My Story with Phil Brigandi

Tired but accomplished - the team which led the bus tour following the Portolá Expedition's route through Orange County in the years 1769-1770. From left to right: Paul Spitzerri, Chris Jepsen, Stephanie George, Phil Brigandi and Eric Plunkett (author of this blog). Our friend and colleague, Phil Brigandi, died on December 12th, 2019. This is my story with Phil.

            I met Phil Brigandi at an Orange County Historical Society meeting on April 12th, 2012. I had known about Phil for long before meeting him. He was a hard guy to avoid. Phil seemed to have written or spoken about every historical topic I was interested in and started researching myself. Even after seven years of friendship, I’m still only scratching the surface of the breadth of history Phil knew and wrote about. But the Phil I knew was a kindred spirit. He saw what I saw in the backcountry. He didn’t just see the chaparral and grass covered hills dotted with occasional oaks (which he likened in beauty to “acquired taste”), he simultaneously saw the history of the land. So did I. We spent countless hours in the outdoors, in museums and visiting historical sites. We took hikes, went on four wheel drive trips and took road trips up the coast. We visited sixteen of the twenty-one California missions (many of them more than once), three of the four Spanish presidios, drove the Bradshaw trail, visited Corn Springs and explored the state from San Diego to San Francisco. We filmed a television show together (Lost LA), we published an article in the Journal of San Diego History and wrote a book together. We gave talks across the county and lead hikes together. We accomplished all of this in seven short years. But that’s getting ahead of myself. I should go back to the beginning.
            Since I was a little kid, I was fascinated by the hills and mountains of Orange County. I can remember my mom pointing out Old Saddleback on an overcast day on the interchange to the 5 Freeway south from the 55 Freeway. I was enthralled with the mysterious allure of the shapes of the ridges, the folds of the canyons and their evocation of the past. I wanted to know what was up there. Using some hiking guides, I learned to identify all of the local peaks from anywhere in the county – Sierra, Pleasants, Modjeska, Santiago, Trabuco, Pinos and Sugarloaf Peaks in the Santa Ana Mountains, Robber’s Peak in the Anaheim Hills, Gilman Peak and San Juan Hill in China Hills. I soon moved on to learning about the three great mountain ranges in Southern California – the San Gabriels, San Bernardinos and the San Jacintos. I read all the John W. Robinson’s books I could find. In the San Jacintos book I saw a picture of the historian Phil Brigandi. I knew he was important in all of this.
            In the 7th grade I had a major breakthrough. In the bibliography of one of my hiking books I I found the intriguing title of Shadows of Old Saddleback by Terry E. Stephenson. Despite my best efforts to find a copy, it seemed as rare as a hen’s tooth. Finally I located one at the Yorba Linda Public Library. I was so unaware of how special collections worked that I didn’t understand that I couldn’t check the book out. When I finally saw it behind glass, I felt that I was up against the firewall separating myself from the serious historians. After mustering up the courage to ask the librarian to see it, I can vividly remember her trying to find the right key to unlock the glass barrier. Finally, she put the book in my hand and said “don’t let it leave this room.”
            The book was a window into another world. I read most of it right there in the reading room. I had to have it. Before long, I had my parents calling around to local used book stores to find a copy for myself. Finally we found one at the Book Baron, a used book store in Fullerton that closed decades ago. It was $125 because it was an original 1931 printing from the Fine Arts Press. I used a big chunk of all the money I had to buy it. I was so proud. I remember being in 7th grade pre-algebra the next day and hardly being able to wait to go home and read Shadows again. Soon after, I learned about Jim Sleeper and was reading his books, too. Terry and Jim seemed to have the key to all of the questions I had growing from the fascination I felt looking up at the hills and mountains each day.
            Fast forward a bunch of years, hikes and books later, and I was finally doing original research on one of my favorite topics; the bandit Juan Flores. I had obtained a copy of the Westerner’s Brand Book 10 which has one of the definitive articles about Juan Flores and his gang, written by Don Meadows. After a little more research, I found out that Terry, Jim and Don were all connected and that Jim was still alive. I wanted to meet him.
