Santa Clara County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter XXXI 1922
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Book Title: History Of Santa Clara County

CHAPTER XXXI.

The Romantic History of the Town of Santa Clara-Home of One of the Early
Missions-The Story of the Santa Clara University-The Planting of the Mission Cross.

  As far as is known, William Clark was the first American to locate in Santa
Clara. He is the man who first reduced the ore from the mines at New Almaden. In
1846 came the Harlands, Van Gordon, Samuel Young, Tabor, Allen, Jones, Dickinson
and Bennett. In 1848 there arrived J. Alex. Forbes, Jonathan and Charles Parr,
William Booth, Fielding Lard, Riley Montrey, Cobeb Rand, Geo. W. Bellamy, Dr. H.
H. Warburton, Mr. Bazard, William McCutchen, William Haun, Washington Moody,
John Whisman, William Campbell, Thomas Hudson, James Linns, Austin Angel and
others.

  There were two stores, one kept by Robert Scott, and one by a Frenchman. The
only hotel was the Bellamy house. The first frame building was built as a
residence for Father Real, the priest in charge of the Mission, at the southwest
corner of Santa Clara and Alviso Streets. The lumber was sawed with a whipsaw by
Fielding Lard, in the Palgas redwoods. Immediately afterward buildings were
erected by Lard, Scott and Haun. In 1850 a school house building was erected on
Liberty Street. It was built by subscription and was long known as the "little
brick schoolhouse." It was used as a place of worship by all denominations. In
1853 the first church was built by the Methodists. In the same year a female
seminary was erected to the west of Main Street, between Liberty and Lexington.
In 1850 Peleg Rush imported twenty-three houses from Boston and set them up in
town. The Union Hotel was built in 1850. It was conducted by Appleton & Ainslie.
In 1851 the Santa Clara College was established.

  In 1850 the town site was surveyed by William Campbell into lots a hundred
yards square, and one lot was given to each citizen with the understanding that
he was to build a house on it within three months; failing to do so the lot
could be taken by another. There was no town government until 1852 when the
following officers were chosen trustees: F. Lard, S. S. Johnson, A. D. Hight, F.
Cooper, Riley Montrey; clerk, C. W. Adams; assessor, A. Madan; marshal, William
Fosgate. In 1862 a regular charter, in accordance with state laws, was obtained
and the following were chosen as trustees: J. R. Johnson, A. B. Caldwell, R. K.
Ham, J. L. Guernsey, Henry Uhrbroock. The charter was amended in 1866 and again
in 1872. The town, as then laid out, was two miles long and a mile and a half
wide. Methodism in California was first planted in Santa Clara.

  Santa Clara, called by admirers, "the progressive city beautiful," has (1922)
a population of 6,300. Its public school system is equal to any in the land.
Children enjoy the best possible educational advantages under the best teachers
available and are provided with beautiful, spacious and strictly modern
buildings and playgrounds. The latest and most approved laboratory equipment and
athletic accessories are installed. Sanitary and health conditions are under the
careful supervision of a skilled physician. The grammar school course is
supplemented by manual training, sewing, cooking and music. The high school
prepares students for the Normal schools and universities, and gives a
comprehensive general course.

  The Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce is located in the Bank of Italy building
and is one of the live progressive institutions of the town. The officers are:
Robert A. Fatjo, president; J. J. Jones, L. G. Fatjo, vice-presidents; H. L.
Warburton, treasurer; and B. R. Sullivan, secretary. Directors, Bernice Downing,
Henry Eberhard, R. A. Fatjo, L. G. Fatjo, J. J. Jones, William Loos, E. McQuoid,
A. W. Nuttman, Henry R. Roth, C. A. Thompson, F. J. Vargas, H. L. Warburton. The
Chamber, composed of the leading men of the business community, is concerned
with the promotion of the city's material interests and general welfare, and is
engaged in publicity with the object of acquainting the outside world with the
inviting and salutary local conditions and opportunities.

  Santa Clara stands preeminent among the cities and towns of California in the
matter of municipal ownership of light and water, and is therefore immune from
the restrictions usually levied upon these necessities by corporate control.
Operating its own water, gas and electric plants, it is enabled to offer
particular inducements to homeseekers in the reasonable expense of these
utilities as well as in the low rate of taxation. Paved and graded streets and
cement sidewalks are among the features that commend themselves to visitors. The
town is surrounded with beautiful gardens, thrifty orchards and fields of
vegetables, all of which add charm and makes this portion of the valley rank
high as a place of abode.

