USA > California > Santa Barbara County > History of Santa Barbara county, California, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 13
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WASHING DAYS.
Certain days seemed to be set apart for washing the white cotton goods, which were so essential a part of the holiday attire of both male and female.
"Still in use.
52
HISTORY OF SANTA BARBARA COUNTY.
There were no wash-tubs or laundries in these days, but dozens would gather at the springs or the fount- ains of the missions and pound the elothing on a log, occasionally dipping it into the water, until it reaehed the requisite whiteness. The affair was social as well as industrial, and all the wit, sarcasm, and fun of the parties were brought into play, much as related in the Odyssey of similar occasions 2,000 years ago. The love affairs, the latest rumors of inconstancy or seandal were exchanged, so that washing day was looked upon rather with favor than dread. The hot springs were used for this purpose, the hot water being found much better adapted to cleansing than cold water, and hundreds would sometimes assemble there. When the wash- ing was hung on the bushes to dry, the social recre- ations would reach the highest point.
HOSPITALITY.
Hospitality is a growth from several conditions. Plenty is at the basis. We sometimes read of shar- ing the last morsel with a stranger, but a common practice of such a virtue would result in the annihi- lation of both parties, instead of one, and it may be set down as a fact that a starving community will attend to its own wants first. Several cireumstanees combined to produce the hospitality that has justly been the objeet of so mueh admiration. First, the Californians had an abundance; second, they were isolated, and a stranger from another mission, or from another province, had much to relate that was interesting. This condition of affairs prevailed much the same in the Western and Southern States fifty years since. The stranger was expected to be as free with his knowledge as the host was with his fare. Virtues as well as viees have their growth in conditions, though mueh in the case of the Californians must be ascribed to the traditions which had been inherited from Old Spain, also to the religion which enjoined the hospitality to strangers as one of the eardinal virtues. Whatever its source, their hospi- tality, before the conquest had soured the temper and humiliated the pride of the Dons, or before the discovery of gold had begotten the avarice and selfishness of money-making, was unbounded. No stranger was ever turned away from their door, however humble it might be; rest and food was certain. It was even an offense to pass a house without giving an opportunity to proffer hospitality. It was said by one traveler that so great was their hospitality that "Old Sooty" himself would not be turned away if he asked for entertainment, though the inmates might have to say padre nostras until morning. Music, songs, accompanied by the guitar, and even dancing, were improvised for his entertain- ment, and if the subject of the hospitality should prove unworthy, it did not prevent a repetition the following day if opportunity should offer. There was not a hotel in all California until the discovery of gold. Large parties were entertained at the mis-
sions or at the houses of the wealthy. Wherever the circumstances seemed to justify it, money was deli- cately tendered to the visitor by leaving it at his bedside to help himself if he chose. With a saddle and bridle of his own he eould, and was expected to, cateh a fresh horse every morning, turning the ex- hausted animal loose to find its way back to the owner. If he had no saddle an Indian would accompany him to bring it back. Even a condition of war did not change this custom. When Lugo, the soldier, cap- tured José Chapman, the pirate, at the Ortega Cañon, in 1818, and took him prisoner to Los Angeles, he was treated as a guest by the family. The Noriegas, Carrillos, and Ortegas expected to entertain those of their own rank with their retinue of outriders and servants. To have declined accepting their hospital- ity would have been a direct insult, to be atoned for in blood. Many of the Americans, such as Burton, Jones, Thompson, and Dana, were entertained in this way by the families into which they afterwards married.
THE MISSION FORTY YEARS SINCE.
No prominent writer has left a description of the missions as they were sixty years sinee, or at least such a description as we would like to have of the everyday affairs of life, and even twenty years later is getting to be a myth. J. T. Farnham, who visited Santa Barbara in 1840, has left a somewhat lively description of the mission, which is worth preserv- ing. The book is now out of print and but few copies are to be found in California.
THE OLD MISSION.
"The old padres seem to have united with their missionary zeal a strong sense of comfort and taste. They laid off a beautiful garden, a few rods from the church, surrounded it with a high, substantial fence of stone laid in Roman cement, and planted it with limes, almonds, apricots, peaches, apples, pears, quinces, etc., which are now annually yielding their several fruits in abundance. Before the church they erected a series of concentric urn fountains, ten feet in height, from the top of which the pure liquid bursts and falls from one to another till it reaches a large pool at the hase; from this it is led off a short distance to the statue of a grizzly bear, from whose mouth it is ejected into a reservoir of solid masonry six feet wide and seventy long. From the pool at the base of the urn fountains water is taken for drinking and household use.
