California Romantic and Resourceful: A plea for the Collection, Preservation and Diffusion of Information Relating to Pacific Coast HistoryDavis, John Francis
History
California Romantic and Resourceful: A plea for the Collection, Preservation and Diffusion of Information Relating to Pacific Coast History
Davis, John Francis
Argüello y Morago, María de la Concepción Marcela, -1857; California -- History; California -- History -- Sources
This history is true. These old walls were witnesses to part of it.
These hills and dales were part of the setting for their love-drama. One
picnic was taken by boat to what is now called the Island of Belvedere
yonder. One horseback outing was taken to the picturesque canyon of San
Andres, so named by Captain Rivera and Father Palou in 1774. Gertrude
Atherton has given us the novel, and Bret Harte has sung the poem,
founded upon it[14].
When we think of the love stories that have survived the ages, Alexander
and Thais, Pericles and Aspasia, Antony and Cleopatra, and all the rest
of them--some of them a narrative unfit to handle with tongs--shall we
let this local story die? Shall not America furnish a newer and purer
standard? If to such a standard Massachusetts is to contribute the
Courtship of Miles Standish, may not California contribute the Courtship
of Rezanov? You men of this army post have a peculiar right to proclaim
this sentiment; in such an enlistment you, of all men, would have the
right to unsheathe a flaming sword. For this memory of the comandante's
daughter is yours--yours to cherish, yours to protect. In the barracks
and on parade, at the dance and in the field, this "one sweet human
fancy" belongs to this Presidio; and no court-martial nor departmental
order can ever take it from you.
[Translation of Baptismal Record.]
931. Maria Concepcion Marcela Argueello, Female Spanish Infant 65.
On the 26th day of February of the year 1791, in the church of this
Mission of our Holy Patron St. Francis, I solemnly baptized a girl born
on the 19th day of the said month, the legitimate daughter of Don Jose
Argueello, lieutenant-captain, and commander of the neighboring royal
presidio, a native of the city of Queretaro, New Spain, and of Dona
Maria Ygnacia Moraga, a native of the royal presidio of El Altar,
Sonora. I gave her the names of Maria de la Concepcion Marcela. Her
godfather was Don Jose de Zuniga, lieutenant-captain and commander of
the royal presidio of San Diego, by proxy, authenticated by the colonel
commandant-inspector and Governor of this province, Senor Don Pedro
Fages, in the presence of two witnesses, namely, Senor Manuel de Vargas,
sergeant of the company of Monterey, and Juan de Dios Ballesteros,
corporal of the same, delegated in due form to Manuel Baronda, corporal
of the company of this royal presidio of our Holy Patron St. Francis,
who accepted it, and held the said girl in his arms at the time of her
baptism. I notified him that he was not contracting kinship nor the
obligations of godfather, and that he should so advise his principal, in
order that the latter might be informed of the spiritual kinship and of
other obligations contracted, according as I explained them to him. And
in witness whereof, I sign it on the day, mouth and year above given.
Fray Pedro Benito Cambon (rubric).
Appendix B.
Concepcion De Argueello.
(Presidio de San Francisco, 1806.)
By Bret Harte.
I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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