Mission San Diego, the Mother of the Missions

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  
 

First of the 21 missions and known as the Mother of the Missions, Mission San Diego de Alcala was founded on July 16, 1769 by Blessed Junipero Serra.  It was name for St. Didacus of Alcalá, a fifteenth century Spanish Franciscan.   By the first few months of 1770, food had run low, no permanent buildings were erected, and there had yet to be a single conversion. Four soldiers, eight Catalonian volunteers, one servant, and six Christian Indians from Lower California had died from scurvy since the expedition's arrival; serious consideration was therefore given to abandoning the site and returning to the Baja settlements. It was therefore determined that, if a supply ship did not arrive by March 19 (Saint Joseph's Day), the expedition would be recalled. Father-Presidente Serra, in response, wrote a lengthy letter addressed to Father Francisco Palóu the following day:

Four Fathers, Fr. Juan Crespí, Fr. Fernando Parrón, Fr. Francisco Gómez, and I, are here, ready to found a second mission, if the ships arrive. Should we see that hope and supplies are vanishing, I shall remain here alone with Fr. Juan Crespí and hold out to the very last. May God give us His holy grace. Recommend us to God that so it may be...

Serra feared that if San Diego were abandoned, "...centuries might come and go before the country would again be revisited..." Just before sunset on the 19th, the San Antonio entered the harbor.  The ship had been bound for Monterey to deliver supplies to the expedition waiting there, but had lost one of its anchors and was forced to make port in San Diego.

 

The mission remained at this site for only five years; the water supply was not sufficient for sustaining the crops, the soil was not fertile enough and the American Indians were intimidated by the military. The decision to move the mission six miles east was made by the pastor, Father Luis Jayme (a young Majorcan) and approved by Father President Serra. The new site was close to the San Diego River. Father Jayme had great rapport with the American Indians but still some of the mission Indians became discontented and they incited hundreds of Indians in remote villages to riot. According to Father Palou's report of the incidence, eight hundred American Indians stormed onto the grounds in the middle of the night on November 4th, 1775. They pillaged the mission, burned it to the ground and massacred Father Jayme, who became California's first Christian Martyr.

Father Serra returned to Mission San Diego de Alcala to oversee the rebuilding of the mission. Fearing that would be another raid, the padres rebuilt the mission according to the specifications of an army fort. Reestablishing the mission was a long, difficult process. This mission was always one of the poorest. The land was difficult to till, the water not always plentiful. 1797 was their most successful year: 565 baptisms were performed, 1405 converted to Christianity; the land area encompassed 50,000 acres, harvesting corn, wheat, barley, kidney beans and chickpeas; vineyards produced enough grapes for wine and gardens yielded vegetables. The mission owned 20,000 sheep, 10,000 cattle, and 1250 horses.  Unlike other missions, the neophytes at San Diego continued to reside in traditional villages in part due to food shortages at the mission.

San Diego achieved the reputation early on as site of the region's first public execution, one it may not deserve. On April 6, 1778 four native chiefs of Pámo, one of San Diego's Indian rancherías, were convicted of conspiring to kill Christians and were sentenced to death by José Francisco Ortega, Commandant of the Presidio of San Diego; the four were to be shot on April 11. However, there is some doubt as to whether or not the executions actually took place.

After the United States acquired this area from Mexico, two companies of the artillery occupied the mission beginning in November, 1853. Various companies of artillery and cavalry were at the mission until 1858 or early 1859. They made some repairs and added a second floor to the church. Subsequently, the mission was abandoned for several years. In 1892, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondolet moved onto the mission compound and conducted an American Indian childrens' school for seventeen years.  In 1931, the mission was rebuilt to mirror the 1813 church.  By that time, only the facade was still standing. It was designated as a Minor Basilica in 1976 by Pope Paul VI. The Mission today is an active Catholic Parish in the Diocese of San Diego.

 

A striking 46' campanario (bell wall) on the left side of the church rises above the mission gardens and contains five bells. The largest bell, called Mater Dolorsa, weighs 1,200 pounds. It was cast in San Diego in 1894.  The baptismal font in the museum is original to Mission San Diego. The baptismal font in the church is a replica of the one in which Fr. Junipero Serra was baptized in 1713 in Petra on the island of Majorca.

 

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get your copy here!

Mission San Luis Rey, the King of the Missions

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

Founded on June 13, 1798 by Padre Fermín Lasuén, Mission San Luis Rey de Francia (Saint Louis IX, King of France, who led crusades to the Holy Land in the 13^th century) was the eighteenth of the Spanish missions established in California. The Mission was led by Father Antonio Peyrí from its founding until secularization.

