“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County once had a Catholic mission, near Kelsey Creek.
Although our county's mission was not part of the chain of 21 Spanish missions, sadly, there is a Lake County tie-in to the California mission chain.
A June 10, 2015, Santa Rosa Press Democrat story made note of evidence recently uncovered by Sonoma County dentist and historian, Dr. Peter Meyerhof, which points out that there is most likely another Indian graveyard near the mission in Sonoma.
Currently there is a stone memorial outside Mission San Francisco Solano, also known as the Sonoma Mission, with the Christian names of nearly 1,000 Indians – 200 of which were children – who were buried there.
The names on the memorial plaque include those of many Wappo, Patwin, Pomo and Coast Miwok Indians, some of whom were from what is now Lake County.
During the Mission Era many Indians were kidnapped and forced to work on the missions. Some may have come voluntarily, just out of curiosity, not understanding that there was no going back to their homelands.
Mission San Francisco Solano was founded on July 4, 1823, by Fr. Jose Altimira, and named for St. Francis Solano, missionary to Peruvian Indians. The mission was secularized in 1834.
There was a high mortality rate for Indians during those times, due in large to a smallpox epidemic.
According to State Park's archaeologist, Breck Parkman, the neophytes, as the Indians were called were not always treated well after their deaths, either, and were sometimes stacked into mass graves.
Lake County historian Henry Mauldin wrote, “On the shores of Clear Lake, three miles north of Kelseyville and one half mile northwest of Kelsey Creek,” a basic building there functioned as both a church and school.
In 1867 Father Luciano Osuna began his missionary work there on 100 acres of land which was purchased from Tom O'Brien. The mission was called “Mission of St. Turibius.” It wasn't long before the mission property swelled to 235 acres.
Indians came from Big Valley and the surrounding areas, constructing their homes with lumber supplied by the mission. This site soon became known as the Rancheria of St. Turibius Mission, where they were instructed in the Catholic ways.
Eighty acres were set aside for the Indians to plant crops. There were anywhere from 60 to 100 Indians residing at the mission. The site included a school for the Indian's use as well.
Mission of St. Turibius was the headquarters for Father Luciano, but his profession took him to Burns Valley, the Lower Lake area, and into Mendocino County where he baptized hundreds of Indians until 1878 when he left the mission.
Then, other Franciscan Fathers worked there until about 1881, with the next round of religious leaders arriving from the Fathers of the Holy Cross, succeeded in 1883 by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
After the Society for the Propagation of the Faith departed, Franciscan Fathers took charge once again, until the abandonment of the mission in 1893, when a new church and monastery was constructed. These new facilities included a vineyard with a wine cellar nearby.
In 1914 the U.S government instituted the Big Valley rancheria near Finley. The mission Indians relocated to the rancheria and the mission was closed when the Franciscan Fathers' move repositioned themselves to Lakeport.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is an educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.