The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Summer 1986, Volume 32, Number 3
Thomas L. Scharf, Editor

by Greta and Paul Ezell
Frequent contributors to this Journal and authorities on San Diego’s Presidio archaeological excavations

Images from this article

So far as the physical facilities of the Spanish and Mexican period in the Californias are concerned, most of the attention of later writers has been given to the missions built during Hispanic times. The reasons that are doubtless varied but, in large part, it can be attributed to the much more voluminous recording about the missions set down by contemporary writers, whereas comparatively little was set down or, at least, has been found in the way of contemporary accounts of such secular facilities as the presidios.

Consquently, the research program of the San Diego History Center in the ruins of the Presidio of San Diego, carried out from 1965 to 1976 by San Diego State University’s Department of Anthropology and from 1976 to the present (1986) by San Diego Mesa College, were more like excavating in prehistoric ruins than in the remains of a historic settlement. In fact, we at San Diego had come to the conclusion that no plan of the San Diego Presidio had ever been made, in contrast with the situation for the other presidios in California. In part we felt that this was due to the circumstances under which San Diego was founded.

For one thing, San Diego was the first foundation in Upper California, done in haste and with no previous plan. Unlike the other presidios, for which plans have been preserved, the one at San Diego became a presidio by decree some eight years after it had been founded as a mission by Father Junípero Serra on July 16, 1769. It should be remembered that the armed camp already existing at that location on Presidio Hill was incidental to Serra’s aims and constituted no part of that original founding of San Diego

For another, Dr. Arthur J.O. Anderson, then on the faculty of the Anthropology Department at San Diego State University, was unable to locate such a plan in the Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain. Together with the known existence of plans for the presidios of Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco, we felt our pessimism regarding a plan for the San Diego Presidio was all too justified.

And then, in 1982, plans of the four presidios in Upper California, including San Diego, were discovered. Richard S. Whitehead1 has described the circumstances.

A major breakthrough in this area only occurred early in 1982. Fr. Harry Morrison, a priest at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Pinole, situated north of Berkeley, California, … Going through the papers of Edward Vischer (1808-1878), … he discovered a set of drawings of all four Alta California presidios, dated 1820.

Beyond pointing out some similarities between the four plans and summarizing the results of the research program at San Diego, Whitehead’s study concentrated on the Santa Barbara Presidio, with which research program he had long been associated. It is our purpose, therefore, to examine the plan of the San Diego Presidio, completed by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, for what information it can give about the San Diego of 1820 and to compare that information with that derived from the research program at its present stage. We remain as pessimistic as ever about the existence of an a priori plan, but we agree with Whitehead2 as to the potential usefulness of this plan, since the ruins reflect the San Diego Presidio of the early nineteenth century, not that of 1769.

We think it appropriate to give the reader some idea of what was involved beyond the mere use of a Spanish-English dictionary in making the translation of Vallejo’s plan. For example, take the Casa Mata. The feature is shown as isolated, to the east, away from the Presidio wall. The name was written as two words, and we had found much evidence (e.g., cow and sheep bones) during excavation in the ruins of the Presidio that slaughtering had gone on somewhere near by. For those reasons, at first sight we all took this to mean “slaughter-house,” without troubling to check a dictionary.

At the 1982 meeting of the Gran Quivira Conference where Roxie Phillips was reporting on this, Mr. Miguel Celorio, of the Universidad de las Americas in Cholula, Puebla, suggested that we look into another meaning, “casemate, a place where artillery was mounted.” Sure enough, the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy3 gives: “Casamata. Fort. Boveda muy resistente para instalar una o mas piezas de artilleria.” [Trans.: Very resistent vault for the installation of one or more pieces of artillery.] Then we did what we should have done, rather than relying on memory, and consulted the dictionary of Mariano Velasquez4 and there it is, casamata, f, (Mil.) Casemate. Out of curiosity, we checked the English-Spanish section of Velasquez and there appears “Casemate s. (Fort.) casamata…” and goes on with a more detailed definition. Then we checked on the Spanish word for “slaughter-house” and found “matadero,” not “casamata.” Talk about jumping to a conclusion! We had not yet remembered that General Vallejo, as with most of his fellows, wrote as he heard, and may well never have seen the word written until he set it down – as two words. Actually, remembering how we had seen slaughtering carried out in northern Mexico, there probably was no such a thing as a structure serving as a slaughterhouse associated with the Presidio.