"The long reservoir is the theater of the battling, plashing, laughing, and scolding of the washing day. Around these fountains are solid, cemented, stone pavements, and ducts to carry off the surplus water. Nothing of the kind can be in better taste, more substantial or useful.
"Above the church and its cloisters they brought the water around the brow of a green hill, in an open stone aqueduct, a rapid noisy rivulet, to a square reservoir of beautiful masonry. Below and adjoining this are the ruins of the padres' grist-mill. Nothing is left of its interior structure but the large oaken ridge-pole. Near the aqueduct which carries the water into the reservoir of the mills stands a small stone edifice ten feet in length by six in width.
FURNITURE - BEDDING
T.JONES & SON HARDWARE, TIN & STOVES
RESIDENCES OF T. A. JONES & S. J. JONES, WITH STORE, CENTRAL CITY, ( SANTA MARIA), SANTA BARBARA CO. CAL.
cala ROBT BRAIN BLACKSMITHING
RESIDENCE & BUSINESS PLACE OF ROBERT BRAUN, CENTRAL CITY, SANTA BARBARA CO. CAL.
53
DAYS OF THE SHEPHERD KINGS.
This is the bath. Over the door outside is the rep- resentation of a lion's head, from which pours a beautiful jet of water. This little structure is in a good state of preservation. A cross surmounts it, as, indeed, it does everything used by the Catholic missionaries of these wilderness regions. Below the ruins of the grist-mill is another tank 120 feet square by twenty deep, constructed like the one above.
"In this was collected the water for supplying the fountains, irrigating the grounds below, and for the propulsion of different kinds of machinery. Below the mission was the tan-yard, to which the water was carried in an aqueduet. built on the top of a stone wall, from four to six feet high. Here was manu- factured the leather used in making harnesses, sad- dles, bridles, and Indian clothing. They cultivated large tracts of land with maize, wheat, oats, peas, potatoes, beans, and grapes. Their old vineyards still cover the hill-sides. When the mission was at the height of its prosperity, there were several hun- dred Indians laboring in its fields, and many thou- sands of horses grazing on its pastures. But its splendor has departed. and with it its usefulness.
" The Indians who were made comfortable on these premises are now squalid and miserable. The fields are a waste! Nothing but the church retains its ancient appearance. We will enter and describe its interior.
"It is 160 feet long by sixty in width. Its walls are eight feet in thickness. The height of the nave is forty feet. On the wall, to the right, hangs a picture representing a king and monk up to their middle in the flames of purgatory. Their posture is that of prayer and penitence, but their faces do not indicate any decided consciousness of the blistering foothold on which they stand. On the contrary, they wear rather the quiet aspect of persons who love their ease, and have an indolent kind of pleasure in the scenes around them. On the other side, near the door of the confessional, is a picture of hell. The devil and his staff are represented in active service. The flames of his furnace are curling around his victims with a broad red glare that would have driven Titian to madness. The old monarch himself appears hotly engaged in wrapping serpents of fire around a beau- tiful female figure, and his subalterns, with flaming tridents, are casting torments on others, whose sins are worthy of less honorable notice. Immediately before the altar is a trap-door opening into the vaults, where are buried the missionary padres. Over the altar are many rich images of the saints. Among them is that of San Francisco, the patron of the missions of Upper California. Three silver can- dlesticks, six feet high. and a silver crucifix of the same height, with a golden image of the Saviour sus- pended on it, stand within the chancel. To the left of the altar is the sacristy, or priest's dressing-room. It is eighteen feet square, splendidly carpeted and furnished with a wardrobe, chairs, mirrors, tables, ottoman, etc.
"In an adjoining room of the same size are kept the paraphernalia of worship. Among these are a recep- tacle of the host, of massive gold in pyramidal form, and weighing at least ten pounds avoirdupois and a convex lens set in a block of gold, weighing a number of pounds, through, which, on certain occasions, the light is thrown so as to give the appearance of an eye of consuming fire.