It is called “the King of the Missions” because it is the largest of all the Alta California missions.  At its prime the Mission San Luis Rey's structures and services compound covered almost 950,400 acres. By 1830, the mission was the largest building in California.  The San Luis Rey Church, completed in 1815, is the only surviving mission church laid out in a cruciform plan. It is 165.5 feet in length and the nave spans 27.5 feet in width by 30 feet in height. A cupola - unique among the California missions - is an octagonal lantern formed of 144 panes of glass. It tops the wooden dome built over the sanctuary in 1829. The first Peruvian Pepper Tree (Schinus molle) in California was planted here in 1830, now iconic, widely planted, and renamed the California Pepper tree in the state.

In 1832 the mission’s total number of animals peaked at 57,380, including 27,500 cattle and 26,100 sheep, dwarfing all other mission herds in size.  San Luis Rey harvasted over 411,000 bushels of grain and produce during the period 1789-1832. Wheat, barley, corn and beans were the primary early crops.  

An early account of life at the Mission was written by one of its Native American converts, Luiseño Pablo Tac, in his work Indian Life and Customs at Mission San Luis Rey: A Record of California Mission Life by Pablo Tac, An Indian Neophyte (written circa 1835 in Rome, later edited and translated in 1958 by Minna Hewes and Gordon Hewes). In his book, Tac lamented the rapid population decline of the Luiseño, of his people:

In Quechla not long ago there were 5,000 souls, with all their neighboring lands. Through a sickness that came to California 2,000 souls died, and 3,000 were left.

The Mission-born, Franciscan-educated Tac noted that his people initially attempted to bar the Spaniards from invading their Southern California lands.

When the foreigners approached, "...the chief stood up...and met them," demanding, "...what are you looking for? Leave our Country!"

Pablo Tac went on to describe the preferential conditions and treatment the padres received:

In the mission of San Luis Rey de Francia the Fernandiño [sic] father is like a king. He has his pages, alcaldes, majordomos, musicians, soldiers, gardens, ranchos, livestock....

In July 1847, U.S. military governor of California Richard Barnes Mason created an Indian sub-agency at Mission San Luis Rey, and his men took charge of the mission property in August, appointing Jesse Hunter from the recently arrived Mormon Battalion as sub-agent. Battalion guide Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, the Native American Shoshone child of Sacagawea who had traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition forty years earlier, was appointed by Mason as the Alcalde (Municipal Magistrate) "within the District of San Diego, at or near San Luis Rey" in November 1847. Charbonneau resigned from the post in August, 1848, claiming that "because of his Indian heritage others thought him biased when problems arose between the Indians and the other inhabitants of the district."  The mission was used as an operational base by U.S. soldiers until 1857.

The Mission's religious services restarted in 1893, when two Mexican priests were given permission to restore the Mission as a Franciscan college.  Today, Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is a working mission, cared for by the people who belong to the parish, with ongoing restoration projects. The mission complex functions as a parish church of the Diocese of San Diego as well as a museum and retreat center.

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get a copy now!

Mission San Juan Capistrano, the Jewel of the Missions

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

Called the "Jewel of the Missions," Mission San Juan Capistrano was first founded by Father Lasuen, on October 30, 1775, the seventh of twenty-one missions to be founded in Alta California. It was named for Giovanni da Capistrano, a 15th-century theologian and "warrior priest" who resided in the Abruzzo region of Italy.  But just a few weeks after the party of padres and soldiers arrived, they received word of the revolt occurring in San Diego. The founding padres, and soldiers decided to leave San Juan Capistrano, and go back to San Diego to help there. Once things had settled in San Diego, Father Serra personally led a party to re-found Mission San Juan Capistrano on All Saints Day, November 1, 1776.

For over the next 30 years, Mission San Juan Capistrano grew in population, buildings, livestock, and prominence. The Criolla or "Mission grape," was first planted at San Juan Capistrano in 1779; in 1783, the first wine produced in Alta California emerged from the Mission's winery. Both red and white wines (sweet and dry), brandy, and a port-like fortified wine called Angelica were all produced from the Mission grape.  By 1806, Mission San Juan Capistrano had a population of over a 1,000 people, over 10,000 head of cattle, and a completed architectural gem, The Great Stone Church (the only mission chapel building in Alta California not constructed out of adobe).

After 1812, the Mission began to decline. Many factors were involved in the Mission’s decline including the earthquake in December of 1812 which caused the Great Stone Church to collapse, the decline in birth rate, the increasing mortality rate of the population due to disease, and the inability of Spanish government to adequately protect and supply the Missions with needed goods.

On December 14, 1818, the French privateer Hipólito Bouchard, sailing under the flag of the "United Provinces of Rio de la Plata" (Argentina), brought his ships La Argentina and Santa Rosa to within sight of the Mission; aware that Bouchard (today known as "California's only pirate") had recently conducted raids on the settlements at Monterey and Santa Barbara, Comandante Ruíz had sent forth a party of thirty men (under the leadership of a young Spanish lieutenant named Santiago Argüello) to protect the Mission.  "Pirata Buchar" (as he was referred to by the Californios) ordered an assault on the Mission, sending some 140 men and two or three violentos (light howitzer cannon) to take the needed supplies by force. The Mission guards engaged the attackers but were overwhelmed; the marauders looted the Mission warehouses and left minor damage to several Mission buildings in their wake, and reportedly set fire to a few of the outlying straw houses. 