In view of the lesser attention given by history to the secular establishments in California, we also think it appropriate to begin with a translation of the note by Vallejo which accompanied the plans of the presidios. Additionally, information contained in that note is of moment when assessing the plans.

The Vallejo Plan

Presidios,
Fortifications under Spain
1820

The old presidios, it seems to me, are not less important for the collection of a scholar, than the missions; for those latter were the support of these former, and they marched along together from their foundation to their ruin.

L. Montis 17] Oct. 19
’78
SmpS [abbreviation for “Always yours”]
M.G. Vallejo

Mr. The Honorable Edward S. Vischer.

None of us are too happy with the place, “L.” [sic. abbreviation for La, “the”] Montis. [sic. – abbreviation for some place name ending in “a” (because of the feminine article) name given by Vallejo in his dateline. We conclude that, since in those times stores and ranches were more important as centers of life than they are today, “Montis.” refers to some such place which is no longer remembered.

Given the date when that note was written, this plan evidently represents the San Diego Presidio as Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo assumed it to have been ten years before he first visited it for a few days in late January 1830 and twelve years before his three longer sojourns in San Diego scattered through 1832 and early 1833.5 We say assumed it to have been, for his rendition of the chapel does not reflect the additions which we now know were created by Lt. Zuñiga, who was commandant at San Diego from 1781 to 17906 and who completed the chapel there.7

It should be further noted that an attempt to translate Vallejo’s statement and the captions on his plan using only a modern, “standard” Spanish-English dictionary will result in considerable confusion. Many of the words are local, New World terms, not from the Iberian Peninsula; the correct translation of other terms requires recognition of the meaning they had more than a century ago, not their modern connotation. For those reasons, we turned to the Diccionario De Mejicanismos8 and the Diccionario De La Lengua Espanola, rather than to Velasquez.

The translation has been submitted to Dr. Arthur J.0. Anderson for a third opinion; he, in turn, submitted it to colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles and New Mexico for additional examination. The only differences, which we happily accept, were in the matter of the abbreviation with which General Vallejo closed his note to Edward Vischer, which should be translated simply “Yours, etc.,” and the dating of that note, which should be October 19, 18789.

For the sake of easier reference, the captions on the plan have been repeated alphabetically below with the translation of each gloss immediately af ter it.

TRANSLATION OF THE GLOSSES ON THE PLAN OF THE SAN DIEGO PRESIDIO, 1820

Almacen de Ropa = clothing warehouse.
Barranco = bluff.10
Campanario = place of the bells.
Capilla = chapel.
Casa del Comandte sobre una plataforma de 10 pies de altura y barando de la orilla al frente = Commandant’s house on a platform raised ten feet high and with a railing along the front edge.
Casa Mata [sic – casamata] = casemate, an emplacement for artillery.3
Casas de la tropa = troops’ houses.
Casas de los oficiales = officers’ houses.
Cuadrante = sundial.
Entrada por las guardias = entrance for the guards.
Escaleras = stairs, steps.
Guadia [sic – Guardia] principal = main guardhouse.
Hasta [sic – Asta] de Bandera = flagstaff, flagpole.
Huerta del Comandte = Commandant’s large orchard.
Lomerias [sic – Lomerios] llenas de choyas [sic – chollas] = connected hills covered with chollas [a particularly troublesome cactus]. “The term is very Tabascan.”11.
Muralla de 20. [sic] pies, de la cual salian el techo de las casas del interior del presidio [note that this label runs all round the Presidio on the outside] = rampart [the outer, hence defensive, wall of a presidio] 20 feet high from which used to protrude the roof of the houses on the inside of the presidio.
para la tropa = [housing] for the troop.
Presidio de San Diego en 1820 = San Diego Presidio in 1820.
Rio de San Diego = San Diego River.
Troja de proviciones [sic – provisiones] pa la tropa = field rations for the troop.
una palma = a date palm [as opposed to other palms].

