SAN JOSÉ
San José (St. Joseph), enjoys the distinction of having been the first white colony planted in the state by the Spaniards, although when we read the complaints of the padres concerning the highly undesirable character of its first settlers, recruited mainly from the criminal classes of Sonora, the distinction would seem to be of rather a doubtful sort.
MISSION OF SANTA CLARA, FOUNDED IN 1777.
“The special symbol of the sweet St. Clara is the lily, peculiarly appropriate for the ever-blooming Santa Clara Valley.”
Spurred on by the old bogie of their fear of foreign invasion, the Spanish government decided to establish colonies of white settlers, believing that their hold upon the country would be rendered more secure by this means. The pueblo of San José de Guadalupe, founded November 29, 1777, by Lieutenant José Moraga, then in command at San Francisco, under orders from Governor Neve, was originally located on a site about a mile and a quarter distant from the present city, but was removed in 1797, in consequence of the discovery that the low-lying ground of its first location was often submerged during the winter rains. The people of the pueblo were compelled to travel a distance of three miles to attend mass at the Santa Clara Mission, and in order to make this journey more agreeable, Father Maguín de Catala laid out the alameda between the two places, planting a fine avenue of willow trees which once comforted the wayfarer with their grateful shade. The original trees have now practically all disappeared and others have taken their places in part. The old alameda has vanished.
Not until 1797 was the mission of San José founded, on a spot some fourteen miles distant from the pueblo. The padres had no keen desire to place the missions in close proximity to the pueblos, fearing the evil influence on the Indians of a bad class of white men, besides other inevitable complications, such as the mixing up of cattle. Father Engelhardt, in his History of the California Missions, tells the story of the founding of the Mission San José thus: “Here, on Trinity Sunday, June 11, 1797, Father Lasuén raised and blessed the cross. In a shelter of boughs he celebrated Holy Mass, and thus dedicated the mission in honor of the foster-father of Christ, St. Joseph.”
The old church was unfortunately so shattered by an earthquake in 1868 that it was torn down and replaced by a wooden edifice.
It should be made clear that two missions were established here, Santa Clara and San José, and that the latter was not at San José, as some maps represent it, but some fourteen miles distant from the town.