History of the State of California and biographical record of Coast Counties, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 8

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago, The Chapman Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 752

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

the Mission of San Francisco in 1792, sixteen years after its founding, describes the Indian village with its brush-built huts. He says: "These miserable habitations, each of which was allotted for the residence of a whole family, were erected with some degree of uniformity about three or four feet asunder in straight rows, leaving lanes or passageways at right angles be- tween them: but these were so abominably in- fested with every kind of filth and nastiness as to be rendered no less offensive than degrading to the human specics."

Of the houses at Santa Clara, Vancouver says: "The habitations were not so regularly disposed nor did it (the village) contain so many as the village of San Francisco, yet the same horrid state of uncleanliness and laziness seemed to pervade the whole." Better houses were then in the course of construction at Santa Clara. "Each house would contain two rooms and a garret with a garden in the rear." Vancouver

visited San Carlos de Monterey in 1792, twenty- two years after its founding. He says: "Not- withstanding these people are taught and em- ployed from time to time in many of the occu- pations most useful to civil society, they had not made themselves any more comfortable habita- tions than those of their forefathers; nor did they seem in any respect to have benefited by the instruction they had received."

Captain Beechey, of the English navy, who visited San Francisco and the missions around the bay in 1828, found the Indians at San Fran- cisco still living in their filthy hovels and grind- ing acorns for food. "San José (mission)," he says, "on the other hand, was all neatness, clean- liness and comfort." At San Carlos he found that the filthy hovels described by Vancouver Hvad nearly all disappeared and the Indians were comfortably housed. He adds: "Sickness in general prevailed to an incredible extent in all the missions."

CHAPTER VI. PRESIDIOS OF CALIFORNIA.

SAN DIEGO.

T HE presidio was an essential feature of the Spanish colonization of America. It was usually a fortified square of brick or stone, inside of which were the barracks of the soldiers, the officers' quarters, a church, store houses for provisions and military supplies. The gates at the entrance were closed at night, and it was usually provisioned for a siege. In the colonization of California there were four pre- sidios established, nanicly: San Diego, Monte- rey, San Francisco and Santa Barbara. Each was the headquarters of a military district and besides a body of troops kept at the presidio it furnished guards for the missions in its re- spective district and also for the pueblos if there were any in the district. The first presidio was founded at San Diego. As stated in a previous chapter, the two ships of the expedition by sea for the settlement of California arrived at the port of San Diego in a deplorable condition

from scurvy. The San Antonia, after a voyage of fifty-nine days, arrived on April 11; the San Carlos, although she had sailed a month earlier, did not arrive until April 29, consuming one hundred and ten days in the voyage. Don Miguel Constansó, the engineer who came on this vessel, says in his report: "The scurvy had infected all without exception; in such sort that on entering San Diego already two men had (lied of the said sickness; most of the seamen, and half of the troops, found themselves pros- trate in their beds; only four mariners remained on their feet, and attended, aided by the troops, to trimming and furling the sails and other working of the ship." "The San Antonia," says Constansó, "had the half of its crew equally affected by the scurvy, of which illness two men had likewise died." This vessel, although it had arrived at the port on the 11th of April, had evi- dently not landed any of its sick. On the ist of

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

May, Don Pedro Fages, the commander of the troops, Constansó and Estorace, the second cap- tain of the San Carlos, with twenty-five soldiers, set out to find a watering place where they could fill their barrels with fresh water. "Following the west shore of the port, after going a mat- ter of three leagues, they arrived at the banks of a river hemmed in with a fringe of willows and cottonwoods. Its channel must have been twenty varas wide and it discharges into an estuary which at high tide could admit the launch and made it convenient for accomplish- ing the taking on of water." * "Hav- ing reconnoitered the watering place, the Span- iards betook themselves back on board the vessels and as these were found to be very far away from the estuary in which the river dis- charges, their captains, Vicente Vila and Don Juan Perez, resolved to approach it as closely as they could in order to give less work to the people handling the launches. These labors were accomplished with satiety of hardship; for from one day to the next the number of the sick kept increasing, along with the dying of the most aggravated cases and augmented the fa- tigue of the few who remained on their feet."

