doc241 - Schoenherr Home Page in Sunny Chula Vista

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[Presidio Hill Today]
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In November, 1796, the priests were called upon to perform the ceremony of
blessing the esplanade, powder magazine and flag at the Presidio, and a salute was
fired in honor of the event. There were neither flags, nor materials for making them, in
Upper California, and they were therefore sent from Mexico. This marks the beginning
of the fortifications proper on Presidio Hill, on the point of the hill below the Presidio
walls. This fort was maintained, in a small way, during the Spanish administration, and
to a certain extent afterward. Nothing whatever of the site now remains, the earth forming
the point of the hill having been hauled away and used by the government engineers
in making the embankment for turning the San Diego River, in 1877. Some of this earth
was also used for grading the county road across the valley from then end of the Old
Town bridge, in later years. These excavations also took large quantities of earth from
the north side of the hill, the extent being measured by the widening of the road from a
narrow track to its present width. During the year in which the fort on the hill was built,
twenty-five soldiers and six artillerymen were added to the garrison, making the total
force nearly ninety men.
The end of the eighteenth century was now close at hand and it brought a few
events of unusual interest to the quiet community. In 1798 the soil of San Diego was
first trodden by Americans. Four sailors had been left by an American ship in Lower
California, whether by accident or design is unknown. They tramped to San Diego and
applied at the Presidio for food and shelter, as well as for a chance to take the first opportunity
to sail in the direction of home. They were not very hospitably welcomed by the
Spaniards, who regarded them with some suspicion, but there was nothing to do except
to care for them until a ship sailed for Mexico. In the meantime, they were given a
chance to earn their bed and board by working on the fortifications. Later, they were
sent to San Blas. The Americans bore the names of William Katt, Barnaby Jan, and
John Stephens, and were natives of Boston. They were accompanied by Gabriel Boisse
a Frenchman. who had been left behind, like themselves from the American ship
Gallant,--a treatment hardly in keeping with the name.
The next year the English sloop-of-war Mercedes paid a brief visit to San Diego,
but sailed away without any hostile demonstration. The last year of the old century
found the Presidio with a population of one hundred and sixty-seven souls, mostly soldiers
and their families, according to official report made to the Viceroy. During that Year
a number of foundling children were sent from Lower California, and eight of them were
assigned to San Diego. As one of them inelegantly re-
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marked, long afterward, they were distributed "like puppies among the families." There
is no reason to suppose, however, that they were not well cared for.
With the year 1800 the Yankee trader began to cast his shadow before him. It
was the palmy day of Boston's captains of commerce, when they used to load their