 

History, Archaeology, and the Plan

To those looking at Presidio Park today it may be hard to credit the accuracy of Vallejo’s gloss at the top of the plan, “connected hills covered with chollas” Nevertheless, when early accounts described the setting of the first San Diego they did so in such general terms as “barren,”12 by which it can be assumed that they meant that it was not a verdant landscape. Indeed, early photographs, while not providing enough detail to identify any but the two famous “Serra” plam trees, do show a pretty bare setting. Neither early accounts nor photographs that we have seen, however, were so specific as was Vallejo. Those acquainted with the desert may have trouble associating cholla with San Diego; that it must have been is demonstrated by the occurrence of place names embodying some variant of the word.13

Casemate

The remains of the casemate, shown near the upper right (southeast) corner of the presidio, may have been destroyed or covered up by the construction of the lower Serra Museum parking lot. The single line across the gap between structures along the east side appears to be one of the lines on the paper on which the plans were drawn. As the rest of the rampart is marked by a double line, we conclude that the gap on the eastern side indicates a gate through which those serving the guns had ready access to the casemate.

San Diego River

Coming in from the upper left and crossing the page from left to right (north to south) is the course of the San Diego River. So many decades have passed since it was diverted from emptying into San Diego Bay to emptying into False Bay (now called Mission Bay) that it is often forgotten that such was not always the case. Throughout the Spanish and Mexican periods of San Diego’s history it flowed close in front of the presidio as Vallejo has shown it.

The rampart

Vallejo’s gloss identifying the rampart (the outer wall around the Presidio) seems to us suspiciously in conformity in some respects with the plans of the other Upper California presidios included in the collection. For one thing, all are simple squares with no bastions14 whereas more contemporary plans by others often show elaboration in the form of bastions15. For another, the height given (20 feet) seems no more probable than Captain Morell’s reminiscent figure, given some of his other recollections16 . The only other rampart height we can find recorded is 11 feet for Monterey, apparently reported by Governor Felipe de Neve in 1778.17 We find it very doubtful that San Diego, a presidio of less importance than that at Monterey, would have had a wall nearly twice as high.

So far as the excavations have gone the information they have recovered agrees with Vallejo’s representation of the courses of the south and west walls. The foundations of what was probably the east wall were uncovered during the construction of the parking lot adjacent to the ruins on the east18. The “Broel” map19, however, shows the north wall undulating as it followed the edge of the cliff to the north and the conformity between the Vallejo plan and actuality could be tested without much excavation or disturbance of the succulents now growing along the north side of the presidio.

The San Diego State excavations along the south side of the San Diego Presidio recovered some evidence that interior structures were built using the rampart as one wall as shown by Vallejo, and the Mesa College excavations along the west side showed even more that such had been the case. Evidently San Diego was not included in the design changes of the ” …1780’s …in which the buildings are separated from the defense wall …”20

[housing] for the troop and Field rations for the troop

Construction of Presidio Drive will have obliterated one or more of the rooms in the portion labeled “[housing] for the troop” and the southwest corner of the Presidio. The extent to which construction of the parking lot may have encroached on the row of structures shown by Vallejo along the east side is one of the problems awaiting archaeological testing. Those of the structures labeled “for the troop” which escaped destruction by the building of Presidio Drive, as well as those labeled “field rations for the troop” may have been impacted, but not totally destroyed, by the construction of the parking lot.

