PEACEMAKER: ‘It was no longer in Dona Teresa’s power to aid her husband, save that her herbs and salves eased his pain, and her presence always comforted him,’ The Lives of William Hartnell, Susanna Bryant Dakin, page 291

When he returned to Alisal, when his laborious task was done, Hartnell wrote to the secretary of state, Van Voorhies, enclosing the last of his translations, the index to the laws.

Explaining a delay he said, “I have been extremely unwell and unable to work . . . . but as it is, I have done all that it was in my power to do.”

It was no longer within Dona Teresa’s power to aid her husband, save that her herbs and slaves eased his pain, and her presence always comforted him.

A brief note in the San Francisco Alta California told the world, a little later, that “W. E. P. Hartnell, an old resident of California and ex-State Translator, died at Monterey on the 2nd of February, 1854.”

Accompanying him in death within a week was his brother-in-law, Don Manuel Jimeno, “formerly Secretary of various old California Governors. . . .

“Both were persons widely known, and held many responsible positions under the former Government.”

Obviously both belonged to the past and already were forgotten by the world.

In contrast to the brief obituary in the northern California paper and a similar notice in the Los Angeles Star was a seemingly endless procession to the Catholic cemetery in Monterey.

A host of friends accompanied William Hartnell to his final resting place and, to everyone, Dona Teresa seemed the embodiment of strength in sorrow.

She comforted her sister Angustias, who knew not of her own loss, knew not that Don Manuel lay dying on that very day, estranged from his wife and far from home.

With the sisters in a closed carriage rode a young woman heavily veiled, and a three-year old boy.

This was Eduardo, hijo natural to Dona Felipin Manuel, the last child to be fathered by Hartnell.

Eduardo always had his place in Dona Teresa’s motherly heart, for his resemblance to her loved one.

LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL PACIFICAN HISTORY 1854 – 2010

 

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Published by Stanford University Press 1949

Page 291

 

 

PEACEMAKER: ‘The kind Mrs. Hartnell [nee Maria Teresa de la Guerra]– one of the noblest among the native ladies of California’ saved the life of Monterey alcalde Walter Colton with ‘her roots and herbs’

Even the Indians caught the fever and, within a month, members of the gente de razon who remained in Monterey were without servants, besides other comforts of life.

Ruefully Colton describes his own situation:

‘We have a house and all the table furniture and culinary apparatus requisite, but our servants have run.

‘A general of the United States army, the commander of a man-of-war, and the alcalde of Monterey in a smoking kitchen, grinding coffee, toasting herring and peeling onions.

‘Those gold mines will upset all the domestic arrangements.’

The alcalde, overworked and underfed, fell ill at this time, and would have been in serious condition had it not been for Dona Teresa Hartnell.

With undying gratitude he says:

‘In a half-delirious state, which followed close upon the attack, I looked up and saw bending over me the kind Mrs. Hartnell — one of the noblest among the native ladies of California. . . . . I resigned myself to all her drinks and baths; she did with me just what she pleased. 

‘She broke the fever without breaking me; restored my strength and in a week I was in my office, attending to my duties.

‘What she gave me I know not, but I believe her roots and herbs saved my life.’

The hardships of a servantless life at home grew to seem worse to Colton than any the mines had to offer; so he locked his office and joined the rush himself.

Hartnell, with a deliberation which came from advancing years and ill health, finished his legal assignment.

He then went, by order of General Riley, who succeeded Richard Mason as military governor of California, to oversee the printing in San Francisco.

It was to be done by the press of the Alta California, which had absorbed the first little paper, the Californian, edited and published by Colton, Semple, and Hartnell himself.

Three hundred copies he ordered “for distribution among the officers of the existing Government, to be paid out of the Civil Fund.”

Hartnell arrived in San Francisco toward the end of May, to find great changes from the sleepy little pueblo of his early visits.

Overnight, almost she had become a crude American city, powerless to resist the horde of “argonauts” who were hastening by land and sea to wrest a fortune out of the rich northern lodes.

