The fathers and their students do all the work necessary to keep up their establishment and its gardens. Each one learns some particular trade or work and does not shrink from the hardest physical labor. The buildings and grounds are being improved and beautified each year and Santa Barbara seems to be the one mission where ideal conditions prevail for the care of the property and the preservation of the traditions of early days. Very appropriately it still remains in charge of the Franciscans, a rather uncommon distinction shared with San Luis Rey alone.
Santa Barbara was founded in 1786, four years after Father Serra's death. The present church was completed in 1820 and is described by Father Engelhardt as "probably the most solid structure of its kind in California." The Indian population of the mission was at its maximum in 1803, numbering seventeen hundred and ninety-two souls. The secularization decree took place in 1834, at which time the property was valued at a little in excess of one hundred thousand dollars. So notably was the Mexican program a failure at Santa Barbara that ten years later the property was restored to the padres; but the Indians were scattered, the wealth dissipated, and the building in a sad state of disrepair. Less than three hundred natives remained and these gained a living with difficulty. Three years afterwards the governor sold the property to a private party for seventy-five hundred dollars; but after the American occupation it was returned to the church.
THE FORBIDDEN GARDEN, SANTA BARBARA
From Photograph by Pillsbury
The arcade fronting the sea, the cloisters partly surrounding the garden, and a few other portions of the original buildings remain, but the present dormitory is modern. The decree authorizing the college was issued by Rome more than fifty years ago and the restoration work proceeded but slowly, being done largely by the fathers and their students. Father O'Keefe, the kindly old priest whom we met at San Luis Rey, directed much of the work and pushed it to completion. His excellent record here resulted in his transfer to the southern mission where, as we have seen, he was also singularly successful.
Before we departed we purchased a copy of Father Engelhardt's history and left our modest contribution as well, for the Franciscan fathers, who have so faithfully labored to restore and protect this beautiful old mission and who show such courtesy to the visiting stranger, have no source of income except voluntary gifts.
Coming out, we paused awhile to admire the sunset bay from the arcade and then wended our way along flower-bordered walks to our hotel.
There is no other town of the size in California—or scarcely of any size, for that matter—that has about it such a wonderful series of drives and walks as Santa Barbara.
At the time of our first visit some of these were closed to motors and as a guide seemed almost a necessity, we decided to abandon the car for the novelty of a horse-drawn vehicle. We had no trouble at all in finding one for there were a host of Jehus on the street who recognized us as tourists at sight and eagerly hailed us as possible customers. We chose the oldest fellow of all, partly out of sympathy and partly because we liked his face, and it proved a more fortunate selection than we suspected at the time. He was an old-time Californian, having crossed the plains with his parents in 1854, when a child of six. He had an adventurous career, beginning with that time, for he was stolen from the camp by a band of Indians and recovered two days later by the pioneers after a sharp fight. He had been in the midst of the mining maelstrom and was rich and poor half a dozen times—poor the last time, he declared, and now the condition had become chronic. He had lived in Santa Barbara thirty years and not only knew every nook and corner of the town and vicinity, but could tell who lived in the houses and many bits of interesting history and gossip as well.