The Pirates of Dana Point

When you think of pirates and Orange County, you probably start hearing a song in your head about “A pirate’s life for me.”  For the most part, a pirate’s life wasn’t very long.  Once they started a life of pillaging, plundering, and not giving a hoot, a pirate soon became known as a criminal, and was headed for either the gallows or Davy Jones’ locker within two or three years.

From The Bowers Museum

One such pirate managed to outlive the average, and as it would happen, Hippolyte Bouchard spent many days hoping to get a foothold along the California Coast in order to claim it for his home, Argentina.

More a privateer than a buccaneer (meaning he did pirate-like things on behalf of a country), Bouchard was one of the first people to circumnavigate the globe seeking adventure and riches.  He fought in scores of conflicts, each one bloodier and crueler than the previous.  He sailed to the Hawaiian Islands where Bouchard met with Kamehameha I.  Mutineers has seized control of one of Argentina’s ships named the Santa Rosa and tried to sell it to the Kamehameha. 

Bouchard recognized some of the mutineers during his investigation and realized their treachery.  Through complex negotiations with the Hawaiian Ruler, (Kamehameha expected to be repaid for the ship), Bouchard gave the king his sword and Commander’s hat in exchange for the now largely dismantled Santa Rosa.  He had it refitted, pursued the mutineers to Kauai, where he had them savagely whipped and executed.

Next stop: California, to exploit the Spanish trade.

They took their ship and the Santa Rosa and headed east toward the Monterey Peninsula. Bouchard seized control of Monterey, raised the Argentinian flag, and claimed the peninsula. They stormed the fort, raided the armory, stole the cattle and burned the Governor’s mansion and Spanish residences to the ground. The locals were left alone. The Spanish reclaimed what was left of the fort six days later as Bouchard headed south.  

More pillaging north of Santa Barbara, more hostage negotiations.  And then on December 16^th, 1818, Bouchard sailed down into Dana Point Harbor.

The Argentinian Captain’s reputation preceded him.  Knowing the bloodthirsty pirate was on his way, the people of San Juan Capistrano hid what valuables they could, especially the artifacts made of gold in the mission chapel.

The Spanish soldiers based there went to meet the pirates as they arrived telling them a large garrison was about to descend on them. But you can’t bluff a pirate. Bouchard ordered his men to pillage the town and take what they could.  “But keep a weather eye especially for rum!”

As far as pirate raids go, it was not the best. What the crew mostly discovered was the local wine, which they carted off to the ship.  There they drank their fill until they were too drunk to fight.  Some even had to be carried back to the ship. When they sobered up, they travelled on to Mexico. The OC got off light.

Bouchard lived long after the OC raid. He served Argentina, Peru, and Chile, finally retiring in a fine residence given to him by the Governor of Chile.  He lived for 58 years and may have lived longer if he had not died at the hand of one of his servants. He never knew his daughter from a period before his world travels began. 

Legend has it that there is still treasure hidden in the nearby hills that the drunken pirates never found. The monks are long gone, and as they say, “Dead men tell no tales.”  But should you live in the hills off Oso parkway, and you come across treasure, you might want to give the Mission San Juan Capistrano a call. 

A Museum of Oil

Today starts with a little departure from the normal OCYDS. It begins with a personal story.

Back in the 1950’s there was a small boy who drove his mother crazy every once in a while, so she did what every mother would do; she plopped him down in the back seat of her green Pontiac (pre-seat belt era) and drop him off at her husband’s construction shop for the workers to watch.

Actually, I wasn’t that awful a child (at least from my viewpoint). But I did always look for an opportunity to drop a punchline, and that was before I learned the importance of social filters. Okay, maybe I still need to work on that aspect, but the point is, Mom had a nice option. Daycare was rare and in its infancy (pun intended) during the 50’s, so Moms who stayed at home… and there were many more back then… had to come up with creative daycare solutions.

Enter a very good man named Sid Mitchell, a skilled machinist who worked for my Dad and had a kind demeanor. My dad had a few petroleum industry businesses. One was a shop that packaged together gas compressor units to handle natural gas. Another was a little business with a catchy name: Oil and Gas Testing Associates. Today it might have been named something like OGTA Enterprises, but my Dad had little imagination.

OGTA contracted with the local oil companies surrounding Whittier, CA to go out to their wells, draw off samples of the crude coming out of the hole, and test them for their chemical properties. It was an important step, because each oil well’s production would change as the crude was pulled out, and the refineries needed to know what was in each barrel to better refine the product. Too much sulfur in the mix and the equipment would quickly corrode.

It fell to Sid to hop in his 1956 Ford Truck (kept in immaculate perfection) and visit each well. It was a great way to entertain a kid back then, as we drove into the orange and avocado groves of Orange County to collect samples. We frequented the hills of Whittier, Fullerton, Yorba Linda and Brea, where Union Oil had “Old Number One,” their first venture tapping the great oil reserve beneath those fragrant fruit trees. On the way back we would stop at the A and W root beer shack on Imperial Highway for a float.

As the tar leaked from cracks in the Southern California ground, the local natives and early pioneers used hunks of oil infused earth for heating and waterproofing the roofs of their homes. Brea shares its name with a famous tar pit in Los Angeles for good reason. The Spanish word “brea” means tar, which used to ooze out of the hills unabated until the oil industry stepped in. You can thank the oil industry for cleaning up lots of ugly sites in California. Tar regularly bled out of rifts along the Santa Barbara coastline. Off-shore drilling relieved a lot of the pressure and captured the black stuff.

When the oil industry came, “wildcatters” (oil field workers) began building homes, and the little town of Brea was born. Oil production waned after WWII, and during the era of my trips with Sid, it became increasingly costly to suck crude out of the ground. Gradually Brea changed. During the 60’s Brea Mall brought shoppers to the town, and today downtown Brea is a thriving, classic California downtown area, with entertainment venues, coffee shops and wonderful restaurants.

Today you can capture the sights and smells I enjoyed as a child at the Olinda Oil Museum and Trail, located in the Olinda Ranch neighborhood at 4025 Santa Fe Road, Brea, CA 92823. You can still see Old #1, walk the trail, and visit a field house and museum featuring equipment and photos of those early, oily days of Brea’s past. Be sure to call first at (714) 671-4447 for hours and tours.