USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego > History of San Diego, 1542-1908 : an account of the rise and progress of the pioneer settlement on the Pacific coast of the United States, Volume I > Part 2
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678
Point Loma and the Silver Gate
690
Battleships in the Harbor
692
La Playa, showing Quarantine Station, etc.
698
Lighthouse on Ballast Point
699
Old Government Barracks
700
Coronado Tent City
708
Automobile Track at Lakeside
710
C. D. Rolfe
711
View of La Jolla.
712
Katherine Tingley
716
AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
N WRITING this book I have kept several ob- jects prominently in mind. First of all. I I have aimed to make a faithful collection of all essential facts pertaining to the history of San Diego, from the day of its discovery by Europeans down to the time in which we are living. To this end, public records have been examined ; scores of volumes of history, bi- ography, reminiscence, even of fiction, have been studied; news- paper files have been patiently searched ; and living pioneers have been interviewed by stenographers. In this hunt for information I have constantly employed one exceedingly competent assistant and, for much of the time, two or three others. As a result, materials have been collected in excess of my ability to use them in this volume, but they will be preserved in some public place for the benefit of students and of the future historian.
In the second place, I have endeavored to save from ob- livion the rich traditions which cluster about the life of Old San Diego, a place which has all but perished from the earth, vet which should ever possess an absorbing interest not only for those who dwell about the shores of San Diego Bay, but for all students of American history. Plymouth, Massachusetts, is a place of no great modern importance, yet it is one of the shrines of the American people and the traditions of its set- tlement and growth in the quiet years of the seventeenth cen- tury have been written again and again, and will be read with fascinated interest by all future generations. Old San Diego possesses much the same historical pre-eminence, but its claims have been neglected by nearly all writers of American history, including those who prepare text-books for our children. It is, therefore, without apology that a large portion of this work is devoted to Old Town, including some account of the Spanish and American families who were associated with its political, social and commercial life. My only regret is that an entire volume could not be given to this phase of our annals.
I am keenly aware of the fact that this book contains much which will be chiefly valuable for reference purposes. There are many things which must be collected and preserved in a local history, but which do not lend themselves to literary
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
treatment nor belong strictly to the narrative which interests the general reader. This observation applies to accounts of organizations no one of which includes more than a small part of the community, vet each of which has its own peculiar publie. It should be remembered also that the web of our history is woven of many separate threads, and that none of these is withont influence in making the color and substance of the whole fabric. In the department of the work entitled, "Institutions of Civic Life." the reader will find many of the most significant facts of our progress as a community.
Acknowledgments are due to many persons for assistance rendered in assembling the facts for this book. The late E. W. Morse was extremely helpful, and the last days of his life were given freely to lengthy interviews and the explanation of old documents. "Father" Horton patiently submitted to cross-examination on several occasions, furnishing impressions of his own period which might otherwise have been lost. Judge M. A. Luce and Daniel Cleveland have been constantly con- sulted and have rendered invaluable assistance, with the ut- most patience and courtesy. To E. F. Parmelee, business manager of the San Diego Union, apologies are due, as well as sincere thanks, for he allowed his office to be enmbered for weeks at a time with desk and typewriter while the newspaper files were being searched in the interest of this work. Mrs. Davison, Librarian of the San Diego Public Library, the author- ities of the University Library, at Berkeley, and the State Librarian at Sacramento, co-operated in securing rare volumes needed for consultation. To these, and to many other persons, who helped in various ways, and especially to living pioneers who supplied recollections of men and events (their names are mentioned in connection with their stories in the text), the author's warmest thanks are tendered.
The project of writing this work originated not with me, but with Nathan Watts, who has long felt a deep interest in our local history and who has been strongly impressed with the im- portance of collecting and preserving authentic records of the past, and especially the recollections of old settlers, while it was vet possible to do so. Mr. Watts has been the constant friend of the enterprise, and is entitled to a very large share of any credit that may be due for the performance.
