Misión Vieja and the 1844 Los Angeles District Census

Only eight years elapsed between the first area census in Mexican-era Los Angeles and the next, yet the references to geography did involve some significant changes. First, the reference to "Rancho Santa Gertrudes," which seems to have embraced the Misión Vieja area was not followed up in 1844. Moreover, some of the persons listed there in the first census had evidently moved on by the second.

For example, Antonio Alvitre and his wife Concepción Amesquita (listed here as "Amesti") were, with their nine children, listed as living in "Angeles," meaning the pueblo of Los Angeles. Shortly after this census, however, Antonio and Concepción relocated to Monterey and stayed there the remainder of their lives.

Juan José Lobo, son of Cecilio Lobo and Maria Casilda Soto, appears in the census in "Angeles" with his wife, Saturnina Feliz and their five daughters, but there is no mention at all of his parents and siblings, of which there had been four in the previous census.

Maria Siriaca Valenzuela, whose parents were Antonio Valenzuela and Maria Dominga Alvitre, was married to Francisco Duarte and also listed as living in "Angeles." As for her parents, see at the end of the post below.

"Angeles" was also the listed place of residence for Jorge Morrillo and Magdalena Vejar, enumerated in Santa Gertrudes in 1836. The two had seven children in the household--three the two bore together and four from Magdalena's first marriage to José Joaquin Verdugo. The Morrillos were living near Magdelena's Vejar relatives and next to them were Magdalena's daughter with Joaquin Verdugo, Juana Maria, and her husband Teodoro Romero, with their two children. The next year, however, Morillo and Romero were granted the Rancho Potrero de Felipe Lugo (whose namesake, a son of famed rancher Antonio Maria Lugo of Rancho San Antonio, evidently grazed his cattle in the area after Mission San Gabriel lost it in the secularization process of the 1830s.) This rancho was also known as Rancho Dolores.

Meanwhile, at "Santa Ana," in present Orange County were Nasario Duarte and Maria Silvas with their four children. The couple had resided in Rancho Santa Gertrudes in 1836.

As for Nasario's brother, Manuel and his wife Polinaria Ontiveros, they were not shown in the 1844 enumeration. Neither seemingly were Urbino Tapia and Mariana Lorenzana, Manuel Romero and Gregoria Ontiveros, Antonio Bermudez and Buenaventure Alvitre, or Ana Maria Lugo, widow of Hilario Bermudez—all of which appeared in Santa Gertrudes eight years before.

Also notably absent was, as said earlier, Maria Casilda Soto de Lobo, who was, in fact, granted the Rancho La Merced, encompassing the area south and west of Misión Vieja, in the same year as the census. There were, however, several persons listed as residing at "R. de la Merce," which almost certainly is the same rancho. These were five men and boys, Domingo Salgado (10 years old), Juan Ochoa (40), Francisco Granillo (25), Nicolas Dias [Diaz] (40) and José Maria Ramirez (20.) This latter may be the one by that name who lived in the Los Nietos/Whittier area with his wife Josefa Rangel and very large family of at least fifteen children until his death in 1883, after which he was buried at the El Campo Santo Cemetery on the grounds of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum.

Finally, there is a section listed in the 1844 census under "Misión Vieja." Within this delineation were four families, consisting of brothers and sisters in the Alvitre family. This included the older of the four, Jacinto and his wife Lugarda Moreno with their four children; Juan and his spouse Tomasa Alvarado with their five progeny; Claudio and his wife Asención Valenzuela along with their five children; and Dominga with her spouse Antonio Valenzuela, listed with a son. It appears that Asención and Antonio Valenzuela were not related, their familes coming from the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa, respectively.

Next comes an examination of the United States Census of 1850, which carried its own confusing circumstances!

The above scan is from a page of the published census transcript in the Southern California Quarterly, December 1960.

Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri.

Misión Vieja and the 1836 Los Angeles District Census

There were two censuses of the Los Angeles district taken in the Mexican era. This post focuses on the first, taken in 1836, and the counting of those persons who were likely residing in the Misión Vieja area some sixty years after the Mission San Gabriel left that Whittier Narrows location and moved to its current site.

The problem in identifying a specific Old Mission location in the census is that the place name Misión Vieja was not used. Rather, "Rancho Santa Gertrudes" was employed. This was the name of one of the several ranchos carved out of the enormous Nieto land grant, which was one of the first private land grants issued under Spanish rule back in 1784. Santa Gertrudes was in the area now including Downey, a corner of Bellflower, southern Pico Rivera, northern Norwalk, parts of Whittier (including unincorporated Los Angeles County areas with Whittier zip codes) and much of Santa Fe Springs. In fact, the name "Los Nietos" was utilized for most of this area as a township when the American period began and a community within Santa Fe Springs retains this moniker.