Reinforcements from Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, led by Comandante Guerra from El Presidio Real de Santa Bárbara, arrived the next day to no avail as the ships had already set sail.

By 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain, which made Alta California a territory of Mexico. Under new governmental direction, the Mission faced continued decline. Soon after the decree of secularization, the land holdings of Mission San Juan Capistrano were divided and sold to 20 prominent California families. In 1845, Governor Pio Pico sold the mission at auction to John Forster, Pico’s brother-in-law, for $710, when it was valued to be worth more than $54,000. For the next 20 years the Mission was a private ranch property of the Forster family.

After the United States gained possession of California, it gave the Mission back to the Catholic Church, which began restoring it. Today, although the Mission is owned by the Catholic Church, it is run by a non-profit organization. This means, Mission San Juan Capistrano does not receive any funding from the Catholic Church, State, or Federal Government for operation or preservation.

 

San Juan Capistrano has the distinction of being home to the oldest building in California still in use, a chapel built in 1782. Known alternately as "Serra's Chapel" and "Father Serra's Church," it is the only extant structure where it has been documented that the padre Junipero Serra celebrated mass.  The reredos and altar of Serra's Chapel are made of cherry wood and covered with gold leaf. They originated in Barcelona, Spain and are about three hundred years old. The altar is adorned with fifty-two angels faces, one for every Sunday of the year.

The arrival of the cliff swallows to the Mission every March 19^th is world renowned. Swallows migrate 6,000 miles from Goya, Argentina to San Juan Capistrano in large groups. Some cliff swallow colonies number more than 3,500 nests.  At dawn on St. Joseph’s Day, the little birds arrive and begin rebuilding their mud nests, which are clinging to the ruins of the Great Stone Church of San Juan Capistrano. The arches of the two story, vaulted Great Stone Church were left bare and exposed, as the roof collapsed during the earthquake of 1812.  After the summer spent within the sheltered walls of the Old Mission in San Juan Capistrano, the swallows take flight again on the Day of San Juan, October 23^rd.

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.”  Get your copy here.

Mission San Gabriel, Los Angeles' grandfather

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

The mission was founded on the Feast of the Birth of Mary, September 8, 1771, as the fourth of the Alta California missions.  San Gabriel Arcángel, named after the Archangel Gabriel and often referred to as the "Godmother of the Pueblo of Los Angeles", was designed by Father Antonio Cruzado, who hailed from Córdoba, Spain. Cruzado gave the building its strong Moorish architectural influence. The capped buttresses and the tall, narrow windows are unique among the missions of the California chain.

Legend has it that the founding expedition was confronted by a large group of native Tongva peoples whose intention was to drive the strangers away. One of the padres laid a painting of "Our Lady of Sorrows" on the ground for all to see, whereupon the natives, designated by the settlers as the Gabrieliños, immediately made peace with the missionaries, because they were so moved by the painting's beauty.  Today the 300-year-old work hangs in front of and slightly to the left of the old high altar and reredos in the Mission's sanctuary.

 The planned site for the Mission was along the banks of the Río de los Temblores (the River of the Earthquakes—the Santa Ana River). The priests chose an alternate site on a fertile plain located directly alongside the Rio Hondo in the Whittier Narrows.  The site of the Misión Vieja (or "Old Mission") is located near the intersection of San Gabriel Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue in Montebello (known to the natives as Shevaanga). In 1776, a flash flood destroyed much of the crops and ruined the Mission complex, which was subsequently relocated five miles closer to the mountains in present-day San Gabriel (the native settlement of 'Iisanchanga). The Mission is the base from which the pueblo that became the city of Los Angeles was sent.

The 1812 Wrightwood earthquake caused the three-bell campanario, located adjacent to the chapel's east façade, to collapse. A larger, six-bell structure was subsequently constructed at the far end of the capilla. 

 

Over 25,000 baptisms were conducted at San Gabriel between 1771 and 1834, making it the most prolific in the mission chain. In its heyday it furnished food and supplies to settlements and other missions throughout California. Starting with only 128 animals in 1772, the mission herd reached 42,350, primarily cattle (25,000) and sheep (15,000) at its peak in 1829.  Over its active life San Gabriel was far more productive than any other mission in California, harvesting over 353,000 bushels of wheat, barley, corn, beans, peas, lentils and garbanzos (chickpeas).  San Gabriel had the largest vineyard in Spanish California and was the botanical source of many of the vines planted in the other missions.

A majority of the Mission structures fell into ruins after it was secularized in November 1834.  In 1846, what remained of the mission estate was granted to a Messieurs Reid and Workman on the condition that they pay all remaining claims to the mission creditors and support the mission's padres without obstructing community access to the church. The title granted to Reid and Workman was deemed invalid by the U.S. Land Commission in 1855, and the property returned to the Church in 1859. The Mission's chapel functioned as a parish church for the City of San Gabriel from 1862 until 1908, when the Claretian Missionary Fathers came to San Gabriel and began the job of rebuilding and restoring the Mission.

