California Genealogy

On June 3, 1770, the second Mission according to Serra’s plan, San Carlos Borremeo, was founded at Monterey. Serra himself was present and celebrated mass, at the conclusion of which Governor Portola proclaimed possession of the Bay of Monterey in the names of God and the King of Spain. The celebration of mass, the burning of incense, the ringing of bells (in this case hung from the branches of a tree), the chanting of “Veni Creator,” and the blessing of the adjacent waters and land, with the formal proclamation of proprietorship in the names of God and the King, constituted … Read more

Of all the heritage enjoyed by the present generation in California, descending from the old padres, the greatest corporeal blessings are the fruits, wines, foods, flowers, seeds, plants, and trees, natural products of the soil and climate of Old Spain, the Garden of the Ancients. Without these the far-famed land would be shorn of her beauty and her food products, and as ill fitted for sustaining a numerous population as when occupied by tribes of primitive red men. The old padres made it possible for the white man to make her the Garden of the Moderns. All this advancement was … Read more

San Antonio De Padua was the third Mission in the order of founding, and was located in the beautiful valley of Santa Margarita, now called Los Robles, in the heart of the Santa Lucia range, on the fourteenth of July, 1771. This range runs from the San Fernando Mountains, twenty miles north of Los Angeles, northwest, to the Bay of Monterey. It is a wild and rugged region, far away from the ocean, and east of San Luis Obispo. The face of nature in all California can nowhere entertain the mind and please the eye of the tourist with a … Read more

San Rafael, founded December 17, 1817, by Father Luis Taboada, was intended to be but a temporary abiding-place, on the north side of the bay, in a nook sheltered from the rough ocean winds by the mountains around it. At the time a great pestilence prevailed among the Indian converts at Yerba Buena, the old Spanish name for San Francisco, and the sick were removed to San Rafael to be refreshed by its balmy breezes. It was designed to be a part-an asistencia- of San Francisco Mission, or the Mission Dolores, across the bay. Although no written evidence remains that … Read more

The Franciscans had almost exclusively the field of Texas Missions. The three principal Orders of the Church that founded and operated the Missions of New Spain were the Franciscans, the Jesuits, and the Dominicans. The first had their chief fields in Texas, Alta California, Sonora, and Chihuahua; the second, in Lower California, Old and New Mexico, and Arizona; the third in Old Mexico and Lower California. Large tracts were conveyed to the Missions, and such privileges as were needful for their purposes. The following are the Missions of Texas: Adaes, in honor of Our Lady del Pilar, is supposed to … Read more

The Missions of New Mexico in 1680 showed a population of twenty-five thousand, of which probably twenty-five hundred were Spaniards. Neither in importance, wealth, nor influence did they compare with the great Missions of the eighteenth century, established in other provinces of Mexico. From the records of the Church, made mainly of the reports of the priests in control at the time, is derived what knowledge is available on the subject, and these give but little information in regard to each of these quasi Missions. The following notes are taken from the reports of 1680 and 1691. Seneca (San Antonio), … Read more

Lower California was the field of the greatest and most patient efforts of the Jesuit missionaries for nearly a century. Their work was very systematic, and more successful than that of other Missions in the Southwest, except in some portions of central Mexico, where greater enlightenment prevailed among the natives. The country is a waste of mountains, sand plains, canons, gulches, valleys, and broken surfaces, with but few, small, and scanty streams, and rivers oftentimes waterless. One hundred degrees is a common temperature in summer, and much of the time it is higher. The tribes that peopled this hideous wilderness … Read more

The first Mission settlement in Arizona was made in 1732. Father Felipe Segesser founded San Xavier del Bac, and Juan Bautista founded San Miguel de Guevavi. These were regular Missions; the Indian rancherias in that region were only visitas. In 1750 a presidio was located at Guevavi. The settlements formed by Father Kuehn forty years before had disappeared. Pimeria Alta was the name of Arizona at this time. During this year a revolt among the Pimas resulted in the murder of two priests of the Missions and nearly one hundred Spaniards. The Missions were deserted, but again occupied three years … Read more

Jose De Galvez, the Visitador-General of New Spain, was the practical head of the first missionary expedition of the Franciscans, and was a man of extraordinary energy, forethought, and practical ability. He fashioned and controlled the enterprise, with Junipero Serra as President of the Missions, both in Lower and Upper California. Galvez deserves a more extended notice than the limits of this sketch permit, for without his promotion and supervision the founding of these Missions might have been, to this day, a pious dream of the Church. Great force of character, wisdom, and executive ability in carrying into effect the … Read more

La Soledad, Our Lady of Solitude, was founded on the ninth of October 1791, midway between the Missions of San Antonio de Padua and Santa Clara. The site was located in a region of and plains, which depended largely upon irrigation to make them fruitful. Padre Lasuen, who chose the site and later instituted the Mission, had abundant confidence in the possibilities of the region to produce good pasturage and crops when the padres and their Indian neophytes should have introduced a system of irrigation to supplement the insufficient rainfall. On the day when the Mission was founded a company … Read more