Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, commonly known as Mission Soledad, is a Spanish mission in Soledad, California. It was founded on October 9, 1791, by Fr. Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, the 13th of California’s 21 missions, to help convert local Native Americans to Catholicism. The mission is named for Mary, Our Lady of Solitude. The Chalon (a group of the Ohlone), Esselen, and Yokuts lived in the area and were the first people connected with the mission.

By 1803 there were about 627 Mission Indians at Soledad. People from different tribes married at the mission, with Chalon marrying Esselen speakers and others marrying Yokuts who were brought there between 1806 and 1834. Farming and herding were big, with 1,150 cattle, about 5,000 sheep, 30 pigs, 670 horses, and 40 mules.

Governor José Joaquín de Arrillaga is buried in the chapel after dying there in 1814. The mission faced floods in 1824, 1828, and 1832. In 1835 the mission was secularized and the land and buildings were sold; after that it fell into ruin and the site was used as Rancho Ex-Mission Soledad.

Restoration began in 1954, and a new chapel was dedicated in 1955 with help from the Native Daughters of the Golden West. Today, the chapel serves as a parish church in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey and the site operates as a public museum. The ruins of parts of the original complex, including the quadrangle and cemetery, can still be seen. Soledad town’s name comes from the mission, and the site is a California Historical Landmark.