The first listed name in the 1836 census in Rancho Santa Gertrudes was Juan [Crispín] Perez, son of Juan Crispín Perez Nieto, who was the original co-owner of that rancho with his brother Manuel Perez Nieto.

After Perez and his family, including wife Tomasa Ontiveros, there is Jacinto Alvitre and his wife Maria Lugarda Moreno. Alvitre was the son of one of the first soldados del cuero (leatherjacket soldiers) of the Spanish settlement of California, Sebastian Alvitre and his wife Maria Rufina Hernandez. The Alvitre family would live in the Misión Vieja area for well over a century.

One of the daughters of Jacinto and Lugarda, Maria Buenaventura, was living next to her parents along with husband, Antonio Bermudez ("Mermudes" in the census) and daughter, Petra. His mother, Ana Maria Lugo, was listed further down the census (see below.)

Later down the list was Jacinto's brother, Juan, and his wife Tomasa Alvarado and their eight children. Among their offspring was Felipe, only a year old in this census, and who had a dramatic and untimely end (more on that later!) Also present was another brother, Antonio, and his wife Maria Concepción Amesquita and their five children. Antonio would, by the mid-1840s, leave the Los Angeles area and move to Monterey in the north.

Also present was another Alvitre brother, Jose Claudio, and his wife Asención Valenzuela, daughter of another soldado del cuero and their four children. More on the tragic story of Jose Claudio and Asención in a later post!

With all of these Alvitre brothers, there were also sisters! Maria Dominga and her husband Antonio Valenzuela resided near Jose Claudio. The couple had four children and were later grantees with Dominga's brother, Juan Jose, of the Rancho Potrero Chico or Misión Vieja. Jose Antonio Valenzuela's father, Jose Manuel, was another leatherjacket who enlisted in his hometown of Villa de Sinaloa, Sinaloa, Mexico for a 1781 expedition to Mission San Gabriel.

Next was another longtime Misión Vieja family, the Duartes, represented by Manuel Duarte and wife Polinara Ontiveros, sister of the Tomasa married to Juan Crispín Perez. A couple of households away was Manuel's brother, Nasario and his wife, Maria Silva, and their son. The Duartes were sons of Sonora, Mexico native Juan Jose Duarte and Maria Gertrudes Guadalupe Moreno.

After this was Cecilio Lobo [Jose Cecilio Villalobo] from Santa Barbara and his wife Maria Casilda Soto along with their five children. More on them in subsequent posts!

Another early family was that of Urbino Tapia and wife Mariana Lorenzana. Tapia was from San Jose in northern California and his wife was an orphan from Mexico City who came with eighteen other children who adopted the name of Bishop Lorenzana, who ran the orphanage there.

Also present were several New Mexicans, including Julián Vargas, Juan Vigil, Jesus Maria Herrera, Jesus Maria Rivera and Jesus Perez, who may have been on some of the trading caravans that traveled the "Old Spanish Trail," which was opened from Santa Fe to Los Angeles in 1829.

Romero is the name of another long-associated Misión Vieja family and rancher Manuel Romero, native of Santa Barbara, and his wife Gregoria Ontiveros, sister of the Tomasa and Apolinaria mentioned above. The Romeros had four children present in the household.

Another notable resident was Ana Maria Lugo, widow of Juan Hilario Bermudez. A native of San Buenaventura Mission (Ventura), she married Bermudez, who hailed from Sonora, Mexico and came as a child of six to San Gabriel. He was in the military and was stationed at Santa Barbara, where he probably met Ana Maria, and later at San Gabriel. The couple had eight children, six living to adulthood, but Hilario was killed after being thrown from his horse somewhere in the Rancho Santa Gertudes area. As for his widow, she went on to become the mayordomo (overseer) at the Mission San Gabriel during the Mexican-American War.

An interesting resident of the area was Maria del Rosario Guillen, who was the daughter of the famed Eulalia Perez de Guillen, long time keeper of the keys (llavelera) at Mission San Gabriel, and who was said to be over 140 years old at her death in the 1870s. Though this was, of course, inaccurate, she was undoubtedly over a century old. Rosario was the youngest child of Eulalia and married Michael White, a British sailor who came to Los Angeles in the 1831. By the time of the census, however, White was in New Mexico conducting a trading business and left his young wife and two children, Jose and Juana. White, known as Miguel Blanco, later built an adobe near the San Gabriel Mission that still stands on the grounds of San Marino High School, though it has been earmarked for demolition.