San Francisco already was a boom town.

The original community of adobe houses centering around the plaza had simply been absorbed into a sprawling, noisy city of frame and canvas.

Susanna Bryant Dakin: The Lives of William Hartnell, published by Stanford University Press, 1949, pages 284 – 285.

PEACEMAKER: ‘Don Guillermo and Dona Teresa [Hartnell] then sold pieces of property owned together in the township of Monterey to Americans of their acquaintance, including [California Governor] Richard Mason and Henry Halleck’

In strange contrast to the tumult of the next few years in California was the life lived by William Hartnell in the seclusion of Alisal.

It was mostly of the mind, spent within his library walls.

Once again Hartnell became a “quill-pusher” for the best part of each day.

Several sons were old enough to work on the ranch under supervision of Father Patrick’s protege, old Gorman.

Dona Teresa, aided by Teresita, and even the younger daughters, ran both the ranch household and la casa Arnel in Monterey with her accustomed grace and gaiety.

Bachelor Dr. Wyllie often expressed envy of his cousin’s “happy enjoyment of all domestic comforts.”

Hartnell applied for American citizenship through Abel Stearns, in order to secure his land grants made by four Mexican governors: town property in Monterey granted by Sola to McCulloch and Hartnell, when the partners first arrived in California; the portion of Alisal recorded as el Patrocinio de San Jose, granted by Figueroa for the establishment of a boys’ boarding school; Todos Santos and San Antonio, by Alvarado in appreciation of Hartnell’s service as visitador de misiones; and Rancho Cosumnes, by Micheltorena during the Wyllie-inspired dream of British colonization.

Titles seemed clear to all save this last grant, made so near the end of the Mexican regime.

Because of Cosumnes, Hartnell himself (while serving as United States surveyor and title arbiter) was drawn into the land-grant muddle and involved in litigation which lasted for years after his death.

At one time even Alisal was threatened, when David Jacks of Monterey claimed it for $122, the amount of taxes unpaid by the widowed Dona Teresa in 1861.

Mr. Jacks (a Scotch tailor turned legal expert) and many others became land barons in this manner, when their victims were not members of families like the de la Guerras, with reserves of influence and wealth.

Taking advantage of the postwar real estate boom in Monterey, William Hartnell subdivided a portion of his town property; he signed a quit claim deed for one dollar to John Gorman, giving him title to a lot in the rear of la casa Arnel.

This was in appreciation of long and faithful service.

Don Guillermo and Dona Teresa then sold pieces of property owned together in the township of Monterey to Americans of their acquaintance, including Richard Mason and Henry Halleck who were then acting as governor and secretary of state, respectively.

For a time, a naval officer from New York named Selim Woodworth, and Philip Roach of the New York Volunteers were quartered in the Hartnell home, while Walter Colton lived with the Larkins close by.

THE LIVES OF WILLIAM HARTNELL

Susanna Bryant Dakin

Published by Stanford University Press in 1949

Pages 279 – 280

PEACEMAKER: Count de Mofras advocated that France acquire ‘the entire harbor of San Francisco, the key to the Pacific Ocean’

Dona Teresa’s opinion of Count de Mofras is the lowest on record.  Others range from the mild opprobrium of vecino Alvarado to enthusiastic French reviews of his Travels on the West Coast.  Senor Alvarado said:

‘He is a youth of good literary reputation, of an impetuous character and generous instincts; but unfortunately he arrived among us imbued with false ideas about our character.  He believes that the inhabitants of this country are brutal Indians whose duty it is to prostrate themselves before him.’

