Our Catliolic Heritage. in Texas
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of corn and several hundred bushels of beans, which were the annual harvest raised by the mission Indians. The mission also had a ranch with a rock house twenty-five varas long and an arcade. The building had three rooms, where the families, who took care of the stock, lived. There were in the ranch one hundred and fifteen saddle horses, eleven hundred and fifteen head of cattle, twenty- three hundred sheep and goats, two hundred mares, fifteen donkeys. and eighteen mules. The ranch had its stone chapel, eleven varas long, with a stone cross two varas high on its altar, which was also adorned with several carved images and some paintings. In the chapel two sets of vestments were kept for the celebration of Mass. Such was the physical plant of Mission San Antonio de Valero forty- four years after its establishment. During this time, while gaining in temporal goods, it had baptized fifteen hundred and seventy-two Indians. Of these twelve hundred and forty-seven had received Christian burial and four hundred and fifty-four had been married by the church. In 1762 there were seventy-six families living at the mission, who together with the orphans and widowers, made a total of two hundred and seventy- five persons. They were of the Xarame, Payaya, Zana, Lipan, Coco, Top, and Karankawa nations. Of these, thirty-two were gentiles who were being instructed to receive the Sacrament of Baptism. The mission was administered at this time by Fray Mariano Francisco de los Dolores, Fray Jose Lopez, and Brother Juan de los Angeles. 2 Mission Punsima Concepcion. This mission, which was originally founded in East Texas in 1716, was moved to San Antonio in 1730. It was located about one league (two and one-half miles) south of Valero. Its church, which had now been completed, was thirty-two varas long and eight varas wide, built of stone and with a dome. It had two towers with bells. Above the main altar there was a fresco of the Cinco Senores. Its tabernacle was gilded, and over the main altar, in an oval-shaped 1 Fray Mariano Francisco de los Dolores and companions to Fray Francisco Xavier Ortiz, March 6, 1762. A. G. M., Historia, Vol. 28, ff. 162-183. This important and detailed report was made by order of Fray Manuel de Naxera, Commissary General of Missions In New Spain, given on October 16, 1761, and transmitted to the San Antonio missionaries on October 28 of the same year by Fray Ortiz. The contents were summarily given by Bolton In his Texas in i/1e Middle Eighteenth Centm·,y, 96-101, but the details concerning each mission have never been cited. They con- stitute an Invaluable source for a graphic picture of the missions in San Antonio in 1762 that should be made available. In the present description liberal use of the report has been made.
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