Good Father Serra, the founder of the Missions, his friend
and brother-priest Father Palou of San Francisco, and their
fellow-laborers Crespi and Lasuen, helped in the work of building
churches and teaching the Indians. Governor Portola, the first Spanish
ruler of Alta California, assisted the Padres, and also found San
Francisco Bay. Lieutenant Ayala, however, sailed the first ship, the
_San Carlos_, through the Golden Gate. Another governor, de Neve,
founded San José and Los Angeles, and wrote a set of laws for the two
Californias of his time. That wise ruler, Governor Borica, ordered
schools opened and tried to get the Indians to farm their lands and to
raise hemp and flax.
Many of the old Spanish settlers and explorers have left us their
names, though they are themselves forgotten, as Martinez, Amador,
Castro, Bodega, and countless others plainly show. The Englishmen
Livermore, Gilroy and Mark West, those early settlers, Temple and Rice
at Los Angeles, Yount and Pope of Napa Valley, Don Timoteo Murphy of
San Rafael, and Lassen the Dane, for whom Lassen's Peak was named,
were among those who came here before 1830.
Governor Figueroa, called the "benefactor of Alta California" ordered
the Missions to be given up to the Indians. By directing that the
town of Yerba Buena should be laid out, he also is remembered as the
founder of San Francisco. Richardson, who carried out the governor's
orders, was the first settler and Leese built the first frame-house of
San Francisco.
In Governor Alvarado's time many Americans came to the new country,
although Alvarado and General Vallejo tried hard to keep them out.
Vallejo was then the military commander, and had headquarters at
Sonoma, where he had an adobe fort and a few soldiers to protect the
Mission of Solano. Here General Vallejo was living with his Indian and
Californian settlers when the place was taken by Ide, the leader
of the "bear-flag party." Vallejo, set free when the short-lived
"bear-flag republic" went to pieces, lived many years at Sonoma. He
was afterwards a member of the first legislature. He tried hard in
1851 to have the state capital at Vallejo; but he failed, for he did
not keep his agreement to put up buildings for government use.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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