            One day I was in Silverado Canyon poking around and the little fire station at the end of the road near the historical marker was actually open. Inside, I waited patiently to talk to the volunteer who was talking to another couple. On the small glass covered divider between them was the Arcadia book Silverado Canyon by Susan Deering. I interrupted their conversation to say “hey this is one of the good Arcadia books – it’s the best book on Silverado Canyon by far.” The woman behind the counter said “thanks!” She was Susan Deering. After talking with her, Susan urged me to call Jim Sleeper and gave me his phone number.
            I did call, although I was quite nervous because Susan warned me that Jim’s wife, Nola, was his gate-keeper - you had to have a legitimate enough reason to get through her to talk to Jim. When I first called, sure enough, Nola answered. When I asked to talk to Jim, she inquired what I wanted to talk to him about. I said “mining in the Santa Ana Mountains.” I apparently passed her test because she told me I could talk to him, but I’d have to call back in half an hour because he was in the middle of eating a baloney sandwich. When I called back, Jim answered the phone and said “well now I’m probably just what you expect, full of baloney.” We had an excellent conversation which I cherish. We never did meet in person.
            But at the time I thought we might. April 12th, 2012 was “Author’s Night” at the Orange County Historical Society. I had learned about the meeting from another historian who was connected to all of this named Chris Jepsen, who ran my favorite blog, OC Roundup. Chris had posted on his blog that Jim was invited to the meeting and might show up. I decided to go and give it a shot. After arriving and listening to each author give a short introduction on their books, I looked around the room and could recognize Chris from his picture on the blog. The next person I saw was Phil Brigandi.
            I immediately went over to talk to Phil but he was surrounded by numerous other people asking questions. Finally we met. Instead of introducing myself, I simply said “wow you’re Phil Brigandi, hey maybe you can help me with my research on Juan Flores.” Without missing a beat, we launched into “talking shop,” as he called it. I remember I had a hunch that the Blas Aguilar adobe in San Juan Capistrano might be the “grog shop” where early town resident Miguel Kraszewski had described sheltering himself under a large basket from the Flores gang. Phil was more than intrigued. He wrote down his email address on a napkin (which I still have) and I emailed him the next day. Within days Phil sent images of early town and plat maps superimposed with the map of adobes in San Juan Capistrano which Don Meadows included in his article.
            We continued to correspond about Flores throughout the next summer. But on September 27th, 2012, Jim Sleeper, Orange County’s Mark Twain, died. That December, Phil and I took a hike into upper Trabuco Canyon through the mist and dripping rain, locating two of Jake Yeager’s mines in the forest. On the way back, we stopped at Jim’s cabin. Phil told me that he had driven up to see it the day Jim died. We stared in silence. I read a lot of Jim’s work and felt a mixture of excitement at seeing the cabin where Jim wrote one of my all-time favorite books, A Grizzly Introduction to the Santa Ana Mountains, and sadness that he was gone. I looked over at Phil and could feel how emotionally raw Jim’s loss was to him. Jim was one of Phil’s heroes. More than anything, I could tell that Phil missed his friend.
            About a year later, Phil and I met for lunch near his house in Tustin. That day, I saw Phil’s library and archive for the first time. I was astounded. There were whole canons of material of which I was entirely ignorant. Phil downplayed it all. He was happy enough to talk to me about Stephenson and Sleeper. We went to his computer and he showed me a number of projects he was working on. He asked me if I’d be interested in writing an article about Juan Flores. I demurred. I didn’t think I had what it took to write at anywhere near the level of Stephenson, Sleeper, Meadows or Brigandi. Phil again acted like it was no big deal. He simply said “the only way to learn how to write is to write.” It was the simplest way to tell someone “you can do this” without being pushy or intimidating.
