During the war between Mexico and Spain a South American pirate paid a visit to the coast of Upper California. Monterey was attacked and partly destroyed, also the mission of San Juan Capistrano and the rancho El Refugio, the home of Captain Ortega, the discoverer of San Francisco Bay. In the crew of the pirate ship was a young American named Chapman, who had found life among his rough associates not so interesting as he had hoped it would be, so he deserted, but was taken prisoner by the Californians and imprisoned in a canyon near the present site of Pasadena. Later he was brought down to Los Angeles and set at liberty. He found the people of the pueblo planning to build a church on the plaza, and he told them that if they would let him have some Indian workmen he would get some large timbers down from the canyon. He accomplished this successfully, and it was considered a wonderful work. The stumps of the trees can yet be seen far up on the mountain side, and the timbers are still in the plaza church.
Visiting San Gabriel, young Chapman found the padres having trouble to keep the flour which they ground in their new stone mill from being dampened by water from the mill wheel. Knowing something of machinery, the American remedied the defect by means of a flutter wheel, and there was no more trouble.
For years the catching of otters for their fur along the lagoons and bays about San Francisco and Monterey brought considerable money to the northern missions. Chapman, finding that the padres of San Gabriel were anxious to engage in this trade, built for them the first sea-going boat ever constructed in southern California. It was a schooner, the various parts of which he made in the workshop of the mission. They were then carried down to San Pedro, where he put them together and successfully launched the vessel.
Finally, to close his history, it is recorded of Mr. Chapman that he fell in love with the pretty daughter of Captain Ortega, whose home he had helped his pirate associates to attack, that he married her and lived to a good old age. The country had few more useful citizens than this capable man, the first American to settle in the southern part of California.
With the secularization of the missions in 1833-34 came a change in the peaceful pastoral life. In each section all that was of interest had from the first centered around its mission. One of the chief pleasures of the early Californians was the feast day, “La Fiesta,” which celebrated a saint’s birthday. During the year there were many of these festivals. First there were religious exercises at the mission church; then in the great square there followed dancing, games, and feasting, in which all classes took some part. These happy church festivals ceased with the breaking up of the mission settlements. Some of the Indians disturbed the community by disorderly conduct, and the ill treatment and suffering of the rest of these simple people caused sorrow and dismay in the hearts of the better portion of the settlers. There was a wild scramble for the lands, stock, and other wealth which had been gathered by the missionaries and their Indian workmen.
Many of the beautiful churches were sold to people who cared nothing for the faith they represented. In some, cattle were stabled. The mission bells were silent, and many of the mission settlements, once so busy and prosperous, were solitary and in ruins.
Life in the great ranchos still went on much as before, but it was no longer so simple and joyous. A change had begun, and not many years later, with the coming of the Americans at the time of the Mexican war, the peaceful, happy life of Spanish California was brought to an end.