[p. 27] San Francisco de Asis, p. 27
Mission San Francisco de Asis, better known as Mission Dolores, is the sixth mission founded in Alta California, and was formerly dedicated October 9th, 1776, by Fathers Palou, Cambon, Nocedal and Pena. Officers and soldiers of the Presidio were present. High mass was sung by Father Palou, the image of St. Francis was exhibited, bells were rung, volleys of musketry rent the air, cannons nd rockets from the good ship San Carlos, lying in the bay, were fired. The building was a comfortable house of wood, roofed with tules and plastered with clay. It measured 54 x 30 x 15 feet. The first chapel blessed was at the presidio, on the 17th of September, on the Feast of Stigmata of St. Francis, [p. 28] the patron saint of the port and mission, while the mission was named for the patron saint of the Franciscan order.
[p. 28 San Francisco de Asis, p. 28, 1908a, 1908d, p. 28]
The name Dolores (sorrow) in this instance signifies the name of a stream or lagoon, a place known as "the willows" by those who came in 1849. This swamp was later filled in and graded, forming the tract that lies between Seventeenth, Nineteenth, Valencia and Howard streets. The corner-stone for the present church was laid 1782, and by 1795, adobe buildings with tile roofs, forming two sides of a square were completed; also a ditch protecting the potrero or cattle farm and fields, had been dug.
Weaving looms were constructed by the Indians and a substantial though coarse kind of blanketing, was woven as clothing for the neophytes. Vancouver describes it as "cloth not to be despised, had it received the advantage of fulling." The products made and produced at Dolores Mission wer soap, salt, wool, hides, wine, tallow and butter. The garden was not notable for its produce, the reason given being high winds and weather unfavorable to horticulture. The climate proveed detrimental to the Indians, and after a fierce epidemic of measles, a new mission known as the "hospital mission" was founded at San Rafael, across the bay, and 590 of the Indians were transferred to this place for a change of climate. Later 322 neophytes were sent to Solano, and it was thought best at one time to discontinue the mission at San Francisco altogether; but the idea met stout opposition from Father President Sarria. Consequently a new mission, known as New San Francisco or Solano, was founded, and the old San Francisco, known as Dolores , was not abandoned. Dolores was not a prosperous mission, and rapidly declined after secularization. The Fathers baptized 6883 persons and buried 2089. The little church-yard at the side of the mission is small and sad. Few monuments mark the resting places of any of the 2000 and over, who lie sleeping in that small space. A tall shaft marks the grave of the first Mexican governor, Don Luis Antonio Arguello.
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