            But I really wasn’t ready. I needed to learn more about the general history of California in the 18th and 19th centuries. There were too many pieces I felt I still needed to put into place. Phil understood where I was coming from. He told me that a broader knowledge base was crucial to telling local history. Using what he’d learned throughout his years in scouting and giving talks, he was an experienced teacher who took me on as a student.
            One of the sources of interest in history for both of us was hiking in the back country. Phil and I took many hikes together. We hiked from above Ortega Highway to the top of Trabuco Peak. During the hike we talked a lot about Stephenson’s description of the area in Shadows of Old Saddleback. The chaparral was lush light green, the slopes dotted with dark Coulter pines, the draws choked with long-armed Big Cone Spruce and the sky a deep blue with high passing clouds. It was the last time Phil and I would see Trabuco Canyon before the Holy Fire, which occurred soon afterward. After the fire, Phil said with a deep and regretful breath, “I’ll never see it like that again.” I knew he was likely right, but I’m so glad we spent that day together. When I recently told Phil that some of the pines survived in the upper canyon, he was very happy and enthusiastically remarked that if any of the pines survived the forest could grow back. We both expressed hope that one day the canyon would be as beautiful as it once was. I still hope it will.
Our entries in the peak register on Trabuco Peak, which very well may have burned up in the Holy Fire.

            We also hiked to the Hidden Ranch area in Black Star Canyon, where there had once been an Indian village. We thoroughly explored the whole ranch area, spending a lot of time among the metates where the Indian women ground seeds and acorns, locating the perennial spring used by the Indians and climbing down to the top of the waterfall. I was always fascinated by the grinding stones. They were physical markers of what once was, a history that seemed mysterious and inaccessible. One of Phil’s friends was Roscinda Nolasquez, a Cupeño Indian who was removed from her land when the federal government conducted the last Indian removal in 1903. I asked Phil if Roscinda ever discussed what it was like to grind acorns. He recalled that she told him that while they did their work, the women would discuss exactly what people would discuss today – why someone wasn’t there, their children and friends, gossip or sing songs. Phil was a connection to a history that I thought entirely disappeared. But it wasn’t, and what he preserved through Roscinda made me feel camaraderie with the people who lived in my home mountains so long ago.
Phil at the Black Star Canyon Indian Village Site

            We hiked all throughout the Santa Rosa Plateau (he’d always say “don’t let anyone tell you the Santa Rosa Plateau isn’t in the Santa Ana Mountains”) and down to Chiquito Basin from above Ortega Highway dodging poison oak to find a seasonal Indian site. We went to “Robber’s Cave” in Aliso-Wood Canyons Park, which Phil always reminded people had absolutely nothing to do with Juan Flores. We hiked throughout Casper’s Wilderness Park, O’Neil Park, Silverado Canyon and all throughout Orange County’s wild lands. All along the way Phil retained an equal sense of excitement and enthusiasm at being in the outdoors. It was as much home to him as his beloved “Or-ange,” as he proudly called it.
            One day Phil asked if I’d like to attend a Los Angeles Corral of Westerners meeting with John Robinson, the author of Trails of the Angeles and more than a dozen other wonderful books on the mountains of Southern California. Phil and I were both big fans of John’s work. We went to John’s house to pick him up, but as the three of us made our way to Phil’s car John had trouble walking. Phil asked if he was alright but before he could answer, John collapsed. Phil immediately caught him and held him up. John struggled and said he was occasionally losing strength in his legs. Phil helped him for some time, finally assisting him, arm-in-arm, to the car. I remember thinking that this was exactly who Phil was – someone who wanted nothing else other than to help his friends and fellow man, without embarrassment or hesitation.
            The three of us drove to the meeting together and I remember thinking how strange it was that I first knew my two companions through their books. We spent the drive identifying the peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains from the 60 Freeway. At the meeting, Phil had me sit next to John for dinner. Although Phil and John hadn’t seen each-other as much around that time, Phil knew how important it was to me to be able to spend time with John. It was a great night and the only time I met John. He died in 2018.
