Exhibit item:
PEDRO FONT
Diario que forma el P. Fr. Pedro Font ... sacado del borrador que escrivió en el camino del viage que hizo a Monterey y Puerto de San Francisco en compañía del ... Comandante ... Juan Bautista de Anza ... 1775: manuscript, 1776. Copy made at Ures, June 5-23, 1776, by Font of his [short] diary

In 1776 Pedro Font accompanied Juan Bautista de Anza on a march north to the San Francisco Peninsula where they encountered grizzlies in the area that is now San Mateo.

Quotation:
HERBERT EUGENE BOLTON, translation
Font’s Complete Diary, 1933

"Friday, March 29, 1776. We traveled through the valley some four leagues ... and crossed the arroyo of San Matheo where it enters the pass through the hills. About a league before this there came out on our road a very large bear, which the men succeeded in killing.

There are many of these beasts in the country, and they often attack and do damage to the Indians when they go to hunt, of which I saw many horrible examples. When he saw us so near the bear was going along very carelessly on the slope of a hill where flight was not very easy. When I saw him so close that he was looking at us in suspense I feared some disaster. But Corporal Robles fired a shot at him with aim so true that he hit him in the neck. The bear now hurled himself down the slope, crossed the arroyo, and hid in the brush, but he was so badly wounded that after going a short distance he fell dead. Thereupon the soldiers skinned him and took what flesh they wished ...

The commander took the hide to give as a present to the viceroy. The bear was so old that his eye teeth were badly decayed and he lacked one tooth, but he was very fat, although his flesh smelled much like a skunk or like musk. I measured this animal and he was nine spans long and four high. He was horrible, fierce, large and fat, and very tough."