The Count’s own words bear out Alvarado’s opinion and show a contempt not only for the Californians but for their brothers living in an adjacent land:

‘I have recently visited a large part of Mexican territory and found the moral and political conditions deplorable; the people possess all the worst qualities of the Spaniards and few of their virtues.  On all sides disorder, decay and corruption to exceed anything known in Europe prevail.  The North Americans, the English, and the Russians do not conceal their designs on upper California . . . . Obviously France never has been in a more propitious position than she is now to replace the deplorable loss of Canada and Louisiana.  Already mistress of the Marquesas and Tahiti, she could materially enhance her power by assuring herself of one of the Sandwich Islands, by purchasing the settlement at Port Bodega [Ross] which would be a preliminary step toward acquiring the entire harbor of San Francisco, the key to the Pacific Ocean; by grouping around this the French-Spanish Catholics of the country, by opening to our countrymen who are constantly going out to settle in the United States, Buenos Ayres, and Chile, a vast field for national colonization and by establishing on a continent over which our flag has long floated, a new French America!’  

 

[Pages 258 - 259 of Susanna Bryant Dakin's 1949 history of Alta California: The Lives of William Hartnell]

DONA TERESA DE LA GUERRA HARTNELL found French Count Duflot de Mofras ‘dead drunk’ on her husband Don Guillermo Hartnell’s library floor

It is not surprising that the hearing was long-drawn-out and unsuccessful, for Jones had not endeared himself to the Californians any more than had his fellow countryman Graham.  Even the good will that many bore toward Hartnell did not alter an underlying, hostile attitude toward Americans.  Not a hand had been lifted, not a gun fired, by the surprised Californians when their capital was captured.  It was only when Commodore Jones appeared peacefully in court that he encountered resistance, always cloaked with courtesy.  In spite of Hartnell’s explanation of Jones’s recent act, and his eloquent appeal for justice in the earlier incident, no American citizen involved in the Graham affair received recompense of any kind, in contrast to the considerable reparation secured by the British Captain Jones.

The continuing presence of American naval officers, during this rehash of the Graham affiar, tightened the tension in Monterey, as did the arrival of General Micheltorena with an army of felons released from Mexican prisons.  Other military men and diplomats from other countries continued to appear in the capital of California, until an atmosphere could be sensed as of buzzards gathering for a feast, while the victim still lived and shivered with fear.

“From war deliver us, Lord!” prayed Hugo Reid from his beautiful home at Rancho Santa Anita.  But the idyl was ended, and the realization transformed the most fortunate into the most pessimistic.  The rancheros had so much to lose, with any kind of change.  William Hartnell saw and understood that deep pessimism was combining with lotus-land lethargy to induce a strange paralysis of brain power and manly courage, even among his best friends and closest relatives.  Hartnell saw them as helpless under an evil spell.  In their hearts they were living in another time.  They needed someone to awaken them, to inspire them to defense of their own way of life before it vanished entirely and forever.  But no such person appeared, either among the hijos del pais or in the constant stream of visitors to the California coast.

Near the beginning of that eventful year, 1842, a strange visitor had come riding north along El Camino Real.  He turned aside near Alisal, rode past the two-storey adobe that was Alvarado’s summer home, and knocked at the Hartnell door.  He was a French diplomat carrying a letter from his king to the man who so often had acted as host to French travellers.  This personage arrived in the absence of Don Guillermo, and made an undying impression on Dona Teresa.  She later told a fantastic tale of the well-known writer and world traveler, Count Duflot de Mofras:

‘While my husband . . . . was in San Diego attending to official affairs there appeared at my ranch house at Alisal a stranger who, on finding the door of the library unlocked, entered within its walls and immediately began to search every nook and corner; one of my Indian servants, who had noticed the newly arrived guest and had kept a watch on his doings, came to me in a great hurry and notified me that there was a stranger in the house.  I ordered him to return to the library and ask the intruder what business he wished to transact with me; but the only answer he obtained was a peremptory order to take care of his horse.  I hastened to the library and perceiving there a stranger inquired of him what right he had to search the private papers of my husband.  He replied that he was called Duflot de Mofras, that he was a member of the French Legation in Mexico; that he travelled through Upper California by order of his King and that having met Mr. Hartnell in San Luis Rey had from  him obtained permission to stop in Alisal as long as he pleased; that acting on that invitation he had made bold to intrude upon my premise.

