Mostly Pictures

In California, every 4th grade student completes a set of written and oral presentations on a particular California Mission. Mrs. B assigned the Mission San Francisco Solano to E, which is the northernmost mission now in the city of Sonoma. So faster than you could say "family trip," we packed a suitcase, hopped into a car, and headed north. Our plan was to see the Mission, stay overnight in Santa Rosa, then stop at the rearchitected and rebuilt San Francisco Academy of Science on the way home.

Below the kids take a seat after walking through the Mission Museum, the collocated Sonoma Barracks Museum, and on a hunt for General Vallejo's house, which we found later.

The palm branch, found next to the bench, makes a good prop.

The plaque, which is a little hard to read, states: "On July 4, 1823, Padre Jose Altimira founded this northernmost of California's Franciscan Missons, the only one established under independent Mexico<..instead of Spain..>. In 1834 secularization orders were carried out by military Commandant Mariano G. Vallejo. San Francisco Solano became a parish church serving the pueblo and Sonoma Valley until sold in 1881...," followed by information about the organization that posted the plaque.

Apparently Spain and the Catholic Church suffered delusions common for faraway, myopic administrations. The grand plan was for the Church to take a 10 year period to complete each self-sustaining mission, while converting the California natives to Catholicism and teaching them to farm, thus creating instant towns of devoted Spanish citizens. Next, mission accomplished (pun intended), the Church intended to disband the then unnecessary missions while handing over the founded pueblo (town) to the newly minted Spaniards or, in this case, Mexicans.

The watercolor above (the photo was taken without using a flash) was painted by Chris Jorgensen in approximately 1904, while the photo below shows the same area today. Both the painting and the present day picture show the Mission in an incomplete state, though the painting was completed before partial restoration started in 1909.

Everyone knows that Mission walls were built from baked mud bricks (adobe) slathered with plaster, and that the roofs were topped with ceramic tile. But looking up under the eaves I had not expected to see bundles of twigs.

Behind the museum is a courtyard with a burbling stone fountain, olive trees, a couple of lemon trees, a rosemary hedge and, out of view, a "wall" of prickly pear cactuses.

The picture below was taken from behind the Barracks. The Mission Chapel is off to the left.

Sleeping quarters for soldiers. A nearby plaque explains that while the Spanish soldiers were paid a regular salary they were also docked, by the quartermaster, for both uniforms and their upkeep, and that out of the remaining money came the quartermaster's salary. This arrangement pretty much guaranteed poorly paid soldiers.

In the next room hangs a copy of one of the first California Republic flags. Mainly it's interesting because it was so hurriedly hand sewn. (It looked like this.) Within weeks of its creation, by American soldiers acting as settlers, other American troops landed at Monterey, declaring California for the United States.

A small, mobile cannon.

Below is the layout of the Mission in 1832, nine years after the Mission was established. The large church, on the right, was too large, hardly used, and after settlers in the 1830s removed the roof tiles for other buildings, suffered rain damage. The smaller chapel, on the left, was rebuilt on the site of the original mission church and eventually became the parish church.

A model of present day buildings.

To see a readable version, click on the picture below.

Like the outside, the inside of the chapel is long and thin.

Note that the pulpit is not part of the altar area, below, but is high along the right wall, above, so everyone in the church would be able to see and hear the priest during a sermon. (This would also mean that it wasn't considered as important for everyone to see the priest or hear words in Latin, which few could understand anyway, during the service.)