California Romantic and Resourceful | Page 2

in San
Francisco, in 1912; the treatise of Irving Berdine Richman on
"California under Spain and Mexico, 1535-1847," published by the
Houghton Mifflin Company, of Boston and New York, in 1911; the
warm appreciation of E. D. Baker, by Elijah R. Kennedy, entitled "The
Contest for California in 1861," published by the Houghton Mifflin
Company, in Boston and New York, in 1912; the monumental work on
"Missions and Missionaries of California," by Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt,
published by the James H. Barry Company, of San Francisco,
1908-1913, and the "Guide to Materials for the History of the United
States in the Principal Archives of Mexico," by Herbert E. Bolton, Ph.
D., Professor of American History in the University of California, the
publication of which by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, at
Washington, D. C., in 1913, is an event of epochal historical
importance. All of these works and the recent activities in Spain of
Charles E. Chapman, the Traveling Fellow of the University of
California, the publications of the Academy of Pacific Coast History, at
Berkeley, edited by F. J. Teggart, and the forthcoming publication at
San Francisco of "A Bibliography of California and the Pacific West,"
by Robert Ernest Cowan, only emphasize the importance of original
research work in Pacific Coast history, and the necessity for prompt
action to preserve the remaining sources of its romantic and inspiring
story.
John F. Davis.
San Francisco, July 1, 1914.

Table of Contents

California Romantic and Resourceful
The Love-Story of Concha Argüello
Concepción Argüello (Bret Harte)

List of Illustrations

Discovery of San Francisco Bay by Portolá
Carmel Mission
Sutter's Mill at Coloma
Old Colton Hall and Jail, Monterey
Commodore Sloat's General Order
Comandante's Residence, San Francisco
Baptismal Record of Concepción Argüello

California Romantic and Resourceful

One of the most important acts of the Grand Parlor of the Native Sons
of the Golden West which met at Lake Tahoe in 1910 was the
appropriation of approximately fifteen hundred dollars for the creation
of a traveling fellowship in Pacific Coast history at the State University.
In pursuance of the resolution adopted, a committee of five was
appointed by the head of the order to confer with the authorities of the
university in the matter of this fellowship. The university authorities
were duly notified, both of the appropriation for the creation of the
fellowship and of the appointment of the committee, and the plan was
put into practical operation. In 1911 this action was reaffirmed, and a
resident fellowship was also created, making an appropriation of three
thousand dollars, which has been repeated each year since. Henry
Morse Stephens, Sather Professor of History, and Herbert E. Bolton,
Professor of American History, and their able assistants in the history
department of the university have hailed with delight this
public-spirited movement on the part of that organization.
The object and design of these fellowships is to aid in the collection,
preservation and publication of information and material relating to the
history of the Pacific Coast. Archives at Querétaro and Mexico City, in
Mexico, at Seville, Simancas and Madrid, in Spain, and in Paris,
London and St. Petersburg are veritable treasure mines of information
concerning our early Pacific Coast history, and the correspondence of
many an old family and the living memory of many an individual
pioneer can still furnish priceless records of a later period. Professor
Stephens has elaborated a practical scheme for making available all

these sources of historical information through the providence of these
fellowships, as far as they reach.
The perpetuation of these traditions, the preservation of this history, is
of the highest importance. Five years ago, at Monterey, upon the
celebration of the anniversary of Admission Day, I took occasion to
urge this view, and I have not ceased to urge it ever since. If we take
any pride in our State, if the tendrils of affection sink into the soil
where our fathers wrought, and where we ourselves abide and shall
leave sons and daughters after us, if we know and feel any appreciation
of local color, or take any interest in the drama of life that is being
enacted on these Western shores, then the preservation of every shred
of it is of vital importance to us - at least as Californians.
The early history of this coast came as an offshoot of a civilization
whose antiquity was already respectable. "A hundred years before John
Smith saw the spot on which was planted Jamestown," says Hubert H.
Bancroft, "thousands from Spain had crossed the high seas, achieving
mighty conquests, seizing large portions of the two Americas and
placing under tribute their peoples."
The past of California possesses a wealth of romantic interest, a variety
of contrast, a novelty of resourcefulness and an intrinsic importance
that enthralls the imagination. I