In 1829 Captain Robinson, the author of "Life in California" in the good
old mission days, wrote thus of his first sight of Monterey: "The sun
had just risen, and, glittering through the lofty pines that crowned the
summit of the eastern hills, threw its light upon the lawn beneath. On
our left was the Presidio, with its chapel dome and towering flag-staff
in conspicuous elevation. On the right, upon a rising ground, was seen
the _castillo_, or fort, surmounted by some ten or a dozen cannon. The
intervening space between these two points was enlivened by the hundred
scattered dwellings that form the town, and here and there groups of
cattle grazing.
"After breakfast G. and myself went on shore, on a visit to the
Commandant, Don Marian Estrada, whose residence stood in the central
part of the town, in the usual route from the beach to the Presidio. In
external appearance, notwithstanding it was built of adobe--brick made
by the mixture of soft mud and straw, moulded and dried in the sun,--it
was not displeasing; for the outer walls had been plastered and
whitewashed, giving it a cheerful and inviting aspect. Like all
dwellings in the warm countries of America, it was but one story in
height, covered with tiles, and occupied, in its entire premises, an
extensive square.
"Our Don was standing at his door; and as we approached, he sallied
forth to meet us with true Castilian courtesy; embraced G., shook me
cordially by the hand, then bowed us ceremoniously into the _sala_. Here
we seated ourselves upon a sofa at his right. During conversation
_cigarritos_ passed freely; and, although thus early in the day, a
proffer was made of refreshments."
In 1835 R.H. Dana, Jr., the author of "Two Years before the Mast," found
Monterey but little changed; some of the cannon were unmounted, but the
Presidio was still the centre of life on the Pacific coast, and the town
was apparently thriving. Day after day the small boats plied between
ship and shore, and the population gave themselves up to the delights of
shopping. Shopping was done on shipboard; each ship was a storehouse of
attractive and desirable merchandise, and the little boats were kept
busy all day long bearing customers to and fro.
In 1846 prices were ruinously high, as the alcalde was free to
confess--he being a citizen of the United States and a clergyman into
the bargain. Unbleached cottons, worth 6 cents per yard in New York,
brought 50 cents, 60 cents, 75 cents in old Monterey. Cowhide shoes were
$10 per pair; the most ordinary knives and forks, $10 per dozen; poor
tea, $3 per pound; truck-wheels, $75 per pair. The revenue of these
enormous imposts passed into the hands of private individuals, who had
placed themselves by violence or fraud at the head of the Government.
In those days a "blooded" horse and a pack of cards were thought to be
among the necessaries of life. One of the luxuries was a _rancho_ sixty
miles in length, owned by Captain Sutter in the valley of the
Sacramento. Native prisoners, arrested for robbery and confined in the
adobe jail at Monterey, clamored for their guitars, and the nights were
filled with music until the rascals swung at half-mast.
In August, 1846, _The Californian_, the first newspaper established on
the coast, was issued by Colton & Semple. The type and press were once
the property of the Franciscan friars, and used by them; and in the
absence of the English _w_, the compositors on _The Californian_ doubled
the Spanish _v_. The journal was printed half in English and half in
Spanish, on cigarette paper about the size of a sheet of fools-cap.
Terms, $3 per year in advance; single copies, 12-1/2 cents each. Semple
was a man just suited to the newspaper office he occupied; he stood six
feet eight inches in moccasins, was dressed in buckskin, and wore a
foxskin cap.
The first jury of the alcaldean court was empanelled in September,
1846. Justice flourished for about three years. In 1849 Bayard Taylor
wrote: "Monterey has the appearance of a deserted town: few people in
the streets, business suspended," etc. Rumors of gold had excited the
cupidity of the inhabitants, and the capital was deserted; elsewhere was
metal more attractive. The town never recovered from that shock. It
gradually declined until few, save Bohemian artists and Italian and
Chinese fishermen, took note of it. The settlement was obsolete in my
day; the survivors seemed to have lost their memories and their interest
in everything. Thrice in my early pilgrimages I asked where the Presidio
had stood; on these occasions did the oldest inhabitant and his
immediate juniors vaguely point me to three several quarters of the
town. I believe in my heart that the pasture in front of the old
church--then sacred to three cows and a calf--was the cradle of
civilization in the far West.
[Illustration: San Carlos de Carmelo]
The original custom-house--there was no mistaking it, for it was founded
on a rock--overhung the sea, while the waves broke gently at its base,
and rows of sea-gulls sat solemnly on the skeletons of stranded whales
scattered along the beach. A Captain Lambert dwelt on the first floor of
the building; a goat fed in the large hall--it bore the complexion of a
stable--where once the fashionable element tripped the light fantastic
toe. In those days the first theatre in the State was opened with
brilliant success, and the now long-forgotten Binghams appeared in that
long-forgotten drama, "Putnam, or the Lion Son of '76." The
never-to-be-discourteously-mentioned years of our pioneers, '49 and '50,
"were memorable eras in the Thespian records of Monterey," says the
guide-book. They were indeed; for Lieutenant Derby, known to the
literary world as "John Phoenix" and "Squibob," was one of the leading
spirits of the stage. But the Thespian records came to an untimely end,
and it must be confessed that Monterey no longer tempts the widely
strolling player.
I saw her in decay, the once flourishing capital. The old convent was
windowless, and its halls half filled with hay; the barracks and the
calaboose, inglorious ruins; the Block House and the Fort, mere shadows
of their former selves. As for Colton Hall--the town-hall, named in
honor of its builder, the first alcalde,--it is a modern-looking
structure, that scarcely harmonizes with the picturesque adobes that
surround it. Colton said of it: "It has been erected out of the slender
proceeds of town lots, the labor of the convicts, taxes on liquor shops,
and fines on gamblers. The scheme was regarded with incredulity by many;
but the building is finished, and the citizens have assembled in it, and
christened it after my name, which will go down to posterity with the
odor of gamblers, convicts and tipplers." Bless his heart! he need not
have worried himself. No one seems to know or care how the building was
constructed; and as for the name it bears, it is as savory as any.
The church was built in 1794, and dedicated as the parish church in
1834, when the missions were secularized and Carmelo abandoned. It is
the most interesting structure in the town. Much of the furniture of the
old mission is preserved here: the holy vessels beaten out of solid
silver; rude but not unattractive paintings by nameless artists--perhaps
by the friars themselves,--landmarks of a crusade that was gloriously
successful, but the records of which are fading from the face of the
earth.
Doubtless the natives who had flourished under the nourishing care of
the mission in its palmy days, wagged their heads wittingly when the
brig _Natalia_ met her fate. Tradition says Napoleon I. made his escape
from Elba on that brig. It was by the _Natalia_ that Hijar, Director of
Colonization, arrived for the purpose of secularizing the missions; and
his scheme was soon accomplished. But the winds blew, and the waves rose
and beat upon the little brig, and laid her bones in the sands of
Monterey. It is whispered that when the sea is still and the water
clear, and the tide very, very low, one may catch faint glimpses of the
skeleton of the _Natalia_ swathed in its shroud of weeds.
There are two attractions in the vicinity, without which I fear
Monterey would have ultimately passed from the memory of man. These are
the mission at Carmelo, and the Druid grove at Cypress Point. In the
edge of the town there is a cross which marks the spot where Padre
Junipero Serra sang his first Mass at Monterey. It was a desolate
picture when I last saw it. It stood but a few yards from the sea, in a
lonely hollow. It was a favorite subject with the artists who found
their way thither, and who were wont to paint it upon the sea-shells
that lay almost within reach. Now a marble statue of Junipero Serra,
erected by Mrs. Leland Stanford, marks the spot.
Six miles away, beyond the hills, above the shallow river, in sight of
the sparkling sea, is the ruin of Carmelo. From the cross by the shore
to the church beyond the hills, one reads the sacred history of the
coast from _alpha_ to _omega_. This, the most famous, if not the most
beautiful, of all the Franciscan missions, has suffered the common fate.
In my day the roof was wanting; the stone arches were crumbling one
after another; the walls were tufted with sun-dried grass; everywhere
the hand of Vandalism had scrawled his initials or his name. The nave of
the church was crowded with neglected graves. Fifteen governors of the
territory mingle their dust with that consecrated earth, but there was
never so much as a pebble to mark the spot where they lie. Even the
saintly Padre Junipero, who founded the mission, and whose death was
grimly heroic, lay until recent years in an unknown tomb. Thanks to the
pious efforts of the late Father Cassanova, the precious remains of
Junipero Serra, together with those of three other friars of the
mission, were discovered, identified, and honorably reentombed.
From 1770 to 1784 Padre Junipero Serra entered upon the parish record
all baptisms, marriages, and deaths. These ancient volumes are carefully
preserved, and are substantially bound in leather; the writing is bold
and legible, and each entry is signed "Fray Junipero Serra," with an odd
little flourish of the pen beneath. The last entry is dated July 30,
1784; then Fray Francesco Palou, an old schoolmate of Junipero Serra,
and a brother friar, records the death of his famous predecessor, and
with it a brief recital of his life work, and the circumstances at the
close of it.
Junipero Serra took the habit of the order of St. Francis at the age of
seventeen; filled distinguished positions in Spain and Mexico before
going to California; refused many tempting and flattering honors; was
made president of the fifteen missions of Lower California--long since
abandoned; lived to see his last mission thrive mightily, and died at
the age of seventy--long before the fall of the crowning work of his
life.
Feeling the approach of death, Junipero Serra confessed himself to Fray
Palou; went through the Church offices for the dying; joined in the hymn
_Tantum Ergo_ "with elevated and sonorous tones," saith the
chronicle,--the congregation, hearing him intone his death chaunt, were
awed into silence, so that the dying man's voice alone finished the
hymn; then he repaired to his cell, where he passed the night in prayer.
The following morning he received the captain and chaplain of a Spanish
vessel lying in the harbor, and said, cheerfully, he thanked God that
these visitors, who had traversed so much of sea and land, had come to
throw a little earth upon his body. Anon he asked for a cup of broth,
which he drank at the table in the refectory; was then assisted to his
bed, where he had scarcely touched the pillow when, without a murmur, he
expired.
In anticipation of his death, he had ordered his own coffin to be made
by the mission carpenter; and his remains were at once deposited in it.
So precious was the memory of this man in his own day that it was with
the utmost difficulty his coffin was preserved from destruction; for the
populace, venerating even the wooden case that held the remains of their
spiritual Father, clamored for the smallest fragment; and, though a
strong body-guard watched over it until the interment, a portion of his
vestment was abstracted during the night. One thinks of this and of the
overwhelming sorrow that swept through the land when this saintly
pioneer fell at the head of his legion.
The California mission reached the height of its prosperity forty years
later, when it owned 87,600 head of cattle, 60,000 sheep, 2,300 calves,
1,800 horses, 365 yoke of oxen, much merchandise, and $40,000 in specie.
Tradition hints that this money was buried when a certain
piratical-looking craft was seen hovering about the coast.
This wealth is all gone now--scattered among the people who have allowed
the dear old mission to fall into sad decay. What a beautiful church it
must have been, with its quaint carvings, its star-window that seems to
have been blown out of shape in some wintry wind, and all its lines
hardened again in the sunshine of the long, long summer; with its
Saracenic door!--what memories the _Padres_ must have brought with them
of Spain and the Moorish seal that is set upon it! Here we have evidence
of it painfully wrought out by the hands of rude Indian artisans. The
ancient bells have been carried away into unknown parts; the owl hoots
in the belfry; the hills are shown of their conventual tenements; while
the wind and the rain and a whole heartless company of iconoclasts have
it all their own way.
Once in the year, on San Carlos' Day, Mass is sung in the only
habitable corner of the ruin; the Indians and the natives gather from
all quarters, and light candles among the graves, and mourn and mourn
and make a strange picture of the place; then they go their way, and the
owl returns, and the weeds grow ranker, and every hour there is a
straining among the weakened joists, and a creaking and a crumbling in
many a nook and corner; and so the finest historical relic in the land
is suffered to fall into decay. Or, perhaps I should say, that was the
sorry state of Carmelo in my day. I am assured that every effort is now
being made to restore and preserve beautiful Carmelo.