The register of baptisms at San Miguel begins July 25, 1797, and up to 1861 contains 2917 names. Between the years 1844 and 1851 there is a vacancy, and only one name occurs in the latter year. The title-page is signed by Fr. Fermin Franco de Lasuen, and the priests in charge are named as Fr. Buenaventura Sitjar and Fr. Antonio de la Conceptión.
At the end of this book is a list of 43 children of the "gentes de razon" included in the general list, but here specialized for reference.
The registry of deaths contains 2249 names up to 1841. The first entry is signed by Fr. Juan Martin and the next two by Fr. Sitjar.
The old marriage register of the Mission of San Miguel is now at San Luis Obispo. It has a title-page signed by Fr. Lasuen.
In 1888 some of the old bells of the Mission were sent to San Francisco and there were recast into one large bell, weighing 2500 pounds. Until 1902 this stood on a rude wooden tower in front of the church, but in that year an incongruous steel tower took its place. Packed away in a box still remains one of the old bells, which has sounded its last call. A large hole is in one side of it. The inscription, as near as I can make out, reads "A. D. 1800, S.S. Gabriel."
In 1901 the outside of the church and monastery was restored with a coat of new plaster and cement. Inside nearly everything is as it was left by the robber hand of secularization.
On the walls are the ten oil paintings brought by the original founders. They are very indistinct in the dim light of the church, and little can be said of their artistic value without further examination.
There is also an old breviary with two heavy, hand-made clasps, dated Antwerp, 1735, and containing the autograph of Fr. Man. de Castañeda.
There is a quadrangle at San Miguel 230 feet square, and on one side of it a corridor corresponding to the one in front, for six pillars of burnt brick still remain.
At the rear of the church was the original church, used before the present one was built, and a number of remains of the old houses of the neophytes still stand, though in a very dilapidated condition.