            On another occasion, Phil asked if I’d like to meet his friend Mark Hall-Patten. I thought he was joking. I was a big fan of the show Pawn Stars and of course I’d like to meet the “Beard of Knowledge.” Phil said he had known and been friends with Mark since the 1970s. I couldn’t believe it – was there anyone Phil wasn’t friends with? I soon believed him, however, when I crammed into a booth for dinner with Mark, his wife Colleen and his son Joseph. We had a great time. After dinner Phil mentioned that I had published an article on Richard Henry Dana. With no other prompting, Mark jumped into everything he knew about one of Dana’s relatives who lived in San Luis Obispo during the Mexican period of California, where Mark lived before moving to Las Vegas. I was astonished by everything Mark was able to recall off the top of his head. I told Mark as much and he replied “I’m surprised how much I remember too!” It wasn’t hard to see why Phil and Mark were friends.
            Over the next couple years, Phil, Mark and I went to book shows, dinners and spent a good amount of time together. One time we all went to a Westerners meeting where Mark gave an entertaining talk on camels in the west. I was technically Mark’s guest. At one point during the meeting, Mark put an old book in my hands and said “this is better in your library.” It was a Coast Survey from 1852 with a beautiful map of California. I told him that I couldn’t accept such a nice gift. He said “I have enough books, if I need it I’ll call you.” Phil said “Colleen will probably appreciate part of Mark’s library [an estimated 30,000+ volumes] being stored in other people’s libraries.” We all laughed. Soon Mark wasn’t the guy from Pawn Stars as much as he was Phil’s friend, and I soon realized that friends of Phil’s also became friends. The people who spent time with Phil were just good people.
            Phil and I spent countless hours in his library. Every time I’d ask about something he’d jump out of his rocking chair and go to one of the many shelves surrounding his house and pick something out. I’d make notes, take photos of title pages and, for the best material, get out my wallet and pay for my own copy. My own library started to grow. Phil soon started going through his duplicates and giving me books. Almost every time I went to his house he would have something for me. On one of these occasions I said “Phil, I can’t just accept all of these gifts!” He looked puzzled. He pointed at two great big boxes of books and said “I just got those from Mark Hall-Patten, he has a box of stuff for me every time I see him - this is what we do!”
            One time while we were going through Phil’s library, he said “one of my favorite passages comes from Dr. Joseph Widney,” one of three authors of An Historical Sketch of Los Angeles County, written with his friends Col. J.J. Warner and Judge Benjamin Hayes in 1876. When the book was reprinted in 1936, Warner and Hayes had died but Widney was still alive and wrote the introduction. Phil thumbed through one of countless shelves in his library before pulling out one book. He sat in his rocking chair, put on his glasses and started reading:
            
                 Upon the whole American Continent there is no more fruitful and unexploited field for  
                 literary   work than this coast plain, which reaches from Los Angeles to Acapulco, and 
                 whether they will or no, their future is one and together, and I think neither type of race  
                 life will destroy the other, they will merge. The tropic plains will help in the merging. Out 
                 of it all, will come a type, not of the north, not of the south, but the American of the semi-
                 tropics. My old-time friends of the Campo Santo, at ninety-five years of age, I reach out 
                 my hand to your children’s children in an Americanism that shall know only one land and 
                 one people. 

Phil’s voice was emotional by the end. The passage meant a lot to him and I heard him reference it on a number of occasions while in conversation with others. It gets to the heart of his feelings about home and community.
            After receiving an education’s worth of lessons from Phil, I felt ready to start writing. My first article revolved around identifying the cliff in Dana Point from which Richard Henry Dana threw down cattle hides to the sandy beach below, a scene made famous in his classic book, Two Years Before the Mast. When I was in the 4th grade, my teacher had us leave early from our obligatory field trip to Mission San Juan Capistrano to try to find the cliff from the book. After driving up and down Dana Point Harbor Drive, she couldn’t identify it and we left disappointed. I was always fascinated by both the book and the Spanish and Mexican eras in California. When I expressed interest in the subject, Phil encouraged me to write about it. He started by sending me all the relevant articles and maps he could find and subsequently fielded a hundred or more emails from me with diagrams, source analysis and suggestions for how to approach writing about it. He edited the first draft of the article and then, just for good measure, got it published through the Los Angeles Corral of Westerners. I was so proud. At about the same time, he published an article in the Journal of San Diego History on the Cupeño removal in 1903. We were both riding high.
