I have read somewhere in the pages of a veracious author how, five or
six years before my day, he had ridden through chaparral from Yerba
Buena to the Mission Dolores with the howl of the wolf for
accompaniment. Yerba Buena is now San Francisco, and the mission is a
part of the city; it is not even a suburb.
In 1855 there were two plank-roads leading from the city to the Mission
Dolores; on each of these omnibuses ran every half hour. The plank-road
was a straight and narrow way, cut through acres of chaparral--thickets
of low evergreen oaks,--and leading over forbidding wastes of sand. To
stretch a figure, it was as if the sea-of-sand had been divided in the
midst, so that the children of Israel might have passed dry-shod, and
the Egyptians pursuing them might have been swallowed up in the billows
of sand that flowed over them at intervals.
Somewhere among those treacherous dunes--of them it might indeed be said
that "the mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like
lambs,"--somewhere thereabout was located the once famous but now
fabulous Pipesville, the country-seat of my old friend, "Jeems Pipes of
Pipesville." He was longer and better known to the world as Stephen C.
Massett, composer of the words and music of that once most popular of
songs, "When the Moon on the Lake is Beaming," as well as many another
charming ballad.
Stephen C. Massett, a most delightful companion and a famous diner-out,
give a concert of vocal music interspersed with recitations and
imitations, in the school-house that stood at the northwest corner of
the plaza. This was on Monday evening, June 22, 1849; and it was the
first public entertainment, the first regular amusement, ever given in
San Francisco. The only piano in the country was engaged for the
occasion; the tickets were three dollars each, and the proceeds yielded
over five hundred dollars; although it cost sixteen dollars to have the
piano used on the occasion moved from one side of the plaza, or
Portsmouth Square, to the other. On a copy of the programme which now
lies before me I find this line: "N.B.--Front seats reserved for
ladies!" History records that there were but four ladies
present--probably the only four in the town at the time. Massett died in
New York city a few months ago,--a man who had friends in every country
under the sun, and, I believe, no enemy.
I remember the Mission Dolores as a detached settlement with a
pronounced Spanish flavor. There was one street worth mentioning, and
only one. It was lined with low-walled adobe houses, roofed with the red
curved tiles which add so much to the adobe houses that otherwise would
be far from picturesque. The adobe is a sun-baked brick; it is
mud-color; its walls look as if they were moulded of mud. The adobes
were the native California habitations. We spoke of them as adobes;
although it would probably be as correct, etymologically, to refer to
brick houses as bricks.
There were a few ramshackle hotels at the mission; for in the early days
it seemed as if everybody either boarded or took in boarders, and many
families lived for years in hotels rather than attempt to keep house in
the wilds of San Francisco. The mission was about one house deep each
side of the main street. You might have turned a corner and found
yourself face to face with the cattle in the meadow. As for the goats,
they met you at the doorway and followed you down the street like dogs.
At the top of this street stood the mission church and what few mission
buildings were left for the use of the Fathers. The church and the
grounds were the most interesting features of the place, and it was a
favorite resort of the citizens of San Francisco; yet it most likely
would not have been were the church the sole attraction. Here, in
appropriate enclosures, there were bull-fighting, bear-baiting, and
horse-racing. Many duels were fought here, and some of them were so well
advertised that they drew almost as well as a cock-fight. Cock-fighting
was a special Sunday diversion. Through the mission ran the highway to
the pleasant city of San José; it ran through a country unsurpassed in
beauty and fertility. Above the mission towered the mission peaks, and
about it the hillslopes were mantled with myriads of wild flowers, the
splendor and variety of which have added to the fame of California.
The mission church was never handsome; but the facade with the old bells
hanging in their niches, and the almost naive simplicity of its
architectural adornment, are extremely pleasing. It is a long, narrow,
dingy nave one enters. Its walls of adobe do not retain their coats of
whitewash for any length of time; in the rainy season they are damp and
almost clammy. The floor is of beaten earth; the Stations upon the walls
of the rudest description; the narrow windows but dimly light the
interior, and rather add to than dispel the gloom that has been
gathering there for ages. The high altar is, of course, in striking
contrast with all that dark interior: it is over-decorated in the
Mexican manner--flowers, feathers, tinsel ornaments, tall candlesticks
elaborately gilded; all the statues examples of the primitive art that
appealed strongly to the uncultivated eye; and all the adornments gay,
gaudy, if not garish. Do you wonder at this? When you enter the old
church at the Mission Dolores you should recall its history, and picture
in your imagination the people for whom the mission was established.
The Franciscans founded their first mission in California at San Diego
in 1769. The Mission Dolores was founded on St. Francis' Day, 1776. To
found a mission was a serious matter; yet one and twenty missions were
in the full tide of success before the good work was abandoned. The
friars were the first fathers of the land: they did whatever was done
for it and for the people who originally inhabited it. They explored the
country lying between the coast range and the sea. They set apart large
tracts of land for cultivation and for the pasturing of flocks and
herds. For a long time Old and New Spain contributed liberally to what
was known as the Pious Fund of California. The fund was managed by the
Convent of San Fernando and certain trustees in Mexico, and the proceeds
transmitted from the city of Mexico to the friars in California.