It is also with mmeb pleasure that I acknowledge my indebt- edness to my chief assistant in the preparation of this volume. Millard F. Hudson. An indefatigable scholar and worker. the book could not have been prodneed at this time, nor at any time with the degree of thoroughness with which I am sure it has been done, without the assistance derived from his enthu- siasm, intelligence, and devotion. Much of the narrative portion
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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
of the work stands substantially as he prepared it in his full notes of interviews and abstracts from documents and other authoritative sources. This being so, he is to be regarded as joint-author of the work.
Finally, grateful acknowledgment must be made to nearly one hundred prominent citizens whose generosity and civic pride prompted them to subscribe various sums toward a pub- lication fund. It was realized at the beginning that the pro- dnetion of a volume entailing an expenditure of several thousand dollars, and wholly devoid of "paid biographies" and commercial "write-ups," could not be hazarded on the prospects of sales within a limited field. The financial problem was solved by subscriptions for books at prices in excess of the publisher's rate to the public. These prices are of various amounts voluntarily fixed by the subscribers, but sufficient in the aggregate to reduce the risk of publication to a point where it becomes feasible. Nothing in the book is influenced in the slightest degree by pecuniary considerations. No one has been included in text or illustration because he subscribed to the publication fund, nor has any one been omitted because he failed to do so. The effort has been to produce real history and real literature, and to measure men and events by no other standard.
Writing the book in the course of my profession as a literary man, it has yet been largely a labor of love, and I hope it may be regarded in the future as a service to a people who have honored me with constant evidences of their friendship, and even as a modest memorial to my citizenship among them.
WILLIAM E. SMYTHE.
San Diego, California,
January 1, 1907.
INTRODUCTION
THE HISTORICAL PRE-EMINENCE OF SAN DIEGO
T
HE CIVILIZATION of California, and of the whole Western Coast now belonging to the United States, began on the shores of San Diego Bay. What Plymouth is to New Eng- land and the region facing the Atlantic, San Diego is to the great empire which faces the Pacific.
This fact is not appreciated as it deserves to be by readers of history generally, nor by the people of Cal- ifornia, nor even by the people of San Diego. Here by the Southwestern Gateway of the Republic should be one of the great shrines of historical America, where pilgrims should come by thousands to pay homage to the past, and where monuments should be erected by this generation, to be bequeathed to the keeping of generations yet to come.
Plymouth and San Diego! Each the scene of the first en- during settlement on its own side of the continent; each the off- spring of religious zeal; each planted by those who, building better than they knew, became the pioneers of a movement which contributed immeasurably to the betterment of mankind; and each showing the way for millions to carve homes from the wilderness-the one by elearing the forest, the other by irri- gating the desert !
Nor is this the whole of San Diego's claim to everlasting dis- tinction in human history. Not only was it the birthplace of civilization on the Pacific Coast of the United States, but it was also the scene of the first discovery of that coast by the Spanish explorers of the Sixteenth Century. Thus it happened that the first European footprint was indelibly impressed on the shores of San Diego Bay. Surely, there is no other spot so precious in the entire continental expanse from Plymouth Rock to Point Loma! This leads me to ask if there is any logical relation between the history of such a city and its future growth.
It is unquestionably true that mere priority of settlement, even when this priority is a matter of large historical conse- quence, does not guarantee the growth, nor even the permanence. of a community. Jamestown in Virginia, where English-speak- ing men first built their homes in America, long since perished
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
from the earth, leaving barely enough ruins to mark the site. Even at Plymouth, where the community has enjoyed a vigorous and continuous existence since 1620, there was a population of less than ten thousand, according to the census of 1900. On the other hand, the metropolis of New England has grown up where John Winthrop colonized his English followers in 1630, and the metropolis of the nation has developed where the Dutch founded New Amsterdam in 1623.