"Immediate to the beach on the side toward the east a scanty enclosure was constructed formed of a parapet of earth and fascines, which was garnished with two cannons. They disem- barked some sails and awnings from the packets with which they made two tents capacious enough for a hospital. At one side the two offi- cers, the missionary fathers and the surgeon put up their own tents; the sick were brought in launches to this improvised presidio and hospi- tal." "But these diligencies," says Constansó, "were not enough to procure them health." * * * "The cold made itself felt with rigor at night in the barracks and the sun by day, alter- nations which made the sick suffer cruelly, two or three of them dying every day. And this whole expedition, which had been composed of more than ninety men, saw itself reduced to only eight soldiers and as many mariners in a state to attend to the safeguarding of the barks, the working of the launches, custody of the camp and service of the sick."

Rivera y Moncada, the commander of the first detachment of the land expedition, arrived at San Diego May 14. It was decided by the officers to remove the camp to a point near the river. This had not been done before on ac- count of the small force able to work and the lack of beasts of burden. Rivera's men were all in good health and after a day's rest "all were removed to a new camp, which was transferred one league further north on the right side of the river upon a hill of middling height."

Here a presidio was built, the remains of which can still be seen. It was a parapet of carth similar to that thrown up at the first camp, which, according to Bancroft, was probably within the limits of New Town and the last one in Old Town or North San Diego.

While Portola's expedition was away search- ing for the port of Monterey, the Indians made an attack on the camp at San Diego, killed a Spanish youth and wounded Padre Viscaino, the blacksmith, and a Lower California neophyte. The soldiers remaining at San Diego sur- rounded the buildings with a stockade. Con- stansó says, on the return of the Spaniards of Portolá's expedition: "They found in good con- dition their humble buildings, surrounded with a palisade of trunks of trees, capable of a good defense in case of necessity."

"In 1782, the presidial force at San Diego, be- sides the commissioned officers, consisted of five corporals and forty-six soldiers. Six men were constantly on duty at each of the three missions of the district, San Diego, San Juan Capistrano and San Gabriel; while four served at the pueblo of Los Angeles, thus leaving a sergeant, two corporals and about twenty-five men to garrison the fort, care for the horses and a small herd of cattle, and to carry the mails, which latter duty was the hardest connected with the presidio service in time of peace. There were a carpenter and blacksmith constantly employed, besides a few servants, mostly natives. The population of the district in 1700, not including Indians, was 220." **

Before the close of the century the wooden palisades had been replaced by a thick adobe

*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. I.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

wall, but even then the fort was not a very for- midable defense. Vancouver, the English navi- gator, who visited it in 1793, describes it as "irregularly built on very uneven ground, which makes it liable to some inconveniences without the obvious appearance of any object for select- ing such a spot." It then mounted three small brass cannon.

Gradually a town grew up around the pre- sidio. Robinson, who visited San Diego in 1829, thus describes it: "On the lawn beneath the hill on which the presidio is built stood about thirty houses of rude appearance, mostly occupied by retired veterans, not so well con- structed in respect either to beauty or stability as the houses at Monterey, with the exception of that belonging to our Administrador, Don Juan Bandini, whose mansion, then in an unfinished state, bid fair, when completed, to surpass any other in the country."

Under Spain there was attempt at least to keep the presidio in repair, but under Mexican domination it fell into decay. Dana describes it as he saw it in 1836: "The first place we went to was the old ruinous presidio, which stands on rising ground near the village which it over- looks. It is built in the form of an open square, like all the other presidios, and was in a most ruinous state, with the exception of one side, in which the comandante lived with his family. There were only two guns, one of which was spiked and the other had no carriage. Twelve half clothed and half starved looking fellows composed the garrison; and they, it was said, had not a musket apiece. The small settlement lay directly below the fort composed of about forty dark brown looking huts or houses and three or four larger ones whitewashed, which belonged to the gente de razon."

THE PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY.

