Historic Towns of the Western States Part 30

Now through the groves of giant pines at the edge of the sea where the western Chautauqua meets, and then to Cypress Point, whose trees, the guide informs you loftily, are identical with the cedars of Lebanon, and you are nearing the resting-place of Junipero.

[Ill.u.s.tration STATUE OF JUNIPERO SERRA.]

With the adjournment of the convention that met at Monterey in response to the proclamation of the military governor to frame a State, the capital pa.s.sed from that historic town, and for many years the grave of its founder was forgotten. The rush to the gold mines trod underfoot the old-time glories of Monterey. From a throbbing capital it became for a while a deserted village. Lichens grew in its streets and the roofs of its houses crumbled.

As for the Mission at Carmel, rust m.u.f.fled its chimes; Spanish moss covered its tumbling pilasters; its sanctuary was choked with wild mustard; storms blew through the fallen roof. The lizard alone kept watch of the ruin.

But when the new civilization had built its cities and established its railways and there was time again to cultivate the arts of rest, romance turned once more to Monterey. Capital saw in its ruins an opportunity for gain. In its environs Stevenson beheld a paradise for poets, and Monterey became a field of dalliance, a mecca for millionaires at play, an unfailing inspiration to every spirit in a mood to dream.

Junipero at Monterey initiated the activities that held the coast against envious nations, and now to his tomb comes the tide of travel. A few years ago Mrs. Leland Stanford, representing patriotic citizens and students whom the eloquent writings of the historian Hittell had inspired to veneration of Junipero, restored the ruined Mission, so that now his tomb is marked by no traces of neglect, and there with the Carmel surf chanting his eternal requiem, side by side with the comrades he loved and the governors he and his followers installed, this unconquerable friar who trudged, lamely, ten thousand miles in the name of G.o.d, establishing the outposts of Christianity and opening the way for the Democracy to come, is receiving the tardy homage his genius and character deserve.

He was indeed one of Emerson's men who "pin continents together."

[Ill.u.s.tration OLD MEXICAN CUSTOM-HOUSE.]

Now you climb to the crest of the cordillera. Before you is the circling bay with its border of white beaches. Beyond, Fremont's Peak, the tall sentinel that first proclaimed the advent of the dominant American. At your feet the quaint capital that Junipero founded, half adobe, half modern. You can distinguish the time-tumbled walls that tell of Spain's departed glory, and you see the crumbling Cuartel and Custom-House of the Mexicans, who lacked the Spaniards' Moorish taste in their homes and public buildings.

The old capital has outlived its day. It thrives now on trinkets and abelone sh.e.l.ls, painted with memories of the past. But on your left, set in the midst of five hundred acres of flowers and oaks and pines, are luxurious touches of modern life where business comes to forget its cares, and romance spends its honeymoon.

[Ill.u.s.tration ANCIENT ADOBE CABIN, MONTEREY.]

Descend the slope toward the city, pa.s.sing on your way ruined adobe cabins.

Rounding a turn in the historic road you see the smoke of an incoming steamer bringing holiday pa.s.sengers through waters where, aforetime, Spanish corvettes lurked for wily smugglers. From the Cuartel as you near the old capital you hear, instead of the war ballads of quixotic guerreros, the merriment of school-children at play. On the streets, instead of the alferez coming on caparisoned horse to announce the presence in the harbor of a stranger craft, you encounter hotel-runners clattering in 'buses to the pier. On surviving fragments of villa walls you discern no solemn reglamentos. Advertis.e.m.e.nts of swimming suits and fishing tackle have supplanted the rhetorical decrees of the Spanish governors. The descendants of the naked Indians that crowded round the royal carriage of Dona Eulalia of Catalonia a century ago, shocking that t.i.tled lady to throw them some of her purple and fine linen, now shamble by you in slattern calico and jeans, bearing bundles of laundry to a neighboring lagoon. The cleansing process of their trade has for them no personal contagion. In curio shops that crowd the site of the old presidio where the soldiers of Charles III.

performed their part in the programme of civilization Junipero had outlined, you buy your souvenirs.

Then climb to Vizcanio's oak. Beyond the cross reared here are the tottering memorials in the ancient graveyard. A century of strange and stirring romance is buried there. From this weed-grown cemetery haunted by memories which your guide cannot recall, you again see the town and harbor in panorama, and you get clearer glimpses of the paradise into which landscape-gardeners have transformed surrounding acres of sand-dunes over which pobladores once ranged seeking pasturage for their herds.

