PEACEMAKER: William Edward Petty Hartnell ‘loved his wife [Dona Maria Teresa de la Guerra Hartnell] so deeply and enduringly that she was sustained for the time she must spend on earth without him’

With the passing of Hartnell went a leading character from the California scene.

Yet so crowded had the stage become that few seemed conscious of his absence, aside from family and close friends.

An English companion of his youth wrote shortly before his death: “I have looked anxiously for your name in different accounts I have seen of California, but unsuccessfully.”

To this day, in recounting his time, historians overlook Hartnell.

Only in his home community has the name been honored.

One hundred years after the establishment of Hartnell’s school at Alisal, Salinas named its junior college for him.

A few miles away, adobe walls of the parent institution still are standing on the abandoned Camino Real, among the unchanging hills.

William Hartnell’s contribution to California history is difficult to define.

He created a plane of understanding in a primitive, polyglot community, and presided over it for many years.

By the end of his life, Monterey had become a microcosm, a little world inhabited by people from many countries.

Each stranger was assured of welcome and understanding at la casa Arnel.

Only discourteous conduct ever barred the door.

Hartnell played the undramatic, indispensable role of interpreter his whole life through.

Procedure at California’s constitutional convention might have ground to a standstill, lacking Hartnell’s contribution, his ability to explain and reconcile clashing convictions.

Instead, it became one of the most successful congresses in history, accomplishing its many aims in a few hard-working weeks.

Without respite, following the period when he represented people ignorant of their conquerors’ language, Hartnell spent the last years of his life in translating the new laws so that they could be understood by all who must obey them.

The first school of higher learning and liberal arts, the first girls’ school, and the inception of public education in California – all these we owe to a man who considered himself a failure in every career he embarked upon.

William Petty Hartnell was a man of many failures, many faults.

Yet unremittingly he tried “to promote harmony among all classes.”

Through stern effort, he helped to bridge from war to peace, to conduct his conquered country out of chaos into order.

He educated his own and other children for enlightened citizenship, girls as well as boys, red Indians along with white students.

And he loved his wife so deeply and enduringly that she was sustained for the time she must spend on earth without him.

Teresa de la Guerra Hartnell lived on at Alisal into the ‘eighties, surrounded by children and children’s children.

They delighted in her tales of the days that were gone, of the father who built firm the foundation of their lives in California.

The End

 

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Published by Stanford University Press 1949

Pages 292 – 293

 

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HISTORY 1854 – 1949 – 2010

PEACEMAKER: ‘I… appoint as my sole executor, and as Tutor and Guardian to such of my children as may remain under age at the time of my death, my dearly beloved wife Maria Teresa de la Guerra,’ THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL, Susanna Bryant Dakin, pages 291 – 292

Don Guillermo left a will which was followed to the letter (translation):

‘I declare that it is my desire to live and die in the bosom of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church and I request that when it may please the Almight to call me out of this world my funeral will be conducted in as plain and modest a manner as possible and without any unnecessary pomp. . . . .

‘I do further declare that I hereby constitute and appoint as my sole executor, and as Tutor and Guardian to such of my children as may remain under age at the time of my death, my dearly beloved wife Maria Teresa de la Guerra, and her brother and my good friend Don Pablo de la Guerra; requesting that they will as soon after my demise as possible pay off my debts and satisfy my bequests.

‘It is likewise my desire that my debtors be not in any way disturbed on account of the amounts they may owe; but that they be merely requested to pay and that whatever they may choose to pay be received in full of all demands.’

To his brother-in-law, Don Guillermo gave instructions as to distribution of his possessions among members of his large family in California, and surviving sisters and brothers in England.

“My principle object,” said the dead to Don Pablo, “is to prevent any member of the law from having anything whatsoever to do with my property or with my executors or heirs.”

Hartnell had written this will when lawyers were in demand to settle land disputes.

Several old friends, now destitute, had been defrauded within the law.

He detailed his own holdings of land, including the Rancho Cosumnes so nearly lost in a long lawsuit.

