Quoting from the book Who Discovered the Golden Gate? By Frank Stanger & Alan Brown, published 1969 by the San Mateo County Historical Society.
Monday, December 5th, 1774 Father Francisco Palou wrote:By virtue of our commander's [Rivera's] decision to return to [Monterey] Presidio along the shore by the route followed by the expedition of the year '69, we set out from this place [camp at SE shore of Lake Merced] about seven o'clock in the morning, taking a southerly course across hills with nothing but soil and grass, several hollows in which are streams of running water ending in lakes: it being six hours' march with occasional halts made to allow the soldiers to hunt geese...On going three hours through the hills we were faced with having to get down a very high one, the descent from which was as very steep as it was long; on the flat below it, we struck upon the track left five years ago by the first expedition, which it is intended to follow as far as Monterey. At eleven o'clock we came upon a large lake...got around the lake, and stopped about one o'clock in the afternoon in a corner of the [Pedro] valley close to one of the two creeks of running water... On the skirts of the hills I saw an occasional live-oak or two; if the place had timber, it would be suitable for a mission being so close to the mouth of the harbor[1]. [1]footnote: The earlier copy [of Palou's journal] does not use the expression "harbor" here. Palou was later to select this site for the important San Pedro y San Pablo settlement [later becoming the Sanchez Adobe site], belonging to his San Francisco Mission. |
