Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad

Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad

Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad
Location	36641 Fort Romie Road Soledad, California 93960
Name as founded	La Misión de María Santísima, Nuestra Señora Dolorosísima de la Soledad [1]
English translation	The Mission of Mary Most Holy, Our Most Sorrowful Lady of Solitude
Patron	Our Lady of Solitude, Our Most Sorrowful Lady of Solitude [2]
Nickname(s)	"The lonely Mission" [3]
Founding date	October 9, 1791 [4]
Founding priest(s)	Fermín Francisco de Lasuén
Founding Order	Thirteenth [2]
Military district	Third [5]
Native tribe(s) Spanish name(s)	Chalon, Esselen, Yokuts Costeño
Native place name(s)	Chuttusqelis [6]
Baptisms	2,131 [7]
Marriages	648 [7]
Burials	1,705 [7]
Secularized	1835 [2]
Returned to the Church	1859 [2]
Governing body	Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey
Current use	Chapel / Museum
Coordinates	36°24′16.6278″N 121°21′20.9046″W / 36.404618833°N 121.355806833°W / 36.404618833; -121.355806833
National Historic Landmark	CHL=#233

Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, known colloquially as the Soledad Mission or Mission Soledad, is a Spanish mission located near the present-day town of Soledad, California. The mission was founded by the Franciscan order on October 9, 1791 to convert the Native Americans living in the area to Catholicism. It was the thirteenth of California's Spanish missions, and is the namesake of the city of Soledad.

After the 1835 secularization of the mission and the later sale of building materials, the mission fell into a state of disrepair and soon after was left in ruins. A restoration project began in 1954 and a new chapel was dedicated in 1955. The chapel now functions as a chapel of Our Lady of Solitude, a parish church of the Diocese of Monterey. The priests' residence was later recreated, and functions as a museum.

History

Pre-contact eras

The remains of Arlington Springs Man on Santa Rosa Island are among the traces of an ancient habitation in California, dated to the last ice age, Wisconsin glaciation about 13,000 years ago. The first humans are therefore thought to have made their homes among the southern valleys of California's coastal mountain ranges some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, with the earliest of these people known only from archaeological evidence. ^[8] The cultural impacts resulting from climactic changes and other natural events during this broad expanse of time were negligible; conversely, European contact was a momentous event, which profoundly affected California's native peoples.^[9]

Mission era

Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, La Misión de María Santísima, Nuestra Señora Dolorosísima de la Soledad, was founded October 9, 1791 by Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, the 13th of 21 missions in the California mission chain.

The Chalon, a subgroup of the Ohlone and arguably the original residents of the Salinas Valley, were converted and brought to work and live here, followed by Esselen and Yokut people. By 1803, there were 627 Mission Indians at Mission Soledad. At the Mission many Chalon married local Esselen speakers, while others married Yokuts who were brought into the mission between 1806 and 1834.

The mission's herds numbered 1,150 cattle, about 5,000 sheep, 30 swine, 670 horses and 40 mules. Spanish Governor José Joaquín de Arrillaga was buried in the chapel after he died on July 24, 1814 during a visit to the Mission.

The ruins of Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad circa 1900.

Restoration and reconstruction

In 1954, when the Mission Soledad restoration was begun, only piles of adobe dirt and a few wall sections from the cuadrángulo (quadrangle) remained. The chapel was reconstructed and dedicated under the auspices of the Native Daughters of the Golden West on October 9, 1955. The ruins of the quadrangle, cemetery, and some of the outer rooms, while not restored, can still be seen. Governor Arrillaga's grave was identified and given a new marker.

The Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad is now a functioning Catholic chapel and public museum.

Notes

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Soledad, California

• USNS Mission Soledad (AO-136) — a Buenaventura Class fleet oiler built during World War II.

References

• Forbes, Alexander (1839). California: A History of Upper and Lower California. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London. 
• Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.) (2007). California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Altimira Press, Landham, MD. ISBN 0-7591-0872-2. 
• Krell, Dorothy (ed.) (1979). The California Missions: A Pictorial History. Sunset Publishing Corporation, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-376-05172-8. 
• Leffingwell, Randy (2005). California Missions and Presidios: The History & Beauty of the Spanish Missions. Voyageur Press, Inc., Stillwater, MN. ISBN 0-89658-492-5. 
• Levy, Richard. (1978). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer. ed. Handbook of North American Indians. 8 (California). Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. ISBN 0-16-004578-9 / 0160045754, page 486. 
• Milliken, Randall (1987). Ethnohistory of the Rumsen; Papers in Northern California Anthropology No. 2. Coyote Press, Salina, CA. 
• Paddison, Joshua (ed.) (1999). A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush. Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 1-890771-13-9. 
• Ruscin, Terry (1999). Mission Memoirs. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA. ISBN 0-932653-30-8. 
• Tapis, Estevan, OFM, State of the Missions of New California ... December 1803.
• Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA. ISBN 1-59223-319-8. 

External links

• Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad: Early photographs and sketches archives - via Calisphere California Digital Library