River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1903-10-29

Il
| there is little trace left save The
names of few of their Sans anc
Santas.
In August, 1876, Gen. Kearny's
ssLittle Army" left Fort Leaven.
worth, Missouri. In December, af.
ter marching two thousand miles
across mountains and plains, he
came into this county through the
| mountain pass at Warmers Ranch
an adjoining grant to Santa Ysabel
and where the Hot Springs are from
which the Government has recently
evicted a tribe of Mission Indians.
Gen. Kearny marched through
Santa Ysabel and Santa Maria
Ranches on down toward the ocean.
At San Pasqual a battle was fought
with great loss to the s'Little Army
but defeat for the Mexicans gath
cred to resist them. The expedi-
ton was one Of great peril. for the
Mexicans had guarded strongly
every pass and valley from Warmers
Ranch to San Diego. After having
once travelled the route one can APP
preciate the fortitude and bravery
necessary for Gen. Kearny to have
accomplished his object. without
further serious loss.
During those days Of the Mexican
war these valleys were all the scenes
of considerable bloodshed. The
Spaniards and Mexicans fought
fercely for this sunny land so like
the Old Spain. These warm val
legs among rugged, barren noun
tains, this climate, so conductive to
ease and laxity of muscles and
morals, suited their romantic tastes
and needs better than any other
country they had ever found in all
their world wide wanderings.
Should it not have remained as it
was? The chivalrous rider with his
sombrero and mustache, the crone
with her herbs and gossip, black
eyes peeping from behind fans, red
roses in the black braids of maidens'
hair, the drumming of guitar strings
under easement windows, general
ease and contentment, the brown
robes of friars and the tingling of
vesper bells have all been fittingly
here. Where are they now? Moth
ing left of all this life but a few
crumbling walls and towers! Sad
fate of the Spaniard on American
soil!
The Puritan has crossed the con-
tinent and driven out the less stern
of creed, but the soil and climate of
southern California will never nour-
ish the vigorous faith of the con-
queror. 1t is too sunny, too easy.
How different in creed and charac-
ter were the promoters of civiliza-
ton on our eastern and western
shores, and yet alike in power to
endure hardships and in willingness
to be entirely self sacrificing. One
as strong as the other in religious
zeal and pious motive. The history
of the heroic efforts of the Francis
can Fathers on the western coast
should be read and studied side by
side with that of the Puritan Faith
ers on the eastern coast. One
sought freedom to worship God
according to the dictates of his own
conscience" with creed as stern
and cold as the shores upon which
he landed. The other sought to
make others-the heathen-wo worship
God according to the dictates of an
supported conscience" His all
pervasive thought was that of per-
feet, glorified womanhood as repre-
sented in the Mother of Christ; a
soft, sweet, artistic, gentle persua-
sive idea. On both shores arbitrari-
ness accompanied the creeds. One
any more than the other? To one
shore they came for their own good,
to the other for the good of the
heather they found there. Both
shed tears and blood, both toiled and
prayed, and one as zealously as the
other.
No more thrilling record of a life
of devotion, wisdom and self, sacri-
flee than that of Friar Junipero Ser
ra, who, according to the rules Of
the order, walked all the way from
central Mexico to San Diego over
burning alkali deserts and cold bar
rem mountains. Because of an in
durable lameness every step he took
was one of pain, but he plodded on
keeping life and heart in the whole
company by pious zeal, the fervor
of which has few parallels in our
history. The people they found
here were a lazy, dull, cowardly,
weak of-will race, who burned the
first mission building erected in 1867
at old San Diego. Several of the
missionaries were killed. Amid
dangers and difficulties these patient,
pious, self-sacriicing Franciscan
Fathers Iabored on among these
heather Indians. The same year
of the Declaration Of independence
the San Diego mission, ruins of
which yet stand, was rebuilt In
forty-fve years, between San Diego
and San Francisco, there was a
chain of twenty-one missions and
several branches located in the rich
est and most beautiful valleys along
the coast. The magnitude and cost
of these mission buildings. to be