  Santa Clara's fruit and manufacturing concerns are the city's greatest asset.
The Pratt-Low Preserving Company, the A. Block Packing Company, the Rosenberg
Bros. & Company, the Eberhard Tanning Company, the Merrit Cement Company, the
Homer Knowles Pottery, and the Pacific Manufacturing Company, are the largest of
their kind on the Coast. These institutions are the mainstay of the community
and will, as they continue their rapid progress and development, result in the
greater growth and prosperity of Santa Clara and surrounding territory.

  The Pratt-Low Preserving Company is situated a short distance south of the
Southern Pacific Railway depot, and at its inception in 1905 three acres of
ground were ample for its requirements. At the present time ten acres are
devoted to this institution, which employes from a minimum of four hundred to a
maximum of one thousand people during the fruit harvesting season, extending
from June first to the middle of November. During this period cherries,
apricots, peaches, pears, plums, grapes, and tomatoes are handled in large
quantities, over ten million cans being necessary for containers; the finished
product is distributed throughout the United States and Canada, as well as
England, France, Italy, and the Orient. The extreme fertility and productivity
of the soil in the immediate vicinity of this plant has had much to do with its
growth, and- the sanitary conditions maintained, together with the care
exercised in the selection and handling of the fruit, account for the great
demand for, and wide distribution of, its products.

  The A. Block Fruit Company, located on the northwestern lmits of Santa Clara,
was established in 1873 by the late Abram Block, and is perhaps the largest
deciduous fruit house in the world, packing in different years, according to the
size and quality of the crop, from 500 to 900 carloads, all assorted and boxed
by experienced hands and shipped to almost every corner of the globe-China,
Europe, South America, South Africa. The Blocks make a specialty of quality
fruits, the bulk of which is grown in their own orchards. They pack nothing
except the best, their brand having a reputation second to none wherever it is
marketed. California's finest pack of pears and plums, grown on Santa Clara
soil, is harvested and packed by this local establishment.

  The Pacific Manufacturing Company is one of the largest lumber concerns on the
Pacific Coast. The plant covers over fifteen acres of ground and 500 men are
constantly employed. The company was originally known as the Enterprise Mill &
Lumber Company, but was reorganized and the name changed in September, 1880. The
present officers are: James H. Pierce, president; John T. Kennedy,
vice-president; R. T. Pierce, secretary and treasurer. The plant is valued at
$300,000.

  The Eberhard Tanning Company, formerly the Santa Clara Tannery, was started in
1849 by L. Wampach. He conducted it until 1854, when it was brought by Messing &
Dixon, Shortly afterward F. C. Franck was admitted as a partner. Dixon soon sold
out to Mr. Glein, and ultimately passed into the hands of Glein alone. In 1860
the firm became Glein & Albert, who kept up the business until 1864, when Glein
again became sole possessor. In 1866 he sold out to Jacob Eberhard. In 1915
Jacob Eberhard died and the business has since been conducted by his sons and
daughters. The plant) occupies eleven acres on Grant Street, and is one of the
largest tanneries in the world. A sale for the very superior leather turned out
is found all over the world. Eighty-six men are employed the year round.

  The present town officers are John J. Jones, William Loos, M. Silva, W. F.
Hayward, P. Concannon, trustees; W. Walsh, marshal, A. J. Cronin, clerk; R. A.
Fatjo, treasurer. School trustees-F. M. Harmon, C. E. Newton, Mrs. Lenora D.
Emig, David Wallace and F. M. Merrill. There are two newspapers, the Journal,
published by B. & B. Downing, and the News, published by Lawrence Lockney.

  The Santa Clara Valley Aero Club has erected a spacious club house and rest
room on the edge of the field fronting the State Highway on the outskirts of
Santa Clara, and has extended the landing area so as to make it one of the very
best in the state. Among the remarkable advantages of the flying park is the
absence of trees or shrubbery. The ground is level, carpeted with clover, and
makes an ideal landing point.