In a previous chapter has been narrated the story of Portola's expedition in search of Mon- terey Bay, how the explorers, failing to recog- nize it, passed on to the northward and discov- ered the great Bay of San Francisco. On their return they set up a cross at what they supposed was the Bay of Monterey; and at the foot of the cross buried a letter giving information to

any ship that might come up the coast in search of them that they had returned to San Diego. They had continually been on the lookout for the San Jose, which was to co-operate with them, but that vessel had been lost at sea with all on board. On their return to San Diego, in January, 1770, preparations were made for a return as soon as a vessel should arrive. It was not until the 16th of April that the San An- tonia, the only vessel available, was ready to depart for the second objective point of settle- ment. On the 17th of April, Governor Portolá, Lieutenant Fages, Father Crespi and nineteen soldiers took up their line of march for Monte- rey. They followed the trail made in 1769 and reached the point where they had set up the cross April 24. They found it decorated with feathers, bows and arrows and a string of fish. Evidently the Indians regarded it as the white man's fetich and tried to propitiate it by offer- ings.

The San Antonia, bearing Father Serra, Pedro Prat, the surgeon, and Miguel Constansó, the civil engineer, and supplies for the mission and presidio, arrived the last day of May. Por- tolá was still uncertain whether this was really Monterey Bay. It was hard to discover in the open roadstead stretching out before them Vis- caino's land-locked harbor, sheltered from all winds. After the arrival of the San Antonia the officers of the land and sea expedition made a reconnaissance of the bay and all concurred that at last they had reached the destined port. They located the oak under whose wide-spreading branches Padre Ascension, Viscaino's chaplain, had celebrated mass in 1602, and the springs of fresh water near by. Preparations were begun at once for the founding of mission and presidio. A shelter of boughs was constructed, an altar raised and the bells hung upon the branch of a trec. Father Serra sang mass and as they had no musical instrument, salvos of artillery and volleys of musketry furnished an accompani- ment to the service. After the religious services the royal standard was raised and Governor Portolá took possession of the country in the name of King Carlos III., King of Spain. The ceremony closed with the pulling of grass and the casting of stones around, significant of en-

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

tire possession of the earth and its products. After the service all feasted.

Two messengers were sent by Portolá with dispatches to the city of Mexico. A day's jour- ney below San Diego they met Rivera and twenty soldiers coming with a herd of cattle and a flock of sheep to stock the mission pastures. Rivera sent back five of his soldiers with Por- tolá's carriers. The messengers reached Todos Santos near Cape San Lucas in forty-nine days from Monterey. From there the couriers were sent to San Blas by ship, arriving at the city of Mexico August 10. There was great rejoicing at the capital. Marquis Le Croix and Visitador Galvez received congratulations in the King's name for the extension of his domain.

Portola superintended the building of some rude huts for the shelter of the soldiers, the officers and the padres. Around the square containing the huts a palisade of poles was con- structed. July 9, Portolá having turned over the command of the troops to Lieutenant Fages, embarked on the San Antonia for San Blas; with him went the civil engineer, Constansó, from whose report I have frequently quoted. Neither of them ever returned to California.

The difficulty of reaching California by ship on account of the head winds that blow down the coast caused long delays in the arrival of vessels with supplies. This brought about a scarcity of provisions at the presidios and mis- sions.

In 1772 the padres of San Gabriel were re- duced to a milk diet and what little they could obtain from the Indians At Monterey and San Antonio the padres and the soldiers were obliged to live on vegetables. In this emergency Lieu- tenant Fages and a squad of soldiers went on a bear hunt. They spent three months in the summer of 1772 killing bears in the Cañada de los Osos (Bear Cañon). The soldiers and mis- sionaries had a plentiful supply of bear meat. There were not enough cattle in the country to admit of slaughtering any for food. The pre- sidial walls which were substituted for the pal- isades were built of adobes and stone. The inclosure measured one hundred and ten yards on each side. The buildings were roofed with tiles. "On the north were the main entrance,

the guard house, and the warehouses; on the west the houses of the governor comandante and other officers, some fifteen apartments in all; on the east nine houses for soldiers, and a blacksmith shop; and on the south, besides nine similar houses, was the presidio church, opposite the main gateway."*

The military force at the presidio consisted of cavalry, infantry and artillery, their numbers varying from one hundred to one hundred and twenty in all. These soldiers furnished guards for the missions of San Carlos, San Antonio, San Miguel, Soledad and San Luis Obispo. The total population of gente de razon in the district at the close of the century numbered four hun- dren and ninety. The rancho "del rey" or rancho of the king was located where Salinas City now stands. This rancho was managed by the soldiers of presidio and was intended to furnish the military with meat and a supply of horses for the cavalry. At the presidio a num- ber of invalided soldiers who had served out their time were settled; these were allowed to cultivate land and raise cattle on the unoccu- pied lands of the public domain. A town grad- ually grew up around the presidio square.