‘I wondered that Mr. Hartnell should have given so unlimited an invitation to a stranger; I also wondered that I had not been notified of his arrival in San Luis Rey, but knowing that my husband was proverbially hospitable, I did not hesitate to oder a room for Mr. Mofras and extended him an invitation to dinner.  While at my table he found fault with every one of our dishes, however, he did full justice to the wine.  At night he listened to our playing on the piano and then retired to rest.  Unfortunately in his sleeping room I had deposited a barrel of the choicest wine which my father had sent me from Santa Barbara to be given to the priests, who used it while saying mass in our private chapel.  The wine was of superior quality and much sought after by every foreigner who visited this country.  Next morning at breakfast my guest, not making an appearance, I detailed a servant to call him; but Mr. Mofras not giving any answer to his repeated calls I ordered the door to be broken; and there stretched upon the floor my Frenchman lay dead drunk, bedding in a filthy state and many gallons of the wine missing from the barrel.  A spell of sickness overtook the drunkard; during days I watched  over him with the care of a mother; at last he got stronger, took daily rides on horeseback and often returned home drunk.  For my husband’s sake I never complained.

‘One day, however, he suddenly left taking along with him a new suit of black clothes belonging to Mr. Hartnell.  I did not miss the property until the return of my husband; who, when informed of the behavior of De Mofras, felt very indignant and assured me that he had never seen the man and much less given him authority to stop at his house.  Later in the day, having found his trunk broken open and rifled of its contents, I set about taking  the required steps toward obtaining a clue to the robber and shortly after made the discovery that my late guest was the thief.’

 

[Serialization of Susanna Bryant Dakin's 1949 book,

The Lives of William Hartnell, pages 255 - 258]

Mary Hartnell, William Hartnell’s sister, was the first in the family to look up Don Juan de la Guerra in Liverpool

+++  The visits of Captain Lincoln always delight the young Californian.  Shuttling between the two oceans during Juan’s school years in England, Lincoln is a periodic witness of his progress.  The boy does not boast, he merely tells the truth, writes Lincoln to Hartnell during January, 1827.  ”Don Juan improves wonderfully in all his studies. . . . He will make a clever man if he is allowed to remain a few years.”  ++  But Juan himself was dreaming of the day of his return to the land of sunshine and happiness.  Liverpool seemed a dreary town to him; he did not greatly like the people, and felt that to them he was still a stranger from a strange land, and always would be.  He commenced to worry beyond his years about his faraway family and friends.  Communication seemed maddenly slow and unreliable.  After the first burst of interest and pride in his intellectual powers, he commenced to feel cut off from all he held nearest and dearest in life.  ++  With the long-delayed news of the birth of a son to Teresa and Guillermo came a lock of its hair from the mother, his sister.  This homely little token touched off his inner unhappiness.  Writing from Liverpool on April 28, 1827, Juan confides to his “dear Brother”:  ++  ’I hope my time to go home will soon come because I am already tired of this country, and I do not like very much to stop so long from Home, and I hope the next time you write, you will say something about it.’  ++  He mentions, as partial solace, the approaching visit of Mary Hartnell to Liverpool, the first of the family actually to look him up.  Mr. Brotherston, who from the first has been like a father to the young Californian, lately seems distraught by grief over the death of his daughter and worry over the current business depression.  This makes Juan feel more friendless and without family than ever.  According to William Logan, now living in Liverpool, the boy’s reputation increases as being a very clever but wild youth. . . . +++ 

On November 24, 1826 Don Juan de la Guerra congratulated DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL on the Englishman’s marriage to Teresa de la Guerra, his sister

