At San Juan Capistrano, however, the news caused serious alarm.  Work ceased, the bells were buried, and the priests returned.

In the meantime events were shaping elsewhere for the founding of the Mission of San Francisco.  Away yonder, in what is now Arizona, but was then a part of New Mexico, were several Missions, some forty miles south of the city of Tucson, and it was decided to connect these, by means of a good road, with the Missions of California.  Captain Juan Bautista de Anza was sent to find this road.  He did so, and made the trip successfully, going with Padre Serra from San Gabriel as far north as Monterey.

On his return, the Viceroy, Bucareli, gave orders that he should recruit soldiers and settlers for the establishment and protection of the new Mission on San Francisco Bay.  We have a full roster, in the handwriting of Padre Font, the Franciscan who accompanied the expedition, of those who composed it.  Successfully they crossed the sandy wastes of Arizona and the barren desolation of the Colorado Desert (in Southern California).

On their arrival at San Gabriel, January 4, 1776 (memorable year on the other side of the continent), they found that Rivera, who had been appointed governor in Portola’s stead, had arrived the day before, on his way south to quell the Indian disturbances at San Diego, and Anza, on hearing the news, deemed the matter of sufficient importance to justify his turning aside from his direct purpose and going south with Rivera.  Taking seventeen of his soldiers along, he left the others to recruit their energies at San Gabriel, but the inactivity of Rivera did not please him, and, as things were not going well at San Gabriel, he soon returned and started northward.  It was a weary journey, the rains having made some parts of the road well-nigh impassable, and even the women had to walk.  Yet on the tenth of March they all arrived safely and happily at Monterey, where Serra himself came to congratulate them.

After an illness which confined him to his bed, Anza, against the advice of his physician, started to investigate the San Francisco region, as upon his decision rested the selection of the site.  The bay was pretty well explored, and the site chosen, near a spring and creek, which was named from the day,—­the last Friday in Lent,—­Arroyo de los Dolores.  Hence the name so often applied to the Mission itself:  it being commonly known even to-day as “Mission Dolores.”

His duty performed, Anza returned south, and Rivera appointed Lieutenant Moraga to take charge of the San Francisco colonists, and on July 26, 1776, a camp was pitched on the allotted site.  The next day a building of tules was begun and on the twenty-eighth of the same month mass was said by Padre Palou.  In the meantime, the vessel “San Carlos” was expected from Monterey with all needful supplies for both the presidio and the new Mission, but, buffeted by adverse winds, it was forced down the coast as far as San Diego, and did not arrive outside of what is now the bay of San Francisco until August 17.