In deepest affection he made special bequests: to Teresita, his mother’s picture drawn long ago by his brother Nathaniel; to the three oldest sons, rings and a silver watch; “to the rest of my children I give my library to be divided amonst them as their mother may see fit; and to all of them I give my paternal blessings in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.”

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Published by Stanford University Press in 1949

Pages 291 – 292

 

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HISTORY 1854 – 1949 – 2010

PEACEMAKER: ‘A little daughter named Margarita Amelia was born to Dona Teresa and Don Guillermo [Hartnell] on February 22, 1847′

This interview with Dona Teresa put the lonely and disgruntled officer in such a good frame of mind that when he met Teresita in the hallway, he forgot to look behind her ears.

He only noted, this time, that she was “extremely graceful and pretty.”

The magic of the Hartnell home was working even on Lieutenant Wise, who had been correct in his surmise.

A little daughter named Margerita Amelia was born to Dona Teresa and Don Guillermo on February 22, 1847.

Mission records show that this was the seventeenth Hartnell offspring (even the mother lost count occasionally).

Four sons had already died.

Another, the little Nathaniel who had been born at Alisal in 1840, died shortly after his seventh birthday, cause unknown.

In those days a child’s death was regarded as truly an act of God as his birth.

Pediatrics, like birth control, was a science yet to be discovered.

Don Guillermo spent the remainder year 1847 and early 1848 making a selection, translation, and digest in English of such Mexican laws as were “supposed to be still in force and adapted to the present condition in California.”

As various sections were finished, the Americans posted copies prominently in all the pueblos of Alta California.

But Governor Mason (relieving Kearney while the general went to Washington for further instruction in occupation) planned in addition that the digest be printed by the government press in San Francisco and distributed in greater numbers than ever had been possible in the past.

Besides his task of legal selection and translation, Hartnell continued to edit the Spanish section of the Monterey Californian (moved to San Francisco in May 1847).

He enjoyed such work, but soon was roused from his scholarly abstraction by news from the north that gold had been discovered at New Helvetia by James Marshall, while building a sawmill for Captain Sutter.

Don Guillermo rode to the capital from Alisal, to sort out facts from rumors.

Everyone seemed similarly engaged, and work was suspended.

Finally, the alcalde sent a messenger all the way to Sutter’s Fort, to seek the truth.

Two weeks later, when the man rode into the Monterey plaza, he had to force his way through a crush of Californians and their conquerors.

In Colton’s own words:

‘As he drew forth the yellow lumps from his pockets and passed them around among the crowd, the doubts which had lingered till now fled. . . . . .

‘The excitement produced was intense and many were soon busy with their hasty preparations for departure to the mines.

‘The blacksmith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf and the tapster his bottle.

‘All were off for the mines, some on horses, some on crutches, and one went in a litter.’

 

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

PEACEMAKER: Pages 282 – 283

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Stanford University Press 1949

 

PEACEMAKER: Dona Maria Teresa de la Guerra Hartnell ‘gave her full consent to any schemes undertaken in California for the amelioration of her sex’

Hutton was welcome in such homes as Hartnell’s and Jimeno’s because of mutual interests and good manners.

Others were not so fortunate.

One young navy officer, who arrived in the rainy season and lacked the social graces, described the same people unkindly, with little understanding or knowledge of their ways.

Lieutenant Wise notes in his diary that “with the denizens of Monterey, even the wealthiest, cleanliness was an acquirement very little appreciated or practised.”

Even while “playing the agreeable” with a young lady he noticed a “chemisette of a chocolate hue peeping through a slit in her sleeve,” and resolved, in the case of becoming infatuated like so many others, “to exact a change of raiment in the marriage contract.”

This was Teresita Hartnell, who learned the polka from Wise, never suspecting his horrid thoughts.

By chance, the lieutenant was sent by his superior officer on an errand to la casa Arnel.

In the courtyard he passed by Indian servants “rejoicing in great masses of wiry shocks of hair, quite coarse enough to weave into bird cages.”  

