed on the vessel. In advocating and exalting the course taken by the command- ers in these transactions, not a few American writers have let their race feeling triumph over their judgment, seeming to forget that our compatriots were violating lawful regulations, and thus exposing themselves to all the severity of treatment accorded smugglers the world over.

In 1803, San Diego, with all the other mis- sions, suffered a great loss in the death, on June 26, of Padre Lasnen, whom the records show to have been a man of pure life, of kind and courteous habits, of lovely personal character and piety, yet gifted with great firmness of will; in short, an ideal Father, far in advance of his times.

In 1804 a royal order effected the political division of this region into two distinct pro-

HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY.

vinces, whose names were officially fixed as An- tigua (Old) and Nueva (New) California, Arrill- aga to continue until further notice as governor of the latter-named section. In January, 1804, San Diego was visited by another American ship, the O'Cain, under Captain Joseph O'Cain, who had been mate on the Enterprise when she tonched in 1801. Having no passport, the O'Cain was refused provisions. The scrupnlons administration of Manuel Rodriguez from 1803 to 1810; the rivalry and quarrels of Lieuten- ants Ruiz and de la Guerra, and the death of the veteran Lieutenant Grijalva, are matters to be studied in detail in works of greater space than the present volume. On May 25, 1803, the old church was somewhat damaged by an earthquake; in 1804 the remains of Fathers Figner and Mariner, and the martyred Luis Jaume, were removed to a grave between the altars of the new church. It is probable that this decade witnessed the completion of an ex- tensive system of dam and aqueduct, con- structed under direction of the Fathers, the remnants of which, particularly the damn, were visible up to a few years since. The gain in neophyte population during this period was but five per cent., as against seventy-five per cent. in the preceding decade, while the death rate largely increased. Still San Diego remained the largest of the missions, and was fairly pros- perous, though nearly one-half its cattle was lost. The average yearly grain crop was now 2,300 bushels. Between 1801 and 1808 the olives from the mission orchards were made into oil at San Diego.

In 1812 Mexico was in the throes of her war of independence from Spanish rule. The com- mandant of San Diego wrote to Arrillaga that he had, on learning the news, strengthened the defences of the port, but that the people re- mained loyal, in spite of incendiary documents sent among them. California was affected mainly by the consequent cutting off of supplies. In 1818 occurred "the invasion of the insurgents," or pirates, from Buenos Ayres, under lead of the privateer Bouchard. At the first note of warn-

ing instructions were issued to the command- ants to send to the interior all articles of value, those of San Diego being destined to Pala, where, at the presidio, stores of provisions were ordered gathered. At the news of Bouchard's approach to San Juan Capistrano, Commandant Ruiz at once sent from San Diego an officer with thirty men; and he, sub-Lieutenant Santi- ago Arguello, assisted the friars to finish re- moving valnables and property from the mis- sion, and remained to help defend it. For this good service he was later repaid by the friars with bitter reproaches and accusations of neglect of duty.

In 1817, the traveler, Captain James Smith Wilcox, brought down to San Diego the portion of cloth allotted to that settlement by the powers at Monterey, and he was also allowed to take a cargo of grain from San Diego to Loreto. Thus trade was gradually increasing.

The records of San Diego down to 1830 pre- sent little of interest, treating mostly of the various officials, their genealogy and peculiari- ties. The port was at this time formally opened to foreign trade, and vessels frequently entered. Improvements material were of slow increase; in 1830 there were but thirteen dwelling houses in the settlement, now known as Old Town. A wharf was ordered built in 1828. Governor Echandia made this presidio, for personal rea- sons, his residence, though it was not the official capital. Agricultural matters were now about at their zenith. In 1829 was raised the first American flag at San Diego, not from political motives, but as the signal of a few homesick sailors, left there to cure hides, who wanted company.

In 1829 also occurred the romantic elope- inent of Henry D. Fitch with Josefa Carrillo, one year after the advent of the Pattie party, of some notoriety.

During this period there is a notable paucity of detail in the records, naturally more notable after secularization in 1834, after which there were no more regular mission statistics.

In 1821 there were only five houses on the

HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY.

present site of Old Town, at the foot of Presidio Hill, namely: the old "Fitch House;" a small hense on the land known as " Rose's Garden," which befonged to one Francisco Ruiz, a retired captain; a building on the corner of Washing- ton and Juan streets, which belonged to Doñia Maria Reyes Ybañes, who was tbe maternal head of the Estudillo family, this building being occupied a long time after by Don José Maria Estudillo's horses; a two-story house on Juan street, nearly opposite that last mentioned, be- longing to Rafaela Serrano; and a small house on the Plaza, owned by Juan Maria Marron the elder. Up to the year 1825 the whole civilized population, with very few exceptions, lived within the presidio enclosure, or under the pro- tection of its guns. But about this time there began a display of somewhat more confidence in building beyond those limits. In 1824 the "Pico House" was built on Jnan street, and at soine time between then and 1830 Juan Rodri- guez built a house next to the site where stood . the Franklin House in later times; also the house of José Antonio Estudillo, which the Estndillo family have continued to occupy down to present days; the house of Don Juan Ban- dini; a portion of the building afterwards known as the Seeley Honse; the house of Doña Tomasa Alvarado; the "French Bakery," and the house of Rosario Aguilar.

In 1830 the population of the district, ex- clusive of Indians, was 550; for the next de- cade no statistics exist in this respect, save the note that in 1840 the resident foreigners, that is to say, not Mexicans nor Spanish, were ten, of whom three had families. The Spanish and Mexican population by this time had much diminished, owing to Indian depredations and the scattering of the military forces. The ex- neophyte population would appear to have been some 2,250.

San Diego mission, together with five others, was secularized in 1834, Joaquin Ortega be- comning its major domo in April. By November the Indian pueblo of San Pascual was in ex- istence, having thirty-four families. At San

Luis Rey, Pio Pico was appointed major domo early in the summer. The inventory at San Juan Capistrano showed that the assets were $44,036 more than the liabilities. At San Gabriel there is no record of a major domo.

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Author: Lewis Publishing Company Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1038

Author: Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1038