The Demon Priest of Mission Solano | BuzzFeed Unsolved Network

The Demon Priest of Mission Solano

Is this historic house of God really home to a demonic force?

In 1542 the Spanish claimed the land that became California and by the mid-1700s, there were groups of Spanish soldiers and friars exploring and colonising the area.

The friars believed they had to convert indigenous peoples to Catholicism to "save their souls". Spain regarded the missions as an important first step in colonising. Some have suggested that forcing the natives onto the missions and then forcing them to work in agriculture and European trades was a way of building a peasant class of labourers.

Additionally they worked to assimilate indigenous peoples to European customs and ideas, believing their lifestyle was the superior one.

During the time of Spanish colonisation in the region they built 21 Franciscan missions, and the last of them is the one we're investigating now, which was established in 1823.

The Mission San Francisco Solano was actually founded illegitimately through improper channels by a man named Padre Jose Altimira, who was known for his systematically cruel methods when it came to converting native peoples.


The mission San Francisco Solano reportedly baptized 1300 natives over the span of 12 years, but just two years after its founding Altimira was forced out of the mission by a rebellion of the native peoples due to his terrible mistreatment of them.

And to make the long, violent, and tragic history of the Franciscan mission system very short, the Spanish colonizers forced indigenous peoples into what some have described as a form of slavery, with diseases and mistreatment leading to the deaths of thousands while systematically attempting to annihilate their cultures.

The death toll at Mission Solano is said to be nearly 900 lives. According to Patricia Cullinan, President of the Sonoma Valley Historical Society, it's inferred that the bodies of those who perished were said to have been buried adjacent to the mission church "since there were two churches at different times,it has been assumed that there were two cemeteries". One local history buff, a dentist named Dr. Peter Meyerhof has cited historical maps of the mission that would place a graveyard under Sonoma Plaza which is several hundred yards from the mission.

One particularly active area of the mission is a part of the building that staff members call the priest's quarters. Not because priest's actually stayed here, but because the apparition of a priest is frequently seen walking around. Who this priest is, nobody knows, but some believe it may be the spirit of the diabolical Father Altimira.

In 1834 the mission was secularized and power was ceded to a Mexican general named Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. He built two homes in Sonoma, one of which was built on mission property, and is referred to as Casa Grande. Also near the mission are the two story adobe barracks facing the central plaza that were built to house General Vallejo's Mexican army troops.

For a brief period the barracks were the headquarters for the rebellious bear flag party, a group of US horseman that called themselves Osos, who captured slash kidnapped General Vellejo from his home.

They declared an independent republic of California for 25 days, as the US pioneers in California could not own land legally or run for office by law with Mexican government.

The bear flag revolt was the origin of California's first state flag, which was made by William Todd, and a copy of the flag is on display in the barracks today.

Another active area is the mission courtyard where bizarrely the apparition of a bear is often seen.

The final place we'll investigate is the chapel. This is where this historical story veers into lore. In a town with a history of demonic possession, is this chapel, a known hotbed of tragedy and misery, the home of a demon? Or is it perhaps the malevolent

spirit of Padre Altimira? One thing is for sure, if there's a demonic entity that is reckless enough to reside in a house of God, it is not one to be trifled with.

After spending the night roaming the corridors of this tragic San Francisco mission I can certainly see why it's believed to be haunted. I can only hope that if there is indeed a demonic presence within the chapel, that it will not follow us home. But for now, whether or not, mission San Francisco Solano is definitively haunted will remain Unsolved.

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