Item 5 - Report on Mendicino Mission

1 p.; typescript and manuscript

A survey of the geographic reach, institutions, and specific outstations managed by the Capuchin Missions across the 3,460 square miles of Mendocino County, California. The text organizes the territory into four main pastoral centres: Ukiah (the county seat and mission headquarters, which includes responsibility for four Native American chapels, a state insane asylum, a boy’s orphanage, and the county poor farm), Fort Bragg, Mendocino, and Greenwood. Each section lists specific outlying stations – such as Caspar, Albion, Branscomb, Westport, and Boonville – along with the distance from the main parish and the frequency of scheduled Masses. The bottom of the page features a prominent, critical handwritten note attributing an observation to Fr. Laurence regarding the local population, stating that despite claims of 1,500 Italians living in Fort Bragg, there were ‘certainly not a hundred people at mass’ on the Sunday he visited. A shorter note by Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. identifies the handwriting as belonging to the late Fr. Luke Sheehan OFM Cap.