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Updated: June 7, 2025
The first Governor, Don Gaspar de Portola, was a great and good man as well as a brilliant officer, gentle and reasonable in every respect, he was beloved by all; to him California owes the discovery of San Francisco Bay, and the great co-operation he gave to Junipero Serra, as well as his reverent esteem for this saintly man has endeared his memory to every true Californian, and immortalized his name in Spain.
The vessel was in bad condition, so it had to be unloaded, careened, cleaned, and repaired, and then reloaded, and in this latter work both Galvez and Serra helped, the former packing the supplies for the Mission of San Buenaventura, in which he was particularly interested, and Serra attending to those for San Carlos.
At its margin they have established a manufactory which converts the wood into paper blissful sight for the utilitarian. Finding little else of interest in Serra, and hungering for the flesh-pots of Cotrone, I descended by the postal diligence to Soverato, nearly a day's journey. Old Soverato is in ruins, but the new town seems to thrive in spite of being surrounded by deserts of malaria.
Colomba Schanolt, who died at Bamberg in 1787, Magdalen Lorger, who died at Hadamar in 1806, both Dominicanesses, and Rose Serra, a Capuchiness at Ozieri in Sardinia, who received the stigmas in 1801, are those of our own times of whom we know the most.
Just as the modern statesmen turn to commercial penetration, so Spain turned, as always, to religious occupation. She made use of the missionary spirit and she sent forth her expeditions ostensibly for the purpose of converting the heathen. The result was the so-called Sacred Expedition under the leadership of Junípero Serra and Portolá.
He also obtained authority from the highest powers of the Church to administer the important sacrament of confirmation. This is a right generally conferred only upon a bishop and his superiors, but as California was so remote and the visits of the bishop so rare, it was deemed appropriate to grant this privilege to Serra.
San Diego was in danger of being abandoned for lack of provisions, for in 1772 Padre Crespí, who was at San Carlos, writes that on the thirtieth of March of that year "the mail reached us with the lamentable news that this Mission of San Diego was to be abandoned for lack of victuals." Serra then sent him with "twenty-two mules, and with them fifteen half-loads of flour" for their succor.
The next month, the presidio of Santa Barbara was established. In the end of 1783, Serra visited all the southern Missions to administer confirmation to the neophytes, and in January, 1784, he returned to San Carlos at Monterey. For some time his health had been failing, asthma and a running sore on his breast both causing him much trouble.
The original and long established opinion was in favor of Genoa; but such strenuous claims were asserted by the states of Placentia, and in particular of Piedmont, that the Academy of Sciences and Letters of Genoa was induced, in 1812, to nominate three of its members, Signors Serra, Carrega, and Piaggio, commissioners to examine into these pretensions.
Serra himself preached the dedicatory sermon. The Indians came from their picturesque conical huts of tule and straw, to watch the raising of the cross, and the gathering at this dedication was larger than at any previous ceremony in California; more than seventy Spaniards with their families, together with large numbers of Indians, being there assembled.
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