Part 3

I submit to you, as Californians, whether this is a record in which we can take any pride. With the exception of the pitiful attempts of its loyal friends from time to time to revive the California Historical Society, absolutely no organization work whatever, except what has lately been initiated at Berkeley, has been done by any public institution to promote the publication of California history or the collection of material therefor. With a history such as ours, with its halo of romance, with its peculiarity of incident, with its epoch-making significance, is it not a burning shame that our people have not long ago, either through private endowment or through public institutions, taken as much pride in the preservation of our history as its makers did in the creation of it? Is it not time that civic societies in every section of this State should combine and work together for the creation of a public sentiment which will support and uphold any institution that will strive to perpetuate the record of the history of this great commonwealth?

Though there has been no sustained or organized effort on the part of the State, or of any community in the State, to recognize the duty of collecting and preserving the priceless records of its historical growth, yet, by the luck that often attends improvidence, we have the nucleus of a library which goes far toward offsetting our culpable indifference.

One of the great fires that swept San Francisco in its early stages just missed the Bancroft Library, then at the corner of Merchant and Montgomery streets. The later fire that burned the building on Market Street, near Third, next door to the History Building, again barely missed the Bancroft Library. And when it was moved to the building especially constructed for it at Valencia and Mission streets, the great conflagration of the 18th of April, 1906, just failed to reach it. In this State it had remained for a private individual, by his life work, to collect and preserve a library that to the State of California is almost priceless in value. This magnificent library the State of California has recently purchased and installed in the California Building, at the State University, where its usefulness is being developed by the Academy of Pacific Coast History, an association organized in connection with the history work of the University. By a series of happy accidents, then, we are in a position to start with as great a nucleus of its historical data as any commonwealth ever had. There remains the great work of cataloguing and publishing, rendering available to the investigation of scholarship this mass of original data, and the State should immediately provide the liberal fund necessary for the mechanical and clerical administrative work.

While the State is completing the trust with reference to the material it already has on hand, the all-destroying march of Time still goes swiftly on, however. Manuscripts in foreign lands are fading and being lost, parchments are becoming moth-eaten or mildewed, whole archives without duplicate are at the mercy of a mob, or a revolution, or a conflagration, and a generation of men and women still alive are quickly passing away, carrying with them an "unsung Iliad" of the Sierras and the plains. In the presence of these facts, we should not stand idle. One great fraternal organization has already done, and is still loyally doing, more than its share. In the great work of endowing fellowships in Pacific Coast history at Berkeley there is room enough for all. Here is an opportunity for private munificence. A fine civism will not find a more pressing necessity, or a more splendid opportunity. An endowment of $100,000 invested in five per cent bonds will yield an annual fellowship fund of $5,000. A citizen looking for an opportunity to do something worth while could find few worthier objects. The fruit of such an endowment may not be as enduring as a noble campanile, or an incomparable Greek theater, yet, in a sense, it will be more lasting than either, for facts become history, and history survives, when campaniles fall and Greek theaters are ground to powder.

It may be that we have not realized that, as it took conscious effort to create the history of the Pacific Coast, it will take conscious effort to see that it is recorded and given its proper place in the history of the country at large. If we have not understood this fact, the recital of the activities of historical societies and other agencies in the East should admonish us that it is time, it has long been time, for us to be up and doing. The record of the history that is now in the making will take care of itself, and the machinery is at hand for its preservation. If we shall become the center of a new culture, be assured that it will be its own press-agent. If we shall see grow into fruition a new music among the redwoods of our Bohemian Grove, there are signs that the world will not be kept ignorant of its origin. Literature reflecting local color will survive as the historic basis for it is known and made secure. The debt we owe to Bret Harte for "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," "The Luck of Roaring Camp," and all the individual types his genius made live again, to Helen Hunt Jackson for her immortal "Ramona," to Charles Fletcher Lummis for his faithful chronicles of splendid pioneering and research, will only be more appreciated as our knowledge of the historic past becomes more accurate and sure.

But it is the record of that very past, the record of our brief, eventful and enthralling past, that concerns us now. Monuments and reminders of it exist on every side. The record also exists, but scattered over the face of the earth, and it has not yet been collected and transcribed. This history cannot be properly taught until it is properly written, and it cannot be properly written until all essential sources shall have been explored. Mines of information are still open that may soon be closed, perhaps forever. Let us promote such action that no element of the grand drama of world-politics once played on these Pacific shores shall be lost. Let us see to it, also, that our fathers' high achievement in a later day shall not be unknown to their descendants. In this cause, let us, with hearts courageous and minds determined, each make good his "full measure of devotion." Thus, may California's story become known of all Americans, and sink into the hearts of a grateful people.

Appendix A.

The Love-Story of Concha Argueello.