+++  ’I have done about half of it; it not only gives an account of the empires, kingdoms, and their respective provinces & towns, but also of their forms of governments, their political influences among other states, the manners and customs of their inhabitants, the face and appearances of the country &c. together with a number of other little interesting events, connected with their origins and advancement of the several stages of national importance and civilization.  I have also learned Joyce’s letter’s on natural and experimental philosophy.  I have had History and this is the history of Greece and Rome.  As to French I have done Perrin’s Grammar, his conversation and his Fables, I have also commenced to read The Adventures of Telemachus in French, &c.  ++  ’There is no more news in Liverpool, than that every day is encreasing its sun. . . . . ++  ’Dear Brother [and so he feels, though the news of Hartnell's marriage to Teresa has not yet crossed the ocean] I ever am more affectionately yours.’ ++  On November 24, 1826, Juan has another opportunity of sending Don Guillermo a letter by a visiting sea captain.  This time it is one of congratulation, and contains more information about his course of study under a Reverend Fisher recommended by Mr. Brotherston:  ++  ’I received yours 4 May [1825] in which I had much pleasure in hearing of your marriage to my Sister.  My master desires me to tell you and my Father that after offering you his compliments, he wishes me to tell you how I am advancing in my education – that I am now become well acquainted with the English and French languages, and have made considerable improvement in Latin, and am now translating Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and I am intended to commence Sallust in a few days – and that I can parse and scan the sentences accurately – also I have now advanced to the 5th Book of Euclid and have constructed the Figures of the 3 first books – much to Mr. Fisher’s approbation, and also Algebra – and I have now almost done the whole of Ancient History, Grecian and Roman History – besides obtaining a complete knowledge of Geography ancient & modern, and having constructed the Maps of almost all the Kingdoms in the known World.  In Arithmetic I have performed a considerable number of Rules, and have of late begun to enter the sums on an account book, which the master says that it is done with much taste & elegance – and then I have also made considerable progress in the study of Natural Science & Chemistry.  Upon the whole Mr. Fisher says that he is much pleased with my improvement and wishes I may continue the same.’  +++

Dr. Stephen Anderson traveled from mission to mission taking orders; everywhere he met friends of DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL’s

+++  Several years had elapsed since Dr. Anderson’s last visit to the California coast.  He found other changes as striking and sad as the change in Hartnell’s prospects.  The most notable were in mission affairs, where secularization was well under way.  A decree of Governor Echeandia’s dated July 25, 1826, had authorized Indians in the districts of San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Monterey to form ‘pueblos’ and hold land under strict supervision.  This and other provisions were to be carried out by civil administrators, who already had started to enrich themselves at the expense of the church.  The padres “in sad shroud” never could be accused of such a thing, however severely they might be censured for other acts.  ++  The new system was not yet effectively in operation.  But the most enlightened Franciscans were first to see the doom of the missions, through an unfriendly legislature and secular greed.  The grand old man Peyri, at San Luis Rey, made the painful decision to leave California rather than stay to see the collapse of all he had built.  In ‘Life in California,’ Don Alfredo Robinson has affectingly described his departure, and the sorrow of the San Luis Indians at losing a loving father.  Peyri’s enemies among the civil administrators accused him of filling his pockets with gold and boarding ship with priceless church objects concealed beneath his robes.  But to those who had known him long and well this was not believable.  Hartnell, for one, refuted the accusation.  ++  As Anderson traveled from mission to mission taking orders in the old way, everywhere he met friends of Hartnell’s, padres old and young who reciprocated Don Guillermo’s loyalty to them with undying devotion to him.  Such goodwill the Scot trader recognized as priceless.  The idea came to him that it might be good business to assume Hartnell’s remaining debts and carry on the California trade in his footsteps, continuing to act in the ‘modo corriente.’  Overbalancing the debt was the prospect of enormous future profits.  The groundwork he knew to be solid. . . . +++

Scot partner McCulloch wrote to DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL from Callao on June 2, 1831, + ‘begged to be remembered to all friends, particularly Dona Teresa’

