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

QUARAI: HACIENDAS AND FARMING (continued)

The Destruction of 1830

During the 1820s Apache raids on the Manzano settlements increased. Captain Bartólome Baca's ranch north of Manzano, called "El Torreon," had to be abandoned, as was Valverde, Pedro Armendaris's ranch about twenty miles south of Socorro on the Rio Grande. Abó was deserted in the same period. As part of the widespread raiding, Quarai was attacked in late 1829 or early 1830. [33]

The raiders effectively destroyed the Lucero rancho. They killed several people, badly damaged the North and Lucero Houses, and burned the church, Mound J House, several of the buildings in the southeast area next to the old granary, and perhaps some of the convento buildings. [34]

The fire severely damaged the church. The clerestory, east nave, and east transept windows acted as chimneys. Air was pulled in through the main door and choir loft facade window; superheated air and flame jetted out of the higher openings. The intense heat burned out the lintels above the doors and windows, including the sealed west window. It damaged the stonework above these openings and on the inner faces of the buttress towers, making the stone softer and much more susceptible to water damage.

As the vigas of the roof burned through, the great weight of the roofing forced the viga ends to pivot in their wall sockets, levering the wall above each socket upward and inward, dumping large chunks of roof parapet into the interior along with the charred vigas, latillas, matting, and remaining adobe layer above. The parapets broke away in almost continuous strips in the areas where long stretches of vigas were set close to the top of the parapet, as in the nave. In the transepts and sanctuary the buttress towers stood above the vigas. Here the beams, unable to move the greater mass of stone, caused much less damage as they fell. Over the mouth of the apse, already damaged by the breaking of the apse mouth beam in the eighteenth century, much more collapse of the masonry occurred.

The heat damage and loss of lintels hastened the rate of collapse of the walls above the windows and doors. The unsupported stone began to fall out, causing the openings to grow upwards and outward from their top edges. Soon the entire wall above the higher openings, undermined by this decay, began to fall in. Over the next sixteen years, tall V-shaped gaps formed in the walls, marking the locations where doors and windows had been. The gaps above the choir loft entrance door and the east nave window left the east nave wall unsupported. Within a century it would fall into the nave.

The destructive raid broke the Lucero family. The damage to the fields, flocks, and buildings and the wholesale abandonment of the area by the peons left them effectively penniless. Most of the family left over the next year, moving to Manzano or back to the Rio Grande valley. [35]

The Manzano Church at Quarai

Meanwhile, the Manzano Community Grant had been approved and the town of Manzano had been officially created. In late 1829, the citizens of Manzano decided to build their new community church next to the decaying mission church at Quarai. The partly ruined church of Quarai had been the only real church in the area for as long as the settlements had existed. This and the influence of the Lucero family at Quarai, even though it was fading, were strong factors in their decision to select Quarai as the site for the Manzano chapel. The selection was apparently an attempt to replace the old church, an important part of the life of the new settlement.

Construction began on the chapel in the plaza about 150 feet southwest of Concepción de Quarai. [36] Public protest against the Quarai location of the chapel must have begun at the same time. Opposition grew rapidly, until on July 10, 1830, the Alcalde of Tomé gave permission to stop work at Quarai and build the chapel at Manzano. [37] The burning of the old mission church probably occurred during the construction of the new church, and may have influenced the decision to stop work at Quarai.

The few months of work on the chapel accomplished very little. The masons had marked the church outline onto the selected spot and excavated foundation trenches about four inches deep and thirty inches wide. They had begun construction on the walls and had poured an adobe floor onto the sloping ground surface. The walls had reached no more than a few feet in height when work was stopped, and the masons packed up their tools and left. [38] Later the foundations were apparently used for some other purpose; a juniper post one foot in diameter and perhaps nine feet long was set two feet into the ground in the approximate center of the walls. The purpose of this post is unknown. [39]

The leading members of the Lucero family apparently left Quarai ca. 1830, probably as a result of the Apache raids. They left José Lucero, probably a younger brother or cousin, in charge of the Quarai valley holdings. José and his family apparently lived in the convento buildings. The Lucero House and the North House, damaged by the raiders, were left uninhabited.

