On July 1, 1769, Father Junípero Serra and Don Gaspar de Portolá arrived on the shores of the beautiful land-locked harbor which had been named San Diego by Vizcaíño. Of the 219 men who had left Lower California some two …
On the first day of June, 1770, the Spanish packet San Antonio put into the pine-bordered harbor of Monterey. It had been over a month in covering the more than 400 miles from San Diego. Once ashore, the passengers, with …
Early in July, 1771, a little party of Spanish missionaries, headed by three Franciscan padres, walked into a beautiful, oak-mantled valley near the coastal region of central California. Here they pitched their camp and, as was their custom, began to …
In 1771, the arrival of 10 more Franciscan missionaries at Father Serra’s headquarters in Monterey gave new impetus to his plans. Immediately he moved to close the long gap between his own San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo near Monterey and …
In the Valley of the Bears, so named by Don Gaspar de Portolá and his men on their first expedition from San Diego north in search of Monterey Bay in 1769, Father Junípero Serra founded the Mission San Luis Obispo …
Late in June, 1776, Father Francisco Palóu and Lt. José Moraga, accompanied by 16 Spanish soldiers, led a small party to the shores of San Francisco Bay. There were some wives and children of soldiers in the party, as well …
San Juan Capistrano has the unique distinction of being twice-founded. The first occasion was in 1775, after the Father Presidente Junípero Serra had convinced Captain Rivera that a mission to interrupt the long journey between San Diego and San Gabriel …