+++  Don Jose received a plea for assistance dated June 7 (translation):  ++  MI AMADO PADRE:  ++  El Sor. Feliciano Soberanez has asked me to tell you that he has been imprisoned because of a slanderous report that he killed some cattle of Dn Mariano Estrada [David Spence's father-in-law].  They are allowing him to name a Defense Counsel, and being convinced that there is no one in California better versed in these affairs than you he implores you to take the trouble to serve him as Patron and, if it should be necessary, even to come here.  He has begged me to ask that you accept the responsibility; and truly I desire that his suggestion be accepted.  I believe he will win the case because the principal witness is one Julio Vasquez, an avowed enemy of the accused; and I also hazard a guess that there will be no necessity for you to come north, even if the case is tried here.’ ++  Because of Don Jose’s influence, Don Feliciano was cleared of all charges.  During the first year of his association with the Soberanes, Don Guillermo did no more on the ranch than called for by contract.  He was busy in Monterey with the dissolution of McCulloch, Hartnell and Company,  a tedious process.  ++  From Callao, dated June 2, 1831, came a note from McCulloch, in the care of Dr. Stephen Anderson.  This onetime rival was returning to California aboard the ‘Ayacucho,’ entrusted with important documents by his fellow countryman.  McCulloch even had endorsed over to Anderson the private account current signed by Hartnell before his departure from LIma.  The Scot partner said that he had paid Mr. Begg his “full proportion of all losses and hope that some day or other you will be able to reimburse me if not for all at least part of said account.”  The tone of the letter was friendly and understanding, not at all pressing.  ++  It contained the further information that William Logan wished to rent or sell a Los Angeles vineyard left in Hartnell’s care.  At the time of his departure, Logan intended one day to live in the ‘pueblo’; but success, associated with an uncle in a Liverpool chain and cable business, was restraining him even from a short visit to his dearly loved California.  Finally, McCulloch referred Hartnell to Anderson “for the current news of the day” and begged to be remembered to all friends, particularly Dona Teresa.  +++ 

DONA TERESA HARTNELL bore her latest son Adelberto Pedro on June 25, 1831

+++  By spring in 1831, Hartnell had completed arrangements with members of the Soberanes family whereby he received a share in their beautiful, fertile ‘Rancho del Alisal’ (Sycamore Ranch), five leagues or so inland from Monterey in the foothill country near Salinas (salt pits).  Details he describes to his father-in-law on May 4, 1831 (translation):  ++  ’At last I have become a ranchero not entirely in the way I would have chosen.  The Soberanes have granted me permission to pasture as many cattle as I consider advisable, to build a house and to plant as many [grape] vines and orchard trees as we need and in return I must help them in seed-times – that is to say I commit myself to all expenditures for the sowing that we do together and at the time of the harvest I get back the value in produce of the amount I put in at seed-time, and this surplus must be divided equally between us.  ++  ’I have about 500 head of cattle I plan to pasture there this month; so we shall soon see if as a Rancher I have the same ability, or better say lack of ability, that I showed as a Trader.’  ++  The de la Guerra family was as pleased with his new status as Don Guillermo himself.  ’Compadre’ Carrillo came up from Santa Barbara to look the situation over.  He found his cousin Teresa about to have another child and told Guillermo that “si Teresa pare pronto,” he himself would aid in driving the cattle from Monterey to Alisal.  Poor Teresa could not oblige for almost a month (Adelberto Pedro made his appearance at 8 P.M. on June 25, 1831), well beyond the time when seasonal activities could be postponed.  So on this occasion she had to endure her trial without the aid of a loving husband, while Don Guillermo took advantage of the ‘compadre’s’ presence to launch his new career.  ++  To Don Jose Don Guillermo wrote on May 30, suggesting that Jose Antonio stay on with him at least through la matanza because of “the intelligence and activity which he shows in ranch work.”  ++  Hartnell’s own experience had acquainted him with the special problems that beset a ‘ranchero’ in California all through the year.  He knew that a dry season meant a major disaster, that Indian labor was bone lazy, and so on, but scarcely were his cattle settled in their new home, contentledly nibbling at long green grass, when an unexpected event threatened the success of his venture at the very outset. … +++