4 - Mendicino Mission History

4

Mendicino Mission History

2 pp; typescript

An overview of the Capuchin mission in Mendocino County in California, covering its establishment in August 1903 through the early 1920s. It details how the Capuchin friars of the English Province initially took charge of the rugged coastal missions, later expanding their territory in 1908 to encompass the entire 3,480-square-mile county, which included seven churches and four Indian Chapels. The text describes the local economy as heavily reliant on coastal lumbering, logging camps, dairy farming, and inland fruit agriculture, alongside a population largely composed of diverse European immigrants and a 1920 county census total of 24,116 residents. The second page focuses heavily on the administrative chronology of the mission’s leadership, documenting the specific service dates, transfers, and health struggles of various pioneering friars (including Father Marianus Fiege, Father Sebastian Brennan, and Father Raymond O’Gorman) across the key pastoral centers of Mendocino, Greenwood, Fort Bragg, and Ukiah.

ISAD(G) 2nd edition