were charmed by the ideal conditions of both soil and climate and were not loth to write to their friends of these conditions.

Dana in his "Two Years Before the Mast" and others were disseminating information in regard to conditions in California. Improvements in navigation and in the sailing qualities of sailing vessels by which California could be reached in much quicker time were all closing in on California, and being a kingdom, as it were, by itself, so far as Spain or Mexico. were concerned, and being part of the continent lying contiguous to the United States, it could be only a question of time, and a very short time, until it was merged into the United States. The discovery of gold alone could not fail to wrench California from the slender hold Mexico had upon it. The Bear flag which was raised in California about the time of the treaty of peace resulting from the war with Mexico showed the trend of events that if California was not to be a part of the United States she would set up in business as an empire for herself.

The discovery of gold almost simultaneously with the admission of California as a territory of the United States produced conditions that in a few short years brought California into the world of active life. It also in a very abrupt manner put an end to the golden age and brought in the gold age-the age of industrial expansion-from the happy pastoral life with its abundance of the necessaries of life when there was no poverty and no extreme wealth to the present era in which the wealth of the soil is changing the condition of the people to happy owners of homes of their own with possession and use of all the luxuries of the earth.

Gone are those happy hours when plenty bloomed and care and wealth alike were unknown; gone are the light labors and healthful sports without which Eden would be no paradise; and in their place we have the screeching of steam, electricity, the telephone, the telegraph, the flying machine, the bustle of trade, the cumbrous activities of opulence and hearts heavily freighted with care. Will California ever have another golden age?

CHAPTER VI

THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION

The fabric of missionary colonization and civilization that Spain had been centuries in building went down almost like Jonah's gourd, in a night. The vast grants of land that were given almost for the asking were (during the latter days of Spanish occupation, for although California was under the political domination of Mexico, it was more Spanish than Mexican owing to its isolation and was a community within itself) in a lesser degree passing into the hands of the Anglo-Saxon, who had a better conception of the value of land and climate than the native Californian. The Californian did not realize, he could not under the circumstances, that he had the finest soil and climate on earth, which, combined with water, fruits and similar productions under Anglo-Saxon industry and management would be unrivalled on the face of the globe.

The Eastern man who had been brought up under more adverse conditions of climate could when he had a chance place a truer value on what we have in California than the native-born, who had no standard of comparison and no opportunity, for lack of education, by which he might inform himself of conditions in foreign lands. And so he was helpless and about as much of a child of nature as was the unsophisticated aborigine whom he supplanted. By long association with the native Indian or in consequence of such favorable natural conditions the Californian had come to develop some of the characteristics of the nonprogressive native race. Does this peculiarity belong to the soil and climate or was it one of the characteristics of the Spaniard himself? Perhaps the better way would be to assume that it arose mainly from conditions surrounding the Spaniard himself-the pastoral condition which was a necessity of the situation. As a certainty, so far, it does not pertain to Californians, for they are if anything ahead of the times in everything pertaining to industrial life and in many things have made a greater success than those who for generations have been engaged in similar pursuits elsewhere. Environment and education-practical experience have made the Californian of today the man he is. Coming from a soil and climate that for half of the year kept him in enforced idleness and the other half hurrying him to provide against that climatic idleness. It seemed too good to be true that his crops of some kind or other would be growing all the year round under the stimulating influence of sunshine and water and his labors would be so unremitting that he would welcome a rainy day so that he would have a little respite from his labors after the many rainless months of the long dry summer of Southern California.

The discovery of gold in the central and upper part of California in what was deemed by the imaginations of the older of the settled portions of not only the United States but of the progressive minds of the whole world, in unlimited quantities, for the picking up, by bringing so many people from afar brought California to the attention of the world in a way that nothing else could have done and put her years in advance of what she otherwise would have been. Gold had also been found in Southern California previously, but not so abundant as in the upper part of the state, extending as far south as Cape San Lucas, in the extreme end of the peninsula of Lower California, but this did not excite the

cupidity of the missionaries and early settlers as did the discovery of modern times. Mexico and Peru were rich in the precious metals and the missions everywhere had them in profusion enough to dazzle the senses of their converts. There are not lacking tales of hidden treasures buried to prevent spoliation by the influx of grasping invaders and trespassers on the sacred domains of the church.

The rate of progress after the occupation by the United States in Southern California was comparatively slow as compared with Northern California. The gold discoveries and the absence of fruit there make a large call for the fruits of Southern California, mainly grapes, and enriched owners of vineyards. Naturally Southern California being nearer Mexico, was more thickly populated than the upper part of the state and by virtue of that was able to profit by the demands of the gold miners, but only incidentally is this narrative concerned with the greater movement, on account of the gold discovery in Northern California. Enough, however, had been shown by the missions, in cultivation. of the soil, to prove that Southern California was highly favored in soil, climate and water and that the Pacific Coast in the same latitudes carried conditions similar to those of the west coast of Europe and that what a latitude was in a measure unfavorable to settlement on the eastern coast was very favorable for settlement on our western Pacific Coast.