Here is a good example of the dangers of relying on modern usage for translation. Velasquez21 does not even give the word “troja” although trojado, “contained in a knapsack,” is given. Without quoting all the entries in the Royal Academy Dictionary of the Spanish Language22 or the Dictionary of Mexicanisms,23 the conclusion reached from comparing those definitions is that what was referred to was something carried in such a container as a knapsack or the two-compartmented pannier used on animals such as packmules. For that reason “field rations” was chosen as a more accurate translation than simply “provisions storehouse for the troop.” The Royal Academy Dictionary characterizes it as “antiquated” (p. 1253).

Clothing warehouse

From its beginning there had evidently been rooms at the Presidio reserved to the church, and the San Diego State excavations provided evidence that these most probably lay in the area directly east of the chapel. Bancroft24 cites a report by Fr. Serra of February 5, 1775, as authority for his statement that “…two rooms, one for the use of visiting friars and the other for the reception and temporary storage of mission supplies coming by sea” were reserved when the mission was moved from Presidio Hill to its location eastward up the San Diego River Valley. Fr. Font25 reported that he and Anza, the commander of the 1775 expedition to found Monterey, occupied “the same little room” during their stay at the San Diego Presidio from January 11 to February 9, 1776, and that “… three fathers and Señor Ribera [sic. — Rivera y Moncado, then Military Commandant of Upper California26] slept in another.

The earlier structures were replaced by the more substantial ones, the ruins of which we found, but the usage evidently continued for in 1825 the Presidio acquired its own chaplain, Fr. Antonio Menendez, who served until 182927 and he must have lodged somewhere.

Instead, however, of the one structure depicted by Vallejo in the upper right (southeast) corner of his plan and identified as a “clothing warehouse”, the San Diego State excavations uncovered not one, but a series of rooms, extending east from the chapel. This area had been separated from the chapel by an adobe wall extending from an eastward prolongation of the north wall of the chapel to the south rampart of the Presidio, broken only by a drain hole through it toward its south end. The area was bounded on the east by a massive adobe wall extending from the south rampart north past the excavated area as far as the mound on which the Serra Cross stands. Between those rooms and the south wall of the Presidio was an area which was apparently unroofed with remains of cobble paving, two “barbecue” pits, and an oven (horno) built in the southeast corner. Because of the evidence that the area had been devoted to domestic, rather than religious, matters we have designated it as the “secular” portion of the complex which, because it is structurally set apart within the Presidio, we have called the “chapel complex.”28

So, to some extent, archaeology and history agree here, but we may never be able to determine which of the structures we uncovered is the remains of the clothing warehouse. The explanation for Vallejo’s failure to show the oven, the remains of which we found, while he included such features as the flag pole and the sun dial may always be conjectural. Because of the way in which it had been constructed, we concluded that the oven had been a feature of the Presidio, rather than a construction after the Presidio had been abandoned. On the other hand, the doorway symbol, the quadrangular indentation in the north wall of the “clothing warehouse,” is compatible with one bit of archaeological evidence. In that approximate location and outside the north wall of the chapel complex we found a small patch of cobble paving. Because of its similarity to such things seen in Sonora, it was judged to be the remains of a porch and hence indicative of a doorway from the plaza of the Presidio into one of the rooms east of the chapel. This was the only evidence we found for a possible break in the north wall of the complex, one of the factors leading us to identify the chapel complex as a self-contained unit within the Presidio.

Commandant’s house

The evidence now available supports the conclusion that the construction of the eminence on which stands the cross erected by the Order of Panama in 191329 now occupies part, at least, of that location. No one would countenance the removal of the cross in order to explore the validity of that conclusion by excavation, but it might be possible to test it by excavation around the mound on which the cross stands. A trench dug in about 1966 for an underground line northeast to southwest across the little glade in which the statue of “The Padre” now stands showed only Presidio era trash but no wall foundation.

