|
Home 
San
Juan Capistrano
Little Chapters
Chapter III
Little Chapters About San Juan Capistrano
Chapter III: The Material
The materials used in constructing the Mission were boulders,
adobe, sandstone, wood and iron, beside the tile, mortar and
rawhide. Boulders were used as foundations for the adobe walls,
which range from two to seven feet in thickness. Sandstone
was used as lintels in the Mission building, and as keystones
and skewbacks in some of the arches. All of the big church,
with its adjoining sacristy, was of the same material. It
was procured in Mision Vieja, about six miles northeast of
San Juan. All the small stones were carried by Indian neophites,
men, women and children. Each one walked bearing a stone from
the quarry in the hands or upon the head - the children with
small ones, the grown-ups with larger ones, all doing their
part according to their strength, so that during the work
the place resembled a great ant-hill with the busy workers
going and coming - those passing to the east empty-handed,
and those coming to the west bearing their burdens. The large
stones were conveyed in carretas, or bull-carts. These were
fitted with either two or four wheels and the cattled wore
the yoke upon the horns.
Iron was used in the buildings for window-bars, railings,
hinges, locks, bolts and nails. The tile, both the square
kind that are in the floors of the corridor, the oblong that
are in the columns and arches and the floor of the old church,
the diamond-shaped ones in that of the big church, and the
roof tile were made on the hillside just north of the Mission
where the remains of the kilns may still be seen. The little
valley there between the lomas is called La Cañada
del Orno, or the little cañon of the oven.
Sycamore logs for the beams and rafters were brought down
from the Cañon of the Trabuco, and some from the side
of Saddle-back Mountain, twenty miles away. The limestone
for the mortar was procured from a quarry near El Toro, and
undoubtedly some of the stone for the walls of the big church
were brought from the rocky point at the ocean, now called
San Juan Point.
The ceilings were made by plastering upon tule, which was
laid upon hand-hewn rafters, and bound to them and woven together
by means of rawhide strips.
Next: Chapter IV
|