  There are Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal and Catholic Churches in Santa
Clara, and also the following societies, lodges, and clubs: Church
Societies-Ladies' Improvement Society, Presbyterian; Ladies' Aid, Methodist; St.
Margaret's Guild, Episcopal; Santa Clara Relief Society, Catholic. Lodges and
Clubs- Foresters of America; I. O. of Red Men; Na-

tive Sons of the Golden West; Degree of Pocahontas; Woodmen of the World; Union
Club; Sodality Club, Woman's Club, Shakespeare Club, Parent-Teachers' Club,
King's Daughters, Sew and So Circle, Monday Afternoon Bridge Club, W. C. T. U.,
C. H. & R. Club, Girls' Club, St. Claire's Altar Society, Baseball Club,
Socieade de Espirito Santa, Supreme Council, S. E. S.

University of Santa Clara

  The leading educational institution of Santa Clara is the University of Santa
Clara, formerly called Santa Clara College. It is located on the site of the old
Mission of Santa Clara. On January 12, 1777, two Franciscan Padres, de la Pena
and Murguia, planted the Mission cross on the banks of a little stream, called
from that time the Guadalupe, at a spot now forming a part of the Laurel Wood
farm, near Agnew. Two years later, a flood destroyed both church and monastery,
and the padres in consequence sought a site on higher ground near the present
railway station of Santa Clara. There, on November 9, 1781, they laid the
foundation of a large adobe church and mission buildings. Three years later, on
May 15, 1784, the new church was dedicated, by the venerable Padre Serra, then
padre presidente of all the Missions of California.

  This church, however, was so badly shattered by several earthquakes in 1812
and 1818, that the padres were forced to build anew. This time they chose the
site which the university now occupies. There, on August 11, 1822, a still
larger church was dedicated, which did service for many years till the violent
earthquakes in the years 1865 and 1868 so cracked and weakened it that extensive
repairs were necessary. By the year 1885 it had been almost entirely removed,
having been gradually replaced by the present frame building, the interior of
which is a nearly perfect reproduction of its predecessors and retains some of
the old ornaments and furniture and the ceiling of the sanctuary.

  The Mission of Santa Clara was secularized in 1836 and passed from the hands
of the devoted Padres into those of politicians who robbed Santa Clara of her
lands and drove many of her children into the forests. When Rt. Rev. Joseph
Sadoc Alemany, O. P., arrived as bishop of the diocese in 1850, he found only
one Franciscan in charge of the Mission, which had been restored by the American
Government, though in a sadly reduced form, most of the land being occupied by
squatters. Desiring to save the remnants of the Mission and also to begin a
college to meet the growing need of the times, the Bishop invited the Society of
Jesus to Santa Clara. The invitation was accepted and accordingly, on March 19,
1851, the Rev. John Nobili, S. J., laid the foundation of the University of
Santa Clara and began the work. Fr. Nobili adapted the old adobe buildings to
the requirements of a school and in a few years many students were in
attendance. On April 28, 1855, the institution was chartered a university and
for many years was known as Santa Clara College. In 1904, during the presidency
of Father Robert E. Kenna, S. J., a large tract of land was bought at Mountain
View, with the intention of transferring the college thither, but owing to lack
of financial support, nothing was done.

  After careful consideration, it was decided in 1910, that this plan would have
to be abandoned, and that it was much wiser to improve the college in its
present location and thus make the most of the equipment it then had.
Accordingly, in 1911, two new reinforced concrete buildings, in the mission
style of architecture, were begun.

  In 1907 lectures were commenced with a view of preparing students to enter
upon the professional courses in law, medicine and engineering. By 1911, the
pre-medical course was thoroughly established and the law school was begun.
Realizing, therefore, that the college was practically doing the work of a
university, the president, Fr. James P. Morrissey, S. J., and the board of
trustees, decided to adopt officially the name of "The University of Santa
Clara," and this decision was publicly announced on April 29, 1912. Later, on
June 16, 1912, with appropriate ceremonies in the presence of Most Rev. Patrick
W. Riordan, D. D., Archbishop of San Francisco, of many present and former
students, and of 30,000 spectators, with a pageant illustrative of the history
of California and Santa Clara, the two new buildings were dedicated.

  In the summer of 1912, engineers of high standing were engaged to carry on the
courses in engineering, and in the next summer a thoroughly equipped laboratory
for engineering was prepared. In the same year the amount of work required of
law students was increased and almost all classes in law were thenceforth held
at night.