At your feet, along a well-kept road of pounded sh.e.l.ls, and across bridges framed of the skeletons of whales b.u.t.tressed with moss-grown rocks, roll automobiles and victorias in the pursuit of pleasure. Follow them blithely, if you will, waving your hand to the past; or, in the true spirit of historic pilgrimage, kneel in this place of burial and spell the imperfectly chiselled story of the Spanish pioneers who, despite their visionary dreams, held, for the government Washington was founding, a highway to the Pacific.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

LOS ANGELES

THE CITY OF THE ANGELS

BY FLORENCE E. WINSLOW

"Very near the terrestrial paradise," said the old Spanish explorer of the sunlit country, where stood in a later century the pueblo of Los Angeles.

Very near the terrestrial paradise has it seemed to weary travellers, hopeful invalids, and delighted home-makers, who have from year to year wandered across the desert to find rest, health, and comfort in a climate where the terms winter and summer are misnomers, where snows are seen only on the mountain-tops above the flowering plain, where severe heats are unknown, and where Nature rewards those who seek her gifts in largest measure. Climate and situation are the environing elements which count for most in the development of the history of Los Angeles. These are responsible both for the easy, courteous, pleasure-loving lives of the Spanish rancheros, and the strenuous, vivid, progressive, munic.i.p.al experiences of the Americans in this modern "pleasure city."

Los Angeles treasures the memory of ancient Spanish days of daring and romance, among which lie the beginnings of its civil life. All that is left of the old Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles may be seen now cl.u.s.tered about the old plaza, with its church, in what is known as Sonora town. Here the sun-baked adobe walls of the houses nestle, with their Mexican residents, in the midst of the bustling city, awaiting the final decay which marks the pa.s.sing of the Pueblo.

[Ill.u.s.tration BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL.]

Precedent to later social conditions of ease, the careful student will find in the lives of the earlier settlers of Alta California a strong, vital, self-sacrificing religious impulse, which, upon Pacific as upon Atlantic sh.o.r.es, induced the initial movement in a civilization which moved to its attempted end indifferent to climate or environment, and using the material only to subserve the interests of the dominant spiritual. Junipero Serra, with his mission settlers of 1769, was in subtlest ways akin to the Pilgrim Fathers of the preceding century. As Los Angeles was but a humble dependent on San Gabriel Mission, its beginnings may best be traced in connection with the history of the mission fathers, the earliest colonizers and civilizers of the sunset land. Their unstinted and self-sacrificing devotion to the Indians of California, their great mission trade-schools, where not only the salvation of souls but the training of the minds and hands of the neophytes was undertaken, their wise administration of their trusts, both spiritual and material, make this initial movement in the colonization of California one of the brightest incidents in the story of the Golden West.

Out of the mists of romance which envelop the earlier explorers of the Pacific Coasts appear the forms of Cabrillo and Vizcaino, the first historic visitors to Southern California.

It may be that Francisco de Ulloa had in 1539 gained from the Pacific a glimpse of the land, or that Hernando de Alarcon from the Gila country saw the plain of Los Angeles in 1540. Sure it is that Cabrillo in 1542, and Vizcaino in 1603 visited San Diego and San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles.

The latter landed at San Diego, seeking a suitable port for ships engaged in trade with the Philippines, dug wells, and erected a church tent for three friars who were of the party, and then for 166 years this "fair land without snow" drops out of history. It is left to its Indian residents, left treasuring its resources for future generations, for new peoples.

[Ill.u.s.tration SAN DIEGO MISSION. FOUNDED 1769.]

In 1769 came Junipero Serra--saint, hero, and Franciscan father. In him the romance of missionary enterprise finds embodiment; with him and his missions the colonization of Alta California began. The missions in the peninsula of Lower California were, by the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, left in charge of the Franciscans, and Serra's burning zeal for the conversion of the Indians led him to urge the prosecution of a long-cherished plan of the Government. This was to provide the Manila ships with good ports on the northwest coasts and to promote settlements there.

There was a union of spiritual and physical forces--soldiers under the military government of Portola co-operating with the missionaries under Serra. Four expeditions, two proceeding by sea and two by land, were reunited at San Diego, where, on July 16th, the n.o.ble missionary dedicated the first mission in Alta California. It was but two years later that the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel was founded, with solemn chants of Veni, Creator Spiritus and Te Deum Laudamus, and in the presence of many Indians.

Serra, who had entered in a litter the land of promise where his zeal and courage were to accomplish so much, had already travelled toward San Francisco, crossing mountain and desert on foot, and establishing the Mission of San Carlos. The missions were firmly organized and devoutly conducted, and there were eighteen of them by the end of the century. Forty padres had gathered in these first industrial training-schools a population of 13,500 converted Indian neophytes, to whom they had taught the arts of civilization.