[The occasion of the following remarks was the placing of a bronze tablet upon the oldest adobe building in San Francisco, the former residence of the Comandante, now the Officers' Club, at the Presidio, under the auspices of the California Historical Landmarks League, on Serra Day, November 24, 1913. Maria de la Concepcion Marcela Argueello (pronounced Arg-wail'-yo), daughter of Don Jose Dario Argueello, the Comandante of the Presidio, and his wife, Maria Ygnacia Moraga, was born at this Presidio, February 19, 1791 (Original Baptismal Records of Old Mission Dolores, vol. 1, fol. 96, No. 931). The dates of Feb. 26, 1790, given by Bancroft, founded on mere family correspondence, and of Feb. 13, 1791, given by Mary Graham, founded upon a mistaken reading of the baptismal record, are both incorrect. The Spanish pet-name for Concepcion (pronounced Con-sep-se-own', with the accent on the last syllable) is Concha (pronounced Cone-cha, the accent strongly on the first syllable, and the cha as in Charles), and its diminutives are Conchita and Conchitita.

Her father was afterward transferred to Santa Barbara, and from there, while he was temporary Governor of California, under the Spanish regime, on Dec. 31, 1814, appointed Governor of Lower California. Her brother, Luis Antonio Argueello, born June 21, 1784, also at the Presidio, died March 27, 1830. He entered the military service as cadet, Sept. 6, 1799; was alferez (ensign), Dec. 23, 1800; lieutenant, March 10, 1806; succeeded his father as Comandante of San Francisco in 1806; was the first Governor of California under Mexican rule, and is buried in the old Mission Dolores cemetery, where the finest monument in the cemetery stands erected to his memory.]

I am glad to see this bronze tablet affixed to this noble adobe building. I take it, that when some of the wooden eye-sores that here abound are torn down, in the necessary beautification that should precede 1915, this old historic building--a monument to Spanish chivalry and hospitality--will be spared. We have too few of them left to lose any of them now. And of all buildings in the world, the Presidio army post should guard this one with jealous care, for here was enacted one of the greatest, sweetest, most tragic love stories of the world--a story which is all the Presidio's own, and which it does not have to share with any other army post.

To you, men of the army, my appeal ought to be an easy one. You have no desire to escape the soft impeachment that the profession of arms has ever been susceptible to the charms of woman. The relation of Mars to Venus is not simply a legend of history, is founded on no mere mythology--their relationship is as sure as the firmament, and their orbits are sometimes very close together.

There is one name that should be the perennial toast of the men of this Presidio. We have just celebrated by a splendid pageant the four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the Pacific Ocean by Balboa, and we chose for queen of that ceremony a beautiful girl by the name of Conchita. There was another Conchita once, the daughter of the comandante of this Presidio, the bewitching, the beautiful, the radiant Concha Argueello.

In this old Presidio she was born. In the old Mission Dolores she was christened. Here, it is told, that in the merry exuberance of her innocent babyhood, she danced instead of prayed before the shrine. In the glory of these sunrises and day-vistas and sunsets, she passed her girlhood and bloomed into womanhood. In this old adobe building she queened it supremely. Here she presided at every hospitality; here she was the leader of every fiesta.

To this bay, on the 8th of April, 1806[11], in the absence of her stern old father in Monterey, and while the Presidio was under the temporary command of her brother Luis, there came from the north the "Juno," the vessel of the Russian Chamberlain Rezanov, his secret mission an intrigue of some kind concerning this wonderland, for the benefit of the great Czar at St. Petersburg. He found no difficulty in coming ashore. Father was away. Brother was kind. Besides, the Russian marines looked good, and the officers knew how to dance as only military men know how to dance. The hospitality was Castilian, unaffected, intimate, and at the evenings' dances in this old building their barrego was more graceful than any inartistic tango, and in the teaching of the waltz by the Russians--there was no "hesitation."

Then came Love's miracle; and by the time the comandante returned to his post, ten days later, the glances of the bright-flashing eyes of the daughter had more effectively pulverized the original scheme of the chamberlain, than any old guns of her father on this fort could have done. Their troth was plighted, and, as he belonged to the Greek Church, with a lover's abandon, he started home to St. Petersburg, the tremendous journey of that day by way of Russian America and across the plains of Siberia, to obtain his Emperor's consent to his marriage. No knight of chivalry ever pledged more determined devotion. He assured even the Governor that, immediately upon his return to St. Petersburg, he would go to Madrid as ambassador extraordinary from the Czar, to obviate every kind of misunderstanding between the powers. From there he would proceed to Vera Cruz, or some other Spanish harbor in Mexico, and then return to San Francisco, to claim his bride.