At least at present we have no evidence to refute Vallejo’s depiction of the location of the Commandant’s House equidistant from the northeast and southeast corners of the Presidio and set west of the structures adjacent to the east wall. The “Broel” map30 shows that general location for the Commandant’s House. Modern planting creates the impression that the cross and statue, hence the location shown for the Commandant’s House, are off center toward the north. No excavation would be necessary to test that impression; simple measurement of the location of the mound supporting the cross from the northeast and southeast corners should be enough. Archaeological excavation of the area southwest of the Serra Cross mound might provide a check on the validity of the traditional location of the Commandant’s House.

The Chapel

Because of the total excavation of the chapel complex we can say in respect of this structure that we have clear evidence that Vallejo’s depiction of parts of the San Diego Presidio is more conventionalized than real, although archaeology and Vallejo agree in placing the chapel on the south side of the Presidio. It is, however, understandable that Vallejo would see no point in depicting what was familiar to every Californian of the time the interior layout of the chapel. We find it difficult, however, to accept his larger than usual indentation in the north wall of the chapel as representing a doorway. That would be incongruent with what was doubtless familiar to Vallejo – the placing of the main entrance to a church or chapel at the end opposite the sanctuary and altar regardless of the orientation of the church. We speculate that Vallejo intended thus to show the location of the side chapel.

Place of the bells

We uncovered a quadrangle paved with the same kind of burnt adobes (called tiles) outside the north wall of the chapel and opposite the sanctuary, which is somewhat east of the location shown by Vallejo for this feature. Folklore has it that there was a belltower associated with the chapel in the San Diego Presidio; folklore even goes so far as to identify the WPA-era picnic platform still visible at the northwest corner of the chapel as the remains of that belltower. We have found no historical evidence, such as a contemporary description of the chapel, which mentions a belltower and no archaeological evidence supporting folklore; we have, however, found considerable archaeological evidence against the idea.

Houses of the troops

As has been noted, the southwest corner of the Presidio has vanished beyond recall, so Vallejo’s depiction here cannot be tested. That it might have been approximately as Vallejo has shown it is, however, quite plausible. On the other hand, the space for the structure shown by Vallejo next west and contiguous with the chapel as part of that troop housing, however, we found occupied by the atrium of the chapel, a tile-paved quadrangle extending 30 feet west of the front wall of the chapel. The foundations of the buttress-balustrades on each side extending west from the front wall of the chapel for 30 feet were unbroken by any opening for a doorway as Vallejo has shown and we think that another example of his conventionalization.

San Diego Mesa College began excavation on the west side of the Presidio because history and some preliminary testing supported the hypothesis that in this area would be found the remains of the prison cells in which Sylvester Pattie, his son James Ohio, and others of the party of beaver trappers had been imprisoned in 1828.31 As a result of that excavation it appears most probable that the remains of some of the structures in the area where Vallejo has noted the “Houses of the Troop” were those of the prison cells. Outside the modern west wall and partly overlain by it the excavators also found the foundation for a portion of the original rampart, identified as such because its width – ca. 4 feet – was twice that of the foundations of the interior structures.

Entrance for the Guard

Those same excavations substantiate Vallejo’s identification of the “Entrance for the Guard” as a gateway in the west wall of the Presidio.32 Folklore had placed the entrance to the Presidio where Presidio Drive has wiped out the southwest corner – “that’s why Presidio Drive was built there.”

Principal Guardhouse

The Mesa College excavations have uncovered evidence which supports Vallejo’s identification of this structure; as with the chapel, Vallejo can be forgiven for not showing how many rooms, or the furnishings in them. In contrast the remains found in this mound support the conclusion that the ruins in this spot are those of the quarters of the sergeant and his sister, the “Miss Peaks” (Pico) who befriended the Patties.33 The structural features include tile-topped adobe benches along one side of one room which served as beds by night (they’ve been seen in rural Sonora) and tile-paved floors, not probably furnishings of a prison cell at that time in San Diego. It should be noted that the use of the word “principal” implies that a less important guardhouse existed and substantiates the idea that some of the structures south of the gateway were not prison cells but a secondary guardhouse or troops quarters as Vallejo indicated. On the other hand Pattie, in his description of the San Diego Presidio, referred to “the” guardhouse as if there were only one.

