DIVISION ONE — PRE-PASADENIAN. 



49 



from the corral. But after getting well out of range of Chapman's club 

 they turned and shot a few arrows towards the adobe walls. Some were 

 sent up into the air, so as to fall inside the corral and wound the cattle. 



"Some of the vaqueros, frightened by the apparent numbers of the 

 Indians, mounted their horses and fled toward Los Angeles, which they reached 

 about daylight, with the report that all the men, including Chapman, were 

 killed, and the cattle driven off. lyUgo, who felt responsible for Chapman's 

 safety, raised a few volunteers and started for the pine timber to investigate 

 the matter. He was astonished to meet the train coming down in good 

 order, not a beast lost, nor a man missing except such as had deserted. 



"Every one was talking of the American Sampson who put a thousand 

 wild Indians to flight, as a wolf would a flock of sheep. Chapman had no 

 wonderful story to relate. He did not think it much of an affair to rout a 

 few Indians with a good club. When asked how many he had killed, he 

 answered, 'None'; anyhow, he left no dead Indians around the corral; he 

 thought it quite likely that some of them might have sore heads for awhile. 

 But some of the older Spaniards shook their heads, and had doubts about 

 this ' Diablo Chapman,' that could rout a whole tribe of Indians with a club. 

 Lugo, however, insisted that it was ' quite time to make him one of us by 

 marrying him into a Spanish family'." 



The camp and corral where this inci- 

 dent occurred must have been at the 

 mouth of Millard Canyon on the Gid- 

 dings farm, or on the bench of land by 

 the creek near where the road crosses 

 leading up to Las Casitas. The principal 

 camp of Chapman's working crew was 

 kept here, because there was pasture for 

 the oxen near by ; and from this point a 

 whole train of drag teams could be 

 started at once for Los Angeles. This 

 accounts, too, for the metates and meal- 

 ing stones plowed up by the Giddings 

 men on their farm, along the creek bank. 

 But it is also supposed that the Indians 

 had a small settlement there before the 

 Spaniards came into the country ; and it was their old familiarity with this 

 canyon which led to the discovery of such good pine timber in its upper 

 section for the church building uses. 



After the church was finished* old Don Antonio Lugo took Chapman 

 to Santa Barbara to find a true blood Spanish wife for him ; for Lugo was 

 thoroughly in love with the Yankee, and sought for him an alliance with 

 the best and noblest families in the province. They stopped at San Buena 

 Ventura Mission, June 24, 1822, for Chapman to be baptized, for without 

 this he could not lawfully marry, and Lugo stood god-father to him. As 



*A new roof and home additions were built to it in 1841. 



OLD CHURCH AT THE PLAZA. 



Built in 1S18 to 1822, with Joe Chapman's 



help. Photo taken in 1894, for "Land 



of Sunshine." 



