CELEBRATE! : ORANGE COUNTY’S FIRST...

Although Spain had claimed as its own the New World frontier of Alta California for more than two centuries, it was not until 1769 that, faced with the threat of a Russian advance into Alaska and southward, an expedition was sent to establish, once and for all, Spain’s claim to the territory.

Leading that expedition was Don Gaspar de Portola, captain of dragoons and governor of Alta California.

After a long and arduous journey, by both land and sea, the members of the expedition arrived in San Diego--in Alta California. The crews of the two ships--the San Antonio and the San Carlos--had suffered terribly on the voyage and were decimated by scurvy. After resting and regrouping, a party of 63 left San Diego on July 14, 1769. Scouting for the group was Sgt. Jose Francisco Ortega, for whom Ortega Highway is named. Also in the group were two priests, Juan Crespi and Francisco Gomez, and Miguel Costanso, an engineer and cosmographer.

Various members of the expedition--including Portola, Crespi and Costanso--kept journals, and it is from these that historians have been able to plot the route and tell the story of these exploring Spaniards.

IN HIS NARRATIVE of the expedition, Costanso the engineer gave this description of the daily procession:

On the marches, the following order was observed: At the head went the Commandant with the officers, the six men of the Catalonian Volunteers who joined the expedition at San Diego, and some friendly Indians, with spades, mattocks, crowbars, axes, and other implements of pioneers, to chop open a passage whenever necessary. After them came the pack-train, divided into four groups with their muleteers, and an adequate number of presidial soldiers for their escort with each group. In the rear guard, with the rest of the troops and friendly Indians, came the Captain Don Fernando Rivera, convoying the horse-herd and the mule-herd for relays.

The soldiers of the presidio of Loreto in California, of whom justice and fairness obliges us to say that they worked infinitely on this expedition, use two sorts of arms, offensive and defensive. The defensive are the leather jacket and the shield. The first, whose make is like that of a coat without sleeves, is composed of six or seven thicknesses of white skins of deer, tanned, impenetrable to the arrows of the Indians since they are not discharged from a close range. The shield is of two thicknesses of raw bull hide. It is held with the left arm, and with it, lances or arrows are deflected, the trooper defending himself and his horse. They use, beside the aforesaid, a kind of apron of leather, fastened to the pommel of the saddle and which lays over each side, which they call “armas” or protection, which cover their thighs and legs so as not to be hurt when running in the thickets. Their offensive weapons are the lance, which they manage dexterously on horseback; the broadsword, and a short flintlock musket which they carry thrust into and made fast in its sheath . . . .

It must be well understood that the marches of these troops with such an expedition, and with such obstacles through unknown lands and unused trails could not be long ones . . . . The rests were arrived at by the need of four in four days, more or less, according to the extraordinary fatigue brought on by the greater roughness of the road, the toil of the pioneers, or the straying of the beasts.

PORTOLA AND HIS MEN crossed into what is now Orange County on July 22, 1769. A campsite was chosen by a stream near the canyon known today as Los Cristianitos--and for a very good reason. In his diary, Crespi wrote:

The soldiers on scout duty told us on reaching here that yesterday they had seen a girl infant in arms that was dying. We applied to the Governor for two or three soldiers to go with us, and we two Fathers went to the village to see if we could find this infant, and baptize it if it were in danger. Although we did find it in its mother’s arms, scarcely able to take the breast, she could not be persuaded to let us see it.

As well as we could, we gave her to understand we would not harm it, only wash its head with water, so that if it died it would go to Heaven. Father Francisco Gomez baptized the child, as well as he could with her clutched to her mother’s breast; she was named Maria Magdalena, and I have no doubt she will die and we have come just in time that this soul may go to Heaven . . . .

As I was finishing writing this entry, we were told of another little girl-child about two and a half years old that also seemed to be sick, but we were unable to ascertain if this were really so; in the end, we went back with some soldiers, and found she had been burned and was very ill indeed, so that I took the measure of baptizing her, as Father Gomez had baptized the other. I christened her Margarita; God take both of them into Heaven. So, merely by passing by, we have gained these two souls, so that they may plead in Heaven for the conversion and reduction of all these poor wretches.