The construction of the observation platform and restrooms in this locality probably destroyed one or more of the unidentified structures drawn by Vallejo.

Houses for the officers

As there has been no excavation in this area of the Presidio ruins the only thing we can say on this point is that, should any of them be excavated, masonry benches similar to that found in the ruins of the Main Guardhouse can be expected.

Commandant’s large orchard

If there ever was an orchard (of any size) associated with the Presidio, history, except for Vallejo, is silent on the point. We take that silence to mean that there was no such thing, for it would have been noteworthy enough in comparison with the rest of the country around, that we feel it would have been mentioned by some of the contemporary visitors to the Presidio. If there had been such a thing, the construction of Taylor Street and the part of Presidio Park in that vicinity known as the Franciscan Gardens will have obliterated all traces of it.

Bluff

The Mesa College excavations have found evidence that shows that Vallejo’s Plan represents reality rather than being conventionalized when it comes to this feature. To the west of the wall and the foundations of the rampart a number of test pits were put down to see what, if anything, was there. What was found was one of the largest and deepest trash dumps of the first San Diego! Two of those pits were sunk to depths of 12 to 14 feet before the sterile, in the sense of being the original land surface on which cultural debris had accumulated, soil was reached. Not only that – as the excavators followed that contact line between the culture-bearing and sterile zones downward they discovered that the angle between the two shifted from nearly horizontal to nearly vertical. As if that were not enough, they found that many pieces of tile lay on edge, rather than flat as they should have been since they are much longer and wider than thick. This is the sort of deposition which occurs when such things come to rest on a very steep (too steep to climb unaided) slope which has been extensively gullied by water. The same sort of erosion can be observed on the steeply sloping sides of cuts in San Diego County. In short, the archaeologists found excellent confirmation of Vallejo’s depiction of a bluff running across the front of the Presidio.

Cemetery

One feature not shown by Vallejo is the cemetery! Both history and archaeology testify to its existence at the San Diego Presidio, between the chapel and the south rampart. Engelhardt34 wrote that “The cemetery of the presidio of San Diego is situated on one side of the church, which is not the case at other presidios.” It was certainly still in use at the time of Vallejo’s visits to San Diego and continued in use until late in the 1800’s.35 We can only conjecture as to why Vallejo left it off his Plan.

We have no final answer to the question “how much does Vallejo’s Plan help archaeologists and historians?” for the answer to that question has barely been approached so far. Certainly any archaeologists who may plan future exploration in the ruins of the San Diego Presidio will doubtless formulate their research designs with Vallejo’s Plan in mind as providing hypotheses for testing.

 


NOTES

1. Richard S. Whitehead, “Alta California’s Four Fortresses,” Southern California Quarterly, LXV (Spring, 1983), pp. 67-94.

2. Whitehead, p. 91.

3. Academia Espanola, Diccionario De La Lengua Espanola (Madrid: Talleres Espasa-Calpe, S.A., 1936), p. 265.

4. Mariano Velasquez de la Cadena, Dictionary Of The Spanish Language (Chicago and New York: Wilcox & Follett Company, 1945), p. 131.

5. Hubert Howe Bancroft, The History Of California, 7 Vols. (San Francisco: The History Company, 1886-90)., Reprint ed. (Santa Barbara: Wallace Hebberd, 1966) 3:82, 219, 227, 229, 241, 245-246. Hubert Howe Bancroft, Register Of Pioneer Inhabitants Of California 1542-1848 (Los Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1964), p. 757. Marie E. Northrup, Spanish-Mexican Families Of Early California: 1769-1858, Vol. 1. (New Orleans: Polyanthos, Inc. 1976), p. 316.

6. Bancroft, 1966, 3:p. 451.

7. Richard F. Pourade, The History Of San Diego: The Time Of The Bells (San Diego: Union-Tribune Publishing Company. 1966), p. 74.

