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Like many other places in California, San Diego (St. James), has had more than one christening. The first was at the hands of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who discovered the harbor in 1542, and named it San Miguel (St. Michael). Cabrillo was a Portuguese in the Spanish service, who was sent to explore the coast in 1542 by Viceroy Mendoza. “He sailed from Natividad with two vessels, made a careful survey, applied names that for the most part have not been retained, and described the coast somewhat accurately as far as Monterey. He discovered ‘a land-locked and very good harbor,’ probably San Diego, which he named San Miguel. ‘The next day he sent a boat farther into the port, which was large. A very great gale blew from the west-southwest, and south-southwest, but the port being good, they felt nothing.’ On the return from the north the party stopped at La Posesión, where Cabrillo died on January third, from the effects of a fall and exposure. No traces of his last resting-place, almost certainly on San Miguel near Cuyler’s harbor, have been found; and the drifting sands have perhaps made such a discovery doubtful. To this bold mariner, the first to discover her coasts, if to any one, California may with propriety erect a monument.”—(Bancroft’s History of California.)

MISSION OF SAN DIEGO DE ALCALÁ, FOUNDED IN 1769.

“The first one of the chain of missions founded by the illustrious Junípero Serra.”

Then, in 1602, came Sebastián Vizcaíno, who changed the name from San Miguel to San Diego. He was “sent to make the discovery and demarcation of the ports and bays of the Southern Sea (Pacific Ocean),” and to occupy for Spain the California isles, as they were then thought to be. From the diary of Vizcaíno’s voyage we get the following account of his arrival at San Diego: “The next day, Sunday, the tenth of the said month (November), we arrived at a port, the best that there can be in all the Southern Sea, for, besides being guarded from all winds, and having a good bottom, it is in latitude 33½. It has very good water and wood, many fish of all sorts, of which we caught a great many with the net and hooks. There is good hunting of rabbits, hares, deer, and many large quail, ducks and other birds. On the twelfth of the said month, which was the day of the glorious San Diego, the admiral, the priests, the officers, and almost all the people, went on shore. A hut was built, thus enabling the feast of the Señor San Diego to be celebrated.”

A party sent out to get wood “saw upon a hill a band of 100 Indians, with bows and arrows, and many feathers upon their heads, and with a great shouting they called out to us.” By a bestowal of presents, friendly relations were established. The account continues: “They had pots in which they cooked their food, and the Indian women were dressed in the skins of animals. The name of San Diego was given to this port.” Thus, it was the bay that first received the name, years afterwards given to the mission, then to the town. During the stay of Vizcaíno’s party the Indians came often to their camp with marten skins and other articles. On November 20, having taken on food and water, the party set sail, the Indians shouting a vociferous farewell from the beach (quedaban en la playa, dando boces.)

A long period of neglect of more than 160 years then ensued. The Indians continued to carry on their wretched hand-to-mouth existence, trapping wild beasts for their food and scanty clothing, fishing in the teeming streams, and keeping up their constant inter-tribal quarrels unmolested by the white man. Several generations grew up and passed away without a reminder of the strange people who had once been seen upon their shores, except perhaps an occasional white sail of some Philippine galleon seen flitting like a ghost on its southward trip along the coast.

Then the Spaniards, alarmed by reports of the encroachments of the Russians on the north, waked up from their long sleep, and determined to establish a chain of missions along the California coast. Father Junípero Serra was appointed president of these missions, and the first one of the chain was founded by him at San Diego in 1769. The name was originally applied to the “Old Town,” some distance from the present city. The founding party encountered great difficulties, partly through their fearful sufferings from scurvy, and partly from the turbulent and thievish nature of the Indians in that vicinity, with whom they had several lively fights, and who stole everything they could lay their hands on, even to the sheets from the beds of the sick. During one of these attacks, the mission buildings were burned and one of the padres, Fray Luís Jaime, suffered a cruel death, but all difficulties were finally overcome by the strong hand of Father Serra, and the mission was placed on a firm basis. Its partially ruined buildings still remain at a place about six miles from the present city.

To return to the matter of the name, San Diego is doubly rich in possessing two titular saints, the bay having been undoubtedly named by Vizcaíno in honor of St. James, the patron saint of Spain, whereas the town takes its name from the mission, which perpetuates the memory of a canonized Spanish monk, San Diego de Alcalá. The story of St. James, the patron of Spain, runs as follows: “As one of Christ’s disciples, a nobleman’s son who chose to abandon his wealth and follow Jesus, he was persecuted by the Jews, and finally beheaded. When dragged before Herod Agrippa, his gentleness touched the soul of one of his tormentors, who begged to die with him. James gave him a kiss, saying ‘Pax Vobiscum’ (peace be with you), and from this arose the kiss of peace which has been used in the church since that time. The legend has it that his body was conducted by angels to Spain, where a magnificent church was built for its reception, and that his spirit returned to earth and took an active part in the military affairs of the country. He was said to have appeared at the head of the Spanish armies on thirty-eight different occasions, most notably in 939, when King Ramírez determined not to submit longer to the tribute of one hundred virgins annually paid to the Moors, and defied them to a battle. After the Spaniards had suffered one repulse, the spirit of St. James appeared at their head on a milk-white charger, and led them to a victory in which sixty thousand Moors were left dead on the field. From that day ‘Santiago!’ has been the Spanish war-cry.”—(From Clara Erskine Clement’s Stories of the Saints.)

It happens, rather curiously, that in the Spanish language St. James appears under several different forms, Santiago, San Diego and San Tiago. The immediate patron of our southernmost city, San Diego de Alcalá, was a humble Capuchin brother in a monastery of Alcalá. It is said that the infante Don Carlos was healed of a severe wound through the intercession of this saint, and that on this account Philip II promoted his canonization.

May the spirit of the “glorious San Diego” shed some of his tender humanity upon the city of which he is the protector!