The Evening News. September 23, 1916.

5. The Alameda, The Beautiful

When you walk the Alameda, or when you drive there, remember that the vision of the Beautiful Way between the Mission and the Pueblo was born in the brain of Father Magin Catala, the Holy Man of Santa Clare.

Not as a pleasure grove large trees which its name signifies was the Alameda laid out, but as an act of devotion, a religious rite. In 1799 already the Mission of Santa Clara had existed for two and twenty years. Father Catala had quitted his home to carry the light into the far wilderness. Here in Santa Clara he had pleaded with sinners, he had feated, he had lashed his bare back, long days and nights he had lashed his bare back, long days and nights he had remained at the foot of the Cross in prayer. Still, among the gentiles there was polygamy, infant murder, worhship of the god "Cooksuy." In the pueblo soldiers cursed and rioted in soldiers' way. And the Pueblo was only one league distant. Father Catala felt that his voice did not carry far.

Even when the dull Indians listened and understood, even when the soldiers half-heartedly repented of their evil ways, they did not go often to the Mission, In the winter the excuse was the mud. In the summer it was the mustard. And indeed the mustard was like a great fellow [?]oress. Sometimes even the devout were lost therein. And so, in order to make the Holy Way the easy way, Father Catala became the first road-builder in Santa Clara county. For two years the padre had nursed the willow cuttings. He saw them root and grow into young trees. Early in the spring of 1799 with two hundred Indian converts he began the Alameda. In his eagerness he himself uprooted the first mustard. The Indians leaped to their task. Other Olhones [Ohlones], trained as plowmen, stirred the ground for the road. Father Catala marked the place where the trees should be planted. When the road was finished and irrigating ditch was dug through the center extending the full way.

With a prayer and a blessing, Father Catala dug the first hole for the planting. Fired by the padre's zeal, the Indians outdid even their leader. Three rows of trees, numbering thousands, were planted between the Mission and the Pueblo. The mustard trail became the Beautiful Way.

In the early years Father Catala and the neophytes watered the trees, shaped them, protected them from the sun and wild animals, replaced them when one was destroyed. The willows grew to great height, their branches interlaced. Long after Father Catala and the nameless redmen had gone up above, and long after the power of the Mission decayed, and long after people forgot who had given them this wide, leafy way, it was the pride of the Pueblo.

A rickety omnibus once run in the Alameda between San Jose and the Mission. Then a crude, little horse-car took its place. A modern electric company had planned a road in the middle of the Alameda. The people protested, the trees must be spared. The men of progress said that the car-line should run through the center of the street.

Unexpectedly the supervisors granted the privilege. That night, like the old highwaymen in the Alameda who chose darkness for their deeds, a force of men massacred the trees in the center of the Alameda. In the morning San Jose, stunned, looked at the crime. The company's excuse was "Progress. The trees would have fallen soon. They were old."

Some furrowed, knotted, black old willows remaining on either side of the Alameda wept over their fallen brothers. "We, too, are old. Almost at the beginning of the new civilization we were here. We have communed with all that passed this way, the simple, naked red man, the dark, slow-moving Don, the pale thin-lipped Gringo. They have sat in our shade. They told us their secrets. We gave everything, and asked nothing. While we lived the Saint came from Santa Clara, our padre who watered us and cared for us, who prayed here, who set up the stations of the Way of the Cross, and who barefoot in winter worshipped here. There was that other saint, less humble, Father Junipero Serra. He journeyed this way as he went from the Pueblo to the Mission. And the great captain of the king came, and rulers themselves passed this way. And sinners came. Sometimes red with murder they asked us for shelter. We gave. We always gave to all. That great sinner, Vasquez, scarcely noticed us. Proud and haughty, surrounded by his friends, he passed us by riding like a Don. But we saw him drawn back from the pueblo, lifeless and limp, his neck scarlet red and blank. He was alone. The wagon rattled past without stopping, but we gave him our blessing. Best of all we liked the lovers; those who came in the moonlight, those who came in the dark. But lovers in the dark, lovers in the light, no matter what their tongue or age, they spoke the same words, they looked the same glances, they had the same hopes, the same belief in the eternity of their love. Always them we understood. We ourselves were planted with love. That is why ours is the Holy Way."

(To be continued)

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

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