SAN GABRIEL MISSION BOOKENDS

Mission San Gabriel Arcangel bookends and El Camino Real Guidepost Bell manufactured by the Forbes Foundry, also known as the California Bell Company. The early bronze bookend on the left has a hinged foot so it folds flat when not in use. The later, 1920s, iron bookends are patinated and have an inscription describing the mission on the back.

 

Bronze folding San Gabriel Mission bookends from about 1915 and inscribed back of iron bookends from about 1925. Both are from the Forbes Foundry that morphed into The California Bell Company

Bronze folding San Gabriel Mission bookends from about 1915 and inscribed back of iron bookends from about 1925. Both are from the Forbes Foundry that morphed into The California Bell Company

Bronze folding San Gabriel Mission bookends from about 1915 and inscribed back of iron bookends from about 1925. Both are from the Forbes Foundry that morphed into The California Bell Company

Alta California was first visited by Spanish explorers in the 1530s.  It wasn’t until 1769 that Spain began to claim control of the West Coast by sending soldiers and Franciscan priests to establish presidios and missions at strategic points.  Each Spanish outpost to be an independent and self-reliant agrarian community.  The first Presidio and Mission were built on a bluff overlooking San Diego Bay in 1769.  Eventually a line of 4 presidios and 21 missions from San Diego to Sonoma secured Alta California for Spain and later Mexico. 

Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, founded in 1771 was the fourth of the 21 missions in California.  Placed in the foothills of the mountain chain now known as the San Gabriels, the mission was extolled for it’s beauty, it’s fertile lands, and wealth.  It was very successful with crops and cattle, and has sometimes been called the Pride of the Alta California Missions and the Mother of Agriculture in California. Ministering to the surrounding country and the little pueblo which is now the City of Los Angeles, an 11 mile ride away, it was a social focal point.  Today it is located in the City of San Gabriel, a suburb of L.A.  Many a postcard of Mission San Gabriel Arcangel were sent by lucky vacationers to Southern California back  to envious stay-at-home family and friends in the eastern United States.

 

 

 

The mission has seen 250 years of California history.  Established in 1771 in Alta California under the rule of New Spain, it found itself in 1821 under the rule of Mexico following the Mexican Revolution.  In the 1830s Mexico secularized the missions. In the late 1840s Mexico ceded much of what is now the Southwest to the United States.  By 1855 the San Gabriel Mission had been restored to the Church, first by military action and later by the United States Land Commission.  

Built in gothic style with a vaulted roof, Mission San Gabriel has been damaged by several earthquakes.  In the early 1800s the vaulted roof collapsed and was replaced with a flat roof of timbers and tile.  More recently it was damaged in the 1987 Whittier Narrows quake, when large cracks appeared in it’s walls and floor.  In 2020 a massive fire destroyed much of the interior and roof.  As restoration work was underway at the time, a good portion of the artwork and especially the Tongva (California Mission Indian) painted Stations of the Cross had been removed.   September 8, 2021 marks the 250th Anniversary of the Mission’s founding. and the beginning of a celebratory Jubilee Year. with many activities planned.  Click here to read about the Mission Restoration and preparations for the Jubilee Year in the Los Angeles Angelus News.

 

Carmel Mission Bookends

Carmel Mission. Iron, Height 5.5 in. Circa 1910.

Alta California was first visited by Spanish explorers in the 1530s.  It wasn’t until 1769 that Spain began to claim control of the West Coast by sending soldiers and Franciscan priests to establish presidios and missions at strategic points.  Each Spanish outpost to be an independent and self-reliant agrarian community.  The first Presidio and Mission were built on a bluff overlooking San Diego Bay in 1769.  Eventually a line of 4 presidios and 21 missions from San Diego to Sonoma secured Alta California for Spain and later Mexico.   

The second mission established, San Carlos Borromeo, with its presidio or military garrison, in 1770 was some 450 miles north of San Diego, at Carmel.  It is familiarly known as Carmel Mission.   Local Indians were conscripted to be its work force and to be converted to Catholicism. Carmel Mission became the headquarters for the California mission chain from 1770 to 1803.  Father Junipero Serra, founder of the chain of Spanish missions in Alta California, is buried there.  

Carmel Mission circa 1800: Historic American Buildings Survey Oriane Day Paintings (1861 – 1885) DeYoung Museum – San Francisco, California Prior to 1835.  Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Today, San Carlos Borromeo is known as the Carmel Mission Basilica and the Shrine of Saint Junipero Serra.  It is a parish church, museum, and home to  important Catholic colonial era relics:  the Caravaca Cross reliquary which was carried by Father Serra and was found on his chest during a 1943 archeological exhumation and Our Lady of Bethlehem Statue, also known as La Conquistadora,  which accompanied the first expedition from Mexico.  The library at the Carmel Mission is considered the  First Library of California with it’s collection of books and papers brought by Father Serra and other early Franciscans.   

Carmel Mission is considered the most authentically restored mission of the chain.  Beginning in 1931 Harry Downie, at the request of Monsignor Philip Scher,  spent the next 50 years restoring the Mission Church and outbuildings.

Our set of beautifully cast, painted iron bookends depicts Carmel Mission as it appeared in the late 1800s.  A stereographic photo included in C.W.J. Johnson’s Views of California (circa 1875 – 1890) may have been the inspiration for this particular rendition of the Carmel Mission.  It reflects the church in a state of decay – collapsed roof and a remnant of an adobe outbuilding that on the bookends bears the inscription “Carmel Mission 1770.”   A later photo (1909) shows the Mission with a roof that was erected to preserve the chapel that didn’t come down until the 1930s restoration.  Also, by the 1909 photo the adobe ruins have disappeared.

Circa 1885: Historic American Buildings Survey C.W.J. Johnson’s Views of California Scenery

Circa 1909: Historic American Buildings Survey W.H. Knowles Collection About 1909 – Mission San Carlos Borromeo