IIS
The Beginnings of Civilized Life in Texas, 1731-1745
two rooms downstairs, used as offices. There was also a granary of stone. On the farms the Indians planted five fanegas of corn and raised about a thousand ; two of beans which yielded about forty; and several patches of melons and pumpkins which kept the natives well supplied, and a field of cotton. All the land under cultivation was irrigated by a ditch which brought the water from the river and gave the soil greater productivity. There were sixteen yokes of oxen, twenty hoes, nine handbars, fifteen adzes, thirty axes, ind tools for carpentry and bricklaying. When the mission stock was gathered and counted .it was found that there were one thousand one hundred and fifty head of cattle, seven hundred and forty sheep, ninety goats, and eighty-one horses for herding. Like the other missions, it had its own branding iron for its livestock. 61 Condition of /Ylission Concepcion in 1745. Father Ortiz next went to Concepcion where he found that since its establishment in San Antonio in 1731, three hundred and ninety-three Indians had been baptized; two hundred and sixty-five had died and received the last sacraments, and there were sixty-two families with two hundred and seven Indians living in the mission pueblo. Of this number one hundred and seventy-six were baptized Christians and thirty-one were being instructed in the doctri11a. At the time of the visit a fine new church was being built of carved stone and mortar, about half of which was finished. In the meantime services were being held in a large adobe hall with a terrace roof. This building also had a room for a sacristy. In the portion used as the church there was a very decent altar over which a carved image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception was placed. Several pictures of different saints with good frames of various sizes adorned the church and altar. In the sacristy a smaller altar had been erected over which there was a life-size image of Our Lady of Sorrows with movable joints and a beautiful dress. A large crucifix and several pictures were also located there. In the church there were one confessional and one bench. Three chalices with patens all of silver, silver cruets for wine and water, a baptismal font, a censer, good altar linens, four sets of vestments of different colors, one of which had large rosettes of embroidered silver thread, three missals, one Roman ritual, and two manuals for the administration of the sacraments were the liturgical equipment of the mission. All the ornaments and sacred vessels were kept in two large, carved cedar chests.
68 /bid., Archivo del Co/egio de la Santa Cru11, 1729-1758.
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