 

The museum has recently been reorganized and expanded,  largely due to the efforts of volunteer docent “Santa John.” Santa John is himself a San Gabriel treasure (as well as a registered “beared Santa”); be sure to talk to him if he is there while you are visiting!

Toots Bier of University of California Riverside Citrus Clonal Protection Program was informed of an old orange tree a few miles from the mission and after DNA testing it was determined it was an original orange tree in California like the ones planted by San Gabriel Mission to start orchards of oranges. Those original orange trees disappeared at the mission grounds for unknown reasons over the years. The current historic trees at the mission were started by Bier, and were planted at the mission in 2006.

 Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.”  Get your copy here!

Mission San Fernando, a strange and wonderful place

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

Mission San Fernando Rey de España (named for Saint Ferdinand, King of Spain in the 13^th century) was founded on September 8, 1797 by Father Fermín Lasuén, making it the fourth mission site he had established in as many months; it was the seventeenth of the Alta California missions. The prime location the padre selected, located along the principal highway leading to the Pueblo de Los Angeles, had been occupied by Francisco Reyes (then Los Angeles' mayor). However, after brief negotiations construction of the first buildings was soon underway (Mission records list Reyes as godfather to the first infant baptized at San Fernando).

 

The mission was constructed in a traditional quadrangle.  A large hospice called the Convento, or Long Building, branched off the quadrangle; built in 1822, it served as the padre's quarters and as a guest-house. A colonnade with nineteen arches borders the full length of the building, which measures 243' x 50'. The current simple mission church is an exact replica of the 3rd church completed in 1806 and destroyed by an earthquake in 1971.  The elaborate altar, reredos and pulpit are carved from walnut and date to 1687. They were originally installed in the chapel of St. Philip Neri at Ezcaray, Spain.

On March 8, 1842 Francisco Lopez, a majordomo on one of the mission ranches, discovered gold particles clinging to the roots of wild onion bulbs in Placerita Canyon. The gold petered out in four years, but this was the earliest gold strike in California. For years thereafter, treasure seekers dug up the mission's adobe walls and floors to find the gold they mistakenly thought the padres had hidden.

 

In 1846, Governor Pío Pico made Mission San Fernando his headquarters as Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. The Mission was utilized in a number of ways during the late 19th century: north of the mission was the site of Lopez Station for the Butterfield Stage Lines; it served as a warehouse for the Porter Land and Water Company; and in 1896, the quadrangle was used as a hog farm. San Fernando's church became a working church again in 1923 when the Oblate priests arrived. In the 1940s, the Mission was finally restored. Later, the 1971 San Fernando earthquake damaged the church, which had to be completely rebuilt. The repairs were completed in 1974. It continues to be very well cared for and is still used as a chapel-of-ease. In 2003 comedian Bob Hope was interred in the Bob Hope Memorial Gardens.

A hundred pound bell was unearthed in an orange grove near the Mission in 1920. It carried the following inscription (translated from Russian): "In the Year 1796, in the month of January, this bell was cast on the Island of Kodiak by the blessing of Archimandrite Joaseph, during the sojourn of Alexsandr Baranov." It is not known how this Russian Orthodox artifact from Kodiak, Alaska made its way to a Catholic mission in Southern California.  It is believed by some that the bell originated with Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov's 1806 Russian trading expedition to Alta California.

 

The museums here are the most bizarre of all the missions, but also contain some unique artifacts such as a Remington statue and a medallion given to a Native American tribe by the Lewis and Clark expedition (pictured at left).

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get your copy here!

Mission San Buenaventura, Father Serra's final dedication

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

Father Serra raised the Cross at "la playa de la canal de Santa Barbara" (the beach of the Santa Barbara Channel) on Easter Morning, March 31, 1782. Assisted by Padre Pedro Benito Cambon, he celebrated a High Mass, preached on the Resurrection, and dedicated a Mission to San Buenaventura (named for Saint Bonaventure, a 13th century Franciscan cardinal and renowned philosopher). It had been planned as the third in the chain of twenty-one Missions founded by Padre Serra but was destined to be the ninth and last founded during his lifetime, and one of six he personally dedicated.

A system of aqueducts were built by the Chumash between 1805 and 1815 to meet the needs of the Mission population and consisted of both ditches and elevated stone masonry. The watercourse ran from a point on the Ventura River about ½ mile north of the remaining ruins and carried the water to holding tanks behind the San Buenaventura Mission, a total of about 7 miles.  The entire water distribution system was destroyed by floods and abandoned in 1862.  Part of the aqueduct and early mission remnants can be seen at the Mission Plaza Archaeological Site at 113 Main St, and further up the hill on Valdez Alley.  The most notable feature here is “El Caballo” (the horse), a horse-shaped water spout that was part of the original aqueduct.