George Morrillo and Magdalena Vejar were other long-time residents of Misión Vieja. Morrillo, a native of the Baja California mission town of Loreto, was the second husband of Vejar, whose brother, Ricardo, was then raising cattle on Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas (today's Beverly Hills) but who was granted (with Ygnacio Palomares) the following year the Rancho San José in what is now the Pomona area. Magdalena was previously married to Jose Joaquin Verdugo, of the family that received the second Los Angeles area land grant in the Glendale and surrounding region, but he had died in the early 1830s. Morrillo received a land grant to Rancho Potrero de Felipe Lugo (Lugo was a son of noted ranchero Antonio Maria Lugo and a judge of the plains handling ranching issues) in the mid-1840s.

Morrillo's co-owner of the Potrero de Felipe Lugo was Teodoro Romero, who married Magdalena Vejar and Jose Joaquin Verdugo's daughter, Juana Maria.

There were other residents of the Rancho Santa Gertrudes area, but those listed here, including the families of Alvitre, Bermudez, Duarte, Valenzuela, lived in the Misión Vieja community for decade upon decade.

The next post will examine the 1844 census.

Information for this post, including the scan of the page that shows the first "Rancho Santa Gertrudes" listings, came from the reprint of the 1836 census published in the Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, 1936.

Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri.

Where Was The Original Mission San Gabriel?

In July 1921, a ceremony was held at the southwest corner of San Gabriel and Lincoln boulevards, newly incorporated into the City of Montebello, during which a granite marker was unveiled proclaiming the site to be that of the original Mission San Gabriel. The land was owned by Walter P. Temple, who paid for the monument in commemoration of the sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) of the founding of the mission.

Fourteen years later, the site was given California Registered Landmark status, giving some official credence to the idea that this, indeed, was the Mission San Gabriel's first location. The problem is that the only reason why Temple placed the marker where he did is because he owned that land. The plot on which the monument rests is against the base of the Montebello Hills and could not possibly have been the actual site of the mission compound. The facility would also not have been up on the hill behind the marker and could only have been north or east.

Research conducted in the 1980s by archaeologists has identified a potential location, in an area to the north and slightly west. The place is known as CA-LAN-1311H and would be along the west bank of the Rio Hondo (the original San Gabriel River), north of the intersection of San Gabriel and Lincoln boulevards.

As described in Greenwood and Associates' report "The First Historical Settlement in Los Angeles County: Investigations at Whittier Narrows,"

The setting is a river terrace overlooking the San Gabriel River flood plain at the base of a major ridge system. The river bank rises steeply to a narrow terrace approximately 15m[eters] wide, and then rises again to the second terrace which contains the site. This area gently slopes to the south to a small drainage channel that parallels San Gabriel Blvd., which is situated at the base of the ridge. To the east, the upper terrace curves to the south, forming the east edge of the site. To the west the upper terrace ends at the base of a small hill that has been greatly altered by the construction of a gas processing plant.

The report does state, moreover, that "the site is located in a natural gas field." The problem with archaeological investigation was that "the activities related to the drilling and placing of the wells, installation of pipelines, building and maintenance of roads, extensive grading, and other ground altering activities have seriously impacted the site and may have greatly altered the landform."

Archaeological investigation was conducted in May and June 1987, using shovel test pits, excavation areas, and surface collection. In two areas, Indian materials were located including flakes, cobbles and ground stones (manos), though there were also many items from later periods located throughout the investigation area. The issue was that there didn't appear to be any items from before the late 19th century or after Spanish and Mexican settlement, making a definitive identification of the site as the original mission somewhat problematic. Finally, the amount of disturbance, especially in the post-1917 period when heavy oil exploration and drilling was occurring, meant that "much of the information has been lost to past activities."

What has, in the historical record, most strongly pointed to the area north of San Gabriel Boulevard and west of the Rio Hondo is the diseño or map for the Rancho Potrero Grande, made about the time of its 1845 grant to Manuel Antonio Perez. This rough tracing, which was not conducted according to strict surveying (as was the case with all of the diseños), clearly shows the downslope from the hills to the west, the road coming from the current Mission San Gabriel [roughly today's San Gabriel Boulevard] and a water course marked "zanja onda," which would obviously seem to refer to the Rio Hondo. Between the road and the "zanja onda" is markings showing another change in grade in the landscape, or a short decline or hill. Between that downslope and the "zanja onda" are the words "corral Mision Vieja" and a series of hatch marks in a circular pattern.