He was glad to see that the rain was doing for some of these savages “what they never had the energy to perform themselves — washing their faces.”

Finally, says the navy officer:

‘I reached terra firma, thankful to have escaped with my boots overflowing with mud and then we marched boldly into the domicile.

‘We entered a large, white-washed sala where, after clapping hands, a concourse of small children approached with a lighted tallow link (for it was a dark day) and in reply to our inquiries, without further ceremony, ushered us by another apartment into the presence of the mistress of the mansion.

‘She was sitting a la grand Turque, on the chief ornamental structure that graced the chamber — namely the bed, upon which were sportively engaged three diminutive brats, with a mouse-trap — paper cigarrittos — dirty feet, and other juvenile and diverting toys.

‘The Dona herself was swallowing and puffing clouds of smoke alternately —  but I must paint her as she sat, through the haze.

‘”Juana,” said she, calling to a short, squat Indian girl, “lumbrecita por el Senor” a light for the gentleman — and in a moment I was likewise pouring forth volumes of smoke.

‘She wore her hair, which was black and glossy, in natural folds stright down the neck adn shoulders, dark complexion, lighted by deep, black, intelligent eyes, well-shaped features, and brilliant white teeth.

‘I saw but little of her figure, as she was was almost entirely enveloped in shawls and bed-clothes. . . . .

‘She excused herself on the plea of indisposition for not rising, and it being one I surmised she was a martyr to every year or so, I very readily coincided in opinion, but in truth I found the Senora . . . . . sensible, good-humoured, and what  was far more notable, the mother of fourteen male and five female children — making nineteen the sum of boys and girls total, a she informed me herself, without putting me to the trouble of counting the brood; and yet she numbered but seven and thirty years, in the very prime of life, with the appearance of being again able to perform equally astonishing exploits for the future.

‘She named many of her friends and relatives who had done wonders, but none who had surpassed her in these infantile races.

‘In Spain she would receive a pension, be exempted from taxes and the militia.

‘On being told this she laughed heartily, and gave her full consent to any schemes undertaken in California for the amelioration of her sex.’

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Pages 281 – 282

PEACEMAKER: Dona Maria Teresa de la Guerra ‘Hartnell… was too much engrossed by the care of her twenty children (or thereabouts)’

One of Hartnell’s first attempts to promote harmony between the Californians and their conquerors was when he offered the use of his Monterey house to the American Company F for a baile with dancing, midnight supper, and champagne.

The “first families” of the capital all received invitations.

Some did not deign to answer, some sent formal regrets, and the majority came, from motives that varied with the individual.

Dona Angustias Jimeno who, during the war, had asked for a neclace all of American ears, now reluctantly danced with the conquerors to please her brother-in-law.

At events which followed this first breaking of the ice, she and her daughter became belles among the American officers.

Teresita Hartnell, not quite fifteen, outshone them all in sparkling eyes and shining hair and agile dancing.

A twenty-one-year old volunteer in the occupation troops was William Rich Hutton, a surveyor by trade.

Often called upon for professional services by Hartnell, Halleck, and Colton, he won admittance to the inner circle, and kept a diary concerned a great deal with the doings of the Hartnell-Jimeno-de la Guerra clan, Glances at California, 1847 – 1853: Diaries and Letters of William Rich Hutton, Surveyor:

‘Of the native Californians what can I say?

‘I could write of Dona Angustias Jimeno who, altho’ filled with patriotic hatred of the invaders, the conquerors of her country, hearing that an Amercian officer was ill in a shanty (Dr. Murray’s quarters) near her house, went to see him, took him to her house, and gave him every attention until his death.

‘This was Lieut. Minor of the Third Artillery.

‘She was thus brought into relations with Murray, Sherman, and Halleck, and they soon became warm friends.

‘She was a most attractive woman, handsome, a little stout, agreeable & witty in conversation, well read in the older Spanish literature, familiar with Calderon, Lope & Quevado.