There can be little question that priority of settlement and its resulting historical pre-eminence are assets of extraordinary value when joined to the possession of great natural advan- tages. There was no good reason why Plymouth should become a large city, for neither agriculture, commerce, nor mamifac- tures belonged to it by natural right. Jamestown was destroyed in the so-called Bacon's Rebellion of 1676, and never afterwards rebuilt, because there were much better locations elsewhere. But Boston and New York enjoyed strategie locations and were thus able to reap the benefits of their early settlement and the fame which it brought them. It is to the latter class that San Diego belongs. Hence, its historical pre-eminence ought to count heavily as a factor in its future growth and ultimate greatness.
Western cities do not patiently await the slow accretions of time. They reckon in decades where the older cities of the East measure their growth by centuries. Their effort at advancement takes the form of fierce competition among themselves in seek- ing to attract the attention of the outside world as a means of reinforcing their capital and recruiting their citizenship. In California, this competition is more conspicuously in evi- dence than anywhere else in the United States. San Diego, alone, can challenge the attention of the work by saying :
Here came the Spanish discoverer to behold for the first time the Pacific Coast of what is now the United States. Here, too. is the Plymouth of the West, where the European first built his home and reared the Cross. Here was the first town, the first irrigation ditch, the first cultivated field, the first school. and the first of those historie missions which ushered in the Christian era in California. And here we are building a mighty city as an everlasting monument to the Pilgrim Fathers of the West.
If the publication of this work could be attended by a result above all others gratifying to me, it would fix the historical pre- eminence of San Diego as firmly and clearly in the publie mind as the historical pre-eminence of Plymouth has been established for many generations by its faithful historians. And if it could produce a further result in line with this, it would inspire the people of San Diego to the preservation of all the precions landmarks of the carly time and the creation of -enduring
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HISTORICAL PRE-EMINENCE
memorials worthy of their history. With the rise of the city to a place of commanding influence in the new world of the Pacific, and the dawn of a new era in the development of the vast region which traces the beginnings of its history to this spot, the time has come when San Diego can no longer afford to be careless of its past, any more than it can afford to negleet its future. And it is quite undeniable that San Diego has been careless of its past. Not only so, but it has tamely acquiesced in similar carelessness on the part of those whose business it is to record the truth of history and to preserve the priceless evidences of civilized man's earliest dominion on these shores.
Even the name of Cabrillo is but little known to American . school children, still less to general readers. What is yet more strange, the name of this historic man is neglected by the com- pilers of enevelopedias and biographical dictionaries. You may consult standard works of reference without discovering the man who discovered California. Sir Francis Drake has been more fortunate and reaped a larger renown for a perform- ance of less value, as historieal values are usually reckoned. San Diego owes it to its own fame, as well as to Cabrillo's, to celebrate the achievement of the pioneer navigator and to erect a splendid memorial in his honor. As Farragut stands guard in Madison Square, and as Colonel Shaw yet marches among his men in St. Gaudens' noble monument fronting the Boston State House, so Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo should look upon the faces of passing generations of Californians in one of the pub- lic places of San Diego.
The Old Presidio Hill, overlooking Old Town, should be per- petually preserved and made the object of sacred and loving care, for upon that hill the first home and the first church were builded, and there the music of the mission bell first broke the silence.
The hand of decay, now lying so heavily upon the Mission establishment which dominated San Diego and its surroundings for seventy years, should be sharply arrested. for the complete obliteration of that eloquent ruin is unthinkable to men and women who have any reverence for the past.
The battle-field of San Pasqual should be marked in some appropriate way; and there are a score of other simple acts which should be performed by a people who stand between the past and the future and whose obligations extend to both.
Most important and beautiful of all, at some sightly point in the great park, a noble monument should be reared by Protest- ant hands to the memory of the Catholic Fathers.
Through these pages, I trust it is given me to speak not only to a present citizenship, but to a future citizenship who shall hereafter dwell upon the sunny slopes of San Diego and come
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
into a great heritage of memories and achievement. And to the men and women of a later time, as to those of today. I would say: Guard well the City's fame, and the fame of the men whose toils and sacrifices gave it birth.