Could this have been the original Mission San Gabriel site? It seems to correspond with the general area that was CA-LAN-1311H. If one interprets Father Palou's site description as on a "rising ground" rather than "hill," this also seems to make sense. The problem, once again, is that the mission structures were tule and wood, subject to decay and removal, and the landscape was dramatically altered by flooding, ranching and farming, oil development and other activities. On the other hand, Walter Temple's 1921 plaque site is plainly implausible, with the only rationale being that he owned that land and not the property to the north.

We'll never know the exact site because there just isn't enough evidence, but it seems that CA-LAN-1311H is about the closest we'll get.

Link to the 1840s diseño of Rancho Potrero Grande:

http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb967nb58f/?layout=metadata&brand=oac

Sources:

Lois Roberts and James Brock, Cultural Resources Archival Study: Whittier Narrowes Archaeological District, prepared for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District (Newport Beach: Archaeological Advisory Group,) March 1987.

Roberta S. Greenwood, John M. Foster and Anne Q. Duffield with contributions by Gwendolyn R. Romani, A. George Toren, and Sherri M. Gust, The First Historical Settlement in Los Angeles County: Investigations at Whittier Narrows, prepared for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District (Sonora: Infotec Research Incorporated,) January 1989.

"Diseño del Potrero Grande vic. Misión Vieja," ca. 1845, U. S. District Court. California, Southern District. Land Case 243 SD, page 63; land case map B-1279, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri.

The Anza Expeditions of 1774-1776 and Misión Vieja

One of the newer national historic trails established and maintained by the National Parks Service is the Anza Trail, commemorating the route taken by Juan Bautista Anza in his colonizing expedition of 300 settlers from Sonora, Mexico [the trail starts at Nogales, Arizona at the Mexico-U. S. border] to San Francisco in 1775-76.

There was a preliminary exploration in 1774, during which the Anza group, which was looking to establish an overland road, stopped at the original Mission San Gabriel site at Whittier Narrows. Anza and his compatriots stayed for almost three weeks before continuing their journey north. On the return trip, the group stopped at the mission, in early May, resting for two days before proceeding southward.

While it is not certain when the move of the mission was made from Whittier Narrows to the current site, the closest documentation after Serra’s February 1775 report (see the last blog entry) is the arrival of the Anza-led colonization expedition early in 1776.

This large group left Sonora in late September 1775 and reached Mission San Gabriel on 4 January 1776. The difference was that this second visit was not to the original mission at Whittier Narrows, but to the newly-selected site, on higher, drier ground at the current location. This is referred to in the diary of Father Pedro Font from the colonists’ expedition, after the group reached the San Gabriel River on the 3rd: “I celebrated holy Mass. We moved away from the Arroyo de San Gabriel at nine in the morning, and at eleven we arrived at the Mission of San Gabriel.”

From 1775 onward, the original site at Whittier Narrows became a relic and its tule and wood structures were undoubtedly pillaged for use elsewhere or were inundated by the occasional flooding occurring from intense rain seasons. Very little survives in the historical record for decades afterward. The next post looks at the first census of the Los Angeles area, taken under Mexican rule in 1836, for clues on who was occupying Misión Vieja.

Source: Zephyrin Englehardt, San Gabriel Mission and the Beginnings of Los Angeles (San Gabriel: Mission San Gabriel,) 1927.

Link to the Anza Trail website: http://www.nps.gov/juba/index.htm

Contribued by Paul R. Spitzzeri.

Father Serra's 1773 and 1775 Reports on the Original Mission San Gabriel

The Reverend Junipero Serra, founded of most of the California missions, was supposed to have been present at the founding of Mission San Gabriel in September 1771, but was not informed of the decision to send out the priests Somera and Cambón, who established the site at Whittier Narrows.

Serra did, however, visit the mission in May 1773 and submitted a long report to the viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), in which he stated that

The place together with the circumstances of soil, arroyos, timber, fire-wood, and other facilities, is beyond dispute that most excellent of all discovered. Without doubt, this one alone, if well cultivated, would be sufficient to maintain itself and all the rest [of the missions.]

Recall in the first post of this blog that Father Juan Crespí, in his diary on the Portolá expedition of 1769-1770, considered that "La Puente" a few miles to the east was superior, but that the Whittier Narrows location was also a prime one for a mission site.

According to Serra, Alta California departmental governor Pedro Fages instituted restrictions on native access to the mission compound that soured relations between them and the Spaniards. In addition to detailing the rape and consequent violence that was also covered by Father Francisco Palou in his report of the same year, Serra criticized the behavior of the soldiers stationed at San Gabriel for their laziness, violent tendencies and impudence, including the continued rape of Indian women and the killing of men.

