First Mass

December 17, 1602

Documentation

• Spanish Voyages to the Northwest Coast in the Sixteenth Century. Chapter XI: Father

Notes

"December 16 when the fleet entered the Puerto de Monterey, it was already night. The following day the General ordered the necessary things to be taken ashore, so that Father Andres and Father Antonio could say mass every day while they had to remain. This was done, and a large capacious tent was set up under the shade of a very large live-oak to serve as a church." Note that it was under this same oak tree that Padre Junipero Serra said mass 168 years later on June 3, 1770 in an event as significant for West Coast Catholicism as the "Plymouth Rock" is for New England. The oak no longer lives but a marker is at the site on the ground of San Carlos Cathedral, in Monterey, the oldest cathedral in the west (tied with a New Orleans cathedral).