SALINAS "In the Midst of a Loneliness": The Architectural History of the Salinas Missions

EXCAVATIONS AT ABO (continued)

Park Service Excavations

The Drainage Project of 1984

No known archeological work was conducted in the church and convento of Abó during the forty-five year period between October, 1939, and the summer of 1984. For several years prior to 1984 the Park Service had been noticing drainage problems within the stabilized ruins of the church and convento, causing deterioration of the stabilized walls. In early 1984 the Park Service developed a plan for the installation of a drainage system in the mission that would relieve most of the problems.

The plan called for a two-sided approach to the problem. Where appropriate, Salinas National Monument would add fill within the church and portions of the convento to create sloping surfaces eliminating low areas and encouraging drainage. Where the walls themselves formed catch basins, perforated polyvinyl pipe would be installed in trenches, in association with impermeable plastic sheet below sterile fill. The sheet would catch surface water and lead it down to the pipes, which would channel the water to dry-barrel sumps.

The system would require trenching in the convento for the installation of the pipes. Because Toulouse had encountered some below-floor walls in the patio, the Park Service anticipated that further foundations could be present below other parts of the building, and assigned an archeologist to monitor the excavation of the trenches and record any significant findings with photographs, notes, and drawings. [23]

Jim Trott began excavations in the south row of rooms in late May, 1984. The pressure of other work pulled him away by the end of June, and archeologist Susan Kreger took over the work. She excavated and recorded the remaining trenches from late June through mid-August. During the excavations, Trott and Kreger found a number of wall foundations beneath the present floors of the convento. No plaster was found on any of the wall surfaces, nor were floors seen in association with the walls. Trott and Kreger were convinced that the walls were those of an earlier version of the convento, but were unable to find conclusive evidence of this hypothesis within the limits of the excavations. [24]

Park Service Excavations in 1987

Rediscovery of the First Church and Convento of Abó

In 1986, when the detailed, large-scale HABS drawings of Abó became available, the author conducted an intensive analysis of the Trott-Kreger excavations and the Toulouse excavations. He plotted all of the known sub-floor foundations onto the plan of Abó as precisely as possible, and noted any other oddities or peculiar features found during the two excavations.

This analysis supported the idea that an earlier convento had stood on the site of the present convento of Abó. Its floor surface had apparently been at the same height as the present floor. The author was able to work out a tentative plan of the earlier building and found hints that some of the walls of the first convento may have been reused in the later building. A careful examination of the surviving colonial walls confirmed this supposition. When the conjectural plan of the first convento was drawn out, it became obvious that it was too small and too simple to have been built in association with the present church. An inspection of the standing church walls suggested that the present church may have been constructed by rebuilding a smaller, simpler church, reusing some portions of the earlier building in the same way that some parts of the first convento had been reused.

Figure 49. The first church of San Gregorio de Abó. This photograph, taken during excavations in March, 1987, shows the walls outlining the apse of the church.

The results of the analysis of the plan of the church and convento strongly indicated the presence of an earlier church and convento beneath the standing ruins of Abó. Proof that such a church and convento had existed and had been altered to create the present structures would have a strong impact on the Historic Structure Report for Abó. The author decided that before the final description of the construction of Abó could be written for this report, archeology had to be conducted to prove or disprove the theory that the present buildings were remodeled versions of earlier structures.

In October, 1986, the author prepared a research proposal for archeological investigations at Abó. It described the evidence and reasoning behind the hypothesis that an earlier church and convento had existed and the archeological steps necessary to prove or disprove the hypothesis. The staff of the Cultural Research Center of the Southwest Regional Office of the National Park Service, responsible for approving such a proposal, reviewed the document and approved it.

Because of early snows, the excavations had to be delayed until the spring of 1987. Fieldwork began on March 21 and continued for ten days, ending on March 31. The excavations were designed to prove the existence of an earlier convento and show its general plan by digging at selected places where walls should intersect if the hypothetical plan worked out during the analysis was correct. At the same time, a series of units within the church would test the idea that the building was a reconstructed version of a smaller structure and would determine its plan.

The excavations succeeded in locating the walls of the earlier church and in proving the existence of an earlier convento. In fact, the evidence from the convento excavations showed that the convento had been constructed originally with one plan and then extensively rebuilt twice, modifying various sections of the building. [25]

The evidence showed that Abó had a very complex structural history, much more so than either of the other two missions covered in this HSR. The findings will require considerable changes to the interpretation of the site and will pose a number of problems for maintenance and stabilization. One result of the work is the National Monument's proposal to cap the foundations of the north wall of the first church, raising it to grade so that it will be visible to visitors. This will help the interpreter convey the idea of the change from first to second church much better than sketch plans and narrative alone. Other developments to the interpretation of the building will occur as usable approaches to its complexity are found.