Serra also made reference to attempts to develop the mission and noted a problem that proved to be insurmountable to keeping the facility at Whittier Narrows: "the Fathers in the first year planted a piece of land with wheat, which went up and promised well; but owing to the lack of experience in that territory, they sowed in too low ground, so that the copious rains, which set in, submerged and destroyed it." On other hand, he did state that "what did thrive very well is a garden sufficiently large and fenced in. When I passed there, it abounded in various kinds of vegetables, melons, water melons, etc."

Serra returned to Mission San Gabriel early in 1775 and sent another report to the viceroy in February. In it, he documented that the increase of livestock was to 65 cattle, 66 sheep, 34 goats, 18 pigs, 19 horses, and 16 mules. In the preceding year, harvests of wheat, corn and beans were moderately successful and wheat was sown for the new season with the land for the other two crops in preparation.

As to the neophytes, Serra reported that, from 8 September 1771 to 31 December 1774, “there have been baptized 148 Indians of all ages, of whom eight have died. Nineteen Indian marriages have been blessed. Hence the Mission is composed of 19 new Christian Indian families with 154 persons, all of whom live at the Mission in their little huts of poles.”

Yet, there was an important set of statements about the inherent problems of the site of the Mission. In this regard, Serra wrote that

from the last day of December, 1773, till the last day of December, 1774, they have constructed no new buildings at the Mission, except a structure of poles . . . for the smithy, and another . . . which is to be used as a granary for corn.

As to why this was,

The reason is that for greater convenience and utility they want to move the Mission to where the land is cultivated in the same valley, only about half a league distant.

Indeed, it was not long afterward that the move was approved and made. The next entry will detail the visits of famed explorer Juan Bautista de Anza to both the original and current sites of the Mission San Gabriel.
Sources:
Zephyrin Englehardt, San Gabriel Mission and the Beginnings of Los Angeles (San Gabriel: Mission San Gabriel,) 1927.
Chester Lyle Guthrie, "Site of Mision Vieja: Registered Landmark #161," State of California, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks, 1933, found in Cultural Resources Archival Study: Whittier Narrows Archaeological District, prepared for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District by Lois Roberts and James Brock, Archaeological Advisory Group, March 1987.
Roberta S. Greenwood, John M. Foster and Anne Q. Duffield (with contributions by Gwendolyn R. Romani, A. George Toren and Sherri M. Gust), The First Historical Settlement in Los Angeles County: Investigations at Whittier Narrows, prepared for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District, January 1989.
Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri

Father Francisco Palou's 1773 Report on the First San Gabriel Mission

From the time of the founding of the Mission San Gabriel in September 1771 until its relocation sometime in 1775, little has survived to document the existence of the mission at its original Whittier Narrows site (which some have claimed was always, at the time, considered temporary.) One of the key documents is the December 1773 report of Father Francisco Palou to the viceroy of New Spain (Mexico).

In it, the priest noted that "the mission is situated in the slope of a hill [on the edge of a rising ground] in the valley called San Miguel, about half a league from the source of the river of that name." San Miguel was the name bestowed by the Portolá expedition of 1769-70 for what later was rechristened the San Gabriel Valley. Palou continued that "it has in sight that plain, which is very spacious, with plenty of land and an abundance of water. It runs through the plain in channels formed by the river, and it would be easy to take the water from them to irrigate all the land they might wish for planting."

As to the strucutres, Palou reported,

The buildings . . . not far from the stockade, are constructed of poles and covered with tules. Within the stockade is the church built of poles and roofed with tules; the dwelling of the Fathers with the workshops, etc., and the granary, all constructed with poles and roofed with tules . . .

Also as part of the complex were "the guard-house for the soldiers of the escort; and ten little houses for the Indians of California . . ."

According to 19th century historian Hubert Howe Bancroft, certainly paraphrasing from Palou, "the natives cheerfully assisted in the work of bringing timber and constructing the stockade enclosure with its tule-roofed buildings of wood, continuing in the mean time their offerings of pine-nuts and acorns to the image of Our Lady." It is important to repeat that the structures erected at Whittier Narrows were tule and poles of wood, not adobe. Photographs purporting to be the adobe ruins of Mission San Gabriel were taken many decades later, but they were in error. Whatever was left of the wood and tule buildings at the mission were obviously long gone, by expsoure, scavenging and flooding, by the time photographers descended on the site.

As for farming, Palou stated "they are going to make a good planting of wheat, for which they had eight bushels of seed, and for which they were preparing the land. Then they were going to set to work to prepare more ground, in order to make, in season, a large planting of corn." Beans were another crop being raised, although in small amounts to date. Six plows, along with other tools and implements, were available for the planting, although the priest indicated that a forge was needed to make iron tools for the mission.