‘Her daughter Manuelita was a universal favorite – and several of the American officers were captured by her intelligence and the charming simplicity of her ways.

‘She died when about seventeen.

‘Mrs. Hartnell her sister was too much engrossed by the care of her twenty children (or thereabouts) to give much attention to literature — but her house was always gay.

‘The respectable Americans as well as Californians were always welcome . . . .

‘Teresita . . . . was perhaps a greater favorite, and had more than one militaire at her feet.

‘Very tall, lithe, wonderfully gracefull in the waltz.

‘The younger girls of these two families were children at the time.’

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Stanford University Press 1949

Pages 280 – 281

DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL RESIGNED HIS POSITION ON SEPTEMBER 7, 1840, JUST BEFORE DONA MARIA TERESA BIRTHED THEIR SON NATHANIEL: Pages 239 – 240, ‘The Lives of William Hartnell,’ by Susanna Bryant Dakin

+++  Traveling on up the coast, leaving his so-called assistant behind, el visitador found that the situation at Capistrano had not been improved by his recent appointment of a mayordomo to succeed the administrador.  According to the diario: “When I passed by San Juan Capistrano the padre ministro [Zalvidea] told me that . . . . . the Indians . . . . were all running away because of Don Ramon Arguello; and that it was necessary to put in another mayordomo.”  Such a move would mean bad blood between el visitador and the most powerful member of the powerful Arguello clan.  On August 19, Hartnell records: “Today I received a letter from Don Santiago Arguello in which he demands satisfaction for my having forcibly deprived his son Ramon of the office of mayordomo of San Juan Capistrano, and so, and so on, and so on.”

Continuing with what now seemed the hopeless task of promoting “harmony among all classes,” el visitador ran into new complications at each mission.  Everywhere the ex-administrators, their families and friends were indignant at being displaced, at being forced away from the feeding trough.  Everywhere Hartnell’s own motives were questioned, along with his assistant’s; and the two were vilified together.  From San Buenaventura, on August 26, Don Guillermo wrote to his “brother” Jimeno: “You will see that my official duties have gone badly with me.”

He was cheered to receive, simultaneously, a letter from Don Manuel visiting at Alisal: (translation)

‘My sister Dona Teresa is waiting for you daily because (if you do not come) she will be assisted only by old women in her delivery, but we trust all will be well.  Angustias already has come out of her “bundling.”  At nine in the morning of the 14th she was delivered of a boy, plump and handsome – the women say he resembles my sister Dona Teresa – and we place him at your service . . . . . I hope you return soon, and remain in good health.  Your affectionate brother.’

This letter pointed the contrast between the simple love and faith of Hartnell’s family and the complex animosities he had aroused as visitador de misiones.  Don Guillermo resolved to resign from this position.  He would quit the labyrinths of politics and return to the warm security of his family circle.  In some other way, he would make them a living.

His resignation, dated September 7, 1840, was sent from the de la Guerra home in Santa Barbara after consultation with his father-in-law.  Governor Alvarado did not accept it immediately, but only after earnest conversations with his friend and former tutor, at the conclusion of his tour.

A last entry in Hartnell’s diario was penned September 15: “I left San Antonio and arrived at my rancho.”  Here he found a five-day-old addition to the family, a fine boy named Nathaniel after his English brother.  The family welcome dispelled the gloom that had been gathering in his soul.

DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL wrote to Don Jose de la Guerra that Commander Frederick William Beechey of H.M.S. ‘Blossom’ recommended him to the Mexican Consul as Vice Consul for England

