History of Carmel-by-the-Sea

In 1784, Father Serra, after one last tour of all the California missions, died and was buried at his request at the Mission in the Sanctuary of the San Carlos Church, next to father Crespi who had passed the previous year. He was buried with full military honors.

The Mission at Carmel has significance beyond the history of Father Serra, who is sometimes called the "Father of California". It also contains the state's first library.

Township

A Welder, John Martin, acquired lands surrounding the Carmel mission in 1833, which he named Mission Ranch. Carmel became part of the United States in 1848, when Mexico ceded California as a result of the Mexican-American War.

Known as "Rancho Las Manzanitas", the area that was to become Carmel-by-the Sea was purchased by French businessman Honore Escolle in the 1850s. Escolle was well known and prosperous in the City of Monterey, owning the first commercial bakery, pottery kiln, and brickworks in Central California. His descendants, the Tomlinson-Del Piero Family, still live throughout the area. In 1888, Escolle and Santiago Duckworth, a young developer from Monterey with dreams of establishing a Catholic retreat near the Carmel Mission, filed a subdivision map with the County Recorder of Monterey County. By 1889, 200 lots had been sold. The name "Carmel" was earlier applied to another place on the north bank of the Carmel River 13 miles (21 km) east-southeast of the present-day Carmel. A post office called Carmel opened in 1889, closed in 1890, re-opened in 1893, moved in 1902, and closed for good in 1903. Abbie Jane Hunter, founder of the San Francisco based Women's Real Estate