8. Francisco J. Santamaria, Diccionario De Mejicanismos (Madrid: Talleres Espasa-Calpe, S.A., 1936).

9. Arthur J.O. Anderson, personal communication, June 20, 1982.

10. Santamaria, p. 121.

11. Santamaria, p. 666.

12. e.g., Menzies (1793) in Richard F, Pourade, Time Of The Bells.

13. Richard F. Pourade, The History Of San Diego: The Explorers. (San Diego: UnionTribune Publishing Company, 1966), p. 149. Erwin G. Gudde, California Place Names (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965), p. 60. Street Map of San Diego Area, Automobile Club of Southern California.

14. Whitehead, 1983, pp. 66, 78, 83, 87.

15. Ibid., pp. 75, 77, 81, 82, 85.

16. Pourade, 1966, Time Of The Bells, p. 136.

17. Whitehead, 1983, p. 89.

18. Lew Scarr, “Walls Once Guarded City, Boulders Hint,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Friday, July 13, 1956; James R. Mills, San Diego, Where California Began (San Diego: San Diego History Center, 1985), p. 82.

19. Reeves L. Rose, Topography of Ground Plan: Exploration of Old Ruins of the Spanish Presidio, Presidio Park, 1938 (commonly known as the “Broel Map”) San Diego History Center Research Archives.

20. Whitehead, 1983, p. 70.

21. Velasquez, p. 636.

22. Dictionary of the Spanish Language p. 1253.

23. Dictionary of Mexicanismos p. 1088.

24. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History Of California, Vol. 1, p. 230 and fn. 24.

25. Herbert Eugene Bolton (ed. and trans.), Anza’s California Expeditions, Vol. IV. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1930), pp. 214-219.

26. Herbert Howe Bancroft, Register Of Pioneer Inhabitants Of California 1542-1848 (Los Angeles: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1964), p. 697.

27. Fr. Zehpyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., San Diego Mission (San Francisco: The James H. Barry Company. 1920), pp. 224-225.

28. Paul H. Ezell, “The Excavation Program at the San Diego Presidio,” The Journal of San Diego History, XXII (Fall, 1976), p. 11.

29. W. Davidson, Sierra Cross. H. Morganthau to Carl Heilbron, June 17, 1929. Reeves L. Rowe, Topography of Ground Plan: Exploration of Old Ruins of the Spanish Presidio, Presidio Park, 1938 (commonly known as “The Broel Map.” All in the San Diego History Center Research Archives.

30. The “Broel” Map. See fn. 19. SDHC Archives.

31. Timothy Flint (ed.), The Personal Narrative of James Ohio Pattie of Kentucky (Cincinnati: John H. Wood, 1831); republished Reuben Gold Thwaites, L.L.D. (ed.). Early Western Travels 1748-1846 (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1905), pp. 25-324; William H. Goetzmann (ed.). The Personal Narrative Of James 0. Pattie, the 1831 edition unabridged, (Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1962), pp. 157-214; Hubert Howe Bancroft, History Of California, Vol. III, 1825-1840 (Santa Barbara: Wallace Hebberd, 1966), pp. 162-171; Greta S. Ezell, “The Final Road to Alien Soil,” Brand Book Number Seven (San Diego: San Diego Corrall of the Westerners, 1983), pp. 2-18; L.T. Campbell, “Sylvester Pattie: A Nameless Grave in this Old Prison Ground,” Brand Book Number Seven, pp. 19-25; Paul H. Ezell, “Where Was Sylvester Pattie Buried?”, Brand Book Number Seven, pp. 27-32.

32. Diane Everet-Roland, Annual Report, 19??

33. Bancroft, Pioneer Register, 1964, p. 777; Flint, Personal Narrative Of James Ohio Pattie, 1962, p. 241.

34. Engelhardt, San Diego Mission, 1920, p. 146.

35. San Diego Union, January 11, 1984.

Vallejo’s Plan on page 193 is courtesy of the Bancroft Library. All other photographs (unless otherwise noted) are from the author’s collection.