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.
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