  The university now possesses the following constituent colleges: The College
of Philosophy and Letters; The College of General Science; The Institute of Law;
The College of Engineering, embracing Architectural, Civil, Electrical and
Mechanical Engineering; The School of Pedagogy; and The Pre-Medical Course.

  The following buildings are on the grounds:

  The Mission Church-Built on the site of the old Mission Church of 1822, this
building preserves many of the relics and decorations of the Franciscan days,
though most of the walls have been removed. The Memorial Chapel-As a memorial of
deceased students this handsome chapel was erected in 1887, during the
presidency of Rev. Father Robert E. Kenna, S. J., through the generosity of many
alumni and friends of Santa Clara College. Senior Hall-This hall, built in 1912
of reinforced concrete, furnishes on the second and third floors, private rooms
for the older students. On the first floor are seven large classrooms for
college classes, the Law Library and Study Hall, and the College of Engineering.
In the basement are a large social hall, senior reading room, the practice court
of the Institute of Law and the Palaeontological Museum. The Theater-All
dramatic productions at Santa Clara since 1870, including the Passion Play and
the Mission Play of Santa Clara, have been presented in this theater. Its stage
is one of the largest for amateur productions in the West. The lower floor is
fitted up as a dormitory for older students. The Literary Congress Building-For
a time the meeting place of the House of Philhistorians and the Philalethic
Senate was in this building. Now it houses the Philalethic Senate and the
Department of Chemistry, and is used to some extent as a substitute for a
Gymnasium. The Scientific Building-The first and second division study halls,
the typewriting room, the physical cabinet and laboratory, the mineralogical
museum, the biological laboratory and lecture-rooms, and the laboratory for
wireless telegraphy are in this building. The Commercial Building-This building
contains the high school classrooms and study hall, the commercial school, the
physical laboratory for the high school, and the drafting room of the 'College
of Engineering. The Infirmary Building-This structure, with its several wings,
comprises the kitchen, the refectories, the infirmary with private rooms and
ward, dormitories for younger students, clothes-room, the students' cooperative
store, rooms for the individual practice of music, and the band-room. The
Observatory-The equatorial telescope, seismographs, meteorological instruments
and the study of the father in charge are housed in four small buildings. The
Faculty Building-This structure of reinforced concrete, built in 1912, to
replace the old Fathers' Building which was destroyed by fire in 1910, contains
the offices of the chief executive officers of the university, parlors, the
residence of the Fathers and Scholastics who are attached to the university or
Parish of Santa Clara, and the Library of the university. The Engineering
Laboratory-Forges, machinery for woodworking and pattern-making, etc., used in
the courses of the College of Engineering find place in this building.

  Besides the buildings there are the athletic field of fifteen acres, two large
baseball diamonds and an inner campus for track, tennis courts, baseball courts,
etc. There are two semesters; one begins in August, other in January, after the
holiday recess.

  The board of trustees for 1919-20 were: Timothy Leo Murphy, S. J., president;
Joseph William Riordan, S. J., secretary and treasurer; Aloysius Vincent Raggio.
S. J.: Jerome Sextus Ricard, S. J.; Richard Henry Bell, S. J.; Cornelius
Aloysius Buckley, S. J.; Charles M. Lorigan. Executive board-The president.
Joseph William Riordan, S. J., Charles M. Lorigan. In 1921 Rev. Z. Maher
succeeded Rev. Timothy Leo Murphy as president.

  After the convention of the Jesuit order at Seattle in July. 1920, Father
Murphy, president of the university, announced that a new building, to be used
for instruction and dormitory purposes, would be erected on the university
grounds as soon as plans could be completed. The building will follow closely
the plan and style of Senior Hall, having three stories and a basement. It will
be of concrete and will cost about $200,000. It will make it possible to
accommodate 500 more students than formerly could be housed at the university
and will no longer make it necessary for Father Murphy to refuse applications
for enrollment. Enough applications are on file to have every room in the new
addition filled immediately upon completion. In the spring of 1922 a drive for
the purpose of raising $500,000 to enlarge and improve the university started
with every promise of success.