On the 21st of May, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the "Juno" weighed anchor for Sitka, and in passing the fort, then called the fort of San Joaquin, she saluted it with seven guns--and received in return a salute of nine. The old chronicler who accompanied the expedition says that the Governor, with the whole Argueello family, and several other friends and acquaintances, collected at the fort and waived an adieu with hats and handkerchiefs[12]. And one loyal soul stood looking seaward, till a vessel's hull sank below the horizon.

How many fair women, through the pitiless years, have thus stood--looking seaward! Once more the envious Fates prevailed. Unknown to his sweetheart, Rezanov died on the overland journey from Okhotsk to St. Petersburg, in a little town in the snows of central Siberia. With a woman's instinctive and unyielding faith, the beautiful girl waited and watched for his return, waited the long and dreary years till the roses of youth faded from her cheeks. True heart, no other voice could reach her ear! Dead to all allurement, she first joined a secular order, "dedicating her life to the instructions of the young and the consolation of the sick," and finally entered the Dominican sisterhood, where she gave the remainder of her life to the heroic and self-effacing service of her order. Not until late in life did she have the consolation of learning--and then quite by accident--that her lover had not been false to her, but had died of a fall from his horse on his mission to win her. Long years afterward she died, in 1857, at the convent of St. Catherine; and today, while he sleeps beneath a Greek cross in the wilds of Siberia, she is at rest beneath a Roman cross in the little Dominican cemetery at Benicia, across the Bay[13].

This history is true. These old walls were witnesses to part of it. These hills and dales were part of the setting for their love-drama. One picnic was taken by boat to what is now called the Island of Belvedere yonder. One horseback outing was taken to the picturesque canyon of San Andres, so named by Captain Rivera and Father Palou in 1774. Gertrude Atherton has given us the novel, and Bret Harte has sung the poem, founded upon it[14].

When we think of the love stories that have survived the ages, Alexander and Thais, Pericles and Aspasia, Antony and Cleopatra, and all the rest of them--some of them a narrative unfit to handle with tongs--shall we let this local story die? Shall not America furnish a newer and purer standard? If to such a standard Massachusetts is to contribute the Courtship of Miles Standish, may not California contribute the Courtship of Rezanov? You men of this army post have a peculiar right to proclaim this sentiment; in such an enlistment you, of all men, would have the right to unsheathe a flaming sword. For this memory of the comandante's daughter is yours--yours to cherish, yours to protect. In the barracks and on parade, at the dance and in the field, this "one sweet human fancy" belongs to this Presidio; and no court-martial nor departmental order can ever take it from you.

[Translation of Baptismal Record.]

931. Maria Concepcion Marcela Argueello, Female Spanish Infant 65.

On the 26th day of February of the year 1791, in the church of this Mission of our Holy Patron St. Francis, I solemnly baptized a girl born on the 19th day of the said month, the legitimate daughter of Don Jose Argueello, lieutenant-captain, and commander of the neighboring royal presidio, a native of the city of Queretaro, New Spain, and of Dona Maria Ygnacia Moraga, a native of the royal presidio of El Altar, Sonora. I gave her the names of Maria de la Concepcion Marcela. Her godfather was Don Jose de Zuniga, lieutenant-captain and commander of the royal presidio of San Diego, by proxy, authenticated by the colonel commandant-inspector and Governor of this province, Senor Don Pedro Fages, in the presence of two witnesses, namely, Senor Manuel de Vargas, sergeant of the company of Monterey, and Juan de Dios Ballesteros, corporal of the same, delegated in due form to Manuel Baronda, corporal of the company of this royal presidio of our Holy Patron St. Francis, who accepted it, and held the said girl in his arms at the time of her baptism. I notified him that he was not contracting kinship nor the obligations of godfather, and that he should so advise his principal, in order that the latter might be informed of the spiritual kinship and of other obligations contracted, according as I explained them to him. And in witness whereof, I sign it on the day, mouth and year above given.

Fray Pedro Benito Cambon (rubric).

Appendix B.

Concepcion De Argueello.

(Presidio de San Francisco, 1806.)

By Bret Harte.

I.

Looking seaward, o'er the sand-hills stands the fortress, old and quaint, By the San Francisco friars lifted to their patron saint,--

Sponsor to that wondrous city, now apostate to the creed, On whose youthful walls the Padre saw the angel's golden reed;

All its trophies long since scattered, all its blazon brushed away; And the flag that flies above it but a triumph of today.

Never scar of siege or battle challenges the wandering eye, Never breach of warlike onset holds the curious passer-by;

Only one sweet human fancy interweaves its threads of gold With the plain and homespun present, and a love that ne'er grows old;

Only one thing holds its crumbling walls above the meaner dust, Listen to the simple story of a woman's love and trust.

II.

Count von Resanoff[15], the Russian, envoy of the mighty Czar, Stood beside the deep embrasures, where the brazen cannon are.

