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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.