Mission Soledad Museum

[Note: At this Mission flash photography is expressly forbidden in all areas. Therefore, many pictures in the museum are heavily edited from dim digital images.]

The museum, while small, contains a variety of interesting items unearthed at the Mission. Items like the dueling pistols (left image), for example, are not seen at other missions. They were found in a well directly behind the chapel. The other exhibits shown here include keys, nails, spikes, a latch and various small tools.
Picture taken 2:00pm 1 Sep 2003	Picture taken 2:00pm 1 Sep 2003

Picture taken 2:00pm 1 Sep 2003	Picture taken 2:00pm 1 Sep 2003
Various samples of vestments and religious articles are also on display.

Various pictures and a bust of members of the Soberanes family, an important family in the mid-1800s Salinas Valley, are in the Mission museum.

Don Feliciano de Soberanes Picture taken 2:00pm 1 Sep 2003

Mariana Soberanes Picture taken 2:00pm 1 Sep 2003

The Soberanes family is famous in the Monterey area for their musical talents and hospitality to visitors passing through. In 1841 Governor Juan Batista Alvarado granted 8,994 acres to Maria Josefa Soberanes, a daughter of the Monterey family. Her father, Feliciano, and others obtained further grants later. These all became known as Rancho Los Coches which had its headquarters at the Richardson Adobe located at what is now the intersection of U.S. 101 and Arroyo Seco; the road you turn onto to get to Mission Soledad. [Note: Their father, Jose Maria Soberanes, was a young member of the 1769 Portola expedition.] [Reference: http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~hummingbird/California/soberanes.htm]

Also on display at the Mission museum are some letters relating to the area signed by Governor Pio Pico.

Picture taken 2:00pm 1 Sep 2003

Continue to the Ruins behind the main building...

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