The Evening News. September 21, 1916.

3. Life At The Mission

A few days after the cross was raised under the laurel trees, Father Murgula, [see transcribers note below] another devout Franciscan missionary, arrived from Monterey with material for construction of the Mission church. He also brought with him a herd of cattle, the first cattle ever seen in the Santa Clara valley. The governor had decided that the Mission must help supply the Presidio with meat. These cattle were the cause of the fathers first struggle with the Olhone [Ohlone] Indians. Father Pena and Father Murgula gave the Indians meat to eat. They liked it. The Olhones [Ohlones] had no sense of private property. In fact they had never heard of any beyond a pipe or a hide. And so, they took cattle from the Mission.

The Fathers had come to save the souls of the Indians, not to be robbed by them. But theft disclosed how deep was the Indians' need of salvation. The Fathers sent to Governor Fages at Monterey for protection. The governor had several Indians flogged and two or three of them killed, but he never entirely cured the Indians of cattle stealing.

There might have been a impassable breath between the Mission and the Indians but for an epidemic among the Olhones [Ohlones] a few months after the establishment of the Mission. Many of the Indian children died. The priests baptized the children and through the mystic rite of baptism the Indians and the Fathers came together.

The first year there were 77 baptisms at the Mission. Eight were adults, the rest were children. Twenty-five deaths of Indians were recorded. At the close of the year a church had been built six by twenty varas. Besides this there were two dwellings, one six by twenty-two varas. The buildings were made of timber, plastered. The roofs were of clay. A bridge crossed the stream leading to two corrals.

During the year 1777 the first baptism among the gente de razon (cultured people) was that of an illegitimate son of Jose Antonio Gonzales and of a woman who was married the following year to another man. The first death among gente de razon was that of Jose Antonio Garcia in 1778.

The first year of the Fathers among the Olhone [Olhone] Indians was most fruitful. They stirred the sluggish Indians to activity, and they made them understand the Great Spirit of the Christian religion.

The Olhones' [Ohlones'] good "Cooksuy," was terrible, vindictive. The Indians were gentle, [?]table. They responded to the gentle, forgiving, Great Spirit of the patient, generous, kindly fathers who lived in the little thatched houses under the spreading laurels.

The Indians liked the new Spanish foods, the new clothing, the new music, the new half-understood soft words, the new ceremony of kneeling before the Cross. They liked everything the Fathers had brought, but--work. Even work they submitted to for the sake of the fair kind strangers. There was plenty of work.

The floods forced the Fathers to give up the beautiful "Place of the Laurels." Four years later they selected another spot at Gerguensum, or the "Valley of the Oaks," not far west of the present broad gauge station at Santa Clara. In order to build the new adobe church Father Murgula and Father de la Pena needed all their inspired zeal, and the inspired zeal of the neophytes ardent with the story of Jesus, and ardent to build a house for the worship of the Great Spirit.

The church itself was of adobe, but the great beams and rafters were of redwood trees, brought from the Santa Cruz mountains on the Indians' shoulders. Today the polished upper railing of the sanctuary at Santa Clara is of one of those beams.

Father de la Pena and Father Murgula even stirred in the Olhones [Ohlones] an aesthetic sense. When it came to decorating the church the Fathers had no paint, but the Indian's told them of the juice of the cactus, with which they painted their bodies on gala days. The first decorations of the new church were done with cactus juice. The strengths of many prayerful men went into that second mission church of Santa Clara, and the life itself of Father Murgula was given. Four days before the dedication, his body was placed in the church. The Indians shook their heads. They almost doubted the goodness of the Great Spirit. After all was he not like their own cruel "Cooksuy," always creating beautiful beings only to destroy them?

Messengers hurried to Monterey. Father Serra seldom left the Mission at that place, but he decided to quit Monterey for the dedication of the new church. This took place on the nineteenth of November, 1781, Father Serra with several other priests presiding. The Cross which that day was erected has since been beaten down by storms and time, but a portion of it is still preserved under glass at the base of the bright new cross at Santa Clara. King Charles III sent three bells for the church, on the condition that they should ring daily.

For more that a century and a quarter one bell has rung every day.

But even this beautiful new church, so splendidly dedicated, could not survive the earthquake of 1818. For the third time ground was broken for the Mission church. It was placed where it now stands, and many of the decorations and much of the material of the second church are in the third.

As the Mission grew, it was found necessary to have attendant buildings in which to instruct the Indians and for use as work shops. That is why the four walls were built around the square open at one side. In one portion of the building was kept the male Indians, and on the other side called the "nunnery" were the women. Both male and females were locked in at night. The Fathers held the keys. Occasionally, love laughed at the locksmith, and there was an elopement, but such violations of the fathers' discipline were met with severe chastisement.

On one occasion when a woman left her husband for a handsomer Indian, Father Catala sternly brought the lovers back, locked them in a cell without food. Soon there came outcries from the cell. The sinners vowed that they had seen serpents. This was one of Father Catala's miracles, most effective in putting an end to evil love.

As a rule the Indian women were docile and industrious. They sewed, wove, ground grain in metates, and learned housewives' duties. The men became artisans or tilled the soil.

When Father Junipero Serra had set out from Mexico the Vicerop[?] Jose Galvez, then at La Paz, and who thought of everything big or little, sent with Father Serra a shipload of seeds and grains for sowing, and trees and vines for planting. So there was great new life and interest for the Indians, who at the rancherias passed their time in idleness and sports.

In the year of 1812 the Indians planted the olive trees at Santa Clara. They set out the grape vines and the pear orchard. With much bewilderment they looked at the crude plow sent from Monterey, but they soon learned to use it. The soil was young, and so grateful for devotion, that it gave bountiful harvests. The Indians delighted in the corn, peas, beans, melons, pumpkins, figs and the varied of European fruits, which replaced their simple herbs, nuts and bumblebee honey.

Huge granaries were built, and the Christianized Olhones [Ohlones] often returned to their rancherias to tell their friends of the strange beautiful things learned from the white men who came in big canoes thousands of miles to relate the story of the Great Spirit.

Often the unchristianized Indians stolidly smoked their pipes and grunted that it was not wise to eat and drink with strangers. As for tearing up the earth with strange implements - it was unforgivable and foolish. Did not the forests give all man should eat? If they deserted their fathers' god "Cooksuy," the new foods would make them sick and die. They must not anger "Cooksuy."

However, the woman, more fluid more eager for an intense new form of life, put their papooses upon their backs and followed the Christianized Indians back to the Mission to hear the strange bells ring, to listen to the sweet music, to see the brilliant splendid vestments and to hear the wonderful priest, Father Catala. They knelt at the foot of the Cross. The men of the tribe followed the women.

And so, grew the Mission.

(To be continued)

[Transcribers note: Father Murgala (named here) is found in other sources as Father Jose Murguia; Father Pena as Father Tomas de la Pena; and Father Catala as Father Magin Matias Catala. Other sources state the Mission church was destroyed and rebuilt a total of five times: first - a temporary church was relocated on higher ground and dedicated November 11, 1779 after the original was destroyed by flood; second - it was moved and rebuilt at a more perminant location called "Socoistraka" by the Ohlone Indians laying it's cornerstone there on November 19, 1781; third - after being destroyed by the earthquake of 1818 a temporary church was built nearby and used between 1819-1825; fourth - it was rebuilt at it's current location and dedicated on August 11, 1825; fifth - it was rebuilt again after a fire of October 24, 1926.]

Transcribed by Claire Martin, for the Santa Clara Co. CAGenWeb Project. 2007.

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