Vancouver, the English navigator, visited the presidio of Monterey in 1792 and describes it as it then appeared: "The buildings of the pre- sidio form a parallelogram or long square com- prehending an area of about three hundred yards long by two hundred and fifty wide, mak- ing one entire enclosure. The external wall is of the same magnitude and built with the same materials, and except that the officers' apart- ments are covered with red tile made in the neighborhood, the whole presents the same lonely, uninteresting appearance as that already described at San Francisco. Like that estab lishment, the several buildings for the use of the officers, soldiers, and for the protection of stores and provisions are erected along the walls on the inside of the inclosure, which admits of but one entrance for carriages or persons on horse- back; this, as at San Francisco, is on the side of the square fronting the church which was rebuilding with stone like that at San Carlos."

*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. I.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

"At each corner of the square is a small kind of block house raised a little above the top of the wall where swivels might be mounted for its protection. On the outside, before the entrance into the presidio, which fronts the shores of the bay, are placed seven cannon, four nine and three three-pounders, mounted. The guns are planted on the open plain ground without breastwork or other screen for those employed in working them or the least protection from the weather."

THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO.

In a previous chapter I have given an account of the discovery of San Francisco Bay by Por- tolá's expedition in 1769. The discovery of that great bay seems to have been regarded as an unimportant event by the governmental offi- cials. While there was great rejoicing at the city of Mexico over the founding of a mission for the conversion of a few naked savages, the discovery of the bay was scarcely noticed, ex- cept to construe it into some kind of a miracle. Father Serra assumed that St. Francis had con- cealed Monterey from the explorers and led them to the discovery of the bay in order that he (St. Francis) might have a mission named for him. Indeed, the only use to which the discovery could be put, according to Serra's ideas, was a site for a mission on its shores, dedi- cated to the founder of the Franciscans. Several explorations were made with this in view. In 1772, Lieutenant Fages, Father Crespi and six- teen soldiers passed up the western side of the bay and in 1774 Captain Rivera, Father Palou and a squad of soldiers passed up the eastern shore, returning by way of Monte Diablo, Amador valley and Alameda creek to the Santa Clara valley.

In the latter part of the year 1774, viceroy Bucureli ordered the founding of a mission and presidio at San Francisco. Hitherto all explora- tions of the bay had been made by land expedi- tions. No one had ventured on its waters. In 1775 Lieutenant Juan de Ayala of the royal navy was sent in the old pioneer mission ship, the San Carlos, to make a survey of it. August 5. 1775, he passed through the Golden Gate. Ile moored his ship at an island called by him

Nuestra Señora de los Angeles, now Angel Island. He spent forty days in making explora- tions. His ship was the first vessel to sail upon the great Bay of San Francisco.

In 1774, Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, com- mander of the presidio of Tubac in Sonora, had made an exploration of a route from Sonora via the Colorado river, across the desert and through the San Gorgonia pass to San Gabriel mission. From Tubac to the Colorado river the route had been traveled before but from the Colorado westward the country was a terra in- cognita. He was guided over this by a lower California neophyte who had deserted from San Gabriel mission and alone had reached the rancherias on the Colorado.