MEDALLION GIVEN AN INDIAN GIRL BY FATHER SERRA
PART FIRST Period of Discovery and Mission Rule
CHAPTER I.
THE SPANISH EXPLORERS
TAND upon the heights in the sunny afternoon and turn your eyes to the dazzling waste of S waters, and, with the slightest exercise of imagination, you may see them yet-those Spanish ships that crept up the coast, then headed for the Silver Gate, in September, 1542. Quaint craft they were, with their round bows and square sterns and their poop decks rising in the air, so that they seemed about as high as they were long. Although small. when compared with the standards of today - only three or four hundred tons - there was a certain grandeur about them which does not attach to the modern liner. Somehow, they suggested the poverty-stricken Spanish gentle- man who manages to keep his pomp and pride on an empty stomach. For there were paint and gold, carvings and embla- zonry of armorial bearings, but there was probably very little to eat, especially in the forecastle.
It is a marvel that they could make long voyages in those days. The ships were clumsy, hard to handle, capable of carry- ing but a small spread of canvas in anything approaching a strong breeze, and sailed sidewise almost as well as forward. They seemed to invite every peril that goes with the sea. Be- sides, the lack of condensed foods, of facilities for refrigera- tion, and of sanitary knowledge, entailed hardship and privation upon those who set out upon long voyages into regions of the earth but vaguely known. It is little wonder that sailors died like flies from causes which were comprehensively characterized as scurvy, though in many cases the trouble was simply starvation. And yet those two ships which had pitched and rolled along their uncertain way from Mexico made a brave sight as they swept in upon the smooth waters of San Diego Bay and dropped their anchors under the shelter of Point Loma. They were the first ships that ever rested on those waters - the San Salvador and the Victoria - and a new era had dawned upon the world of the Pacific when Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain, looked up and down the bay, around the encircling shores, and
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
then to the hills and mountains that make the noble back- ground.
It was the last aet in the great drama of Spanish discovery which began with Columbus fifty years before. A train of events in which he had no part made Cabrillo the star per- former and placed in his hand the Jaurel of lasting renown. Hernando Cortés had set his heart on exploring the mysterious land which lay to the north of Mexico and was popularly believed to be India. He had expected that this would be the crowning glory of his career, but Charles V. was unwilling to see the figure of Cortés grow larger, lest he should set up an empire of his own and divide the glory of Spain. Thus it happened that Mendoza was made Viceroy of the Spanish pos- sessions in the New World and Cortés returned to complain to the King. He never saw New Spain again, and his dream of northern exploration vanished forever.
One of his former lieutenants, Pedro de Alvarado, had cherished the same ambition and proceeded to build ships as a means of carrying it into effect. He was in favor with the court and with Mendoza, and thus enabled to proceed with his plans. But Fate did not intend that Alvarado should realize the dream of Cortés and become the discoverer of a northern realm. He was drawn into a war with the Mixton Indians in Mexico and killed while assaulting one of their strongholds. Thus it happened that Cabrillo sailed northward from Nativ- idad, Mexico, on June 17, 1542, on the long-deferred voyage of discovery.
Fortunate, indeed, is the discoverer in the quality of his fame. The achievement of the soldier, of the scholar, of the statesman, of the founder of institutions may be surpassed in subsequent times and relegated to comparative obscurity by those who achieve even more greatly; but the claim of the dis- coverer cannot be superseded. His distinction endures with the lands he brought to light and gains with their growth through the centuries. California is yet in its infancy, so that it may be said that the day of Cabrillo's greatest glory will come in the future.
The historie sailor knew a good harbor when he saw it and was the first of a long line of mariners to realize that the bay of San Diego is a spot favored by nature and destined for great things. "A land-locked and very good harbor," he called it, and gave it the name of San Miguel. On the very day of his arrival, he sent a small boat "farther into the port. which was large." While it was anchored "a very great gale blew from the southwest." but this did not disturb the boat and its occupants. "The port being good, we felt nothing," says the narrative, which is only too meager.