            Soon thereafter, Phil and I started taking research trips. Our first was to the Mission Santa Barbara Archive Library. I remember being intimidated by the red tape of having to become a member and to make an appointment. When we finally got in, I got out my computer and Phil got out a legal pad, “I know, I know” he said “but I’m old school.” Phil taught me a lot on that trip. He’d remind me to only read enough of a document to know if it was important or not and to stay focused on the questions I was trying to answer. He also liked to reserve the last hour or two of each day for searching through unsorted material which looked potentially interesting, hoping to serendipitously stumble upon something new. We also made a couple trips up to the Bancroft Library. I was so new to researching in the archives that Phil had to teach me how to use the microfilm machines. He jokingly said “who knew that I’d be teaching you how to use a piece of technology.” Still, I felt better prepared researching at the Bancroft after what I’d learned in Santa Barbara. We got a lot done on our Bancroft trips, leading to articles from both of us, and some still to come.
Phil's notes from the archive on the journal of Pedro Lisalde, a member of the first recorded group of Spanish explorers to cross the Santa Ana Mountains. They followed an Indian trail paralleling or roughly along today's Ortega Highway to the Lake Elsinore country from San Juan Capistrano. "Temeca" is "Temecula."

            Whenever Phil and I would take a trip to the archives we’d also go to museums, missions and drives on roads that looked interesting to us. I have many stories, but one stands out most prominently in my mind. When we were headed up to Monterey, we stopped at one of Phil’s favorite missions, Mission Soledad. Before this trip, we had stopped at Soledad once before while on our way up to Monterey to attend the celebrations surrounding the 200th anniversary of privateer Hippolyte Bouchard’s attack on California. But we both wanted to go again. A storm was just beginning to move in from the coast and, although it’s always windy at Soledad, it was particularly windy and eerie. Standing in front of the mission was like standing on the bow of a ship, with the mist-filled wind coming off the ocean and perceptibly hitting your face in cold sparks. The palm trees in front of the mission church swished and shimmered, bending in the intermittent sun below the fast-moving clouds. We went into the church to look around. I’ll never forget the space. The relentlessly muffled wind shuttered now and again against the wooden door frame and seemed to cause slight flickers in the candles lighting the space. I saw Phil head to a small side chapel where he seemed to be for some time. When I finally went to see what he was up to, I saw that he was visibly shaken. I asked him “what’s up?” He pointed to a bulletin board with prayer tokens, milagros, visible symbols of the prayers made by the people living in the small surrounding community. The most common milagro, by far, was a little house. Phil whispered shakily, “they’re praying for a home, the most basic thing we need.” As soon as he said it I was reminded of the first lines of his Cupeño removal article published in the Journal of San Diego History; “Home. The place you’re from. For most people, it is the center of their world; if they lose their home, they lose their way.” Home meant a lot to Phil. He spent his life writing about it.
            About the second time I met Phil, way back in 2012, we went to Del Taco following an Orange County Historical Society meeting. Right then and there, we both lamented the lack of material written on the Portolá Expedition, one of the most significant turning points in not only the history of Orange County, but in California. Phil mentioned that the 250th anniversary would be going on in 2019 and that maybe we could do something on it. As many great plans are hatched in the offices of fast food restaurants deep into the night, I thought the whole thing would fizzle into one of those great ideas that should have been. But something about Phil was different. When he decided a project was going to happen, he just started doing it. I remember him saying “part of the reason I write books is because nobody told me I couldn’t.”
