Condition of Roads on Arizona State Highway System

San Xavier Del Bac

(Continued from page 12) Marriage registers show all these places administered by the lone priest in charge of San Xavier del Bac.

We have hurried over the years of patient endurance of the padres in the strange land beset with savages. It would be tedious to recount the time of privation and suffering amid the few bright years of prosperity. The bare floor was the padre's bed, and the habit his only covering; parched corn was his food, which he often shared with the Indians.

In 1764 there were about 1,250 good Indians, the other doing much as they pleased. The fathers could hardly be expected to hold thousands of Indians without some help in the way of soldiers or necessities, and the government sadly negligent, as well as the church, at times. The affairs of state were undergoing a radical change, and that its colonies were forgotten is very plausible. Culminating all, in 1767, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky the Jesuits were expelled from Spain and its possessions.

The missions were immediately abandoned by the Jesuits, who started for Mexico on their way to banishment, themselves in no way to blame. There is a popular opinion that the Jesuits had accumulated great riches from the mines about and, unable to take it with them, buried the treasure in the missions. It is a fortunate thing that San Xavier has been more or less protected, for treasure-seekers have practically dug up the whole of the ground about Tumacacori Several small ornaments at various times have been uncovered in the missions, but they are of no great significance. The missions at that time were so poor that the Jesuits had really very little to bury and the story of the mines is much overdrawn.

In 1768 the Order of St. Francis was requested by the government to take over the abandoned missions. To San Xavier was sent Fr. Francisco Garces, O. F. M., destined to become a great figure in the history of that mission. His was the most distant and precarious of the missions in the Pimeria Alta, but he was equal to the task assigned. With him went Fr. Jose del Rio as companero.

Before the year was over the mission was destroyed by the Apaches, while Garces lay sick at Guevavi. The official report for that year shows a population of two hundred and seventy, quite a drop from a population of one thousand two hundred and fifty of a few years before; but all the work had to be done over again.

We find in 1776 there were forty flourishing missions in the care of the Franciscans, eight of which number, including visitas and rancherias were in what is now Arizona. It is difficult to discover just what constituted a visita and rancheria, or even, at times, a mission. The word pueblo is used often to define the first two terms. A visita, in the strict sense of the word, was a mission station, a settlement under a well established mission and attended by the mission priest. The mission was built as head quarters, while the visita often had no church of its own, but simply a house for the priest during his visit. A rancheria was nothing more than an Indian village, cared for, if possible, by the nearest priest. The whole of Pimeria Alta was included in the diocese of Durango.

Guevavi and San Xavier were the only real missions at that time. Each had several visitas, some of which later became missions. For instance, Tumacacori was at first a visita of Guevavi, and later in the Franciscan period became a mission rivaling even San Xavier, though often attended by the latter. Besides, San Xavier always retained Tubac and Tucson as visitas from the earliest times. In 1752 a presidio under Don Juan Bautista de Anza had been placed at Tubac and in 1776 moved to Tucson; so it is very likely that during the time of disorder, either of these two latter places might have been the headquarters and San Xavier along with Tumacacori the visita .In fact, old registers indicate it to some extent.

Fathers followed Fathers in succession, and each in his turn stood in loco parentis to the Indian. Yet, in the registers, never once is the "new" church mentioned the present church. Concerning the date of its erection there are few tangible facts on which we can base our reasoning, so that the point has always remained unsolved. There are many stories told concerning it, some, perhaps, in part true and others due to the Indian's love of story-telling.

Just what kind of a church the Franciscans found at Bac is a matter of supposition; but very likely it was similar to the original one, namely, an adobe of several rooms. One must bear in mind that it had been destroyed twice. As Bac was one of the most important missions and the most distant post, the Jesuits might have had ideas concerning a larger and more durable structure; in fact, it is very possible they laid the present foundation near the adobe church or on its very site, though the expulsion would necessarily have stopped the work.

A striking point to be considered in the construction is that no other Franciscan mission, built under the same conditions, is cruciform in plan; San Xavier is a perfect Latin cross. Take the missions of California, New Mexico and Texas and one finds the church proper to be a rectangle. The only other Franciscan mission of Arizona worthy of note as a piece of architecture is Tumacacori, finished about 1800, several years later than San Xavier, in plan it is simply a rectangle. During their period of power in church and state the Jesuits developed fine architects and builders, while the Franciscans remained silent and unseen. As far as studied plan is concerned the Jesuit works are found to possess great merit, and this further tends to prove that San Xavier, which not only differs from but is better in general plan than of the Franciscan missions, was begun by the Jesuits.