Lieutenant James W. Abert, travelling the main road through Quarai in November, 1846, met José Lucero and visited his house. Abert described the house as "an old ruin fitted up with such modern addition as was necessary to render it habitable." His watercolor of the church and convento is the earliest known pictorial representation of Quarai. [40]

The painting supplies several important details about the buildings and gives an indication of their condition in 1846. The filled west nave window was barely visible. The wall above it, supported by the stone fill of the window and not as damaged by the fire as the wall above other windows that remained open, had not yet begun to collapse. The facade above the choir window and main entrance had already fallen. The thin layer of stone covering the nave roof beam sockets had weathered out, leaving the sockets visible like tall, narrow crenelations along the top of the nave wall. The parapet had broken off in a ragged line above the beam sockets. The heat-damaged tower tops were already irregular and partially fallen; they looked much as they did just prior to reconstruction in the 1930s. Little or no stone robbing had yet occurred on the lower walls of the church.

Part of the antecoro survived against the east tower. Abert's painting clearly shows the antecoro window. The bell room above, however, had already fallen. The painting depicts the portería as fallen, but the east end of the south wall and the east rooms of the convento standing, with the window at the south end of the residence hall visible. The southeast rooms are apparently out of the painting at the right side.

On the southwest, the walls of the baptistry stood to a height of about twelve feet in most places. Mound J House, burned out with the church in 1830, was roofless and above its doors and windows showed the same V-shaped decay pattern as the church. [41]

During the 1840s and 1850s the remaining Luceros made an attempt at reconstruction. They rebuilt a number of rooms in the southeast area beside the old granary, including several new corrals and sheds. They built a torreon just west of the granary, but separate from the other structures. [42]

J. W. Chatham visited Quarai in February, 1849, and noticed the Lucero family. In the ruins of the mission, he said, lived "some poor Spaniards principally pastores as they have some spindle farms the walls of the old building show some skill as the plastering in some places is yet remaining . . . ." [43]

Figure 32. Quarai as painted by James Abert on Wednesday, November 4, 1846. In the foreground is the ruin of Mound J House, with the notch of a collapsed window on the right, or south side. Immediately behind it is the baptistry of the church. Abert indicates that he could see the sockets for the roof vigas of the nave from the outside of the building, meaning that the stonework between the sockets still stood to the height of the tops of the beams in 1846. To the right of the facade of the church, the choir loft stairwell and belltower still stand to the height of the top of the second story window. Just to the right of the belltower rooms is the gap where the portería has fallen in, and then the facade of the convento with a window opening, probably into the east hall. The rooms added on the southeast by the Luceros are out of sight to the right.

A few months later, in July, William W. Hunter passed through Quarai. He described the houses: "Attached to the church were other ruins, partly demolished which some of the villagers had metamorphosed into modern habitations on their own rude and uncouth plan. There were several acres of land into cultivation at this place, the crops on which looked well." [44]

Four years later, in December, 1853, Major James H. Carleton passed through Quarai. He mentioned no people at Quarai, but did describe in detail one of the rooms of the convento. "We found one room here," he says,

probably one of the cloisters attached to the church, which was in a good state of preservation. The beams that supported the roof were blackened by age. They were square and smooth, and supported under each end by shorter pieces of wood carved into regularly curved lines and scrolls, like similar supports which we had seen at the ends of beams in houses of the better class in Old Mexico. The earth upon the roof was sustained by small straight poles, well finished and laid in herring bone fashion upon these beams. In this room there is also a fire-place precisely like those found in the Mexican houses at the present day. [45]

The level of expertise shown in the construction of the roof is far above that to be expected in a small house rebuilt from the ruins of the convento of Quarai. It is very likely that Carleton visited the sacristy of Concepción de Quarai, with its original roof having survived the fire that destroyed the church.