The mission church was situated, as a rule, in the centre of the mission
lands, or reservations. The latter comprised several thousand acres of
land. With the money furnished by the Pious Fund of California the
church was erected, and surrounded by the various buildings occupied by
the Fathers, the retainers, and the employees who had been trained to
agriculture and the simple branches of mechanics. The presbytery, or the
rectory, was the chief guest-house in the land. There were no hotels in
the California of that day, but the traveller, the prospector, the
speculator, was ever welcome at the mission board; and it was a
bountiful board until the rapacity of the Federal Government laid it
waste. Alexander Forbes, in his "History of Upper and Lower California"
(London, 1839), states that the population of Upper California in 1831
was a little over 23,000; of these 18,683 were Indians. It was for the
conversion of these Indians that the missions were first established;
for the bettering of their condition--mental, moral and physical--that
they were trained in the useful and industrial arts. That they labored
not in vain is evident. In less than fifty years from the day of its
foundation the Mission of San Francisco Dolores--that is in 1825--is
said to have possessed 76,000 head of cattle; 950 tame horses; 2,000
breeding mares; 84 stud of choice breed; 820 mules; 79,000 sheep; 2,000
hogs; 456 yoke of working oxen; 18,000 bushels of wheat and barley;
besides $35,000 in merchandise and $25,000 in specie.
That was, indeed, the golden age of the California missions; everybody
was prosperous and proportionately happy. In 1826 the Mission of Soledad
owned more than 36,000 head of cattle, and a larger number of horses and
mares than any other mission in the country. These animals increased so
rapidly that they were given away in order to preserve the pasturage for
cattle and sheep. In 1822 the Spanish power in Mexico was overthrown; in
1824 a republican constitution was established. California, not then
having a population sufficient to admit it as one of the Federal States,
was made a territory, and as such had a representative in the Mexican
Congress; but he was not allowed a vote on any question, though he sat
in the assembly and shared in the debates.
In 1826 the Federal Government began to meddle with the affairs of the
friars. The Indians "who had good characters, and were considered able
to maintain themselves, from having been taught the art of agriculture
or some trade," were manumitted; portions of land were allotted to them,
and the whole country was divided into parishes, under the
superintendence of curates. The zealous missionaries were no longer to
receive a salary--four hundred dollars a year had formerly been paid
them out of the national exchequer for developing the resources of the
State. Everybody and everything was now supposed to be self-sustaining,
and was left to take care of itself. It was a dream--and a bad one!
[Illustration: Lone Mountain, 1856]
Within one year the Indians went to the dogs. They were cheated out of
their small possessions and were driven to beggary or plunder. The
Fathers were implored to take charge again of their helpless flock.
Meanwhile the Pious Fund of California had run dry, as its revenues had
been diverted into alien channels. The good friars resumed their
offices. Once more the missions were prosperous, but for a time only. It
was the beginning of the end. Year after year acts were passed in the
Mexican Congress so hampering the friars in their labors that they were
at last crippled and helpless. The year 1840 was specially disastrous;
and in 1845 the Franciscans the pioneer settlers and civilizers of
California, were completely denuded of both power and property.
In that year a number of the missions were sold by public auction. The
Indian converts, formerly attached to some of the missions, but now
demoralized and wandering idly and miserably over the country, were
ordered to return within a month to the few remaining missions, _or
those also would be sold_. The Indians, having had enough of legislation
and knowing the white man pretty well by this time, no doubt having had
enough of him, returned not, and their missions were disposed of. Then
the remaining missions were rented and the remnants divided into three
parts: one kindly bestowed upon the missionaries, who were the founders
and rightful owners of the missions; one upon the converted Indians, who
seem to have vanished into thin air; one, the last, was supposed to be
converted into a new Pious Fund of California for the further education
and evangelization of the masses--whoever they might be. The general
government had long been in financial distress, and had often
borrowed--to put it mildly--from the friars in their more prosperous
days. In 1831 the Mexican Congress owed the missions of California
$450,000 of borrowed money; and in 1845 it left those missionaries
absolutely penniless.
Let me not harp longer upon this theme, but end with a quotation from
the pages of a non-Catholic historian. Referring to the Franciscans and
their mission work on the Pacific coast, Josiah Joyce, assistant
professor of philosophy in Harvard College, says:[1]
"No one can question their motives, nor may one doubt that their
intentions were not only formally pious but truly humane. For the more
fatal diseases that so-called civilization introduced among the Indians,
only the soldiers and colonists of the presidios and pueblos were to
blame; and the Fathers, well knowing the evil results of a mixed
population, did their best to prevent these consequences, but in vain;
since the neighborhood of a presidio was often necessary for the safety
of a mission, and the introduction of a white colonist was an important
part of the intentions of the home government. But, after all, upon this
whole toil of the missions, considered in itself, one looks back with
regret, as upon one of the most devout and praiseworthy of mortal
efforts; and, in view of its avowed intentions, one of the most complete
and fruitless of human failures. The missions have meant, for modern
American California, little more than a memory, which now indeed is
lighted up by poetical legends of many sorts. But the chief significance
of the missions is simply that they first began the colonization of
California."
The old mission church as I knew it four and forty years ago is still
standing and still an object of pious interest. The first families of
the faithful lie under its eaves in their long and peaceful sleep,
happily unmindful of the great changes that have come over the spirit of
all our dreams. The old adobes have returned to dust, even as the hands
of those who fashioned them more than a century ago. Very modern houses
have crowded upon the old church and churchyard, and they seem to have
become the merest shadows of their former selves; while the roof-tree
of the new church soars into space, and its wide walls--out of all
proportion with the Dolores of departed days--are but emblematic of the
new spirit of the age.