DIVISION ONK — PRK-PASADENIAN. 47 



the term " church canyon " was applied to any such place where timbers 

 were being cut for a church, no matter what other name the place might 

 have borne, if any, before or afterward. So I find that our present Grand 

 Canyon and Millard Canyon was really the " Church Canyon" of the old 

 lyos Angeles Spanish Mission records, and this was the first name the place 

 ever bore in white men's speech, though they afterward called it Canyon el 

 Blanco — the white canyon — from the conspicuous walls of white feldspathic 

 rocks in some of its upper branches. 



In the Overland Monthly of March, 1894, J- D. Mason writes a sketch of 

 our Joe Chapman's romantic adventures, and from his article I here quote a 

 few points. Mason says : 



' ' He was quite as much of a curiosity to the Los Angelenos as he was to 

 the rancheros. * ^ The captured Yankee was watched with fear and 

 trembling, much as a grizzly bear would be if turned loose. The question of 

 what to do with him was necessarily prominent. Some openly asserted that 

 he ought to have been executed ; and that it was not too late yet to remedy 

 the mistake. Lugo, however, proved his fast friend. 



' 'At that time quite a number of men and Indians were employed in the 

 pine woods forty miles away [only about twenty miles], getting out 

 timbers for the church. There was no road leading to the place, only a 

 rough trail over the mountains and through rocky canyons. If he was set 

 to work there, he could not communicate with any enemies nor escape, for 

 the mountains beyond were considered impassable ; he would be lost if he 

 attempted to climb them. So he was sent to the pine woods. Now, Chap- 

 man knew all about timber. Though he could not ride a horse, he could 

 chop down a tree, and make it tall just where he chose. He could line, 

 score and hew it, for he had worked at ship-building ; and when that was 

 done he could hitch a drove of long-horned cattle to it and move it off. * * 

 A year passed, and he became sole manager of the timber squad, and was in 

 high favor not only with Lugo, but with the church fathers as well. He 

 had really become indispensible. Many consultations unknown to Chapman 

 had been held as to the policy of identifying him with the colony by marry- 

 ing him into some Spanish family, and holding him to the coast, as it were, 

 by domestic ties. * * * There was talk of Castilian superiority — noble 

 blood, and all that sort of stuif. * * They finally agreed to state the case 

 to the padre of the Los Angeles Mission. In an hour they received a terse 

 letter, written in a plain hand, on strong paper, as follows : 



'My Children: — Lugo's advice is sensible. Let the man Chapman 

 marry.' 



" This ended the discussion, as to the propriety of his marrying."* 



[scoured] alike. They are as as smooth as though really planed,"^/. Albert Wilson, Hist. Los Ang. Co. 

 [iSSo'\, page los. This was written of the San Fernando old Mission, built in 1795-96-97. But the same 

 plan was used in building the church in Los Angeles, in 1S18-19-20-21-22. I learned from the old Spanish 

 people that pine timbers were brought down the same way from big Santa Anita canyon for building 

 the church at San Gabriel. 



*See Overland Monthly, March, 1894 ; article, "One Way to Get a Raucho," by J. D. Mason. He rep- 

 resents events that really extended over four years of time as all occurring within one year; he repre- 

 sents the pirate ship as plundering San Gabriel Mission by mistake for San Juan Capistrano ; he makes 

 Chapman's wedding occur at Santa Barbara instead of Santa Ynez ; and overstates distances sometimes; 

 yet his story of Chapman and his lovely Spanish bride is in the mahi correct. Mason .ceems to have 

 had some points from Chapman's descendants in Ventura county, in addition to what Stephen Foster 

 received from old Don Antonio Lugo, and what H. H. Bancroft had found in the old Mission and Pueblo 

 records. 