            The project didn’t start off being a book, we simply started reading through all the work already done on the subject by Terry Stephenson, Don Meadows and Jim Sleeper. Using the newly published field journal of Father Juan Crespí, official diarist of the expedition and provided to me by Phil, I mapped the expedition’s route onto Google Earth. One of the many questions Phil was interested in whether or not I could figure out was where the first two baptisms occurred in California, a question debated among historians for a hundred years or more. For Phil, as well as Terry, Don and Jim, the question was whether the baptisms had occurred in San Diego or Orange County. After carefully reading all of the available sources, matching water courses and distances travelled on each day’s march, I determined that the baptisms occurred in San Mateo Canyon, clearly in San Diego County. I went over to Phil’s to tell him the news. After showing him what I had discovered, he said “give me a minute.” He let out a big sigh and finally said, “well, I see what you’re saying.” That was Phil. He was hoping that his beloved Orange County would have the distinction of such important event in the history of California to have occurred on its soil. But, he said, “facts are facts” and this was just “good historical research.” He would always tell me how much his friends Don Meadows and Jim Sleeper would have loved to see what we had learned, regardless of whether or not our conclusions aligned with theirs. We published our findings in the Journal of San Diego History.
            Starting in about fall of 2018, Phil and I embarked on a project to tell the story of the Portolá Expedition through Orange County. After seeing what I had learned about the route on my own, Phil asked if I would be interested in writing “something” up with him for the 250th anniversary of the expedition, coming up in the next year. His plan was for the Orange County Historical Society to host a bus tour following the route through the county in July of 2019. I was more than happy to work with him on the project. At first, he talked about it as a “pamphlet” or “keepsake” for the attendees. As our work continued, our conversations grew longer, our research went deeper and he finally concluded “we should probably start calling this a book.”
            The work we did writing The Portolá Expedition in Orange County, 1769-2019 is one of the great achievements of my life, and I owe it all to Phil. He taught me how to write a book. We started by compiling a bibliography, outlining each section and dividing the “first draft” responsibilities for each chapter. Everything was done fifty-fifty. We would each write a chapter, trade it with each-other, make comments and suggested revisions, and then pass it back-and-forth a couple more times. All the while we continued to conduct research and discover new information to add to the manuscript.
            We often worked side-by-side in Phil’s library. I remember one occasion when I was stuck figuring out the expedition’s route through Gobernadora Canyon, near today’s Coto de Caza. I couldn’t figure out how the expedition made their way over the hills into Trabuco Canyon. Phil and I were reading through the journals, over-and-over, looking for clues but nothing seemed to suggest a route. Finally, Phil said “why don’t you look at the original Spanish of the journals?” When I did, I found out that part of one of the journals included the detail “when we reached the end of the canyon, we turned west” which had not been translated into English in the published version. As soon as I said it, both Phil and I realized “they must have turned up Wagon-Wheel Canyon!” Phil was ecstatic, saying “this is why having two researchers can be so helpful,” implying that we pushed each-other to answer questions which may have otherwise continued to be unanswered.
            On a different occasion I remember we were stuck trying to identify the name of the Indian village on the Santa Ana River near Olive, close to the 91 and 55 Freeway interchange. Using the baptismal registers of Mission San Gabriel, we found an Indian named Francisco Maria who was from a village where the expedition crossed the Santa Ana River. Unfortunately, the name of the village was not recorded. But Phil and I were undeterred. We looked up every reference to Francisco Maria we could find in the mission registers, including his marriage and burial records. In these, he was referred to being from the village of Jutucabit. I remember Phil rushing over to a book in his library and excitedly said “yep, Jutucubit is another name for Hutuknga!” Phil loved place names and we were both elated at attaching an historical Indian name to the village located near Olive.
