In 1890 a severe storm occurred, and the Balanac and the Bumbungan rivers overflowed their banks. The water flowed all over the town. Many buildings were carried away by the flood, and many people were drowned.
In 1893 a great fire happened, and more than one hundred and fifty buildings were burned. Before the big fire there were some large houses. Very few houses at that time were made of stone. So after the fire the people used stone materials in rebuilding their ruined houses.
They made their new houses larger than the old ones. It took them many years to finish beautifying the town.
On November 14, 1896, the Katipunan arrived at Pagsanjan. The next day they went to Santa Cruz to storm the town, but they could not carry out their plan, for all the people who were faithful to their country fought against them. Then they returned to Pagsanjan. They went back again to Santa Cruz, but they accomplished nothing. On Tuesday afternoon nearly all the inhabitants of Pagsanjan fled from the town, because many soldiers were come to storm the place. But the shelling did not happen; instead they pardoned those who did not run away when they saw that the people in the town were few. The leader of these soldiers was General Aguirre.
In 1901 the Americans came to Pagsanjan. When they came the church plaza served as barracks for the soldiers. These soldiers erected their tents and staked their horses there. This plaza has had a checkered history. In 1892 when Don Pedro Paterno, a deputy of the first district of the province of Laguna, was spending his vacation in Pagsanjan, a meeting was held at his house, and he urged upon the people the advantage of erecting a monument in the center of the park, so as to commemorate the concession of municipal government in the Philippines. The people all agreed with him, so immediately they contributed money and within a week the proposed monument was completed. In the dedication of this monument many people joined. As the monument was erected to thank the government of Spain, the inscription engraven on the tablets was about the Queen of Spain, Don Angel Aviles, the director general of the civil administration, and others. In 1898 just after the insurrection of the Filipinos against the Spaniards, the four marble tablets with their inscriptions were taken from the faces of the monument and reversed; then on the blank surface were painted inscriptions of the revolutionary government in honor of Emilio Aguinaldo and Apolinario Mabini. In 1902 after the Philippines became subject to the American government, the councillors agreed to remove the inscriptions, replacing them with others—William McKinley, José Rizal, W. H. Taft and the honorable Civil Commission of the United States in the Philippines. But the people were not contented with the inscriptions, so after a short time an agreement was made that the tablets were to be turned as they were originally mounted, presenting the old inscriptions, so that the founders and the names of those in whose honor the monument was first erected and who granted the early liberties should not be forgotten.
—Dolores Zafra.
II. Chronicles
Definition. Froissart
When the order of time is most conspicuous, history is called chronicle. The work is usually divided into sections, each section covering a separate period. The periods may be long or short. The account of occurrences may be somewhat elaborate, but it is most often bare and simple. Froissart's chronicles (1326-1400), however, are a rich pageantry of feudal times. "The din of arms, the shouting of knights, and marshalling of troops are there. Visions Of fair women rise before us. Gorgeous feasts and spectacles in which this knight of France and England so much delighted are set forth in copious details, and though he is no philosopher, his shrewd observations, and richly minute descriptions have helped others to philosophize."[12] Froissart's Chronicles first appeared at Paris about the end of the fifteenth century under the title of Chroniques de France, d'Angleterre, d'Escosse, d'Espagne, de Bretagne, de Gascogne, de Flanders et lieux d'aleutour. In English there are two versions: one executed in 1523-25 by Lord Berners (reprinted in 1812); and the other 1803-5 by Thomas Johnes. The later is more correct. In the 13th and 14th centuries chroniclers sprung up all over Europe, and created the non-church history of the highways.