+++  Perhaps this very combination of simple piety with occasional, spontaneous gaiety gave special appeal to life in California.  ++  William Hartnell enjoyed interruptons in his social and business routine.  Most of all he delighted in the visits of foreigners bringing news from South America or Europe.  Writing to his father-in-law on January 7, 1827, he announced (translation):  ++  ’On the first day of this year there arrived at this port the frigate H.M.S. Blossom, and the Commander [Frederick William Beechey] has shown himself to be very appreciative of the letters and favors with which I provided him; and he and all his officers conducted themselves in a manner above reproach with Teresa and me.  What is most interesting is that he sent a very well written ‘carta’ to the Consul General of Mexico making him see the necessity of having an agent authorized by the British Government to attend to the commercial affairs of subjects of our nation in this province; and recommending strongly that I be named Vice Consul, saying that I had been of considerable service to his Government and for that deserved public recognition.’  ++  Hartnell’s first opportunity to be of service to his country, in the person of Captain Beechey, had occurred six months previously when H.M.S. ‘Blossom’ put in at Monterey for supplies, on her way north to meet Captain Perry and Captain Franklin in Bering Strait.  These intrepid explorers were leading Arctic expeditions, one by sea and one by land, in search of the Northwest Passage.  In earlier days, such attempts had been ill-fated, and a prize remained unclaimed – the sum of twenty pounds sterling, put up by Parliament for finding the Northwest Passage.  ++  This fabled waterway, believed for centuries to connect the Atlantic and Pacific, was known to Spanish explorers as the Strait of Anian.  The search had been a motive for extending the Russian empire to North America.  At the close of the Napoleonic Wars, with renewed interest in trade, Great Britain again commenced to look for a water passage which would facilitate trade relations with the coast and islands of the Pacific and the rich countries in the Orient.  She wasted no time in exploration below the Arctic Circle because, in 1798, Captain Vancouver had ascertained that no such passage existed at southerly points along the Pacific Northwest coast.  +++

‘The intelligent and beautiful Teresa de la Guerra’ filled DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL’s home with ‘family love, laughter, spontaneous song, as well as good food and drink’

+++  This was true of Hartnell’s bride, writing crudely and reading seldom, but remembered as “the intelligent and beautiful Teresa de la Guerra” who “never was better pleased than when all around her were happy,” according to Hutton’s ‘Glances at California.’  This became the constant preoccupation of her life, and the Hartnell home from the first day was for many years a place filled with family love, laughter, and spontaneous song, as well as good food and drink.  Lonely travelers always found a mecca here.  ++  With the best qualities of Spanish-Californians embodied in his wife, Don Guillermo sought as intimates among his contemporaries not only young men of proud old name living in Monterey, but also foreign residents of background and experience similar to his own.  Notable among them, from the first days of his marriage, were the Anglo-American trader, Captain Cooper; Don Jose Amnesti, a Basque who had married Teresa’s cousin, Prudencia Vallejo, in 1824; Scot David Spence; the one-times whaler, “Santiago” Watson, from England; the Spanish traders, Antonio Jose Cot and Estevan Munras; and Don Juan Malarin, a Peruvian chosen by Governor Arguello (at the time of the Hartnell – de la Guerra nuptials) to take the Spanish men-o-war ‘Asia’ and ‘Constante’ as prizes to Acapulco, where he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Mexican navy.  Certain enterprising Mexicans, like Francisco Pacheco and Antonio Maria Osio, also became good friends of Don Guillermo, their names appearing often in his correspondence.  ++  After marriage, Hartnell’s life, social as well as business, grew increasingly routine.  Religion demanded his regular attendance at mass with Dona Teresa; and, from friendship, they frequently attended christenings, confirmations, weddings, and funerals at the ‘presidio’ church or San Carlos Mission, a few miles out of town.  The bond was close between home and church in that all-Catholic community.  ++  According to custom, each new house must be blessed before occupancy.  No family ‘baile’ seemed complete without the family priest.  His advice was asked about the most trivial matters as well as crises.  The tolling of church bells ordered each day, from early mass to evening prayers.  Too much has been been made of California’s week-long ‘fiestas.’  A quiet, God-fearing life was the ideal upheld by padre and respected by ‘paisano.’ …  +++

DONA TERESA HARTNELL gave birth to her first son on March 31, 1826: Guillermo Antonio