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CABRILLO AND THE INDIANS
-
SHIP OF CABRILLO'S TIME
"The ships were clumsy, hard to handle, capable of carrying but a small spread of canvas in anything approaching a strong breeze, and sailed side-wise almost as well as forward."
The explorer sent a party ashore to replenish his supply of water. They landed on Point Loma and followed the river channel until they found a pool. It was the driest season of the year, and then, as now, the San Diego River was a little short of water at that season. It was late in the day when the party set ont, and dark when they started to return. They chanced upon the shores of False Bay and looked in vain for the ships. The mistake was natural enough under the circum- stances, and the traveller who approaches the city by rail generally falls into the same error of mistaking False Bay for the true bay of San Diego when he catches his first glimpse of the country. The sailors camped for the night, but were found early the next morning by another party and guided back to the ships.
It was not long before the Indian inhabitants discovered the presence of the strangers. Word of the extraordinary event must have passed rapidly from mouth to mouth, and doubtless
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
the story of it was handed down from father to son for many a long year. In the account of the voyage written by one of Cabrillo's companions, and translated and published by the Government in a report of the United States Geographic Sur- veys in 1879, this interesting statement appears :
And the following day, in the morning, there came to the ship three large Indians, and by signs they said that there were traveling in the interior men like us, with beards, and clothes
JUAN RODRIQUEZ CABRILLO Who discovered the Bay of San Diego in September, 1542, and first explored the coast of California
and armed like those of the ships, and they made signs that they carried eross-bows and swords, and made gestures with the right arm as if they were throwing lances, and went run- ing in a posture as if riding on horseback, and made signs that they killed many of the native Indians, and that for this they were afraid. This people are well disposed and ad- vanced; they go covered with the skins of animals.
Cabrillo remained but six days in the bay with which his name will be forever associated He took observations with such imperfect instruments as he had and located the place
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THE SECOND EXPLORER
in latitude 34 20' North. (The true latitude is, of course, 32 41' 57.6".) This mistake led to some embarrassment in later times when other navigators tried to find the harbor by means of Cabrillo's notes. The discoverer sailed away for the North, where he died four months later, or January 3, 1543, in consequence of a fall on an island which his companions named in his honor, "JJuan Rodriquez." With his last words, he directed his party to go forward with the original plan of exploration. His grave has never been identified, but it is interesting to reflect that his dust is mingled with the soil which he discovered.
The accounts of Cabrillo's achievement slowly percolated to Spain by way of Mexico, but if they produced any excitement it was successfully restrained for a period of nearly two genera- tions. In these days. when the news of a fresh mineral discovery sends thousands rushing into the desert on automobiles, or to the frozen wastes of the Far North in swift steamships, it would seem that human nature in the Sixteenth Century must have been different if it could receive the news of the discovery of a land like California without feeling an irresistible impulse of adventure. The difference, however, was not one of human nature, but of facilities for spreading information and for transporting men and supplies aeross distances relatively greater than any now known in all the spaces of the world. The development of new countries waits upon events. Not in that time did events call for the utilization of the resources of the Pacific. Fortunately, nature provides an ample margin of resources for the needs of successive generations. When there are no more lands to be discovered, the genius of dis- covery seeks other channels of expression, and men find new and better ways in which to use lands already in their posses- sion. The discoverer is with ns yet, and he will be with those who come after us; but he explores the realms of science, or makes his perilous way to new continents of thought, and so he widens man's dominion of the universe.
It was exactly sixty years before the ships of civilization again appeared off the coast of Southern California. Charles V. passed away without any serious attempt to colonize and develop the region. but during the reign of his son and suc- cessor, Philip II., the possibilities of the peninsula of Lower California, and of the northern regions known as Alta Cali- fornia, were much in the royal mind. It is easy to understand why nothing was accomplished. Philip, busy with his European polities and with the terrors of the Inquisition, had neither time nor money to expend upon the conquest of the wilderness. Such efforts as were made came to nothing, but when, in 1598. a merciful providence removed the royal fanatic from his blood-
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