Mission of Santan Clara

             The name of my mission is Santa Clara De Asis. Santa Clara's mission is located in Santa Clara College on the Alameda, in the city of Santa Clara. Santa Clara was the first mission named after a woman. Mission Santa Clara de Asis was founded on January 12, 1777 by Father Junipero Serra President of the California Mission Chain. The mission was established to protect the San Francisco Bay area from the Russians or English. Missions were started in hopes of attracting local California Indians to live and work at the mission and to convert to Christianity. .
             Mission Santa Clara de As as was first founded on the banks of the Guadalupe River; it was made out of wood and thatch. This was the first of five different locations. During the first two years the church was flooded. They quickly constructed a temporary church made of adobe. It took them three years to build the third Mission Santa Clara de As as which was known as one of the most beautiful missions in all California. This third mission had beautiful paintings and many fine details. But the earthquake of 1812 and 1818 destroyed the church. Again the missionaries had a fourth temporary church. The fifth church was completed in 1825; it had its ceiling painted by Agustin Davila a Mexican artist. There were clouds with young angels, angels playing instruments dancing among the clouds and it had a trinity which included God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit they were painted as three men sitting together. Davila had neophytes paint these scenes under his guidance. Unfortunately in 1926 a fire burned the whole church. The sixth and last church was built this church was made out of concrete to protect from burning again. A copy of the ceiling painting was made. The church had a courtyard, a cemetery; it had living quarters for the Catholic missionaries, a dining room, rooms for unmarried boys, and a separate place for the unmarried girls, called monjerio.