1542 Cleland

Donald M. Cleland A History of the Santa Monica Schools 1876-1951, Santa Monica Unified School District, February 1952 (Copied for the Santa Monica Library, July 22, 1963). 140 pp., 1899, 1542

. . . It was in 1542, thirty-six years after the death of the discoverer of America, that Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator, sailing under the flag of the Spanish emperor, Charles V, entered the bay of San Pedro, later rounded Point Fermin, and dropped anchor in a beautifully clear, crescent-shaped bay. Indians who inhabited the nearby islands and mainland gazed for the first time on Caucasian faces. It was, perhaps, in honor of these godlike beings with their bird-winged conveyances, that the savages set fire to the dry grass of the plains along the shore; and the great clouds of smoke which overhung the land caused Cabrillo to give the place the name, Bahia de los Fumos (Bay of the Smokes). [2. Charles Dwight Willard, The Free Harbor Contest at Los Angeles Los Angeles: Kingsley, Barnes and Neuner Co., 1899, p. 25] p. 4

(Back to Source)

 Kelyn Roberts 2017