SAN FRANCISCO AND PORTOLÁ

Gaspar de Portolá kept close to the coast on his voyage of exploration because it was the route most likely to lead them to the harbor they were looking for.

Often this route could not be followed because the rocky and steep folds of the hills reached the sea, preventing the group’s passage. Then, much against his wishes, they had to search for trails inland that would allow them to advance.

They had left the beaches of Monterrey with the conviction that that beautiful spot could not be the sheltered harbor so praised by Vizcaino in 1602.

Without losing sight of the sea, they walked North until reaching the peak of some hills, from which they saw with amazement unmistakable signs that they had found the ancient bay of San Francisco.

Drawn by Costansó in 1769. It is clear to them that ancient San Francisco
did not correspond with the big inlet that they have just discovered.

 

In the distance to the Northwest appeared the rocky promontory of the Punta de Reyes, with the seven islands or farallones , and in front of them, the long beach of the bay. They were in San Francisco, just as Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño had described it in 1595.

Portolá and his expedition climbed down to the beaches and plains which are today part of the city of Pacifica. They camped there to rest and explore their surroundings better.

Both the soldiers who went out to scout and others who went hunting informed Portolá of an important discovery.

They had seen that towards the Southeast "... an immense thick arm of sea or estuary penetrated inland as far as the eyes could see".

On November 4 Portolá itself confirmed the discovery from the crest of Sweeney Ridge, from which he descried that "thick arm of sea of some 16 to 20 leagues". Sergent Ortega and some soldiers walked round part of what is today San Francisco Bay to where Union City now stands.

It was the first time that the magnificent estuary, later called San Francisco Harbor, had been revealed. It soon became clear that this estuary they had just discovered, had nothing to do with the huge curve of beach and coast-line, named after the Franciscan Saint, whose upper limit was the Punta de Reyes.

That discovery amazed the explorers, who found it hard to understand how such a huge estuary had not been noticed by the many navigators who had sailed for years along that coast. Doubts on whether that huge inlet had a way out to the sea were raised among them.

 

Pedro Fages, Military Comander of the territory, left Monterrey in November 1770, three months after Portolá’s departure. Along with six soldiers explorers and a muleteer, he reached the hills of today’s city of Berkeley. He wrote in his diary on November 28: "... they also said that they had seen the mouth of the estuary that they thought was that which entered the bay of San Francisco harbor, which I can affirm because I have seen it."

Fages confirmed in this exploration the magnificence of the inlet and discovered nothing less than the Golden Gate.

 

Drawing made, according to the information of Father Crespí, in the Pedro Fage' s expedition in March 1772
in which San Pablo Bay, San Francisco river and the Central Valley of California were discovered.

 

In 1772, now under the Viceroy’s orders, Fages undertook another voyage of exploration, accompanied by Father Crespi, six volunteers of Catalonia, six buffcoat soldiers and two muleteers.

He covered the places he had reached previously and confirmed the discovery of the great gate through which sea water enters the inlet, the three islands found inside it, the Bay of San Pablo, the Carquinez narrows and the great river San Francisco (San Joaquin-Sacramento).

On their way back they discovered, from the slopes of Monte Diablo, the huge plain of California’s Central Valley. They returned to Monterrey by following the river San Ramon downstream to the Sunyol valley.

San Francisco’s discovery was completed in 1775 with the exploration of the inlet done by Lieutenant Ayala with the packet boat "San Carlos".

The fort and the mission were not founded till 1776 by Joaquín Moraga, Father Palou, buffcoat soldiers and many settlers brought from Mexico by Juan Bautista de Anza.

The city of San Francisco has raised no monument in honor of Portolá and the men of his expedition. Pedro Fages and Padre Juan Crespi have also been forgotten. However, it was them and no others who first reached this land and discovered its marvelous bay, origin of the current city.

Only in Grace Cathedral, a lovely Episcopalian church in the select Nob Hill quarter of San Francisco, is there a record. There a splendid fresco recalls the ceremony of the founding and taking possession of California by Portolá, with Father Serra officiating at the solemn mass.

Mural in the Episcopalian Grace Cathedral in San Francisco
of the mass celebrated in Monterrey.
Click to enlarge the picture

 

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