Livestock were also recorded by Palou, who noted that there were 38 cattle, 40 sheep, 12 goats, 20 pigs, 6 horses and 16 mules.

With these promising first efforts in agriculture, "they now have enough to make larger plantings and attact the heathens. This will be a great inducement," the friar went on, "as the Indians are very poor, on account of the small crops of wild seeds they receive from the plains and on account of the poor results of the chase [for wild game]. They lack also the aid from the fisheries, since the beach is about eight leagues distant.” Moreover, Palou claimed, their tendency to fight each other prevented their going to the ocean to obtain fish. These statements are strange, given that native peoples had lived for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans and there is no reason to believe, accounting, of course, for drought and other climactic changes, that they had trouble obtaining food.

There was, however, a significant item of grave concern to report from Palou. On 10 September 1771, just two days after the establishment of the mission, a dispute broke out. As stated by Bancroft (again from Palou), "a crowd of natives attacked two soldiers who were guarding the horses. The chief discharged an arrow at one of the soldiers, who stopped it with his shield, and killed the chief with a musket-ball." From here, the tale grows more disturbing: "Terrified by the destructive effects of the gun the savages fled, and the soldiers, cutting off the fallen warrior's head, set it on a pole before the presidio gates." A few sentences later, Bancroft added a postscript that blandly went to the heart of the issue: "There is little doubt that their sudden hostility arose from outrages by the soldiers on the native women."

Father Palou, however, gave greater details in his 1773 report: "the pagan chief wanted to revenge himself for the outrage, which had been committed against him and his wife [italics added for emphasis.]" Palou further noted that one of the two soldiers who was attacked was the rapist and that he was the one who killed the chief. Indeed, the annals of Spanish-era California are riddled with examples of military misconduct against the women and men of native tribes throughout the region. It is also notable that the incident at the first Mission San Gabriel was such that Governor Fages delayed the founding of a new mission further up the coast; consequently, Mission San Buenaventura (Ventura) was not established for over a decade.

Fortunately, Palou was not the only chronicler about the original Mission San Gabriel. Father Junipero Serra, who founded most of the early missions, twice described San Gabriel in reports to the viceroy. This will be the focus of a later entry, so check back soon!

Sources:

Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California, Vol. 1: 1542-1800 (San Francisco, The History Company,) 1886.

Zephyrin Englehardt, San Gabriel Mission and the Beginnings of Los Angeles (San Gabriel: Mission San Gabriel,) 1927.

Chester Lyle Guthrie, "Site of Mision Vieja: Registered Landmark #161," State of California, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks, 1933, found in Cultural Resources Archival Study: Whittier Narrows Archaeological District prepared for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District by Lois Roberts and James Brock, Archaeological Advisory Group, March 1987.

Roberta S. Greenwood, John M. Foster and Anne Q. Duffield (with contributions by Gwendolyn R. Romani, A. George Toren and Sherri M. Gust), The First Historical Settlement in Los Angeles County: Investigations at Whittier Narrows, prepared for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District, January 1989.

Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri

The Founding of Mission San Gabriel

It is remarkable how little known is the fact that the Mission San Gabriel was not founded in its current location. Although the mission has been at its San Gabriel site since about 1775, it began in the Whittier Narrows near South El Monte, Montebello and Pico Rivera. The photographs (click on each for a closer view) included here are of a plaque erected by Walter P. Temple and commemorating the founding of the mission on the 150th anniversary in 1921. The site, at the corner of San Gabriel Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue in Montebello, was approved in 1935 as California State Landmark 161.

As the last post showed, Father Juan Crespí of the Portolá expedition of 1769-70 identified the Whittier Narrows areas as a prime location for the establishment of a mission, although he felt that a better location would be the area further east where the expedition crossed San José Creek as it moved from the Puente Hills northwestward. This area, where a bridge (la puente) was constructed to cross the creek, was considered by Crespí to be the best location for a mission encountered to date on the group's trek.

Nonetheless, in September 1771, fathers Pedro Cambon and Angel Somera, charged by Governor Pedro Fages to establish a mission in the area, intended to put it on the Rio de los Temblores (Earthquake River, because the Portolá expedition encountered temblors there in 1769), known now as the Santa Ana River in today's Orange County.

