1713 *Miguel Jose *Serra(Junipero Serra’a old name), born at Petra(pee-truh) on the Island of Mallorca(ma-li-o-ka), Spain. *Junipero Sera’s real name is Miguel Jose Serra but changed his name to Junipero because of his brother. *There is two ways to spell Serra “Serra or Sierra.” Nobody knew how he wrote it. At the age of 16 he entered the service of the Catholic Church. He soon entered the Order of St. Francis of Assisi(uh-see-zee), and took a new first name, Junípero.

* 1769 Spain began settlement of Alta California which Serra accompanied. The first destination was San Diego. It was on Presidio Hill where Serra planted the cross and dedicated the first mission in Alta California. Serra himself established nine missions, with a total of twenty-one missions eventually being established along the El Camino Real, from San Diego to Sonoma, a distance of 700 miles.

* When Junípero Serra founded California's first mission in 1769, he was 56 years old and asthmatic, with a chronic sore on his leg that troubled him for the rest of his life, and he suffered from other illnesses, as well. He stood just 5 feet, 2 inches.

* In pursuit of that goal, Junipero Serra walked thousands of miles between San Diego and Monterey and even Mexico City. He traveled the seas, also; and by the time he died August 28, 1784, in Carmel he had founded nine missions. He had battled governors, military commanders to secure a system of laws to protect the California Indians.

* Junipero Serra had been a philosophy professor at the Convent of San Francisco in Mallorca, the Spanish island where he was born in He was 36 years old when he reached the port of Vera Cruz, Mexico, on December 8, 1749, and walked to Mexico City. He spent 17 years in missionary work in the Sierra Gorda in the present area of North- Central Mexico. In 1767 he became president of the 14 missions in Baja California, originally founded by the *Jesuits, then turned over to the Franciscans. * *a member of a Roman Catholic religious order

* Serra's blessing of the site of Mission San Diego de Alcala on July 16, 1769, marked the beginning of the European settlement of California.

* Between the years of 1796 and 1784, Junipero Serra made six voyages by sea totaling 5,400 miles. He traveled by land the distance between Monterey and San Francisco eight times, Monterey and San Antonio 11 times, His longest journey by land was from Monterey to Mexico City. In total, he traveled over 5,500 miles by land. * Father Serra arrived at Monterey aboard the sailing ship San Antonio on June 1, He celebrated the first Mass on June 3, 1770, on the shore of Monterey Bay, where we now find the city of Monterey.

* August 28th is the anniversary of the death of Junipero Serra, and is set aside in special remembrance of his many contributions to the Catholic Church in America. * Junipero died at his favorite mission, mission San Carlos, at the age of 71. He died of being too old. They found him lying on the floor of this room: *