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.
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