The two felt, however, that there wasn't a suitable site and so moved on further north to the river named San Miguel by Crespí, where Cambon and Somera decided on a location on the 8th. The reasons for choosing the Whittier Narrows location seemed obvious. First, there was substantially more water from the emergence of the San Gabriel River from underground channels as it emanated from the mountains to the north. This water could be used for farming, raising livestock and the household uses connected to mission living. Further, there was plenty of trees for use in constructing buildings, lighting fires and other important needs. Next, there was fertile soil from the river and the mineral deposits brought down from the San Gabriel Mountains over millenia. Finally, there were settlements of indigenous peoples in the area, who would form the basis for the work of the missionaries. Without getting into the great controversies over the missionary/native American relationship, of which plenty has been written and published, the key element for the founding of the mission was proximity to Indian habitations.

Indeed, an account, perhaps apocryphal, states that when Cambon and Somera, accompanied by fourteen soldiers and four muleteers ferrying supplies, arrived at their chosen site, a large group of indigenous people came forward and, it was said, demonstrated some hostility (this would be natural, of course, given that the Spaniards were "squatting" on someone else's land.) According to 19th century historian Hubert Howe Bancroft who quotes Father Francisco Palou's 1777 account, "but when one of the padres held up a painting of the virgin, the savages instantly threw down their arms and their two captains ran up to lay their necklaces at the feet of the beautiful queen, thus signifying their desire for peace." Variations of this theme are found throughout the world, in which so-called "savages" are brought to their knees (not unlike Saul/Paul in the New Testament) by the miracle of confronting a "greater" religious reality. Obviously, this tale is a one-sided story from the Spaniards and we have no idea what the native peoples would have said about the alleged event.

More on the first site of Mission San Gabriel soon!

Sources: Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California, Vol. 1: 1542-1800 (San Francisco, The History Company,) 1886; Zephyrin Englehardt, San Gabriel Mission and the Beginnings of Los Angeles (San Gabriel: Mission San Gabriel,) 1927; photographs courtesy of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum.

Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri and The Juan Matias Sanchez adobe museum contributed by Tim Poyorena-Miguel, Archivist.

The first written record of the Misión Vieja area

For thousands of years, the indigenous native Americans resided in the area that became Misión Vieja for the obvious reason that the San Gabriel River and the abundant plant and animal life that lived and grew alongside it were capable of providing so much of the necessities of life. The native peoples of this area were undoubtedly shocked and stunned to find Spanish explorers in the Portolá expedition traveling through their region in the summer of 1769.


It was through this expedition that the first written documentation about the Misión Vieja area was committed to paper. There were three journals kept by members of the expedition, including the leader, Gaspar de Portolá (a likeness of which is in the old coin shown above,) engineer Miguel Costansó, and Father Juan Crespí. The diaries of Crespí are the most detailed and give us a more vivid sense of what these travelers encountered when traversing most of coastal California almost 250 years ago.

On 30 July 1769, during a period of strong earthquake activity, the group left an encampment in present-day Fullerton and made its way through la abra (corrupted later into "La Habra"), or an opening, in what became known as the Puente Hills, probably where Hacienda Boulevard goes through today, and descended down into a broad valley. This Crespí named San Miguel, although it was soon changed to San Gabriel Valley. When the expedition came to a stream, now San José Creek, the missionary noted, "because of its miriness, in order to be able to cross the stream here it was necessary to make a bridge." Then, in the original Spanish, the priest wrote, "Y lo nombre La puente del arroyo del larguissimo llano de San Miguel." That is, "I called it The bridge at the stream of the extremely long level of Saint Michael." This became the place name La Puente, notable because, as a Catalonian, Crespí spoke Spanish at a time when the feminine article "la" could be used with puente, whereas today Spanish speakers would use the masculine, as in el puente.

After camping at la puente, the expedition continued west on 31 July and Crespí noted that he and his compatriots "were struck with wonder at seeing such lushness upon all sides." For example, there were enormous numbers of rose bushes with open flowers everywhere and the priest wrote that "from horseback, I myself plucked more than four dozen of them that came into my hands, very pink and sweet smelling." Moreover, he continued, "the grapevines are countless in number, very lush, and twice we came to woods so dense that it was necessary for the soldiers to clear a way through." Willows, cumin, holythistle and other plants were in profusion.


On top of this, the priest commented that "there are vast numbers of antelopes on this plain" and "a great many hares." In talking earlier to the "heathens," as Crespí described them, the expedition learned that "there are a great many bears in the very tall mountain range running along the north here." This, of course, are the San Gabriel Mountains.


Then, after a four hour march, the group had gone two leagues (about three miles) and "we came across another stream with a good-sized bed and its little flow of water running in it. By the great deal of sand it has along its banks, it must, in season, carry very large floods." This could either be today's Walnut Creek coming from the Glendora area of the San Gabriel Mountains in a southwest direction or part of the San Gabriel River. In either case, in mid-summer it would have a low water flow, but with all of the sand generated from winter rain and snowfall in the mountains, had significant water levels earlier in the year.

