Preserving Marin County's Portuguese Heritage

• First Sausalito Holy Ghost Festa
• IDESST Portuguese Hall in Sausalito
• Tradition of the Holy Ghost Festa
• First Immigrants from the Azores
• Portuguese Dairy Ranches

First Sausalito Holy Ghost Festa
It was a Sunday morning in June, 1886 and the fishing village of Sausalito just north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate had not seen anything like it. At 11 a.m., little girls wearing white dresses and bedecked in roses and carrying a glistening silver crown were led by bearers of Portuguese and American flags. They marched to the Catholic Church, where the crown would be placed on an altar. There a priest celebrated Mass in Portuguese. The girls and the crown they carried represented their beloved Portuguese Queen Isabel and her attendants, and the procession was the first recorded Festa do Espírito Santo (Festival of the Holy Ghost) held in Sausalito. When Mass ended, the congregation returned to António Lourenço’s store on Caledonia Street for a traditional feast of “carne e sopas” (meat and soup) and festivities, bonfires, and fireworks. The festivities continued for a full week.

The Holy Ghost celebration has been a Sausalito tradition ever since. Just two years after the first festa in Sausalito the original Portuguese Hall had its grand opening on Filbert Street in Sausalito. The Holy Ghost festa that year featured cattle bedecked in flowers being driven down Filbert Street, followed by a bevy of pretty young women who turned heads as they paraded through town to the Catholic Church for the priest’s blessing.

Back to Top

IDESST Portuguese Hall in Sausalito
Sausalito was settled by immigrants from the Azores, a nine-island Atlantic archipelago. Hungry for their traditions, many of the immigrants banded together to form the Sausalito chapter of the "Irmandade do Divino Espírito Santo e Santissima Trindade," or the “Brotherhood of the Holy Ghost and the Blessed Trinity." It's commonly known as the “IDESST.”

The organization was officially formed on May 13, 1888 and members met in the original Portuguese Hall located on Filbert Street in Sausalito where the First Baptist Church is now located. The organization moved into a new hall on Caledonia Street in 1954.

Since its founding Portuguese Hall has been a focal point of the region's Portuguese community. The IDESST is dedicated to preserving the religious, social and cultural customs of Marin's Portuguese immigrants and their descendants.

Back to Top

Tradition of the Holy Ghost Festa
Behind the Holy Ghost Festa is a beloved Portuguese legend that still moves people, especially in the Azores where traditions remain the center of community life. The legend dates to two centuries of hunger and poverty beginning in the late 1200s when famine ravaged the Portuguese countryside.

The struggling people gathered in their churches, and prayed to the Divine Holy Spirit. The Mass evolved into the Espírito Santo Festa, an annual celebration of thanksgiving for Queen Isabel’s unselfish gifts of food for the poor (see story of Queen Isabel on our Events Calendar page). Tradition is that young girls are crowned queens during a special Mass. Then celebrants enjoy singing and dancing, and a traditional free meal of “carne and sopas.”

Back to Top

First Immigrants from the Azores
The first Portuguese immigrants arrive in Marin County in the early 1800’s. They were enlisted by Yankee whaling ships that stopped in the Azores for water, food and other supplies. The skilled young Portuguese sailors were brought around the Cape Horn to pursue the whales off the California coast. Sausalito, overlooking San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean waters reminded the early sailors of their homeland. They settled quickly, taken by the arid but cool climate. Soon to follow were anchovy and sardine fishermen, boat builders and finally scores of dairymen from the Azores.

From the Gold Rush era on successive waves of Portuguese immigrants arrived. They carved out new lives but clung to the traditions of their past. As late as the 1940s, there was a saying that a traveler from the Golden Gate to Petaluma would never be out of site of a Portuguese dairy. Sausalito’s Holy Ghost Festa is a reminder of the cultural ties that bind and unites Portuguese immigrants and their descendants.

Back to Top

Portuguese Dairy Ranches
The earliest Portuguese immigrants settled in southern Marin County beginning in the 1850s, establishing tight-knit communities in Sausalito and other nearby towns. By the turn-of-the-century immigrant dairymen had transformed the local industry. The largest numbers of Portuguese immigrants were from dairy farms in the Azores, already famous for its cows and cheese. The Ilha de São Jorge is the center of the Azores’ dairy industry, and many of West Marin’s families have their roots there. Lush pastures and the temperate climate of West Marin were nearly ideal for dairy herds, just as on São Jorge. For decades Marin County was the leading dairy production county in the state, and its famous butter eagerly sought by urban residents.

Marin’s dairy industry was largely built by the hard labor of these newcomers. They relied on their Azorean heritage to create new lives for their families far from their island homes. Times have changed, and with the creation of Point Reyes National Seashore and the emergence of the Central Valley as a dairy production center, Marin’s dairy industry has become a quieter way of life. Its Portuguese heritage, however, is still celebrated. Descendants of the early immigrants continue to live in Marin, their Azorean names a reminder of their heritage: Afonso, Amador, Avila, Azevedo, Bello, Bettencourt, Boreiros, Brazil, Cunha, DeFraga, Dias, Francisco, Ferreira, Freitas, Lourenço (Lawrence), Machado, Martins, Mattos, Moraes, Paulino, Pedrosa, Lacerda, Ladera, Lopes, Nunes, Quadres, Regallo, Rosa, Sequeira, Silva, Silveira, Soares, Sousa, Teixeira, Terra, and Vieira among others.

Back to Top