Settlers began returning to Quarai just before the Civil War. Punta de Agua was established between 1850 and 1860, probably in the ruins of client farmer houses built in 1820 to 1830 and soon became the new center of development for the valley. After the war, in 1872, Miguel Lucero sold the pueblo and mission of Quarai to Bernabe Salas of Punta.

Salas repaired and reoccupied the Lucero House and made some repairs to the convento. He rebuilt the northern room of the sacristy and plastered it with adobe, including a new floor almost four feet above the original flagstone floor. The old refectory and original kitchen were just ruined walls, and the patio, ambulatorio, southwest storeroom, and portería were nothing but low mounds of rubble. The eastern rooms, having survived so much, continued as residences for a time. In the southeastern area next to the old granary, Salas converted several of the sheds into a large stable, and other rooms continued to be used as small houses. The occupation was, however, short-lived. By 1882 Bernabe had apparently moved back to Punta, abandoned the convento rooms altogether, and turned the Lucero House into a barn and stable.

Adolph Bandelier visited Quarai twice in a period of two weeks in the winter of 1882-83 and was shown around the area by Bernabe Salas. Bandelier remarked that there were two or three new "ranchos," or houses, around the mission church, and "a large rancho of stone, now abandoned, on the south side of the pueblo." This may have been the building on the Romero family picnic area about 860 feet south of the mission church, built about this time, or it could be an undiscovered building somewhere between the Romero house and the south side of the pueblo mounds. More likely, though, Bandelier was describing the North House and got his directions reversed in his notes.

Bandelier found rooms of the convento still roofed: "We examined also the ruins of the convent . . . Several rooms, on the east side, are still entire, with white plaster on the wall, wooden lintels and ceilings." [46]

When Bandelier wrote up his notes in 1892 as his Final Report of Investigations Among the Indians of the Southwestern United States, Carried On Mainly in the Years from 1880 to 1885, his appraisal of Quarai was somewhat different. "The convent," he says, "is reduced to indistinct foundation lines measuring 15 by 17 m. (49 by 58 feet)." He had decided that the standing, roofed rooms along the east side of the convento patio were not original convento buildings, and that the southern half of the convento, so completely ruined by time and the use of the area as animal pens, was the cemetery for the church. [47]

The new residents of Punta de Agua began removing stone for building material from the buildings surrounding the church in the 1850s. By Bandelier's visit in 1882 they had removed the baptistry and Mound J House but had not yet done much damage to the church.

Seven years after Bandelier's visit to Quarai, Charles Lummis made three photographs of the ruins. His pictures illustrate most of the details seen by Bandelier. The second story of room 6 stood, but only one roof beam remained in place against the transept wall. The surviving cells on the east side of the convento had been unroofed at some time since 1882, but their outlines were recognizable. The Lucero House was in use and in good repair, visible in the background in one of Lummis's photographs. The North House, although obviously abandoned and beginning to decay, was standing in good condition. The palisado fence north of the church and the stone fence running south from the southwest corner of the church were standing, but in bad shape. Stonerobbing had removed most of the facing stone on the west side of the church. [48]

In spite of how solid it looked, Quarai was very close to final collapse. Within a few years settlers had removed the facing stone from the church facade, seriously weakening the thin front wall. Treasure hunters had chopped a large hole through the apse wall. The east transept wall began to sag outward, and a large crack formed on the north wall of the east transept where the sag pulled the walls apart. In 1908 the east wall, standing unsupported since 1830, finally toppled into the nave. About the same time treasure hunters excavated the south room of the sacristy. They left the hole open, exposing the walls to further weathering and probable collapse. Unless the church was given immediate, serious attention, it would soon follow Abó into ruin.