Crespí also noticed that "about half a league (3/4 of a mile) distant from the low range [Puente Hills] running along the south side . . . the range has a gap, through which this valley connects with the long, spacious plain which we left behind on the 29th." Here, the prelate refers to Whittier Narrows and the gap between the Puente and Montebello hills, actually geologically part of the same hill system, but worn down by the flow of the San Gabriel River over millenia.


The expedition then stopped and "we set up camp close to a little channel of very fresh, pure water running through a low spot having some extremely tall grass clumps and weeds of very good sage, which in this place yields plentifully."


Finally, Crespí gave high praise to this location, writing that "what provides the crowning excellence to this sport is that, at the opening in the above-mentioned range toward the south, out of a very large pool between some knolls there begins to rise a good-sized river . . . and it takes its course through the plain upon the south side." Expressed another way in a field draft, Crespí stated that "this river takes its rise . . . from an exceedingly copious spring which boils up out of the ground in great thick surges, giving rise to this large river." A corporal in the military escort stated that the river bed was fourteen yards wide "and that it splits into two branches."


In other words, the priest was describing the fact that water running down from the mountains would go underground and then emerge in the Whittier Narrows area to become the San Gabriel River. At that time, the main river, now the Rio Hondo channel, went south and then west and emptied into the Los Angeles River. In 1867-68, heavy flooding and the creation of irrigation ditches by ex-Governor Pio Pico at his ranch near present-day Whittier created a "new river" that took the Coyote Creek course emanating from north Orange County and then emptied into the ocean in what is now the eastern edge of Long Beach. This is today's San Gabriel River course. It may be that the corporal quoted above saw these two branches emerging from one general source of water emerging from under ground. In any case, the expedition was camped about a league (1.5 miles) north and Crespí and the others did not venture south to get a better look at the river emerging at the Whittier Narrows gap.


As for the "Rio Hondo" or old San Gabriel River, Crespí described "a great deal of trees, cottonwoods, willows, and other sorts, and here and there on the plain there are sycamore trees." Moreover, the "San Miguel Bridge stream" or San José Creek, "empties into this river, and I saw the stream flowing close to the river, and it is a big one."


With all of this water and plant life and the delicious antelope, which the expedition sampled that evening at its camp, it was no wonder that Crespí declared that "the place of San Miguel, among all the spots we have passed through, is the one with the most running water and the largest plains." Naming this larger river, El Rio del llano grande de San Miguel or the River of the big San Miguel Plain, Crespí then stated, "thus there are two sites here for possibly locating a mission: either here at the river, or at the Bridge, whence we set out; but the finer spot is the Bridge of the Stream, with its valley as described before."


More about the founding of a mission in the next post, but it is telling that when Crespí wrote that attempts were made to contact the indigenous peoples encountered in this area, little luck was found: "although some heathens have been sighted far off on this level and have been called to, they have all run off and not let themselves be seen nearby, but we do not doubt there must be a great many heathen folk upon this far-stretching level." The next day, 1 August, the priest wrote "We have sighted a few heathens far off; they were called out to, but never showed themselves nearby. Yesterday afternoon, however, we saw about three smokes in separate places."


On 2 August, the expedition moved on westward and then came upon another river that "bears away the prize" compared to the others recently encountered, even if it had less water than what became the rivers of Santa Ana (the most water) and San Gabriel (next heaviest flow.) Crespí was so enamored with this body of water and the "most beautiful garden" around it that "this sport can be given the preference in everything, in soil, water and trees." Here, the prelate offered that this would make "a very large plenteous mission of Our Lady of the Angels of La Porciúncula." In other words, this was, within a dozen years, going to be Los Angeles.


Information on this post largely came from the book A Description of Distant Roads: Original Journals of the First Expedition into California, 1769-177o, by Juan Crespí and edited and translated by Alan K. Brown, published by San Diego State University Press, 2001.


Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri.

Welcome to the Misión Vieja Blog

This is a blog dedicated to the history of the Misión Vieja community, the location of the first European settlement in Los Angeles, but also a thriving location of native American residence for thousands of years.



This site will deal with Indian villages; the original Mission San Gabriel; the historic Soto-Sanchez Adobe; the ranchos La Merced, Potrero Chico, Potrero Grande and Potrero de Felipe Lugo; the Montebello oil field; and such early families as Alvitre, Barry, Bermudez, Davis, Manzanares, Sanchez, Temple and Zuñiga and more; and plenty of other fascinating and educational history involving this unique part of the Los Angeles Region.



Check back regularly and please leave comments and questions to make this blog as interactive and informative as it can be.