The Mission’s first church building was destroyed by fire. The construction of a second church was abandoned because "the door gave way." In 1792 work was in progress on the present church and the small utility buildings which (with the church) formed a quadrangle enclosing a plaza. Although half finished in 1795, the church was not completed until 1809. Dedication was held September 9 of that year and the first liturgical services took place September 10.

 

A series of earthquakes and an accompanying tidal wave in 1812 forced the padres and Indian neophytes to seek temporary shelter a few miles inland. Six years later the padres and their flock had to remove sacred objects from the church and flee into the hills to elude a pirate who was pillaging the Missions but fortunately was headed off after a "bargaining session" at El Refugio in Santa Barbara.

After secularization, in 1845 San Buenaventura Mission was rented to Don Jose De Amaz and Narciso Botello and was later illegally sold to Don Jose De Amaz. After California became a state of the Union, Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany petitioned the United States Government to return that part of the Mission holdings comprising the church, clergy residence, cemetery, orchard, and vineyard to the Catholic Church. 

Because of severe earthquake damage in 1857 the Mission’s tile roof was replaced by a shingle roof.  In 1893, Father Cyprian Rubio "modernized" the interior of the church, painting over the original artwork; when he finished, little of the old church was untouched. The windows were lengthened, the beamed ceiling and tile floor were covered, and the remnants of the quadrangle were razed. The west sacristy was removed to provide room for a school, which was not actually built until 1921. During the pastorate of Father Patrick Grogan the roof of the church was once again tiled, the convent and present rectory were built, and a new fountain was placed in the garden.

 

In a major restoration under the supervision of Father Aubrey J. O’Reilly in 1956-1957 the windows were reconstructed to their original size, and the ceiling and floor were uncovered. A long-time parishioner commissioned the casting of a bell with an automatic angelus device and donated it to the Mission; it hangs in the bell tower above the four original hand-operated bells.  The museum contains the original doors, and two original wooden bells which were used during Holy Week.

Outside of the current mission walls, the Ventura historic district offers many mission-related sites.  Directly across the street is the Mission Gardens and Moreton Bay Fig Tree, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  This park used to be part of the extensive mission gardens.  The adobe walls and lion’s head fountain are from the mission period, and the garden includes orange trees from the original mission.  The mission’s lavenderia is located in the basement of the Peirano’s Market,  which was built over the site in1877. 

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get your copy now!

Santa Barbara, the queen of missions

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

 

The Santa Barbara Mission was established on the Feast of Saint Barbara, December 4, 1786 by Padre Fermín Lasuén (who had taken over the presidency of the California mission chain upon the death of Father Presidente Junípero Serra) and was the tenth of twenty-one California Missions to be founded in Alta California.  It is called “The Queen of the Missions.”  Mission Santa Barbara is the only mission to remain under the leadership of the Franciscan Friars since its founding, and today is a parish church of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.  Mission Santa Barbara's name comes from the legend of Saint Barbara, a girl who was supposedly beheaded by her father for following the Christian Faith.

The early missionaries built three different chapels during the first few years, each larger than the previous one. It was only after the great Santa Barbara Earthquake on December 21, 1812, which destroyed the existing buildings, that the construction on the current Mission was begun. It was completed and then dedicated in 1820. The towers were considerably damaged in the June 29, 1925 earthquake, but were subsequently rebuilt in 1927. The appearance of the inside of the church has not been altered significantly since 1820.

Many elements of the Mission's extensive water treatment system, all built by Chumash Indians' labor (including aqueducts, two reservoirs, and a filter house) remain to this day, as does a grain mill; the larger reservoir, which was built in 1806 by the expedient of damming a canyon, has been incorporated into the City's water system. The original fountain and lavadero are also intact near the entrance to the Mission.  The lavandaria end spout is a neophyte-carved Cougar's head and is the oldest public sculpture in the state of California.

In 1818, two Argentine ships under the command of the French privateer Hipólito Bouchard approached the coast and threatened the young town of Santa Barbara. The padres armed and trained 150 of the neophytes to prepare for attack. With their help, the Presidio soldiers confronted Bouchard, who sailed out of the harbor without attacking.

After secularization in 1833 Father Presidente Narciso Durán transferred the missions' headquarters to Santa Barbara, thereby making Mission Santa Barbara the repository of some 3,000 original documents that had been scattered through the California missions.

In 1840, Alta California and Baja California were removed from the Diocese of Sonora to form the Diocese of Both Californias. Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, OFM, established his cathedra at Mission Santa Barbara, making the chapel the pro-cathedral of the diocese until 1849.  It is for this reason that of all the California missions, only the chapel at Mission Santa Barbara has two matching bell towers.

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get your copy today!