" A door in the eastern wall of the church leads from the foot of the ehaneel to the cemetery. It is a small piece of ground inclosed by a high wall, and conse- crated to the burial of those Indians who die in the
faith of the Catholic Church. It is euriously arranged. Walls of solid masonry, six feet apart. are sunk six feet in depth, to a level with the surface. Be- t ween these the dead are buried in such manner that their feet touch one wall and their heads the other. These grounds have been long since filled. In order however, that no Christian Indian may be buried in a less holy place, the bones, after the flesh bas deeayed. are exhumed and deposited in a little build- ing on one corner of the premises. I entered this. Three or four cart-loads of skulls, ribs, spines, leg- bones, arm-bones, etc., lay in one corner. Beside them stood two hand-hearses, with a small cross attached to each. About the walls hung the mould of death."
THE OLD TOWN.
The presidio was the first town; this was a space per- haps 1,000 feet square, inclosed with an adobe wall ten or twelve feet high. At the corner were bastions, on which cannon were mounted. The walls would sustain the weight of a cannon, but a heavy discharge of artillery would shatter them and make a breach in the inclosure. The old presidio wall ran nearly parallel with State Street, between that and Anacapa, the south line crossing Santa Barbara Street near the gas-house; the west was not far from the Clock Ilonse, and the northern line on the brink of the ravine, between Santa Barbara and the hill north of the town. The bowlders forming the base of the wall, may be traced a portion of the way. As the settle- ment grew stronger, houses were built ontside of the inelosure, and the walls were suffered to go down. and in places were removed to make room for build- ings. The courts of the Noriega and Carrillo houses were laid out partly ontside and partly within the presidio walls. Forty years ago there were less than forty houses in the town, and no two streets ran parallel to each other.
One writer was of the opinion that the town was laid out by means of a huge blunderbus loaded with adobe houses and discharged from the top of Doctor Finch's Hill. Another one thought that the town resembled a family of pigs of all ages around the maternal swine; the maternal port being represented by the few large houses of the principal people. As has been mentioned before, the tastes of the people did not run to fine buildings. The Burton Mound had the same building on it then as now. The trees around it, which partly hide it, have grown since, but at that time, the building, next to the mission, was the most prominent object seen in approaching the town from the sea.
SUMMER RESIDENCES.
As the winter rains ceased, the people would leave their sinoke-stained adobe houses and go to the country, or on the pueblo lands, where a lot of about five acres was allotted to each family for garden pur- poses. A house ( hacal ) of brush and hides was con- structed to keep off the sun and dew, and the patch was planted with beans, pumpkins and melons. The cattle were driven to the distant ranches or herded
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HISTORY OF SANTA BARBARA COUNTY.
away from the hacals. The summer season was looked for with intense pleasure. Melons, corn, onions and beans constituted their principal food. A few planted grapevines, but these had to be aban- doned in the winter, as at the beginning of the rainy season all went back to the town. These summer residences extended several miles each side of the town, in Carpenteria and La Patera. The hills of Montecito, with their fine streams of water, large shade trees and freedom from mosquitos, was a favorite place, though the cañons above in the vicin- ity of the hot springs were lurking places for the grizzly bear, which would occasionally destroy a gar- den pateh or make a raid on the melons. Here, as elsewhere, social pleasures reigned supreme. The work of house-keeping was light. The juicy melon was food and drink. The beans, onions and corn, with a little dried beef, furnished a more substantial meal, and when a gay caballero came charging up to the hacal with fiery horse and jingling spurs, the cup of happiness was full. The summer was spent in drying beef and laying up a store of corn, beans and onions for the winter. This was the work of the women and children. The men were off with the herds of cattle and sheep and were received as visi- tors to be fêted and feasted when they made their appearance.
AMUSEMENTS.
