In the Footprints of the Padres

by Charles Warren Stoddard

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.