SLO County celebrated first Christmas Eve mass 250 years ago — but not in a church
The first Christmas mass held in San Luis Obispo County was celebrated 250 years ago, but the service didn’t take place at a Catholic mission or church.
It happened near modern-day Cambria.
Veteran reporter and former Telegram-Tribune city editor Elliot Curry wrote about the holiday celebration in his column, “After Deadline,” which ran in the late 1960s and early ’70s.
This entry was first published in the Telegram-Tribune on Dec. 24, 1969.
First Christmas in SLO County
Two hundred years ago today the first Christmas Eve masses were held in San Luis Obispo County along the banks of Santa Rosa Creek near Cambria.
Captain Portola and his expedition of some 60 men were returning to San Diego after exploring California as far north as San Francisco Bay.
It was Dec. 24, 1769, that they came down out of the mountains to the coast and made their way to the Cambria area where they had also stopped on their way north.
The men were cold, wet and hungry. They were in a strange land, far from families and friends; not much of a way to celebrate Christmas.
As the little party gathered to hear mass and make themselves as comfortable as possible for the night, Indians began to appear from the villages located along the streams which come down from the slopes of the Santa Lucia mountains.
The Chumash knew nothing of the story of Christmas. They had never heard of the wise men bringing gifts. There is something eternal about the spirit of Christmas, however, and that they understood without being told.
Friar Juan Crespi tells the story in his diary: “It was God’s will that we should celebrate the Nativity joyfully, which was done in this way: more than 200 heathen of both sexes came to visit us in this place, bringing us Christmas gifts, for many of hem came with good baskets of pinole and some fish, which everybody supplied himself, so that we had something with which to celebrate Christmas day. Blessed be the providence of God, who succors us more than we deserve. Their gifts were returned with beads, which pleased them greatly.
”Two centuries have passed since that cold Christmas day but the things that brought joy then are the same as today — good will toward men, the exchange of gifts, the praise of God.
Camp was made close to an Indian village near Cayucos on Christmas day and as the men feasted on pinole and fish, Friar Crespi could overlook the biting cold and travel weariness and write of the pleasures of the day. It was San Luis Obispo County’s first Merry Christmas.
Spanish explorers were lost, hungry
Elliot Curry’s 1969 column underplays the desperate situation the Spanish explorers were in.
They had been tasked by the king of Spain with the first land exploration of Alta California. Their goal was to clear the way for Spanish settlements and find the Bay of San Francisco.
But, like later travelers, the explorers failed to ask for directions. Instead of discovering the Cuesta Grade, they crossed the Santa Lucia Range where no paved route exists today, traveling roughly from Cambria to San Miguel.
On their return, the Spanish expedition made the same mistake.
Food was running out, so the explorers began to eat their mules. Some men had disappeared, and desertion was suspected.
The diary of Miguel Costanso, an engineer and soldier on the expedition, writes from a point of view further down the chain of command.
According to his entry on Dec. 20, 1769, the animals had become so worn out and exhausted traveling over the Santa Lucia Range that they had to rest. The remaining food was divided in an attempt to be fair to everyone and to prevent thievery.
“We now had but a very small quantity of provisions remaining and, since, for this reason, there had been some misconduct among the soldiers — different ones having had the audacity to steal the flour from the sacks — the commander decided to divide among them what remained, that each one should maintain himself from his own share,” Costano writes. “This was done, and all had an equal portion and were content.
“Each of the missionary fathers and officers received a small quantity of biscuits and chocolate, with a ham to each for the remainder of the journey.”
On Dec. 25, the expedition set out from Real de los Pinos after trading with hospitable Chumash tribe members — exchanging glass beads for fish and pinole, a coarse flour ground from maize kernels.
Real de los Pinos is Spanish for “Royal Pines.” Another edition of Costano’s diary has a different name for the region that we now know as Cambria: “Ensenada de Pinos,” Spanish for “pine cove.”
On the explorers’ way home, an abundance of bears provided food — inspiring the region’s future name, La Cañada de Los Osos, or, “Valley of the Bears.” The discovery played a role in the future development of the area.
Bears could feed many men and the Spaniards had technology, guns, that could kill many grizzly bears.
Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa would be founded a little less than three years later on Sept. 1, 1772, in part because of the nearby hunting grounds in Los Osos.
This story was originally published December 28, 2019 at 5:10 AM.