Much of what has heretofore been written in this history would seem to be extraneous and unnecessary in this narrative, but if it had not been for the missionaries and the labors of the padres it might have been many years more before California would have occupied the position. she does today. The large tracts of land occupied by the missions that later passed into the possession of the pastoral inhabitants who led such happy and care-free lives in a great measure faded away, as they had from the occupation of the missions, and a new race and a new era dawned on California under the United States Government, and in the course of two or three years California was admitted as a state of the Union. The great question, now long since happily settled, as to whether California. was to be a free state or a slave state, produced an intense agitation and excitement, but those sturdy miners who had been brought up on the farms to earn their living by the sweat of their brow would have none of servile labor. Those who took an active part in that struggle have almost been forgotten. William McKendree, Gwin pro-slavery, and David Colbreth Broderick, free labor, were the great political leaders and rivals of that time, and although admitted as a free state the struggle was not ended until the war of secession closed.

It was hoped by the Gwin or pro-slavery party to divide California into two states and hand the southern part over to slavery. On the eve of the Civil war the project of a Pacific Coast republic was also considered. Much agitation was also experienced as to joining the Southern Confederacy, but California stayed with the Union. These things, now almost forgotten, show that California, then as now, was foremost in all movements for the betterment of conditions, and if we are to judge the future by the present she will continue to be.

Thomas Starr King, a celebrated Unitarian preacher of that time, was one of the most prominent and talented leaders of the anti-slavery movement and helped very materially in keeping California in the list of free states. During the war itself the people of the state were very much divided on the question of secession, many of them going to the South

to fight in the Southern army, some of whom came back to live lives of usefulness for years after.

The United States soldiers, who on the outbreak of hostilities in the South were sent east, had their places filled by volunteers, and although conscription did not prevail in California, she had a full quota of volunteers. The gold of California also had a very favorable effect in enabling the North to attain the success it had during the war.

The following account of the founding of a pueblo or town in the ancient Spanish way will be interesting as compared with founding of our modern towns with their excursions, auctions and sale of town lots. It is taken from the Los Angeles Times of July, 1921, and will form a fitting interlude between the old and the new.

CHAPTER VII

FROM A PUEBLO TO A GREAT CITY

BY J. M. SCANLAND

Los Angeles was the first legally founded pueblo in the Territory of California. San Jose had been founded four years before, but the locator, De Neve, did not have the authority from the general government. Later he received an order from the King of Spain to found two pueblos in the south. Accordingly, he founded the pueblos of Los Angeles and Branciforte (near Santa Cruz, and no longer exists). The presidios of San Diego and San Francisco were founded before the pueblo of Los Angeles. A presidio is a garrison, or military headquarters. A pueblo is a town governed by civil law. Therefore, Los Angeles was the first pueblo to receive a charter from the king.

The pueblo received its name from the special feast day of Our Lady of the Angels, the Virgin Mary, which, in the Roman Catholic calendar, occurs on the second day of August. On this day, in 1769, an exploring party of sixty-four, under Gaspar de Portola, while looking for the Bay of Monterey, reached a spot near a pretty little stream, and there it halted for rest. It was picturesque in its surroundings, and wildly beautiful and charming in its solitude. In the party were two priests. Mass was celebrated, and Friar Crespi gave to the place the name of the feast day-Our Lady of the Angels. The friars christened the pretty winding stream Porciuncula (now Los Angeles River), after the name of a little river that flowed by the modest home of St. Francis, in Italy, the founder of the Franciscan Order. After resting a few days, the expedition continued northward.

Twelve years later, that is, on September 4, 1781, the new governor, Felipe de Neve, came south to found pueblos. He found a spot of striking beauty, picturesque in its rolling hills and fertile plains, through which courses a pretty stream. He liked the scene, and decided to found a pueblo in this charming amphitheater. He had heard of the visit of the expedition, and the name given to the spot by the friars. So, in this amphitheater he founded a pueblo of the name, or part of it, the official El Pueblo being added. The charter called for a pueblo of six miles in each direction. No doubt he smiled at the wide limits of the pueblo, perhaps thinking that it would not extend far beyond the plaza. The founder then ordered Sergt. Rivera y Moncado to go to Sonora and Sinaloa and select "twelve good men, with families," as settlers for the pueblo. Under the regulations the families were each to be given a building lot and fourteen acres of land for grazing and cultivating; also, two horses, two mares, two cows and a calf, two sheep, two goats, one mule, yoke of oxen, plow, spade, hoe, axe, sickle musket and a leathern shield as an armor against the arrows of the Indians. The settler was to pay for these before the end of five years at the end of which time he would be given a title to the land. In addition, the head of the family was to be given $116.50 a year for the first two years, and $60.00 a year for the following three years. Thus men were hired to come to this favored land. Under the contract the land could not be sold, leased or mortgaged, and after the death of the head of the family it descended to his children.