There was no lack of things to keep the spirits up. The laity had not settled here to harass their souls with penanees, or to weep over the sins of their grandmother Eve. They believed in enjoying the sunshine and the fruits the sunshine would bring. There was no sour-faced Puritan among them preach- ing abstinence from food, the mortification of the flesh, or the sin of having a cheerful spirit. The flowers were not made to be miserable, neither were bright-eyed, laughing maidens, or young men rejoicing in their strength, and so the dance was in vogne, where the graceful carriage was learned in keeping step to the musie of the violin and guitar. The long soft moonlight evenings of the winter were spent in social enjoyments, and the dance and flash- ing eyes revealed the tale no lips might tell, of the depth of woman's love and man's adoration. The warm, but not enervating climate, the abundance of food, the manly exercises of horseback riding and handling of cattle, the absence of care and anxiety, had evolved the highest physical perfection in man, and the perfection of beauty in woman. Perhaps in no place in the world, not excepting even
"The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece ! Where burning Sapho loved and sung,"
is better adapted to the development of physical beauty, than the mild climate of Santa Barbara. When time shall have changed the almost insane fury of the Americans for making money into a sense of rational enjoyment of the blessings we have; when the irritable temperament marking the spirit of the
dyspeptic and thin and dangerous man, Shakes- peare speaks of, shall have given place to placid sweetness, as it will in half a century, then, and not till then, will the Anglo-Saxon belle rival her dark- eyed Castilian sister. Much of this beauty remains to their descendants, notwithstanding the misfortunes of the Californians. A walk along the streets at sunset, when the shutters are opened to let in the cool air of the evening, will frequently bring a view of the glorious black eye so full of hope and love and joy, that one glance would make a priest forget his vows, or a sage his philosophy. The writer, in a recent trip to Santa Barbara on the steamer, fell in company with a company of Eastern tourists, who wished to see some of the famed Spanish beauties of Santa Barbara. There was little chance to see them during the short stay of the vessel, but it happened to be on Sunday, and half of the fashion of Santa Barbara was there, and among them a large number of the far-famed belles, who were there to welcome some friends on the boat, whose beauty justified all that had ever been said of it.
HORSE RACING.
Among a nation of horsemen, this would, of course, occupy a prominent position. The beach, at low tide, with its yielding but secure foothold, formed the best of tracks, and on fête days, horse racing beeame a prominent amusement. All kinds of races were in vogue. Races a quarter, half, or whole mile, and even twenty miles were frequent, the latter to test the endurance of the horses. When a race between two noted horses was on hand, the whole country came to see. Cattle and even ranches were sometimes bet on a favorite horse. The mustang, though sure- footed, tough, and eapable of a great amount of rough work, was no match for the Kentucky thoroughbred, and when matched against him, invari- ably lost the race. It is said that the arrest of Isaac Graham and forty others, for an alleged conspiracy, was because many of the natives had lost mueb money in races with his horse. This will be referred to again.
There were other forms of horsemanship in vogue as amusements. One was to pick up an article from the ground while riding at full speed. There were said to be some who could jump a stream, and get a cup of water at the same time. These tricks were done by holding on to the saddle by means of the spurs, and reaching downwards to the water or ground. Another exercise was to urge the horse to his utmost speed, and then suddenly stopping to see how far the horse would slide on his feet; also to race to a given point, and then to stop in the shortest distance. The powerful bit used by the Mexieans, gave one the most complete control of the horse, which would dare any danger rather than feel one pull of the terrible machine in its mouth. The spur, too, in itself, was a monster of torture, when used to the extent of its power. The Spaniards contend
55
SANTA BARBARA AS SEEN BY DANA.
that the whole rig of a saddle horse, as used by them. is more merciful to the beast and safer to the rider. than anything used in the Eastern States. What- ever may be thought of the comparative merits of the respective saddles and other gear, there was no dispute about the merits of the riders, all freely conceding the vast superiority of the Mexicans.
GAMBLING.
They were inveterate gamblers, monte being the favorite game. Until the coming of the Americans, this was pursued only as an amusement. The losses, either of time or money in the matter, were not such as to disturb the general industries, or ruin many of the people. The passion, if we may call it such, was ruinous to the Indian, who, as in all other places, chose to learn the dissipations rather than the industries of the superior race. They would bet their last horse, blanket, shirt, and, in some cases, where there was an acknowledged value to the arti- ele, their wives. The results to them were poverty and extinction.
VISITING RANCHES.