 

Mission Santa Ines, cornerstone of a Danish town

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

Founded on September 17, 1804 by Father Estévan Tapís, the mission site was chosen as a midway point between Mission Santa Barbara and Mission La Purísima Concepción, and was designed to relieve overcrowding at those two missions and to serve the Indians living east of the Coast Range. It was named Mission Santa Inés Virgen y Martír, for Saint Agnes of Rome, a thirteen year-old Roman girl martyred in A.D. 304.  It was the 19^th mission to be founded in Alta California.

Most of the original church was destroyed on December 21, 1812 in an earthquake centered near Santa Barbara that damaged or destroyed most of California's missions. The quake also severely damaged other Mission buildings, but the complex was not abandoned.  A new church was dedicated on July 4, 1817.  During 1814 to 1816, a large adobe wall was constructed to hold two bells. New bells were cast in Lima, Peru, and the formal dedication took place on July 4, 1817. The bell wall lasted until 1911 when a huge rainstorm literally melted it. When Father Buckler had it rebuilt the following year, a third bell arch was added.

On February 21, 1824 a soldier beat a young Chumash Indian and sparked the Chumash Revolt of 1824. Some of the Indians went to get the Indians from Missions Santa Barbara and La Purísima to help in the fight. When the fighting was over, the Indians themselves put out the fire that had started at the Mission. Many of the Indians left to join other tribes in the mountains; only a few Indians remained at the Mission.

In 1843, California's Mexican governor granted 34,499 acres of Santa Ynez Valley land to the first Bishop of California, who established at the Mission the College of Our Lady of Refuge, the first seminary in California. The college was abandoned in 1881; by then the Mission was disintegrating. A family lived there in the 1890s and did some repairs, but much of the complex collapsed in 1894.  The Danish town of Solvang was built up around the Mission proper beginning in 1911. It was through the efforts of Father Alexander Buckler in 1904 that reconstruction of the Mission was begun.

 

Mission Santa Inés has the largest and most valuable collection of early California church vestments from the 15th century to 1718, having been the depository for vestments from the earlier successful Missions in Baja California and Mexico. Many of the more than 500 silk vestments throughout the California Missions are in fact older than the Missions themselves. Mission Santa Inés also has a vestment worn by Father Serra. That the vestments have been so well preserved is a tribute to the work of Mamie Goulet, the niece of Father Alexander Buckler, who dedicated 20 years to preserving the mission’s art and artifacts.   

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get your copy today!

Mission La Purisima reenacts the past

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

Misión La Purísima Concepción De María Santísima (Mission of the Immaculate Conception of Most Holy Mary) was founded by Father Presidente Fermin de Lasuén on December 8, 1787 (on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception) and was the 11th of the Missions in Alta California.  The site originally chosen for La Purísima Mission was known to the Spanish as the plain of Rio Santa Rosa and to the Chumash as Algsacpi. Permanent missionaries and soldiers did not arrive at the site until March of 1788. The first padres assigned to La Purísima were Father Vicente Fuster and Father Joseph Arroita.

A major earthquake struck La Purisima on December 21, 1812, destroying many of the Mission's structures. Aftershocks and drenching rains damaged La Purisima beyond repair.   Ruins of the original mission are at 508 South F Street, near East Locust Avenue (more information on Mission Vieja on pg 268).

 

Father Mariano Payeras, then in charge of the Mission, requested and was granted permission to rebuild four miles to the northwest in "La Cañada de los Berros," the Canyon of the Watercress. This new site had several advantages: a better water supply, a better climate, and a closer and safer access to El Camino Real.  The rebuilt mission (completed between 1813-1818) was laid out in linear fashion, the only California mission not organized as a quadrangle.

Between the years 1788 - 1834 La Purisima harvasted 189,276 bushels of wheat, barley, corn, beans, peas, lentils, garbanzos (chickpeas) and habas (broad beans). This was the third largest agricultural output in the mission chain. There were two large vineyards, Jalama 8 miles south of the mission and San Francisoto, 2 miles east.  The peak number of livestock was 23,746 in 1822 (10,000 cattle, 11,000 sheep, 46 goats, 104 pigs, 1367 horses and 247 mules).

 

In 1824 a revolt of the neophytes that began in Santa Ines spread to La Purisima. The rebels captured the mission and held it for about a month. In the battle sixteen Indians and one soldier died. Seven Indians were condemned to death.

In 1834, the order to secularize California's Missions was enforced. Mission assets were to be civilly administered, landholdings divided up among the inhabitants, and the neophytes released from supervision of any type. In 1845, La Purisima Mission was sold to Juan Temple of Los Angeles for $1,000. It subsequently changed hands and uses a number of times prior to the close of the 19th century.  Buildings and other features of the Mission eventually collapsed from weather and long neglect. In 1933 when the property was given to public ownership by Union Oil Company, the Mission was a complete ruin. Preservation and reconstruction of the Mission complex began in 1934.

