Mission Santa Clara de Asís

Mission Santa Clara de Asís

Location	500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, California 95053
Name as founded	La Misión Santa Clara de Asís [1]
English translation	The Mission of Saint Clare of Assisi
Founding date	January 12, 1777 [2]
Founding priest(s)	Father Presidente Junípero Serra [3][4]
Founding Order	Eighth [5]
Military district	Fourth [6]
Native tribe(s) Spanish name(s)	Bay Miwok, Tamyen, Yokuts Costeño
Native place name(s)	Socoisuka [7]
Baptisms	8,536 [8]
Marriages	2,498 [8]
Burials	6,809 [8]
Neophyte population	1,125 [9]
Secularized	1836 [5]
Governing body	Santa Clara University; Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose
Current use	University chapel; Parish church
Coordinates	37°20′57.37″N 121°56′29.76″W / 37.3492694°N 121.9416°W / 37.3492694; -121.9416
California Historical Landmark	#338
Website	http://www.scu.edu/mission/

Mission Santa Clara de Asís (Italian: La Missione di Santa Chiara d'Assisi) was founded on January 12, 1777 and named for Clare of Assisi, the founder of the order of the Poor Clares. Although ruined and rebuilt six times, the settlement was never abandoned.^[10]

History

Santa Clara de Asis was the first mission to be built in honor of a woman. The outpost was originally established as La Misión Santa Clara de Thamien (or Mission Santa Clara de Thamien) at the Indian village of So-co-is-u-ka (meaning "Laurelwood", located on the Guadalupe River) January 12, 1777. There they erected a cross and shelter for worship to bring Christianity to the Ohlone and Costanoan peoples. Floods, fires, and earthquakes damaged many of the early structures and forced relocation to higher ground. The second site is known as Mission Santa Clara de Asís. A subsequent site of the Mission dating from 1784 to 1819 is located several hundred yards west of the De La Cruz overpass of the Caltrain track; moreover, several Native American burial sites have been discovered near this subsequent site.^[11] The current site, home to the first college in Alta California, dates back to 1828.^[3]

Initially, there was tension between the people of the Mission and those in the nearby Pueblo de San Jose over disputed ownership rights of land and water. The tension was relieved when a road, the Alameda, was built by two hundred Indians to link the communities together. On Sundays, people from San Jose would come to the Mission for services, until the building of St. Joseph's Church in 1803. In that year, the mission of Santa Clara reported an Indian population of 1,271. In the same tabular report, its resident priest estimated that 5,000 cattle, 7,000 sheep, 2,200 horses and 30 mules were on mission lands, while about 3,000 fanegas of grain (some 220 pounds each of wheat, barley or corn) had been harvested. In 1850, California became a state and priests of the Jesuit Order took over the Mission Santa Clara de Asís. Father John Nobili, S.J., was put in charge of the Mission. He began a college on the Mission site in 1851, which grew into Santa Clara University; it is the only mission to become part of a university, and it is also the oldest university in California. Throughout the history of the Mission, the bells have rung faithfully every evening, a promise made to King Charles III of Spain when he sent the original bells to the Mission in 1777. He asked that the bells be rung each evening at 8:30 in memory of those who had died.

Mission Santa Clara de Asís sits on the campus of the Santa Clara University. After a 1925 fire destroyed the 1828 mission structure, the church's parochial functions were transferred to St. Clare Parish Church, on Lexington Street west of the campus. A rebuilt and restored Mission Santa Clara was consecrated in 1929, when it assumed its primary modern function as chapel and centerpiece of the university campus. It is open to visitors every day; the Mission museum is located in the university's De Saisset Museum.

Other historic designations

• California Historical Landmark #250 — Old sites of Mission Santa Clara de Thamien and the Old Spanish Bridge

Notes

Mission Santa Clara de Asís circa 1910.

1. ^ Leffingwell, p. 137
2. ^ Yenne, p. 80
3. ^ ^{a b} Ruscin, p. 196.
4. ^ Leffingwell, p. 137. Though Serra is generally credited with the Mission's founding, it was Father Tomás de la Peña who actually celebrated the first mass at the site.
5. ^ ^{a b} Krell, p. 167
6. ^ Forbes, p. 202
7. ^ Ruscin, p. 195
8. ^ ^{a b c} Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California. Mission Santa Clara witnessed the greatest number of baptisms, marriages, and burials of any settlement in the Alta California chain.
9. ^ Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
10. ^ Ruscin, p. 79
11. ^ Giglio, p. 3.11-1

See also

• USNS Mission Santa Clara (AO-132) — a Buenaventura Class fleet oiler built during World War II.

References

A view toward the altar of the exquisitely-ornate Mission Santa Clara de Asís chapel, circa 1897.

• Forbes, Alexander (1839). California: A History of Upper and Lower California. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London. 
• Giglio, Gary, C., et al. Environmental Impact Report for the General Plan Amendment, Rezoning and Development of a Portion of FMC Corporation's Coleman Avenue Facility, Earth Metrics Inc., September 1988, published by the City of Santa Clara, California.
• Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.) (2007). California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Altimira Press, Landham, MD. ISBN 0-759-10872-2. 
• Leffingwell, Randy (2005). California Missions and Presidios: The History & Beauty of the Spanish Missions. Voyageur Press, Inc., Stillwater, MN. ISBN 0-89658-492-5. 
• Levy, Richard. (1978). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer. ed. Handbook of North American Indians. 8 (California). Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. ISBN 0-16-004578-9 / 0160045754, page 486. 
• Milliken, Randall (1995). A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910. Ballena Press Publication, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-87919-132-5. 
• Paddison, Joshua (ed.) (1999). A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush. Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 1-890771-13-9. 
• Ruscin, Terry (1999). Mission Memoirs. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA. ISBN 0-932653-30-8. 
• Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Advantage Publishers Group, San Diego, CA. ISBN 1-59223-319-8. 

External links

• Official parish website
• Elevation & Site Layout sketches of the Mission proper
• Early photographs, sketches of Mission Santa Clara de Asís, via Calisphere, California Digital Library

37°20′57.63″N 121°56′28.46″W / 37.3493417°N 121.9412389°W / 37.3493417; -121.9412389Coordinates: 37°20′57.63″N 121°56′28.46″W / 37.3493417°N 121.9412389°W / 37.3493417; -121.9412389