FOREWORD
A few years ago I lived for a time at the Hotel Del Monte, during which period I became intimately familiar with the Monterey Peninsula. Its beauty and its charm caught me. The delightful days revealed a climatic excellence of which I had often heard, but concerning which I had hitherto reserved some doubt. I became a frequent visitor to this circle of enchantment and came to have a genuine love for it.
I knew in general way something of its romantic history—enough to make me want to know more. I began reading about it; and as I read my interest grew. I talked about it with those who, like myself, had been caught by its magic lure.
I frequently discussed its unique history with Mr. Samuel F. B. Morse, himself a profound student of history and whose love for the Monterey Peninsula had led him to select it for his permanent home.
He it was who persuaded me to undertake a thorough and painstaking study of this playground of California, and under his encouragement and with his aid I have essayed to record its history.
I am indebted to Miss Emma A. Wilson of the State Teachers College at Chico, California, for valuable help. Miss Wilson generously placed at my disposal the result of her elaborate research into California history; and her many suggestions have been of inestimable value.
I am also greatly indebted to Mr. Perry Newberry, the well known writer of Carmel, upon whose knowledge of literary craftsmanship I have been permitted to draw in the preparation of the manuscript for the printer.
The illustrations of Jo Mora need no encomium from me. Their artistic excellence is supplemented by a faithfulness of detail that gives to them a real historic value. Mr. Mora has placed me under a deep and lasting obligation which I cannot hope to repay but which I gratefully acknowledge.
I believe I have read everything of any historic value that has been written about California—all of which was intensely interesting reading—and I have diligently sought every available source of information fromwhich dependable data could be obtained. I believe I have gathered every essential fact connected with the history of California.
For two and half centuries following the discovery of the Harbor of Monterey by Vizcaino in 1602, the history of California centered about the Monterey Peninsula, whence radiated all the activities of that time—social, religious and industrial. During this long period of Spanish and Mexican rule the history of the Monterey Peninsula was the history of California. With American occupation in 1846 and the discovery of gold in 1848, the center of historic significance shifted to San Francisco, but the romantic days of Spanish chivalry moved on in happy sequence at Monterey, and the joyous spirit of that elder time still finds its full expression on the Monterey Peninsula.
The gathering of the material and the writing of the story have been for me a labor of infinite delight. I can only hope that the reader may find in reading it some portion of the pleasure I have found in writing it.
San Francisco, 1926