 

At present, the mission is within La Purisima Mission State Historic Park, an area of 1,928 acres - a small but most important portion of the original 300,000 acre mission property. Ten of the original buildings have been fully restored and furnished authentically; other structures have also been restored including the historic aqueduct and water system.  A five-acre garden shows native and domestic plants typical of a mission garden, while mission-type animals such as burros, horses, longhorn cattle, sheep and goats are displayed in a corral located in the main mission compound (the only mission to keep livestock).  This is the most fully restored of all missions, and features many reenactments throughout the year.

A new visitor center has recently been completed.  Built in a modern style, it sits apart from the mission complex.  It houses a comprehensive exhibit of the mission and surrounding region’s history from ancient times through the modern period.

 Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get your copy today!

Mission San Luis Obispo is L-ovely

 

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

The fifth California mission was founded by Father Junipero Serra on September 1, 1772, and was named after Saint Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, France. Louis was born in 1274, the second son of King Charles of Naples. After being defeated in a war with Spain, Louis and his brother were sent, as hostages, to Spain for the release of their father. The brothers spent seven years in Spain, being instructed by Franciscan friars. Having absorbed the training, Louis decided to join the Order. After his release, he renounced his claim to the crown of Naples, joined the Order of Friars Minor, and was consecrated Bishop of Toulouse. Due to poverty and disease in the city, he fell ill and passed away at the age of 23.

After Fr. Serra left, the difficult task of actually building the mission remained. This was accomplished with the aid of the local Chumash Natives. Palisades were set up as temporary buildings, which were made simply from poles and tree boughs. However, due to fires in the first few years, adobe and tile structures were erected. The Church and Priest’s residence, the convento wing, were built by 1794. Many other structures made up the Mission in the early days: storerooms, residences for single women, soldiers barracks, and mills.

The Mission church of San Luis Obispo is unusual in its design in that its combination of belfry and vestibule is found nowhere else among the California missions. The main nave is short and narrow (as is the case with other mission churches), but at San Luis Obispo there is a secondary nave of almost equal size situated to the right of the altar, making this the only "L"-shaped mission church among all of the California missions.

The mission also had land for farming and raising livestock. Over the years 1804 - 1832 San Luis Obispo produced 167,000 bushels of wheat, barley, corn, beans, peas and lentils. Despite its relatively small population, it had the fourth highest production of wheat in the entire chain. The mission even had its own grist mill. San Luis Obispo had grape arbors within the mission quadrangle and there was a garden in the northeast corner.  1832, the last year for which we have detailed records, the mission had 2,500 cattle and 5,422 sheep.

After 1818, the Mission’s prosperity began to decline and by the 1840′s there was little left of the thriving community of earlier times. The buildings were crumbling and there were not sufficient funds to rebuild. In an “informe” (report to the Government written in 1830) Fr. Gil stated: “The hospital and portions of neophyte villages are in ruins and the rest of the village threatens to fall into ruins… the front of the Mission Church has to be taken down, because it threatened to tumble over”. In his 1832 “informe” he was even more dismal: “Every day the Mission structures are decaying more and more for want of sufficient hands to renovate them… the belfry mentioned last year has been demolished by rains therefore we built another of masonry.”

Governor Pio Pico sold the San Luis Obispo Mission to Capt. John Wilson for $510 in 1845. During this time, buildings were appropriated for any use deemed necessary by the civil authorities. The Mission convento wing housed a school as well as a jail and first county courthouse. It was returned to the church by the U.S. in 1850. 

Since then, it has been the parish church for the city.  At one point it was remodeled to look like a New England style church with a steeple, but it has since been restored to its original appearance.

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get your copy today!

Mission San Miguel, beware of the trees!

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuén founded Mission San Miguel on July 25, 1797. Almost two years earlier, the site was selected to close the gap between Mission San Antonio and Mission San Luis Obispo. It was a beautiful spot on the Salinas River called Vahca by the natives, Las Pozas by the Spaniards or "The Wells". The mission was named for the "Most Glorious Prince of the Celestial Militia, Archangel Saint Michael". Father Buenaventura Sitjar, the first administrator at Mission San Miguel had ministered to the Salinan people for 25 years at Mission San Antonio prior to his arrival at Mission San Miguel. Father Sitjar was fluent in the Salinan language and baptized 15 youth the first day Mission San Miguel was established.

A temporary church was built in 1797 but was lost to fire in 1806, at a time when more than one thousand neophytes were living and working at Mission San Miguel. Preparation for a new adobe church began soon after. Tiles and adobe blocks were made and stored for 10 years before the stone foundation of the church was laid in 1816. By 1821 the church was completed along with the interior frescos.  A colonnade which leads to the church contains twelve arches of different sizes and shapes, unique among the California missions.  The fountain in front of the mission is not original (it was built in the 1940s); the design was adapted from the fountain in Mission Santa Barbara.

