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THE SACRED EXPEDITION

In 1769, Father Junipero Serra sent aSacred Expedition north from San Diego to find
the legendary Bay of Monterey. It was on this journey that the first recorded impres-
sions of Eternal Valley and the surrounding vicinity were made.
However, the Indian villages that laced the land of Eternal Valley, encircled by moun-
tains on three sides and by the Sespe Creek on the West, were the earliest settlements
and could have dated from 50 to 500 years before the Spanish Padres wrote of the
"delightful and beautiful plain ... surrounded by towering mountains and covered with
tall, thick cottonwoods and oaks ... " in their letters and diaries.

"It is a very suitable site for a mission ... " Father Juan Crespi, a spiritual leader of the
first expedition, declared in his diary. On a later expedition in 1776, Father Francisco
Garces wrote of the "hospitality and affability of the Indian Villagers." These priests felt
that the area was the perf ect place for a Mission - a perfect link between Los Angeles
and Santa Barbara - to keep the Missions of El Camino Real, the King's Highway, at
intervals of a day's journey by foot.
Although the Mission envisioned by Father Crespi did not come to be, in 1804, the
San Fernando Mission which had been established in 1797, built an Asistencia at the
precise site he had originally recommended. It became the headquarters of local activi-
ties and a training school for local neophytes who furnished labor for the Mission's
OLD INDIAN VILLAGES maintenance and operation. Mission San Fernando and the Asistencia, which was
IN THE
Eternal VAlley
REGION located on a vast acreage called "Rancho San Francisco," brought El Camino Real to the
original path of Sacred Expedition, in spite of the steep mountain grades.

Spain was expelled from Mexico in 1821 and in 1824, to stimulate colonial development
in the lands north of its present boundary, the Mexican Congress legislated encourage-
ment for land settlement. All grants of national lands were limited to eleven square

Published in the Public Interest by Eternal Valley Memorial Park
Copyright 1958 1 Eternal Valley Memorial Park Association

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