He with grave provincial magnates long had held serene debate On the Treaty of Alliance and the high affairs of state;

He from grave provincial magnates oft had turned to talk apart With the Comandante's daughter on the questions of the heart,

Until points of gravest import yielded slowly one by one, And by Love was consummated what Diplomacy begun;

Till beside the deep embrasures, where the brazen cannon are, He received the twofold contract for approval of the Czar;

Till beside the brazen cannon the betrothed bade adieu, And from sallyport and gateway north the Russian eagles flew.

III.

Long beside the deep embrasures, where the brazen cannon are, Did they wait the promised bridegroom and the answer of the Czar;

Day by day on wall and bastion beat the hollow, empty breeze,-- Day by day the sunlight glittered on the vacant, smiling seas;

Week by week the near hills whitened in their dusty leather cloaks, Week by week the far hills darkened from the fringing plain of oaks;

Till the rains came, and far breaking, on the fierce southwester tost, Dashed the whole long coast with color, and then vanished and were lost.

So each year the seasons shifted,--wet and warm and drear and dry; Half a year of clouds and flowers, half a year of dust and sky.

Still it brought no ship nor message,--brought no tidings, ill or meet, For the statesmanlike Commander, for the daughter fair and sweet.

Yet she heard the varying message, voiceless to all ears beside: "He will come," the flowers whispered; "Come no more," the dry hills sighed.

Still she found him with the waters lifted by the morning breeze,-- Still she lost him with the folding of the great white-tented seas

Until hollows chased the dimples from her cheeks of olive brown, And at times a swift, shy moisture dragged the long sweet lashes down;

Or the small mouth curved and quivered as for some denied caress, And the fair young brow was knitted in an infantine distress.

Then the grim Commander, pacing where the brazen cannon are, Comforted the maid with proverbs, wisdom gathered from afar;

Bits of ancient observation by his fathers garnered, each As a pebble worn and polished in the current of his speech:

"'Those who wait the coming rider travel twice as far as he;' 'Tired wench and coming butter never did in time agree;'

"'He that getteth himself honey, though a clown, he shall have flies;' 'In the end God grinds the miller;' 'In the dark the mole has eyes;'

"'He whose father is Alcalde of his trial hath no fear,'-- And be sure the Count has reasons that will make his conduct clear."

Then the voice sententious faltered, and the wisdom it would teach Lost itself in fondest trifles of his soft Castilian speech;

And on "Concha," "Conchitita," and "Conchita" he would dwell With the fond reiteration which the Spaniard knows so well.

So with proverbs and caresses, half in faith and half in doubt, Every day some hope was kindled, flickered, faded, and went out.

IV.

Yearly, down the hillside sweeping, came the stately cavalcade, Bringing revel to vaquero, joy and comfort to each maid;

Bringing days of formal visit, social feast and rustic sport, Of bull-baiting on the plaza, of love-making in the court.

Vainly then at Concha's lattice, vainly as the idle wind, Rose the thin high Spanish tenor that bespoke the youth too kind;

Vainly, leaning from their saddles, caballeros, bold and fleet, Plucked for her the buried chicken from beneath their mustang's feet;

So in vain the barren hillsides with their gay serapes blazed,-- Blazed and vanished in the dust-cloud that their flying hoofs had raised.

Then the drum called from the rampart, and once more, with patient mien, The Commander and his daughter each took up the dull routine,

Each took up the petty duties of a life apart and lone, Till the slow years wrought a music in its dreary monotone.

V.

Forty years on wall and bastion swept the hollow idle breeze, Since the Russian eagle fluttered from the California seas;

Forty years on wall and bastion wrought its slow but sure decay, And St. George's cross was lifted in the port of Monterey;

And the citadel was lighted, and the hall was gayly drest, All to honor Sir George Simpson, famous traveler and guest[16].

Far and near the people gathered to the costly banquet set, And exchanged congratulations with the English baronet;

Till, the formal speeches ended, and amidst the laugh and wine, Some one spoke of Concha's lover,--heedless of the warning sign.

Quickly then cried Sir George Simpson: "Speak no ill of him, I pray! He is dead. He died, poor fellow, forty years ago this day,

"Died while speeding home to Russia, falling from a fractious horse. Left a sweetheart, too, they tell me. Married, I suppose, of course!

"Lives she yet?" A deathlike silence fell on banquet, guests, and hall, And a trembling figure rising fixed the awestruck gaze of all.

Two black eyes in darkened orbits gleamed beneath the nun's white hood[17]; Black serge hid the wasted figure, bowed and stricken where it stood.

"Lives she yet?" Sir George repeated. All were hushed as Concha drew Closer yet her nun's attire. "Senor, pardon, she died, too!"

[1] Pronounced Hoo-neep-ero, with the accent on the second syllable.