THE NEXT DAY, July 23, the marchers reached what is known today as San Juan Canyon and camped on a nearby hill. The beauty of the area made quite an impression on Crespi:

A little before eleven o’clock we came to a very pleasant hollow with a great deal of greenery and many willows, sycamores, live oaks and other, unknown trees. In the hollow is a large creek with a large flow of fine fresh water where we forded it; a little below, the water spread out and stands in some large tule marshes . . . We named it the creek at the Valley of Santa Maria Magdalena.

Costanso also was impressed:

From the Canada del Bautisimo, we came to another valley, to which we gave the name of Santa Maria Magdalena, situated to the north-northwest of the first. The road, although over hilly country and somewhat broken ground, was not very laborious. The place had abundant grass, and was thickly covered with willows and other trees. The watering place was very copious, the water held in pools among reed and rushes.

The expedition leader, Portola, was not nearly as expansive in his description:

The 23rd, we proceeded for four hours. Much grass and water and many trees.

THE NEXT DAY, July 24, the explorers traveled through the Gubernadora Canyon to what is today known as Trabuco Mesa, and a full day’s rest was declared. Although they named the area San Francisco Solano, the name trabuco stuck because a soldier on the expedition lost his blunderbuss ( trabuco ) here.

These first three campsites of the Portola expedition in what is now Orange County were all part of what today is Rancho Mission Viejo, owned by the Santa Margarita Co., and but for fences, grazing cattle and horses, occasional cultivated fields and a vehicle here and there, these campsites must look just as they did 219 years ago when Crespi and Costanso described the lush greenery and trees.

AFTER THEIR TWO-DAY rest at Trabuco Mesa, the expedition moved on, crossing Aliso Creek and camping on July 26 at Tomato Springs on land that now is part of the Irvine Ranch. A historical marker identifies the campsite as San Pantaleon, as it was named by Crespi, and Aguage del Padre Gomez (The Springs of Father Gomez), as it was named by the expedition soldiers after Gomez found two tiny springs that provided water to the thirsty men and their stock.

THE NEXT STOPOVER, on July 27, was on the banks of the Santiago Creek, named for Saint James, the patron of Spain. Of this site, Crespi wrote:

If this watering place should remain throughout the year, it would be a site for building a city on account of the extensive plain on both sides.

There’s not much water to be found at the expedition campsite today, but the city was built: the city of Orange.

ON JULY 28, Portola and his men sighted an Indian village along the right bank of a river and stopped to set up camp on the left bank, about half a mile northwest of today’s community of Olive. A delegation from the Indian village crossed over and asked the Spaniards to stay and live with them. Crespi christened the body of water “the River of the Sweetest Name of Jesus,” a name he was to amend before the day was out.

According to Costanso, this is what happened:

At this place, we experienced a terrible earthquake, which was repeated four times during the day. The first vibration or shock occurred at one o’clock in the afternoon and was the most violent; the last took place at about half-past four. One of the natives, who, no doubt, held the office of priest among them, was at that time in the camp. Bewildered, no less than we, by the event, he began, with horrible cries and great manifestations of terror, to entreat the heavens, turning in all directions, and acting like one conjuring the elements. . . .

Crespi modified the name to Dulcisimo Nombre de Jesus de los Temblores, the river of the Sweetest Name of Jesus of the Earthquakes. The name that stuck, however, was the one given by the soldiers of the expedition: the Santa Ana River.

PORTOLA AND HIS entourage spent one last night in Orange County at present-day Hillcrest Park in Fullerton. The historical marker for this last campsite is surrounded by weeds on Brea Boulevard several miles north of Hillcrest Park, but historian Jim Sleeper maintains that, based on compass calculations from the expedition, Hillcrest Park is the site.

On July 30, the expedition passed into La Habra Valley and out of Orange County, but the effects of its presence here have been with us since.