After Anza's return to Sonora he was com- missioned by the viceroy to recruit soldiers and settlers for San Francisco. October 23, 1775. Anza set out from Tubac with an expedition numbering two hundred and thirty-five persons, composed of soldiers and their families, colon- ists, musketeers and vaqueros. They brought with them large herds of horses, mules and cat- tle. The journey was accomplished without loss of life, but with a considerable amount of suf- fering. January 4. 1776, the immigrants ar- rived at San Gabriel mission, where they stopped to rest, but were soon compelled to move on, provisions at the mission becoming scarce. They arrived at Monterey March 10. Here they went into camp. Anza with an escort of soldiers pro- ceeded to San Francisco to select a presidio site. Having found a site he returned to Mon- terey. Rivera, the commander of the territory, had manifested a spirit of jealousy toward Anza and had endeavored to thwart him in his at- tempts to found a settlement. Disgusted with the action of the commander, Anza, leaving his colonists to the number of two hundred at Mon- terey took his departure from California. Anza in his explorations for a presidio site had fixed upon what is now Fort Point.

After his departure Rivera experienced a change of heart and instead of trying to delay the founding he did everything to hasten it. The imperative orders of the viceroy received at about this time brought about the change. He ordered Lieutenant Moraga, to whom Anza had

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

turned over the command of his soldiers and colonists, to proceed at once to San Francisco with twenty soldiers to found the fort. The San Carlos, which had just arrived at Monterey, was ordered to proceed to San Francisco to assist in the founding. Moraga with his soldiers ar- rived June 27, and encamped on the Laguna de los Dolores, where the mission was a short time afterwards founded. Moraga decided to located the presidio at the site selected by Anza but awaited the arrival of the San Carlos before proceeding to build. August 18 the vessel ar- rived. It had been driven down the coast to the latitude of San Diego by contrary winds and then up the coast to latitude 42 degrees. On the arrival of the vessel work was begun at once on the fort. A square of ninety-two varas (two hundred and forty-seven feet) on each side was inclosed with palisades. Barracks, officers' quarters and a chapel were built inside the square. September 17, 1776, was set apart for the services of founding, that being the day of the "Sores of our seraphic father St. Francis." The royal standard was raised in front of the square and the usual ceremony of pulling grass and throwing stones was performed. Posses- sion of the region round about was taken in the name of Carlos III., King of Spain. Over one hundred and fifty persons witnessed the cere- mony. Vancouver, who visited the presidio in November, 1792, describes it as a "square area whose sides were about two hundred yards in length, enclosed by a mud wall and resembling a pound for cattle. Above this wall the thatched roofs of the low small houses just made their appearance." The wall was "about fourteen feet high and five feet in breadth and was first formed by upright and horizontal rafters of large timber, between which dried sods and moistened earth were pressed as close and hard as possible, after which the whole was cased with the earth made into a sort of mud plaster which gave it the appearance of durability."

In addition to the presidio there was another fort at Fort Point named Castillo de San Joa- quin. It was completed and blessed December 8, 1794. "It was of horseshoe shape, about one hundred by one hundred and twenty feet." The structure rested mainly on sand; the brick-faced

adobe walls crumbled at the shock whenever a salute was fired; the guns were badly mounted and for the most part worn out, only two of the thirteen twenty-four-pounders being serviceable or capable of sending a ball across the entrance of the fort .*

PRESIDIO OF SANTA BARBARA.

Cabrillo, in 1542, found a large Indian popula- tion inhabiting the main land of the Santa Bar- bara channel. Two hundred and twenty-seven years later, when Portolá made his exploration, apparently there had been no decrease in the number of inhabitants. No portion of the coast offered a better field for missionary labor and Father Serra was anxious to enter it. In ac- cordance with Governor Felipe de Neve's report of 1777, it had been decided to found three mis- sions and a presidio on the channel. Various causes had delayed the founding and it was not until April 17, 1782, that Governor de Neve arrived at the point where he had decided to locate the presidio of Santa Barbara. The troops that were to man the fort reached San Gabriel in the fall of 1781. It was thought best for them to remain there until the rainy sea- son was over. March 26, 1782, the governor and Father Serra, accompanied by the largest body of troops that had ever before been collected in California, set out to found the mission of San Buenaventura and the presidio. The governor, as has been stated in a former chapter, was re- called to San Gabriel. The mission was founded and the governor having rejoined the cavalcade a few weeks later proceeded to find a location for the presidio.

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History of the State of California and biographical record of Coast Counties, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 8

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Chicago, The Chapman Publishing Company Number of Pages: 752

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago, The Chapman Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 752