The Old Franciscan Missions Of California

The disastrous effect of the order of secularization upon the Indians, as well as the Missions themselves, has been referred to in a special chapter. Here I wish to give, in bri...

San Diego Mission founded, Serra was impatient to have work begun elsewhere. Urging the governor to go north immediately, he rejoiced when Portolá, Crespí, Rivera, and Pages sta...

The Mission padres were the first circuit riders or pastors. It is generally supposed that the circuit rider is a device of the Methodist church, but history clearly reveals tha...

"When discovered by the padres he was almost naked, half starved, living in filthy little hovels built of tule, speaking a meagre language broken up into as many different and i...

It was not the policy or intention of the Government of Spain to found Missions in the New World solely for the benefit of the natives. Philanthropic motives doubtless influence...

In the popular mind there is a misapprehension that is as deep-seated as it is ill-founded. It is that the California Missions are the only Missions (except one or two in Arizon...

After the founding of San Buenaventura. Governor Neve arrived from San Gabriel, inspected the new site, and expressed himself as pleased with all that had been done. A few days...

Rightly to understand the history of the Missions of the California of the United States, it is imperative that the connection or relationship that exists between their history...

The story of Bucareli's determination to found a presidio at San Francisco, and Anza's march with the colonists for it from Sonora, has already been recounted. When Serra and Ga...

The story of the founding of San Diego by Serra has already been given. It was the beginning of the realization of his fondest hopes. The early troubles with the Indians delayed...

We have already seen that San Gabriel, the fourth Mission, was founded September 8, 1771. The natives gave cheerful assistance in bringing timber, erecting the wooden buildings,...

The first consideration of the padres in dealing with the Indians was the salvation of their souls. Of this no honest and honorable man can hold any question. Serra and his coad...

Rivera delayed the founding of San Francisco and Santa Clara for reasons of his own; and when, in September, 1776, he received a letter from Viceroy Bucareli, in which were refe...

There was a period of rest after the founding of Santa Cruz and La Soledad. Padre Presidente Lasuen was making ready for a new and great effort. Hitherto the Mission establishme...

Although the date of the founding of this Mission is given as December 8, 1787,--for that was the day on which Presidente Lasuen raised the cross, blessed the site, celebrated m...

AT Padre Serra's death Fermin Francisco Lasuen was chosen to be his successor as padre-presidente. At the time of his appointment he was the priest in charge at San Diego. He wa...

We cannot to-day determine how the Franciscans of the Southwest decorated the interiors of all their churches. Some of these buildings have disappeared entirely, while others ha...

The last Mission of the century, the last of Lasuen's administration, and the last south of Santa Barbara, was that of San Luis Rey. Lasuen himself explored the region and deter...

For thirteen years the heart of the venerable Serra was made sick by the postponements in the founding of this Mission. The Viceroy de Croix had ordered Governor Rivera "to recr...

The second of the "filling up the links of the chain" Missions was that of San Juan Bautista. Three days after the commandant of San Francisco had received his orders to furnish...

On September 8, 1797, the seventeenth of the California Missions was founded by Padre Lasuen, in the Encino Valley, where Francisco Reyes had a rancho in the Los Angeles jurisdi...

Lasuen's third Mission, of 1797, was San Miguel, located near a large ranchería named _Sagshpileel_, and on the site called _Vahiá_. One reason for the selection of the location...

Governor Borica, who called California "the most peaceful and quiet country on earth," and under whose orders Padre Lasuen had established the five Missions of 1796-1797, had hi...

On the tragic events at San Diego that led to the delay in the founding of San Juan Capistrano I have already fully dwelt. The Mission was founded by Serra, November 1, 1776, an...

A brief account of the founding of San Carlos at Monterey, June 3, 1770, was given in an earlier chapter. What joy the discovery of the harbor and founding of the Mission caused...

SAN DIEGO. From Los Angeles to San Diego, Santa Fé Railway, 126 miles, one way fare $3.85; round trip $5.00, good ten days; or $7.00, good 30 days, with stop-over privileges at...

Founded, as we have seen, by Serra himself, September I, 1772, by the end of 1773 the Mission of San Luis Obispo could report only twelve converts. Serra left the day after the...

The Mission of "Our Lady of Solitude" has only a brief record in written history; but the little that is known and the present condition of the ruins suggest much that has never...

The third Mission of the series was founded in honor of San Antonio de Padua, July 14, 1771, by Serra, accompanied by Padres Pieras and Sitjar. One solitary Indian heard the ded...

It is an incontrovertible fact that no great idea ever rests in its own accomplishment. There are offshoots from it, ideas generated in other minds entirely different from the o...

The question is often asked: Is there a Mission architecture? It is not my intention here to discuss this question _in extenso_, but merely to answer it by asking another and th...

Lasuen found matters far easier for him in the founding of Missions than did Serra in his later years. The viceroy agreed to pay $1000 each for the expenses of the Missions of S...

Estevan Tapis now became president of the Missions, and under his direction was founded the nineteenth Mission, that of Santa Inés, virgin and martyr. Tapis himself conducted th...

The Mission of the Archangel, San Rafael, was founded to give a health resort to a number of neophytes who were sick in San Francisco. The native name for the site was _Nanaguan...

Fifty-four years after the founding of the first Franciscan Mission in California, the site was chosen for the twenty-first and last, San Francisco Solano. This Mission was esta...

Before leaving San Carlos it will be well to explain the facts in regard to the Mission church at Monterey. Many errors have been perpetuated about this church. There is little...