+++   And now Don Guillermo was asking, among other things, that company ships be permitted to enter those ports, scattered along the coast, where mission produce already was collected. Echeandia responded, unexpectedly, with permission for McCulloch and Hartnell to anchor ships in the ports of San Juan Capistrano, Rancho del Refugio, and San Luis Obispo, besides San Diego and Monterey, which were open to everyone.  ++  The year 1826 was further notable for the birth of a son to the Hartnells.  The young father wrote to Don Jose de la Guerra within a few days (translation):  ++  ’Mi muy querido Padre: Albricias!  Joyful news!  You have another grandson – on the 31st of March Teresa gave birth to a little Englishman, strong although somewhat lacking in energy, and everyone says that it is natural he should be that way.  It matters little and I love him deeply because I believe he is truly mine and each day my love increases for the Mother who gave him to me.  Teresa had an auspicious delivery – the moon rose for the first time as though especially to honor the occasion.  The boy is named Guillermo Antonio; his godparents are Jose Antonio and Chonita.  As Teresa is going to write to our Mama I will not say more on this subject.’  ++  The choice of ‘padrinos’ (godparents) was carefully considered in California, since real responsibility was attached, not only to protect the child “from the Devil and all his Works” but to assume care of the child in the event of accident to the parents.  A peculiarly Latin relationship existed between parents and godparents, a bond often closer than blood relationship.  From the day of christening, parents and godparents addressed each other as ‘comadre’ and ‘compadre’ and did not hesitate to ask, and to give, continual and tangible assurances of true friendship.  ++  The Chonita (affectionate diminutive for Concepcion) whom the Hartnells chose as godmother for their first-born was no other than Dona Maria de la Concepcion Marcela de Arguello, sister of the former governor, Don Luis, and legendary sweetheart of the Russian Resanov.  After twenty years, she still was awaiting his return from a journey across the ocean and over the steppes of Siberia, where he had gone to secure permission from the czar of all the Russias to marry the lovely little Californian.  +++

DON JOSE de la GUERRA helped WILLIAM HARTNELL by securing a ‘rancho’ for 4,000 cattle near Monterey

+++  Hartnell was somewhat encouraged by the arrival of Tivy, who seemed capable and self-confident.  In addition, Don Jose secured for them the use of a ‘rancho’ near Monterey where as many as 4,000 cattle could be maintained.  The property was covered with fine oaks from which Tivy thought it possible to make staves and casks.  According to Spence, “Mr. Tivy seems to be quite delighted with the farm and says it will suit his purpose well.”  Presently Hartnell was able to write more hopefully to Begg and McCulloch in Lima: “Our salting establishment has a very different appearance to what it had when we last wrote to you on the subject, and we have not the least doubt but it will fully answer your expectations.”  In October he expected to ship 500 barrels of salted beef and from 600 to 700 of dried beef, if all went well.  ++  Good news came from England about this time.  After several disappointments in the condition of hides packed in California for long sea voyages, Hartnell and Spence had learned so well how to stow them away that considerable profit came from the cargoes of the ‘Neptune’ and ‘John Begg’ at public sale in London.  And McCulloch, writing from Lima, was full of praise for samples of salt beef which had arrived aboard the ‘Pizarro.’  He anticipated no difficulty in the disposal of large amounts, and claimed that “the people here now begin to think that California will do well.”  Equally pleased was he with his partner’s marriage, judging from a ribald note dated September 24, 1825:  ++  DEAR HARTNELL:  ++  Allow me Dear Partner to congratulate you, for having made such a good choice, in taking Da Maria Teresa de Jesus y Arnell to bed with you to keep you warm; and to assure you that I approve of your choise, as also all your old Cronies in this quarter; & that I will have much pleasure from time to time, by your pointing out the same to send down any little encargoes she may require for her Comfort.  Along with this you will receive the following artcles for Mrs. Hartnell, which please present to her in my name: viz Two Dresses, one Leghorn Bonnet, one Shawl, one Work Box and Two pair of Stays; with my best respect to the Dear Girl, and in hopes that your Cock may long crow and do his Duty is the sincere wish of ++ Dear WILLIAM  ++  Your affectionate Partner +++