Capelas - History

History

The first settlements congregated around the port of Poços, along the northern edge that divides Capelas from São Vicente Ferreira; its first settlers establishing shelters in and around the 16th Century. With elevation of Capelas to (religious) parish it became integrated within the municipality of Ponta Delgada (on 11 July 1592). This administrative dependency lasted until it was elevated to status of vila, as stipulated by the Carta de Lei (English: Charter Law) conferred by Queen D. Maria, on July 10, 1839.

There exists a couple of versions for Capela's toponomic origin. Father Gaspar Frutuoso in Saudades das Terras notes the following:

"Some say that they call it 'capelas', not because there existed in those parts churches or chapels, but that on the feast day of Saint John some men constructed there some chapels, forgetting them hung from a tree..."

Likewise, the brothers Bullar, in an account in their journeys, referred to a likely reality: they refer to a general local reference to the rocks along the coast as capelas, rocks taking on the appearance of small grottos and seeming to appear as chapels.

Its main church, to the invocation of Nossa Senhora da Apresentação (English: Our Lady of the Presentation) was raised on the ruins of an older priory and concluded in 1780. Similarly, the church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, built on the orders of Captain Agostinho de Medeiros Costa, in the 17th century, and reconstructed and expanded in 1830. Although Capelas may not have been named for the religious sanctuaries that were erected there, there are many to speak of, including the chapels of Anjo da Guarda, Santa Rita, Nossa Senhora do Rosário and Nossa Senhora de Santana, as well as many smaller hermitages to the invocation of the Holy Spirit.

During the whaling era in the Azores (early to middle 20th Century), Capelas was an important northern processing center on the island of São Miguel; close to the public pools around Poços is the ruins of the mixed-use factory used to process whale oil and mill flour. In Calhau Miúdo there existed two factories (Companhia Nova and Companhia Velha) to process whale byproducts during this period.