San Gabriel became one of the richest missions. Its church has never been disused; to-day it welcomes strangers as in the time when it received those weary pilgrims, the founders of Los Angeles, who came from Loreto across the deserts of Colorado, on the route first taken by Anza through the San Gorgonio pa.s.s, and were provided by the hospitable fathers with all that was needed for rest and refreshment. The centre of the civilized and agricultural life of the district, San Gabriel, was a great material as well as spiritual force. It had its guard of ten soldiers and its three padres. Two of these, Cruzado and Sanchez, ministered side by side to the California Indians for thirty years, and the latter had a missionary experience of fifty-five years.

The name of Los Angeles is first found in the Mission report of 1773. It is given to the river first named Porzinucula discovered by Portola's expedition of 1769. This discovery, as recorded by Padre Crespi, was made upon the anniversary of the feast of our Lady of Angels. The Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles was founded in 1781. Till then there had been in the new country only missions and presidios, the military stations; but the settlement of colonies in pueblos was part of the original Spanish plan, and the necessity of obtaining additional supplies for the use of the presidios gave the needed stimulus.

[Ill.u.s.tration THE PUEBLO OF LOS ANGELES. EARLY SPANISH PLAN. SUERTES FROM C TO E.]

Under instructions issued by Governor Neve a site for a dam was first selected, water being then as now a primary essential. The pueblo was placed on high land near these facilities for irrigation, a plaza of two hundred by three hundred varas being laid out, with corners facing the cardinal points, so that three streets should run perpendicularly from each of its four sides, that no street might be swept by the winds. Yet tradition saith that Los Angeles winds have not kept always to the cardinal points. Solares, or house-lots, of twenty by forty varas were given to settlers in numbers equal to the available suertes, field-lots. Two suertes of dry, and two of irrigable land, were given to each family. One fourth of the suertes were left vacant, as realangas or government lands, while a number, called propios, were reserved for munic.i.p.al expenses. Colonists received ten dollars a month each, for two years; also regular rations, seeds, clothing, and live stock. Twelve men with their families, including eleven women and twenty-six children, were the colonizers of Los Angeles.

They were princ.i.p.ally Spanish soldiers. On September 14, 1781, the plaza of the new town was solemnly dedicated by the mission priests, who came in procession from San Gabriel, attended by Indian neophytes and a guard of soldiers. To the twelve settlers, twelve building-lots were given. These were laid out on three sides of the plaza, while the fourth was reserved for a church and public buildings. In 1786 the Governor sent Jose Arguello to formally renew the leases of houses, lots, and branding-irons. At this time not one settler could sign his name. A small church was erected in 1784. It was but twenty-three by fifty feet in size, and was served by the padres of San Gabriel. One of these, Padre Oumetz, was for thirty years a companion of Serra in his missionary labors. He died at San Gabriel in 1811. It was at least twenty years before Los Angeles ceased to be dependent on San Gabriel and to develop a small trade of its own. Outside the pueblo provisional grants of ranchos were soon made. The largest and best of all of these was known later as Los Nietos, and was given to the heirs of Manuel Nito by Figueroa, who divided it into tracts in 1834. The Dominguez rancho, given by f.a.ges to Don Jose Dominguez, was regranted by Sola in 1822 to Sergeant Christobal Dominguez. La Zanja, the home of the Verdugos, the Encino and the Simi ranchos, Las Virgines, El Conejo Santa Ana, the Bartolo Tapia and Antonio Maria ranchos, were the homes of such families as the Picos and Ortegas, whose wealth and power contributed to the future glory of the pueblo near which they lived, while the Felix ranch was actually within the pueblo bounds.

[Ill.u.s.tration DON PIO PICO, THE LAST MEXICAN GOVERNOR.]

Settled largely by soldiers, Los Angeles came under military government and was slow to develop self-governing local principles. It was ruled by commissionados, of whom Felix was the first, and by alcaldes. But local jurisdiction was limited, and cases went beyond the towns to be decided by military garrisons a hundred miles away. By 1810 the population was 365 and the crops in the fertile, well-watered plain amazingly large. By 1820 the ninety-one pobladores now occupying the town site were able to supply much produce to the presidios, while 56,600 vines were flourishing in the vineyards about San Gabriel.

In 1814 Padre Gil Taboada laid the corner-stone of a new church, but the site was changed and there was difficulty in raising the necessary funds; so the building was not completed until 1822. The builders were Indian neophytes, who were paid at the rate of one real (12-1/2 cts.) a day. The citizens contributed five hundred cattle, and the missions subscribed seven barrels of brandy, worth $575, wine, cattle, and mules. A new government building was added, and both this and the church were surrounded by houses of the aristocracy. Ignacio Coronel was one who at this time pet.i.tioned for a house-lot near the "new" church. The first resident priest, Fray Geronimo Boscana, took possession of his parish house in a town of six hundred souls. The church was enlarged in 1841, and reroofed in 1861. Education in Los Angeles began with a village school taught by Maxima Pina, who began his labors in 1790, receiving a salary of $140 a year. Coronel was a later teacher.