Figure 33. Quarai on December 28, 1882, as photographed by Bandelier. The edge of the window on the second story of the choir stairwell and belltower can be seen at the right edge of the facade of the church. Near its top corner, the stub of one of the lintel beams still survives. This beam has since been sawed off flush with the stonework, but is still in place. The wall beneath it originally extended to the left, or west, edge of the portería, but most of it had collapsed by the time of this photograph. The empty sockets of three vigas for the floor of the choir loft and front balcony are visible to the right of the collapsed entrance doorway. The sockets to the left of the doorway are not visible because the ends of the vigas are still in the sockets. At the left side of the church, the baptistry has fallen to a low mound, and a rubble stone wall extends across the mound to the corner of the church. Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana, Archivo Fotographico, # 483-48, courtesy Charles Lang.

Figure 34. Quarai as photographed by Charles Lummis in 1890. To the right of the church in the distance can be seen the Lucero House, with a covered wagon parked next to it. Below the Lucero house, the ruins of the walls of the south end of the east hall and of room 20 are visible. To the left of the Lucero House, the south wall of room 13 still stands to almost its full height, and three beam sockets can be made out along its top edge. These beams, running north to south, covered the hallway (room 14 from the east hall to the east courtyard. By reconstructing the lines of sight of this scene at Quarai today, it was possible to determine that the top of the wall of room 14 was about 13 feet above the present floor level.

Figure 35. Quarai from the north in 1890. Lummis was the first photographer to record the details of this side of the church. At the right edge of the picture, the North House still stands to its full height. On the left corner of the church the walls of room 6 still stand to the top of the second story, and one roof viga remains in place against the north wall of the east transept. The notch of a window at the second floor level can be seen in the north wall of the room. At the top of the apse, the ventilation opening can clearly be seen, as well as the notch in the top of the wall where the canal that drained the apse roof had penetrated. The road to Abó from Punta de Agua curves around the church with a jacal fence along its east side. The road and fence were both recorded by Bandelier on his plan of the pueblo and mission made from the notes and sketches of his 1882 visit. Courtesy Southwest Museum, # 24828.

Figure 36. The interior of the church of Quarai in 1890. This is the earliest detailed view of the interior wall surfaces of the church. A number of important details can be made out. In the north wall of the apse, the hole chopped through the wall by treasure hunters is easily visible. To the left and right of this hole on the apse wall are the sockets for the lower supports for the retablo. At the left and right corners at the mouth of the apse can be seen the sockets for the bannisters of the stairs of the main altar. On the left wall of the nave, the collapsed stonework above the lintel of the west window can be seen, as well as the neat masonry that sealed the window in colonial times. The stonework fell in above the window because the lintel woodwork burned out all the way through the wall during the fire in ca. 1830. Closer to the camera on the left can be seen the multiple sockets of the choir loft. The lowest socket is a three-part outline for the cobel beneath the main viga, the viga itself, and the lower railing of the choir loft bannister above. Above this triple socket, and a few inches north, are the middle and upper sockets of the choir loft bannister. On the right, or east wall, of the nave, an identical set of sockets can be made out. Closer to the transept, the notch of the east window of the nave can be seen. The sill of the window has collapsed almost to the level of the fill within the church. The fill at this time is only about three feet deep. Photograph by Charles Lummis, 1890. Courtesy Southwest Museum, # 24844.

Figure 37. Quarai about 1900 from a photograph found in the files of the National Park Service. This is a print made from a negative made from a slide made of a print of the original negative. With so many generations of duplication, many of the details in the original have been lost, and the source of the photograph is unknown. Careful inspection and comparison with other pictures, however, recovers much useful information from the print. At the right background of the view, the walls of parts of the North House still stand, even though the main east wall visible in the Lummis photograph made in 1890 has fallen. Closer, just above the trees across the center of the photograph, the walls of several rooms of the east courtyard are visible, and just above them the walls in the area of rooms 11, 12, 13, and 29 can be seen. The imprints of most of the walls that adjoined the east wall of the church can be made out by comparison with other photographs. Courtesy National Park Service.