California Genealogy

La Purisima Concepcion Mission was designed by Serra as one of the Channel series, but was not founded until December 8, 1787, three years after his death; and it was built not upon the coast but upon the Santa Inez River, north and beyond the mountains. The river is about one hundred miles long, rising in the mountains to the eastward,-a sort of nucleus, or hub of mountains at Newhall, into which run the Tehatchipe Range from the Sierra Nevada, the San Gabriel Range from the eastward, the San Fernando Range from the south, the Cuyhengo Range from the southeast, … Read more

Junipero Serra came into possession of the most exalted qualifications for his marvelous work in Alta California by the inheritance of a loving soul and wonderful intellectual powers; he acquired remarkable erudition; his lofty ideals were nurtured in the discipline, precepts, and traditions of his monastic order; he attained an eloquence which alike convinced the minds and enraptured the hearts of men, were they civilized or heathen; and his gentle kindness made permanent his conquests. He had no peer among the disciples of his order since the day of its birth. With such a character, such training, and with a … Read more

The Mission Indians, that constituted the flocks belonging to the various Missions, are and ever will be a problem to the antiquarians. Of their history before the time of the colonization we have no definite knowledge; but this much seems unquestionable: a great difference in character, disposition, and habits existed between the natives of the valleys and plains of the coast and those of the deserts and mountains of the interior. The former were by nature peaceable, gentle, and amenable to progressive influences; the latter were untamable, warlike, cruel, and unresponsive to any civilizing or moral forces. Locality, climate, food, … Read more

In musing over the history of the old Missions, the mind is led to inquire as to the benefits that have been conferred upon mankind by the labors, triumphs and defeat of the padres during their brief sojourn in the Southwest.  Through their work was confined to a few heathen tribes, its pure and unselfish purpose and beneficent results cannot be questioned, for these are attested in the annals of those days.  The fact that great and lasting benefits are evident in that they affected favorably his earthly and provided for his immoral, welfare. Moreover, that which promotes the progress … Read more

In Lower California the Jesuits labored for eighty years with much greater immediate results than in other regions of the Southwest; but in Alta California they had at least sowed the seeds of a harvest which is being reaped by the Church to-day, through the growth and beneficence of the noted Pious Fund created by them. This fund was the child of their economy, and for it they had toiled until their expulsion from their field of labors, in 1767. The Franciscans assumed the task of the Jesuits; under the direction of Padre Junipero Serra, the president and spiritual father … Read more

California, the land of golden sunshine and skies of ineffable blue, starlit at night by a glittering host; of most genial climate, tempered alike to the old and the young, the delicate and the vigorous, a climate equaled nowhere on earth but along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea; the garden of the olive, the myrtle, the orange, and the vine; the primitive home of the most stupendous trees, trees that lift their heads among the clouds, and reach maturity only when thousands of years have passed since their sprouting from the soil; the home of the stately redwood and … Read more

In 1767 King Charles III of Spain organized an expedition to sail to Mexico, to proceed thence to the Californias and take possession of them, to build Missions for the conversion of the Indians there, and to protect and defend the country from the Russians. Before this time hordes of these semibarbarians had come down from Siberia and Alaska, and occupied northern California down to the Bay of San Francisco; had established forts, churches, and settlements along the coast and inland; opened the fur trade with the natives; begun cultivation of the lands, and engaged in those industries incident to … Read more

Outlying among the Missions, stations among the far-distant ones, or on the frontiers, were chapels, or asistencias, such as were not organized as Missions. The principal ones were as follows: San Miguel Chapel, some six miles from Santa Barbara, was built in 1803. San Miguelito Chapel, built in 1809, was one of several asistencias appertaining to San Luis Obispo. Santa Isabel, forty miles from San Diego, was built in 1822. At the Indian village of Mesa Grande is a chapel dedicated to Santo Domingo. Los Angeles Chapel was never a Mission, but a chapel designed for the veteran soldiers of … Read more