DIVISION ONE — PRE-PASADENIAN. 55 



In 1832-33-34 the Mission cattle were slaughtered in droves by con- 

 tract, just to sell the hides — the Mission treasury to receive half and the 

 contractors half.* And Mofras, a French consul here at the time and who 

 wrote a book about this country, says that in 1834, 100,000 hides, 2,500 

 centals of tallow and several cargoes of soap from San Gabriel were shipped 

 at San Pedro. The fact was simply this : the Mission Fathers were rushing 

 all their portable products into market before the government officers should 

 arrive to take it from tbem.f 



In 1834 Colonel Nicolas Gutierrez was sent to San Gabriel as adminis- 

 trator, to take charge of all the property and secular business on behalf of 

 the government, and readjust its affairs. 



In 1838 Don Juan Bandini succeeded Gutierrez as administrator. And 

 it is recorded that in June, 1S39, the government visitador general, Hartnell, 

 reported Bandini's accounts all right, and authorized him to "buy $2,000 

 worth of clothing, to be paid for in brandy." Then on December 31 of same 

 year it appears that Bandini distributed $1,615 worth of clothing among 233 

 Indians — this being the number then still remaining as neophytes and work 

 people at the Mission. In March, 1840, Bandini reports that he had added 

 100 trees to the Mission orange orchard, the only one then existing in Cali- 

 fornia. August I, of this year [1840] Bandini retired, the secularization 

 business being about completed; | and all that was left of the Mission prop- 

 erty was placed in charge of the curate. Padre Estenega — but Juan Perez 

 had been major domo since 1837, and he continued to serve under Estene- 

 ga's direction until March i, 1843, when he dropped out, and the padre 

 attended to everything himself for a year or so. 



While Don Juan Bandini was administrator his home was at his great 

 Jurupa ranch of seven square leagues which had been granted to him Sep- 

 tember 28, 1838; but part of the time he lived at San Gabriel, occupying 

 one of the padre cottages, as Senora lyopez informs me. In 1841, during his 

 term of office, his father. Captain Jose Bandini died, and was buried under 

 the flagstones of the old church. Then in a few weeks (or months) his 

 daughter Arcadia was married in the church to Don Abel Stearns of Eos 



*Gen. M. G. Vallejo, a Mexican commandante, wrote: " In the Missions of San Gabriel, San Fer- 

 nando. San Juan Capistrano, and San Luis Rey, they killed by contract with private individuals, during 

 the years 1830-31-32, more than 60,000 head of cattle, from which they only saved the hides." 



tin his MSS. Hist. Southern Cat., Bandini says: "2,000 cattle were killed in a single day atone 

 Mission. [San Gabriel,] the meat and fat being left in the fields " Pio Pico, in his MSS. Hist. Cat., says 

 he " had a contract at San Gabriel, employing ten vaqueros and thirty Indians, and killing over 5,000 

 cattle." Mrs. Ord, MSS. Occtirances, says she "understood that 30.000 cattle were killed at San Gabriel, 

 and remembers that there were fears of a pestilence from the rotting carcasses." 



At that time, as the reader will bear in mind, the rancho San Pasqual or Pasadenaland was a part 

 of San Gabriel. The cattle were killed for their hides only, these being mostly shipped around, Cape 

 Horn to Boston ; they were Mission live stock, and this occurred in the process of secularizing the Mis- 

 sions. Father Gonzales, one of the pioneer missionaries, writing of the Missions as they were in 1833, 

 says: " The richest in population was that of San Luis Key [in San Diego Co.); in temporal things, 

 that of San Gabriel. * * * Twice a year a new dress was given to the neophytes ;" etc. 



tin August or September, 1841, Bandini was appointed to manage the temporal affairs of San Juan 

 Capistrano, and to superintend the founding of the pueblo, San Juan de Arguello, as a home place for the 

 now secularized Mission Indians. But on March 7, 1842, he put the whole business into Padre Zalvidea's 

 hands, and on May 30 resigned this commissionership. 



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