 

Mission San Miguel never had a traditional bell tower. In the mission era bells were hung from a wooden beam in one of the archways. The bell which currently hangs there was cast in Mexico City in 1800. A bell tower located inside the mission cemetery houses three bells, the largest of which weighs 2,000 pounds and was recast in 1888 from six cracked and broken bells from other missions. This bell tower was designed and built in mid 1930s. The large bell is used to sound the Angelus. There is another bell tower at San Miguel, a brick companario located on the south end of the mission property. The bells which hang in it are not real, but cast in cement. This bell tower was built in 1950s.

Mission San Miguel was secularized in 1834 and put under the control of a civilian administrator and at the time, there were only 30 Indians left at the mission. On July 4, 1846, Petronillo Rios and William Reed took possession of the mission Buildings and the Reed family occupied the recently abandoned mission. Following the murder of 11 Reed family members and household staff, the mission rooms were converted to commercial stores including a hotel, saloon, and retail shops.  President Buchanan returned the mission buildings and surrounding property to the Catholic Church in 1859. A resident priest was assigned to Mission San Miguel in 1878 and the mission parish was established.

On the morning of December 22, 2003 the coast was rocked by a 6.5 earthquake, the largest to strike the region in over 50 years.  Old Mission San Miguel, located just 35 miles from the epicenter, was especially hard hit. All of the Mission's buildings were rendered off-limits to the public. Numerous cracks and fractures appeared in many of the Mission's walls. Entire sections of plaster sloughed off, exposing the vulnerable adobe beneath to the elements.  It has since been restored.

The mission is now a novitiate for training young Franciscan men.  Many parts of the mission are closed to the public.

This mission is also the home of the funniest parking lot signs I've ever seen:

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get your copy today!

 

Mission San Antonio, the mission that forgot time

The 21 California missions were the first permanent European settlements to be founded on the West coast, beginning in 1769.  

Located on eighty pristine acres on what was once the Milpitas unit of the sprawling Hearst Ranch, Mission San Antonio de Padua sits within the “Valley of the Oaks.”  It is called “the mission that forgot time,” and rightfully touts itself as the “most authentic” mission.

On July 14, 1771, Padres Junipero Serra, Miguel Pieras and Buenaventura Sitjar hung the bells on the branches of an oak tree and named this mission San Antonio de Padua. Fr. Pieras and Sitjar were left with a small group to start the Mission.

The mission was named for St. Anthony, called "St. Anthony of Padua" because of his long residence in that city, was a native of Lisbon in Portugal, where he was born in 1195, receiving the name of Ferdinand at his Baptism. Even during his lifetime, he was regarded as a legendary hero and striking miracles were related about him: his sermon to the fish at Rimini, the mule that knelt before the Blessed Sacrament, the Psalter that was stolen and returned (of which he has become the patron of those who have lost something), and the story of how his host saw him holding the Child Jesus in his arms when he looked through his window.

 

The first Catholic wedding to take place in California occurred here in 1773 between a Salinan Indian woman named Margaretta de Cortona and Spanish solider Juan Maria Ruiz. San Antonio de Padua was the first Alta California mission with a fired-tile or teja roof, and the very first with over 1,000 neophytes. San Antonio de Padua was known for the excellence of its music. Displays in the museum show musical notations on the walls and a large diagram of hand signals used to teach the neophytes.

This mission quickly became self-sufficient. Over the years it was an active mission San Antonio harvasted 110,000 bushels of wheat, barley, corn, beans and peas.  In its peak livestock year of 1828 the mission had 20,118 animals, including 8,000 cattle and 10,000 sheep. For practicality the herd was dispersed to several locations. Ranchos San Benito and San Bartolomo del Pleyto were used for sheep and lambs. There were cattle ranches at Los Ojitos and Rancho San Miguelito, all within three to ten leagues (10-30 miles) of the mission.

 

After secularization, the church was abandoned. In 1845, Mexican Governor Pío Pico declared all mission buildings in Alta California for sale, but no one bid for Mission San Antonio.  However, in 1851, Fr. Doroteo Ambris, a young priest who came as seminarian from Mexico, came from Monterey and took up residence at San Antonio. A few Indian families lived at the Mission with him.  The United States government gave the mission back to the Church in 1863.  In 1882, Fr. Ambris died, and the church was again abandoned and began to fall into greater disrepair.  Later, William Hearst bought the mission and surrounding land.  He eventually sold it to the US government. Fort Hunter Liggett now encompasses the mission, and though they own the mission itself, the management is entirely left to volunteers and supported by donations.

The extensive restoration and unspoiled setting of San Antonio de Padua makes this one of the most picturesque missions in California. It has an extensive museum with a number of exhibits displaying various aspects of daily life at the mission. The site also boasts the most complete, and largely unrestored, Mission-era water control system in California.

Mission San Antonio is the best example of the greater mission environment, due to its undisturbed surroundings and numerous intact buildings and structures.

 

For the ultimate mission experience, stay overnight!  There is no food service available.  The mission also has group retreat accommodations and special pricing.

Learn more about the missions and other great places to visit along the coast in “Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions.” Get your copy today!