            After completing the manuscript, Phil sent it off to some of the best scholars of early California history, each of whom graciously volunteered their time to help edit the manuscript. They included historians Dr. Rose Marie Beebe and Dr. Robert Senkewicz, historian Paul Spitzerri of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, archaeologist Dr. Henry Koerper, cultural anthropologist Stephen O’Neil and others. Phil always made it a point to introduce me to as many of his contacts as possible. As much as these relationships were important to us while we were working on the book, Phil was also helping lay a foundation for me to continue to have connections with other scholars on future projects. He would often discuss the historical community, in which experts in various fields, including anthropology, archaeology, translators, historians with different emphases, could meet and assist each-other with their projects. He wanted me to be a part of it. His plan worked. Among the connections he helped facilitate are now my friends and colleagues and I anticipate future projects working together telling the story of California.
            Following the completion of the book, we shifted our focus to the bus tour. Three buses, one hosted by Phil, another by Chris Jepsen and one by myself were organized through the efforts of Stephanie George to host 80 attendees on a tour of the route through the county, which included talks by Phil, Paul Spitzerri and me. It was serious team effort. Chris somehow learned all the history Phil and I had been researching for a year and hosted his own bus. Stephanie organized all of the logistics, for which all of us are forever grateful (Phil always said we’d be lost without Stephanie). The day was a complete success, visible in a picture taken at the end of the day where all of us look tired but satisfied. The next day, the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum hosted a hike and a panel discussion with members of the Kizh Nation about the expedition which was equally successful. The plan hatched in Del Taco way back in 2012 actually came to fruition. Phil was extremely pleased and proud of our work. I am, too.
            After finishing the bus tour and events with the Homestead Museum, Phil told me that we would essentially “go on tour,” giving presentations and leading hikes talking about the book. We spoke all over the county: to the Irvine Ranch Conservancy, at the Diego Sepulveda Adobe in Costa Mesa, in the soldiers’ barracks at Mission San Juan Capistrano, at Casper’s Wilderness Park, with the Dana Point Historical Society, at the Brea Museum and with the La Habra Historical Society. Everywhere we went everybody knew Phil - he was the star of the show. But he always made me an equal partner. On many occasions while I was talking with someone after our talks, I’d hear Phil discussing how much I brought to the table in the research and writing. It meant and still means a lot to me. Whenever I thanked him he'd say “oh you know I love this stuff, it’s just fun to have someone else to do it with!”
            Our last event was on November 24th, 2019. We hosted a hike in Casper’s Wilderness Park up to the ridge above Gobernadora Canyon, discussing the expedition, the Indians and the canyon’s usage as the El Camino Real for the first decade of Spanish colonization in California. It was a fantastic hike with a wonderful audience of enthusiastic park volunteers. By this point, Phil and I had worked out our routine. I can clearly remember standing on the top of the ridge between Bell and Gobernadora Canyons and effortlessly going back-and-forth with Phil, telling the story of expedition and the early Spanish period. Coming down from the ridge, we split into two groups standing maybe twenty feet from one-another, adding further details and fielding questions. At one point I launched into a rather obscure story about a California mission Indian who visited New York in the 1830s. Although Phil was in the midst of talking with half the group, he heard me start the story and paused to yell over to us “I know what story he’s telling you!” We both laughed. When Phil and I got into the car to leave Casper’s after our hike, I said to him “well, that’s it, the last event for the book!” The experience of restfully sitting in a car after a successful trek into the wilderness was analogous to the larger journey we had just completed together.
            But it wasn’t an ending. In the months leading up to Phil’s death we had been contacted by celebrated California historians Dr. Rose Marie Beebe and Dr. Robert Senkewicz about whether or not we would consider writing a book proposal for a project covering the entirety of the Portolá Expedition. Phil and I were huge fans of Dr. Beebe and Dr. Senkewicz. They wrote my wonderful college textbook on California history, Lands of Promise and Despair, which, along with their books Testimonios and Junipero Serra, Phil and I considered to be essential works on the Spanish and Mexican eras in California. We were incredibly honored to be asked by two of the very best historians in the field to consider writing a book on the Portolá Expedition, a topic so important to both of us.