The Last of the Mission Indians

  A romantic figure whose life span reached a century and a quarter, was
Marcello, the last of the Mission Indians. Charles D. South, Litt. D., present
postmaster of Santa Clara, has written most entertainingly of this grand old
fellow, whose history is a part of the history of the university. Mr. South's
article appeared first in the March, 1920, number of The Columbiad, the organ of
the Knights of Columbus. It is herewith given as a part of the history of Santa
Clara.

  "Of the twenty-one Catholic Indian Missions of California, the seventh in
chronological order of establishment was that of Santa Clara de Asis, on the
Arroyo Guadalupe, near the southern extremity of San Francisco Bay; and of the
thousands of red men who were fed, clothed and educated there by the
self-sacrificing sons of St. Francis, and who labored to upbuild and maintain
this heroic Christian settlement in the territory of the Olhone, or Costano,
tribes, the name of Marcello alone has survived, and his personality stands
dimly outlined in solitary hugeness against the hazy background of California's
pastoral age. Most famous of all the Mission Indians, Marcello, last of his
race, joined the innumerable caravan only after his life had spanned, it is
claimed, a full century and a quarter-a century and a quarter which more than
'tinges the sober twilight of the present with color of romance.'

  "To the tribes which occupied the heart of the valley of Santa Clara at the
advent of the Franciscans, according to local tradition, Marcello came a
stranger, speaking a strange dialect. His heroic size and princely bearing seem
to have lent credence to his boast that through his veins coursed the blood of
kings. His ancestors are supposed to have been royal Yumans of the valley of the
Colorado River, and this reputed scion of a great aboriginal family was
instinctively hailed as a chief by the tawny sun-worshippers whose wigwams cast
their shadow in the fretful Guadalupe. He was hailed instinctively as chief,
perhaps, because his very figure was commanding, since he is said to have loomed
above the squat Indians of Santa Clara as the Sequoia looms above the dwarf
pines of the Sierra.

  "An inscription in the San Jose Public Library informs the reader that
Marcello's measure of life was 125 years; that he opened his eyes on the world
in 1750, and was gathered to his fathers in 1875. The longevity of his existence
may be the better appreciated by reference to characters and incidents of the
history which civilization was inditing the while Marcello rose to manhood and
stalked, an imposing figure, through the romantic Mission age, through the
revolutionary Mexican period, through the epochal era of maddening gold strikes,
and on down through the still greater era of American progress-an era in which
not the mineral gold but the richer vegetable gold becomes the stable basis of
prosperity.

  "This Indian celebrity, who is said to have assisted Padre Thomas de la Pena
to raise the storied Mission Cross near the laurel wood on the banks of the
Guadalupe January 12, 1777, and who is quoted as having averred that he had seen
Lieutenant Jose de Moraga raise the royal emblem of Spain at the founding of the
Pueblo de San Jose, was supposedly toying with wampum and feathers in the wigwam
of his father when young George Washington, leading a band of colonials,
accompanied the British General Braddock and his veterans on the disastrous
march against Fort Duquesne. Assuming that 1750 was the date of Marcello's
nativity, he was five years of age when Wolfe's intrepid redcoats stormed the
Heights of Abraham and when Montcalm heroically welcomed the death that shut
from his vision the surrender of Quebec. He was fifteen when the British
Parliament passed the Stamp Act which precipitated the American Revolution; and
when the Liberty .Bell rang out the glad tidings of the Declaration of
Independence in 1776 he was enlisting in the service of Padre Junipero Serra for
a peaceful invasion of the valleys of Alta California. The chief, as Mar-cello
was called, had passed his thirty-ninth year when Washington was elected
President of the United States, and had he survived one year longer he might
have participated in the first centennial of American liberty.

  "Following out the natal-day hypothesis, Chief Marcello was nineteen years old
when Napoleon Bonaparte was born, and when the French Revolution burst into
throne-consuming flame this Indian was marching into a wilderness of the unknown
west with the cowled Grey Friars of St. Francis. He was fifty-four when
Napoleon, at the age of thirty-five, was crowned Emperor of the French;
fifty-six when Bonaparte reached the zenith of his career at Austerlitz, and
sixty-five when the star of the Corsican genius went down in blood at Waterloo;
and, moreover, it may not prove uninteresting to note that this towering
aboriginal was still conspicuous in the ranks of the living, having reached his
hundred and twentieth year, when the third Napoleon, after overthrowing the
French Republic, was himself overthrown at Sedan.

  "Marcello (who had beheld California in its tribal stage and then successively
under Spain, Mexico and the United States) ultimately surrendered to the
inevitable; and, finally, before this super-Indian looked his last upon the sun
there was already reigning on the Austrian throne that ill-starred monarch of
the House of Hapsburg, the late Emperor Francis Joseph, whose edict in 1914 set
Europe ablaze and plunged the world into a war so colossal as to render small in
comparison the sum total of destruction in all the wars of Alexander, Caesar and
Napoleon.

  "According to trustworthy authority, Chief Marcello was a veritable walking
encyclopedia of Mission history; yet nobody in his time saw fit to make a
transcript of his story and that possible source of infinitude of details of the
early annals of Santa Clara is now shut off forever. Nobody living knows exactly
where the first Santa Clara Mission stood. Marcello knew the location; but, odd
as it may seem, little interest appears to have been taken in the subject until
after Marcello's demise. When the book was eternally closed, the people became
eager to read.

  "This copper-skinned giant, in his prime, stood six feet two inches in his
bare feet, weighed 250 pounds, was rawboned and possessed of prodigious
strength. There is no evidence other than unauthenticated stories handed down by
the old Spanish families that he had assisted in the erection of the wooden
frames of the original Mission on the banks of the Guadalupe, and it is not
certain that he witnessed the destruction of the settlement by flood in 1779;
but there is plenty of corroboration for his story that he aided Padre Jose
Antonio Murguia to build the adobe Mission on the second site, now marked by a
simple white cross which stands some two hundred paces west of the Southern
Pacific Railroad depot at Santa Clara.

  "Anterior to the coming of the Friars-long before Marcello had set eyes on
this fair scene-the Spanish Sergeant Ortega, at the behest of the renowned
Captain Gaspar de Portola, in 1769, had led a band of scouts along the southern
borders of San Francisco Bay and had described the future Santa Clara valley as
'The Plain of Oaks.' Subsequently, for a number of years, the region was
designated as the 'Meadow of San Bernardino,' and the beautiful name, Santa
Clara was the happy selection of the illustrious Junipero Serra.

  "While the honor of founding this Mission is shared conjointly by Padre Pena
and Lieutenant Moraga, the famous Colonel d'Anza, who had led from Mexico two
hundred colonists to form the village of San Francisco and the civilian nucleus
of the Mission of Santa Clara, was regrettably deprived of the historical
prominence due him through a military exigency which compelled his sudden return
to San Diego. Thus was his lieutenant left to celebrate the crowning of labors
which owed their successful fruition to the masterful preliminary achievements
of his- brilliant superior officer.

  "In 1827, the population of Santa Clara included 1,500 Indians, and the common
property was 15,000 cattle, as many sheep, and 2,800 horses. The lands reserved
for the native converts who accepted a settled life extended from the Guadalupe
to the summit of the mountain range on the west, a domain of 80,000 acres,
exempt from taxation during Spanish rule. Under Mexican authority, the Missions
were secularized and plundered, and there soon remained only a vestige of their
once prosperous communities.

  "Marcello had acted as foreman of native laborers who constructed the Alameda
under the direction of Padre Jose Viader, the assistant of the venerable Padre
Magin Catala, at the dawn of the nineteenth century. When his years had told a
hundred, the aged chief found pleasure in traversing the foliage-canopied league
which separates San Jose from Santa Clara, and delighted in entertaining fellow
pedestrians with tales of the days when the great willow trees, which in summer
afforded impenetrable shade along the winding road, had in their infancy been
tenderly nursed by him and his companions after the slips had been borne to the
Camino Real in bundles on the backs of tawny laborers. He described how the
trees had been planted in three rows extending all the way from the second
Mission site to the second site of the Pueblo San Jose. and pointed out with his
staff the courses of the long zanjas or ditches which carried water from the
Guadalupe to the nursling willows.

  "The destruction of the second Mission by an earthquake in 1818 led to the
selection of the third site, on which recently the imposing structures of the
University of Santa Clara have been reared. Of the third Mission buildings, the
old church alone remains, and of this church Marcello-still vigorous at the age
of seventy, straight as a poplar, was the overseer of construction. The Mission
church has undergone many changes and alterations, but it still retains the
original altar, the unique Indian paintings and the impressive wooden crucifix
celebrated in Charles Warren Stoddard's miracle story of the sainted Magin
Catala-El Padrecito Santo: and from its majestic towers, the historic bells,
presented to Santa Clara by King Carlos V-bells, with music voices that have
never faltered-still summon the faithful to devotion, still charm the air
morning, noon and evening with their silvery prelude to the aspirations of the
Angelus.

  "Marcello loved these bells, and doubtless they recalled to his memory many a
face and many a voice and many a scene of a vanished aged. At their ropes his
stout arms had toiled full many a time. They knelled his passage from the house
of clay; and, if spirits of the dead are conscious of the things done in the
abode of the quick, the soul of the chief must find joy in the prayers that rise
to heaven at the nightly bell-call to DeProfundis.

  "With the sequestration of the Missions, the large majority of the Indians
dispersed to the surrounding hills and again became wedded to the savage life.
Marcello was more fortunate for a period, but he, too, fell from his high
estate. He was ninety-six years old when, in 1846, Governor Pio Pico granted him
a veritable principality known as the Ulistac rancho, situated between Santa
Clara and the San Francisco Bay. It was a landed estate worthy of a chief, and
Marcello became exceedingly vain of his reputed royal descent. The shadow of war
fell on the country and, when the shadow passed, a new flag-the Stars and
Stripes-floated over California. Then Marcello, in his ignorance of law and in
his blind eagerness to obtain the wherewithal to satisfy his cravings for
worldly pleasures introduced by reckless newcomers, for a few paltry pieces of
sordid gold, signed away to a land-grabber all his vast domain. It was then
divided into small farms, and years afterward, Marcello was accustomed to plod
from house to house in the sovereignty he had lost, to request and to receive
food and raiment from his successors, whimsically regarding such favors not as a
charity but as a right.

  "At the age of a hundred the chief was forced to content himself with a humble
cabin donated by a generous farmer in a remote section of Pio Pico's grant. In
gratitude for Marcello's early services to the Padres, and eager to make
comfortable the old chief's declining days, the Jesuit Fathers of Santa Clara.
apprised of his hardship, invited him to abide permanently under their roof. The
big chief, however, had discovered an aversion for any suggestion of celibacy.
He had heard the call of the world, as it were, and his aboriginal nature was
again dominant.

  "Far back in Mission days, seeds of Christian virtue had been planted in the
soul of Marcello. In the half-century since the destruction of the Mission, that
seed had been sealed up in the dark breast of the Indian, dry and unnurtured,
like the seed in the old church wall. For half a century the chief had pursued
the way of the world in flagrant disregard of Mission precept and example. At
length, in extreme old age, the spiritual seed, dormant for fifty years in this
son of the wilderness, responded to the nurturing tears of repentance and
flowered under the smile of Divine mercy, and Marcello passed away with the
comforting hope that, in a better sphere. he would rejoin the holy Padres in
immortal life. Ninety-eight years in the Santa Clara Valley must have confused
Marcello's memory with their procession of changing scenes and characters:
First, the savage gives way before the conquering Caucasian: next, the Mission
rises where the wigwam stood: then, the forests fade, and spire and dome appear,
as in a dream, and, by what Ruskin terms the 'art of kings and king of arts,'
civilization conjures fabulous riches from earth's hidden cells.

  'Where stalked the bronze-skinned brave
  In savage pride of power,
  The paleface treads the Indian's grave.'

  "Marcello came, in 1777, a stranger to a strange land, and again, at the last,
in 1875, still more of a stranger in a land stranger than of old, he crosses
life's divide, hopeful of rest after a strenuous day. The red man disappears
from view. The paleface garners the earth and, with his monuments of trade.
usurps the upper spaces of the air; and where, for nearly a century, this Indian
colossus flourished, like a mighty oak, pitting its knotty bulk against the
ravages of time and the elements-where, for ages, his striking figure was as
familiar as the gray adobes and the Spanish tiles-the people of today, save for
a few literary pilgrims groping among the dustheaps of California history, know
not that there ever existed such a being as Marcello, super-Indian of the Santa
Clara Mission."

Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
EUGENE T. SAWYER

ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
1922


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