During the life of the Noriega, business had to be carried on systematically. He visited his several ranchos once a year, and the thousands of cattle had to be driven in herds for review before him. as he sat smoking his pipe, and partaking of his wines. This habit he kept up as long as he was able to travel. In his last years he traveled in a kind of wagon drawn by oxen. Beds and cooking conveniences were taken along. Traveling by easy stages, he was able to see his ranches. The cavalcade, which amounted to fifty or sixty persons, would start from Santa Barbara in the morning. At night he would be at Carpenteria, a camp having been prepared for him. By the third or fourth day he would arrive at the Las Posas or Simi, where the vaqueros would marshal the stock for review. It is said that in his later days his boys would deceive him as to the num- bers. by driving the same herd in review several times. This was, to some extent, necessary to eover up their peccadillos, for it is related of them that when they wanted a lark, they would drive off a herd of cattle, and sell them to cover expenses. Sometimes a couple of hundred were neeessary to make things even. On one occasion one of them had 2,300 head in motion for this purpose. The old patriarch, how- ever, learned of this, and intercepted the drove. In the early fifties, his annual sales would amount from 850,000 to $100,000 annually. The money was kept in a room under lock in open boxes. It is said that his younger sons, who were not equal to driving off a herd of cattle, would abstract the coin from the boxes by reaching it through a hole in the ceiling with a stick tipped with asphaltum.
CHAPTER XII.
SANTA BARBARA AS SEEN BY DANA.
Description of the Harbor-Santa Barbar ..- Method of Landing - A Southeaster-Taking on Passengers.
THE best picture of Santa Barbara, as it existed forty years since, was written by R. H. Dana in his " Two Years Before the Mast." He became one of the best writers of our day. At that time he was a student in Harvard College. His health was not quite perfect and his friends deemed it best that he go on a long sea voyage and perform the duties of a common sailor. The result was restored health and the most charming book on sailor life, perhaps, that was ever written. He spent some months on this coast, and has left us a pen picture of Santa Barbara. which is much better than anything the writer of this work can do, and that must be the excuse for appropriating so much of it.
DESCRIPTION OF THE HARBOR.
"The bay, or, as it was commonly called, the canal of Santa Barbara, is very large, being formed by the main-land on one side (between Point Concepcion on the north and Point Santa Buenaventura on the south), which here bends like a erescent, and by three large islands opposite to it and at a distance of some twenty miles.
" These points are just sufficient to give it the name of a bay, while at the same time it is so large and so much exposed to the southeast and northwest winds that it is little better than an open roadstead; and the whole swell of the Pacific Ocean rolls in here before a southeaster, and breaks with so heavy a surf in the shallow waters that it is highly dangerous to lie near in to the shore during the southeaster season, that is between the months of November and April.
" This wind (the southeaster) is the bane of the coast of California. Between the months of Novem- ber and April (including a part of each), which is the rainy season in this latitude, you are never safe from it; and accordingly in the ports which are open to it, vessels are obliged. during these months, to lie at anchor at a distance of three miles from the shore. with slip-ropes on their cables, ready to ship and go to sea at a moment's warning. The only ports which are safe from this wind are San Francisco and Mou- terey in the north and San Diego in the south.
"As it was Jannary when we arrived, and the middle of the southeaster season, we came to anchor at the. distance of three miles from the shore, in eleven fathoms of water, and bent a slip-rope and buoys to our cables, cast off the yard-arm gaskets from the sails, and stopped them all with rope-yarnr. After we had done this the boat went ashore with the captain, and returned with orders to the mate to send a boat ashore for him at sundown. I did not go in the first boat, and was glad to hear that there was another going before night, for after so long a voyage as ours had been. a few hours seem to be a long time to be in sight and out of reach of land. We spent the day on board in the usual duties; but as this was the first time we had been without the captain, we felt a little more freedom, and looked about us to see what sort of a country we had got into and were to pass a year or two of our lives in.
" It was a beautiful day, and so warm that we
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HISTORY OF SANTA BARBARA COUNTY.
wore straw hats, duck trowsers, and all the summer gear. As this was midwinter it spoke well for the climate, and we afterwards found that the ther- mometer never fell to the freezing point throughout the winter, and that there was very little difference between the seasons, except that during a long period of rainy and southeasterly weather, thick elothes were not uncomfortable. The large bay lay about us nearly smooth, as there was hardly a breath of wind stirring, though the boat's crew who went ashore told us that the long ground swell broke into a heavy surf on the beach. There was only one vessel in the port, a long, sharp brig of about 300' tons, with raking masts and very square yards, and English colors at her peak.
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