DAWN AND THE DONS 218
ing place for civic organizations, and the weekly luncheons of Monterey’s Chamber of Commerce are there held. On Decatur Street, not far from the old Custom House,
is the first house built of brick in California. It was built in 1848 by a young Virginian named Dickinson who started to California with the ill-fated Donner party in 1846, but who escaped the Donner Lake tragedy by joining those who left the Donner party at Fort Bridger and took a different route to California. Near-by, also on Decatur Street, is the old whaling station, built in 1855,
and notable in its day when Monterey was an important and profitable whaling center. A curious reminder of the whaling days is the Whale Bone House, a private residence, where each joint of mamal vertebrae is treasured. Whales are still frequently seen in the waters of the bay and are occasionally taken for profit. At Scott and Pacific Streets is California’s first theatre,
now a tea house and curio shop. At main and Franklin streets is the site of California’s first convent, founded in 1851 by three nuns of the Dominican Order under the direction of Right Rev. Joseph Alemany, Bishop of Monterey. It was here that Conception Arguello donned the robes of Dominican sisterhood and became the convent’s, and therefore California’s, first novitiate.
Monterey was prolific in “first things.” It was the first white settlement on the Pacific coast of North America within what is now United States territory. It was California’s birthplace and her first capital. Here, in 1846,
