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Groundf the Mission Grain

,A HAT 1s credited with being the first water-driven grist mill
Whaton the Pacific Coast is El Molino at Old Mill Road and
Mill Lane, a half-block off of Oak Knoll avenue near
Hotel Huntington in Pasadena. With walls of masonry and
adobe three to four and one-half feet thick, the construction of
the mill, begun in 1821 for the San Gabriel Mission, was not
completed until 1824.
These dates conflict with the "1810" on the bronze tablet over
the door. But Mrs. A. S. C. Forbes, author of the very inter-
esting and authoritative "California Missions and Landmarks,"
writes that the Yankee builder, Joseph Chapman, did not arrive
on California shores until 1818, when he appeared with the buc-
caneer, Hipolyte Bouchard. Chapman, sent ashore as peace emis-
sary, was arrested, whereat Bouchard sailed away, deserting him.
Despite this unpleasant introduction to California, Chapman be
came an active and honored citizen.
It was Chapman that Friar Jose Maria de Zalvidea engaged
to construct the mill for the grinding of the grains raised in the
mission fields where the cactus and desert growth had been beaten
back.
Those visiting the modern site wonder where water was ob-
tained to turn the two mill wheels. A flume carried the water
from Los Robles canyon or Mill's Spring Creek. Passing over
the wheels the waste water was carried through a cement spillway
to Lake Vineyard, later known as Wilson's Lake. Near the lake
also were a sawmill, tannery and wool-washing place. The latter
long since have disappeared.