[Ill.u.s.tration DON ANTONIO F. CORONEL, WITH SPANISH CANNON BROUGHT TO SAN DIEGO BY SERRA IN 1769.]

In 1822 California became a province of the Mexican Empire, the military office was abolished, the alcaldes were retained, a secretary and treasurer were added, and an elective body, the Ayuntamiento, was established. Thus the government of Los Angeles went on about as it had gone under the rule of Spain. The Ayuntamiento was elected annually until 1839, and proved a most versatile body, constantly changing its political att.i.tudes during the controversies of later years.

The mission fathers made little objection to this change of government, but when, in 1824, Mexico became a republic and Alta California its territory, they opposed themselves to the ruling powers. From this time on the Mexican Government pressed its plans of secularization until, in 1834, the ruin of the missions was complete, and that of the gentle Indians, whose rights they had hitherto guarded, was begun.

Durant Cilly, a visitor to Los Angeles in 1827, found a "city of gardens,"

and in 1830, a prosperous year of large crops, there were one thousand inhabitants who, by vessels landing at the port of San Pedro, engaged in a large trade in hides and tallow.

[Ill.u.s.tration THE OLD PLAZA CHURCH, LOS ANGELES.]

In 1818 the first American arrived in Los Angeles. He was followed by a succession of trappers and hunters. There was Captain Paty who, with a party of Kentucky trappers, visited the town and was baptized into the Catholic faith at San Diego, Don Pico acting as sponsor. Pryor's party settled in the pueblo, and built houses and planted vineyards. Next came sailors of the brig _Danube_, which went ash.o.r.e off San Pedro on Christmas Eve, 1828. These were all hospitably welcomed in Los Angeles. Samuel Prentice of Connecticut came, and John Gronigen, the first German settler, planted his vineyard on the ground afterwards occupied by the Domingo block. A trade with Santa Fe sprang up, and Wolfskill, who came with a party of trappers in 1830, brought Mojave blankets, exchanging them for mules. In 1832-33 more Americans came from New Mexico. There were Paulding, Carpenter and Chard, Moses Carson, and later Benjamin Hayes, who was for eleven years district judge of Los Angeles, and, after 1847, more trappers and many sailors, who were willing to remain and plough land. Last of all came the American merchant, farmer, and speculator. By 1836, there were in Los Angeles forty-six foreigners, of whom twenty-one were Americans; also 553 Indians, the remaining 2228 inhabitants of the district being Mexicans and Spaniards, the latter of pure Castilian blood, with a generous and wise pride in a high descent, the aristocrats of the coast.

Slight attempts at ship-building were made at San Pedro in 1831, Padre Sanchez of San Gabriel aiding Wolfskill, Pryor, Prentice, Fount, and Loughlin to build a schooner. In 1833, when Antonio Osio had charge of the port trade, Los Angeles shipped one hundred thousand hides and twenty-five thousand centals of tallow, but the trade slackened after the secularization in 1834. The cattle of San Gabriel were all slaughtered, and by 1840 the mission live stock had disappeared. Padre Estenega in 1845 gave up the mission estates to the Government.

A strenuous and important period in the history of the town followed. From 1831 to 1840 the Angelenos held themselves largely responsible for the salvation of California, as they understood it; and Los Angeles became the centre of political agitation. The South was divided against the North, and often against itself, and many typical California battles, terrific in bl.u.s.ter and intent, but bloodless in reality, occurred near the old pueblo.

It was during the banishment of Jose Carrillo, with whom Vincente Sanchez, alcalde of Los Angeles, had quarrelled, that the trouble with Victoria, the Mexican Governor, came. Sanchez had been deposed by the Ayuntamiento, but was reinstated as alcalde by Victoria, who at the same time ordered the imprisonment of eight prominent citizens. An insurgent army defeated Victoria in a fight near Los Angeles, and the Governor, deserted by his army, surrendered to Echeandia December 4, 1831, and was allowed to depart the country. Sanchez was put in irons. One hundred citizens took part in this battle.

Los Angeles was made not only a city but the capital in 1835, and soon became the storm-centre of the country. There may have been lack of zeal in providing necessary public buildings for the Government, but there was none at all in furnishing abundantly that quality of fiery zeal essential to Mexican revolutions. Governor Carrillo made the town his residence in 1838.

Alvarado succeeded him when the plots and counterplots of the disputacions had sent Carrillo to the North.

[Ill.u.s.tration A TYPICAL COTTAGE]