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If the Jesuits building was not in some way incorporated with the present building why should the Franciscans have retained the name of St. Francis Xavier, who was a Jesuit priest? This necessitated their giving the chief place in their altar to his figure. Furthermore the Franciscans the names of other of the Jesuit mission. Another point of interest is the symbol which appears on the copper cover of the baptismal font. It is the well known form, made up of first and last two letters ofthe Greek word for Jesus. The symbol was often employed by the Jesuits and sometimes erroneously believed to be their accepted monogram. Over the main entrance of the fachada the Franciscans placed their coat-of-arms and, inside, their emblematic knotted cord runs all around the wall and falls in two large tassels on either side of the altar.

The record of Arricivita brings us down to 1791, and from then on we know but little of mission history in Arizona. To be sure, all that is known of San Xavier is scant and often inaccurate: but after several years of diligent research I have concluded:

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Arizona's Crown Jewels

Nowhere in the world, except right here in our own state, did nature see fit to perform that particular miracle. It took her milleniums, ages, eons to do it, but at last those mighty trees that went down in corruption were raised in incorruption. They put away mortality and became immortal, eternal, changeless and at the same time inexpressibly beautiful. In their hearts they have caught and held tints unaffected by any earthly agent, all the colors known on earth and sea and sky. Even the desert sun is powerless to change them. They are made with Nature's permanent dyes, held in jasper and chalcedony. These lovely jewels, exclusively Arizona's, remember, range from creamy white through soft tones of rose, yellow, blue, and green, to the most intense shades of purple and red, shading into black.

The mere mass, the sheer bulk, of these jewels that lie about in sight is beyond computation. For thousands of years every passer-by has carried away all he wanted or could take. The Indians used great quantities for arrow heads, knives and ornaments. But the looting of centuries has made no appreciable inroads on this most stupendous aggregation of gems. The great weight of this agatized wood acts as a defense against wholesale vandalism since few people care to transport a chunk of agate weighing half a ton even though it does contain enough jewels to furnish Alladin's cave with plenty left over to supply the glitter and shinc for several other Arabain Night tales While agatized wood is as plentiful as the proverbial blackberry in June, it is not cheap; compared with the other semi-precious stones. This is because it is so difficult to work. Extremely hard, it can only be cut and polished with the aid of diamond dust and even then the process is long and slow. But its beauty is startling and every piece a unique gem with no exact counter part in the world since the marking and color dispersion are different in each orie. They were all produced by an Artist of infinite originality and resource, and who, on this job, never repeated a design.

Some of the trees have hollow spaces in them and these cavities are jewel-caskets, themselves in the heart of a jewel. They are invariably filled with the most exquisite semi-transparent crystals of amethyst, topaz, beryl and tourmaline. Before the Government took over the control of the forests, vast numbers of the trees were dynamited and literally sacksfull of these lovely gems were shipped out to the lapidaries of the world. Now, of course, the practice has been stopped and for the present these Arizona crown jewels are safe in their age-old resting places.

SEPTEMBER, 1928

The United States National Museum in Washington, D. C., has one of the finest collections of agatized wood in the country. It is not large but each specimen is a remarkable one. They number only thirty-five and range in size from one suitable for a stick pin to those two and a half inches across, all cut in elongated cabochon shapes. and highly polished. Many of these show a variety of colors and shades in one jewel, while others owe their charm to variations of one shade cast into intricate patterns. Tiffany, the famous firm of jewelers, at one time had in their show-rooms a table whose top was made of a single piece of agatized wood. It was priced at twenty-five Lundred dollars.

Several varieties of trees, all extinct now, are found in these forests. The most plentiful variety has been named Araucarioxylon Arizonicum. In such fashion does the modern scientist like to take the joy out of life. The Piutes go at the matter differently. These aboriginal, uneducated, uncultured Indians. entirely unawakened to the beauties and refinements of civilization, say these great tree trunks are the spent weapons of Shinarov, the great Wolf God, and the tumbled shafts mark the site of a Titanic battle between the deities of the sky. Primitive though the idea may be, it is better than calling them Araucarioxylon Arizonicum. Anything so beautiful, so mysterious, so intriguing as a tree reincarted as a jewel has a right to a better name than that.

Conclusion

I have imperfectly, sketchily, feebly described eleven Arizona gems. Eleven from eighty known and classified varieties leaves sixty-nine for you yet to know. Each one is beautiful, individual. well worth your attention. If the foregoing has accomplished its purpose it has roused your interest, not only in the eleven but no less in the other sixty-nine. They are a goodly company. well worth your friendship, even your love. For jewels, like flowers, have the power of arousing affection in a responsive human heart. Like flowers, they cheer us with their beauty, their color and their somehow "living" charm. But unlike the frail blossoms of our gardens, they do not fade nor sadden us