            We started on the research right away. I said to Phil, “you know this will make you, for the first time, a California historian.” Phil proudly responded, “I know, I’ve thought about that, too.” We planned trips to San Francisco, to the Bancroft, Monterey, a trip to San Luis Obispo with Mark Hall-Patton and a trip to Baja California. On a number of occasions I heard Phil feign a large sigh and say “I guess I need to get my passport.” After numerous phone calls and meetings discussing the project, we took our first trip to conduct research at the Santa Barbara Mission Archive Library. On our first day there, we drove up the coast towards the Hollister Ranch, thinking about the expedition’s route, locating Chumash village sites and taking photos. We stopped on a rise above Gaviota State Beach looking down the coastline and doing exactly what we did for the book on the expedition in Orange County; imagining the experiences of the people involved in the expedition while standing in the place where it happened. There was no better way to inspire both of us to write. The next day we spent in the archive researching, reading letters, articles and books. We drove home the night before Thanksgiving.
            I woke up on Thanksgiving morning excited to continue the work and translated a letter from one of the King of Spain’s associates granting permission to Spanish officials in Mexico to plan the colonization of Alta California. I called Phil that morning and he answered with “it’s been a long time!” We talked for hours that day, as well as many throughout the next couple weeks. On December 8th, Phil and I talked for two hours on the phone about the project, planning our trips and the next steps in the research. I was going to make annotations on our list of correspondence and Phil was going to look through all the issues of the Southern California Quarterly he could for articles relevant to the expedition. We again expressed to each-other how lucky and honored we felt to be potentially tasked with writing such an important book. A couple hours after the phone conversation, Phil sent an email reporting that he didn’t find any relevant articles in the Southern California Quarterly, but had located a photo of a woman who was apparently a baby in the Great Stone Church in San Juan Capistrano when the earthquake struck and brought it down. Phil sent it to me because I’m in the process of writing an article about the Great Stone Church. He ended the email the way he always did, “All best, Phil.” An hour later he had the heart attack which ended his life.
            Phil Brigandi was enthusiastically doing what he loved until his last conscious day of life; talking shop, planning trips, doing research and looking forward to future projects. I thanked Phil countless times for all he did to mentor and help me. He knew how appreciative I was but I’m not sure he knew how much he’d be missed by me and everyone else who knew him. Phil always admired the great historians who grew into legendary characters – Terry Stephenson, Don Meadows, Leo Friis and Jim Sleeper. I always told Phil he’d be on that list, too. I’m not sure he entirely believed me, as I witnessed him vacillate between confidence and doubt the same way we all do at times. There seemed to always be a part of him that was fighting against something. Whatever it was, his extensive body of work is proof that he won in all the ways that matter. He can never be replaced and will always stand on his own as a character in history, just like his heroes. In our many conversations, his idea of the purpose of his work converged on a simple axiom; telling the story of a place ties together all of the people who come to live in that place, regardless of where they’re from. The story of place is the basis upon which all of us maintain a community. Phil gave his life to telling these stories. He inspired and will continue to inspire us to do the same. He’s now and forever a part of our community.
            As for me, Phil had very specific instructions. In our many talks we gave throughout the county, he’d say he saw it as part of his responsibility to set up the next generation to continue to tell our history. We’re all born seeing the world through only our own set of senses. Through telling history we can learn to step outside of ourselves to consider the experiences of others who inhabited our communities. Doing so puts us in the best position to be able to continue to live in a community together. Thanks for everything, Phil – you’ll always be missed. Alright, now back to more research on the Portolá Expedition and writing about Father Serra in Orange County… just as Phil would have wanted it to be.



Please see the following links for more on the San Juan Capistrano Visitor Series:

Part 5: The Otter Trade and the First U.S. Citizens in Orange County
Part 6: The Great Stone Church (A future post)
Part 9: Secularization and End of the Mission Era in Capistrano (A future post)
Part 10: Richard Henry Dana at Dana Point

Please see the following links for Mission San Juan Capistrano - Dating the Artifacts Series: