SAN GABRIEL, ARCÁNGEL
We have already seen that San Gabriel, the fourth Mission, was founded
September 8, 1771. The natives gave cheerful assistance in bringing
timber, erecting the wooden buildings, covering them with tules, and
constructing the stockade enclosure which surrounded them. They also
brought offerings of acorns and pine-nuts. In a few days so many of them
crowded into camp that Padre Somero went to San Diego for an addition to
the guard, and returned with two extra men. It was not long before the
soldiers got into trouble, owing to their treatment of the Indian women,
and an Indian attack, as before related, took place. A few days later,
Fages appeared on the scene from San Diego with sixteen soldiers and two
missionaries, who were destined as guard and priests for the new Mission
of San Buenaventura. But the difficulty with the Indians led Fages to
postpone the founding of the new Mission. The offending soldier was
hurried off to Monterey to get him out of the way of further trouble.
The padres did their best to correct the evil impression the soldiers
had created, and, strange to say, the first child brought for baptism
was the son of the chief who had been killed in the dispute with
the soldiers.
But the San Gabriel soldiers were not to be controlled. They were
insolent to the aged priests, who were in ill-health; they abused the
Indians so far as to pursue them to their rancherías "for the fun of the
thing;" and there they had additional "sport" by lassoing the women and
killing such men as interfered with their lusts. No wonder Serra's heart
was heavy when he heard the news, and that he attributed the small
number of baptisms--only seventy-three in two years--to the wickedness
of the men who should have aided instead of hindering the work.
In his first report to Mexico, Serra tells of the Indian population
around San Gabriel. He says it is larger than at any other Mission,
though, unfortunately, of several different tribes who are at war with
one another; and the tribes nearest to the sea will not allow others to
fish, so that they are often in great want of food. Of the prospects for
agriculture he is most enthusiastic. The location is a well-watered
plain, with plenty of water and natural facilities for irrigation; and
though the first year's crop was drowned out, the second produced one
hundred and thirty fanegas of maize and seven fanegas of beans. The
buildings erected are of the same general character as those already
described at San Carlos, though somewhat smaller.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF MISSION SAN ANTONIO DE PADUA.]
[Illustration: REAR OF CHURCH, MISSION SAN ANTONIO DE PADUA.]
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE ARCHES, MISSION SAN ANTONIO DE PADUA.]
[Illustration: MISSION SAN GABRIEL ARCÁNGEL.]
When Captain Anza reached California from Sonora, by way of the
Colorado, on his first trip in 1774, accompanied by Padre Garcés, he
stayed for awhile to recuperate at San Gabriel; and when he came the
second time, with the colonists for the new presidio of San Francisco,
San Gabriel was their first real stopping-place after that long, weary,
and arduous journey across the sandy deserts of Arizona and California.
Here Anza met Rivera, who had arrived the day before from Monterey. It
will be remembered that just at that time the news came of the Indian
uprising at San Diego; so, leaving his main force and the immigrants to
recuperate, he and seventeen of his soldiers, with Padre Font, started
with Rivera for the south. This was in January, 1776. He and Rivera did
not agree as to the best methods to be followed in dealing with the
troublesome Indians; so, when advices reached him from San Gabriel that
provisions were giving out, he decided to allow Rivera to follow his own
plans, but that he would wait no longer. When he arrived at San Gabriel,
February 12, he found that three of his muleteers, a servant, and a
soldier belonging to the Mission had deserted, taking with them
twenty-five horses and a quantity of Mission property. His ensign,
Moraga, was sent after the deserters; but, as he did not return as soon
as was expected, Anza started with his band of colonists for the future
San Francisco, where they duly arrived, as is recorded in the San
Francisco chapter.
In 1777-1778 the Indians were exceedingly troublesome, and on one
occasion came in large force, armed, to avenge some outrage the soldiers
had perpetrated. The padres met them with a shining image of Our Lady,
when, immediately, they were subdued, and knelt weeping at the feet of
the priests.
In October, 1785, trouble was caused by a woman tempting (so they said)
the neophytes and gentiles to attack the Mission and kill the padres.
The plot was discovered, and the corporal in command captured some
twenty of the leaders and quelled the uprising without bloodshed. Four
of the ringleaders were imprisoned, the others whipped with fifteen or
twenty lashes each, and released. The woman was sentenced to perpetual
exile, and possibly shipped off to one of the peninsula Missions.
In 1810 the settlers at Los Angeles complained to the governor that the
San Gabriel padres had dammed up the river at Cahuenga, thus cutting off
their water supply; and they also stated that the padres refused to
attend to the spiritual wants of their sick. The padres offered to
remove the dam if the settlers were injured thereby, and also claimed
that they were always glad to attend to the sick when their own pressing
duties allowed.
On January 14, 1811, Padre Francisco Dumetz, one of Serra's original
compadres, died at San Gabriel. At this time, and since 1806, Padre
José María Zalvidea, that strict martinet of padres, was in charge, and
he brought the Mission up to its highest state of efficiency. He it was
who began the erection of the stone church that now remains, and the
whole precinct, during his rule, rang with the busy hammer, clatter,
chatter, and movement of a large number of active workers.
It was doubtless owing to the earthquake of December 8, 1812, which
occurred at sunrise, that a new church was built. The main altar was
overthrown, several of the figures broken, the steeple toppled over and
crashed to the ground, and the sacristy walls were badly cracked. The
padres' house as well as all the other buildings suffered.
One of the adjuncts to San Gabriel was _El Molino Viejo_,--the old mill.
Indeed there were _two_ old mills, the first one, however, built in
Padre Zalvidea's time, in 1810 to 1812, being the one that now remains.
It is about two miles from the Mission. It had to be abandoned on
account of faulty location. Being built on the hillside, its west main
wall was the wall of the deep funnel-shaped cisterns which furnished the
water head. This made the interior damp. Then, too, the chamber in which
the water-well revolved was so low that the powerful head of water
striking the horizontal wheel splashed all over the walls and worked up
through the shaft holes to the mill stones and thus wet the flour. This
necessitated the constant presence of Indian women to carry away the
meal to dry storerooms at the Mission where it was bolted by a hand
process of their own devising. On this account the mill was abandoned,
and for several years the whole of the meal for the Mission was ground
on the old-style metates.
The region adjacent to the mill was once largely inhabited by Indians,
for the foreman of the mill ranch declares that he has hauled from the
adjacent bluff as many stone pestles and mortars, metates and grinders
as would load a four-horse wagon.
It should not be forgotten that originally the mill was roofed with red
tiles made by the Indians at the Mission; but these have entirely
disappeared.
It was the habit of Padre Zalvidea to send certain of his most trusted
neophytes over to the islands of San Clemente and Catalina with a "bolt"
or two of woven serge, made at the Mission San Gabriel, to exchange with
the island Indians for their soapstone cooking vessels,--mortars, etc.
These traders embarked from a point where Redondo now is, and started
always at midnight.
In 1819 the Indians of the Guachama rancho, called San Bernardino,
petitioned for the introduction of agriculture and stock raising, and
this was practically the beginning of that _asistencia_, as will be
recorded in the chapter on the various chapels. A chapel was also much
needed at Puente, where Zalvidea had six hundred Indians at work
in 1816.
In 1822 San Gabriel was fearfully alarmed at the rumor that one hundred
and fifty Indians were bearing down upon that Mission from the Colorado
River region. It transpired that it was an Opata with despatches, and
that the company had no hostile intent. But Captain Portilla met them
and sent them back, not a little disconcerted by their inhospitable
reception.
Of the wild, political chaos that occurred in California after Mexico
became independent of Spain, San Gabriel felt occasional waves. When the
people of San Diego and the southern part of the State rebelled against
Governor Victoria, and the latter confident chief came to arrange
matters, a battle took place near Los Angeles, in which he was severely
wounded. His friends bore him to San Gabriel, and, though he had
entirely defeated his foes, so cleverly did some one work upon his fears
that he made a formal surrender, December 6, 1831. On the ninth the
leader of the rebels, the former Governor Echeandía, had a conference
with him at San Gabriel, where he pledged himself to return to Mexico
without giving further trouble; and on the twentieth he left, stopping
for awhile at San Luis Rey with Padre Peyri. It was at this time the
venerable and worthy Peyri decided to leave California, and he therefore
accompanied the deposed governor to San Diego, from which port they
sailed January 17, 1832.
After secularization San Gabriel was one of the Missions that
slaughtered a large number of her cattle for the hides and tallow. Pio
Pico states that he had the contract at San Gabriel, employing ten
vaqueros and thirty Indians, and that he thus killed over five thousand
head. Robinson says that the rascally contractors secretly appropriated
two hides for every one they turned over to the Mission.
In 1843, March 29, Micheltorena's order, restoring San Gabriel to the
padres, was carried out, and in 1844 the official church report states
that nothing is left but its vineyards in a sad condition, and three
hundred neophytes. The final inventory made by the comisionados under
Pio Pico is missing, so that we do not know at what the Mission was
valued; but June 8, 1846, he sold the whole property to Reid and Workman
in payment for past services to the government. When attacked for his
participation in what evidently seemed the fraudulent transfer of the
Mission, Pico replies that the sale "did not go through." The United
States officers, in August of the same year, dispossessed the
"purchasers," and the courts finally decreed the sale invalid.
There are a few portions of the old cactus hedge still remaining,
planted by Padre Zalvidea. Several hundreds of acres of vineyard and
garden were thus enclosed for purposes of protection from Indians and
roaming bands of horses and cattle. The fruit of the prickly pear was a
prized article of diet by the Indians, so that the hedge was of benefit
in two ways,--protection and food.
On the altar are several of the old statues, and there are some quaint
pictures upon the walls.
In the baptistry is a font of hammered copper, probably made either at
San Gabriel or San Fernando. There are several other interesting
vessels. At the rear of the church are the remains of five brick
structures, where the soap-making and tallow-rendering of the Mission
was conducted. Five others were removed a few years ago to make way for
the public road. Undoubtedly there were other buildings for the women
and male neophytes as well as the workshops.
The San Gabriel belfry is well known in picture, song, and story. Yet
the fanciful legends about the casting of the bells give way to stern
fact when they are examined. Upon the first bell is the inscription:
"Ave María Santisima. S. Francisco. De Paula Rvelas, me fecit." The
second: "Cast by G.H. Holbrook, Medway, Mass., 1828." The third: "Ave
Maria, Sn Jvan Nepomvseno, Rvelas me fecit, A.D., '95." The fourth:
"Fecit Benitvs a Regibvs, Ano D. 1830, Sn. Frano."
In the year 1886 a number of needed repairs were made; the windows were
enlarged, and a new ceiling put in, the latter a most incongruous
piece of work.