Rancho San Geronimo (Cacho)
Rancho San Geronimo was a 8,701-acre (35.21 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Marin County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Rafael Cacho.[1] The grant extended along San Geronimo Creek and encompassed present-day San Geronimo, Woodacre and Forest Knolls.[2][3][4]
History
In 1844, Rafael Cacho, a military officer, was granted Rancho San Geronimo in the San Geronimo Valley, where he had been living since 1839. Cacho sold the rancho to Lieutenant Joseph Warren Revere (1812–1880). Revere came to Monterey on the USS Portsmouth to assume command of the American forces at Sonoma. He was the one who took down the Bear Flag and raised the American Flag over Sonoma for the first time. In 1846, Revere bought Rancho San Geronimo from Cacho.
With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho San Geronimo was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852,[5] and the grant was patented to Joseph Warren Revere in 1860.[6]
In 1850, Revere left California for Mexico, and he sold a part of Rancho San Geronimo to Rodman M. Price. In 1851, Price returned to New Jersey, where he was elected to Congress and later elected Governor, and hired Lorenzo E. White to manage the rancho until 1855.
M. Hall McAllister, renowned San Francisco attorney and orator, bought the other part of Rancho San Geronimo in 1854.[7] Samuel Cutler Ward and his two cousins M. Hall McAllister (1826–1888) and Ward McAllister (1827–1895) joined the gold rush in 1849. Six months after his arrival in San Francisco, he returned to New York City with a newly acquired fortune. There he met financial failure, and returned to California in 1851, where he remained for the next five years.[8][9]
In 1846, Adolphe Mailliard (1819–1896) married Annie Eliza Ward (1824–1895), sister of Samuel Ward and of Julia Ward Howe. Mailliard came to California in 1868 and bought San Rancho Geronimo.[10][11]
References
- ^ Ogden Hoffman, 1862, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Numa Hubert, San Francisco
- ^ Joslyn, Leila. "Map of Marin County Ranchos". Marin County Free Library — Anne T. Kent California Room. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Rancho San Geronimo
- ^ "Original Mexican Land Grants in Marin County between 1834 and 1846". Archived from the original on November 22, 2003.
- ^ United States. District Court (California : Northern District) Land Case 283 ND
- ^ "Report of the Surveyor General 1844 - 1886" (PDF). California State Lands Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 4, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
- ^ Douglas S. Watson, The San Francisco McAllisters, California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Jun., 1932), pp. 124-128
- ^ John Ward, 1875, A memoir of Lieut.-Colonel Samuel Ward, First Rhode Island regiment, army of the American revolution, New York
- ^ Guide to the Samuel Ward papers
- ^ The Mailliards of California : a family chronicle, 1868-1990 : oral history transcript / 1993
- ^ "Portrait of Ann Eliza Ward Mailliard". Online Archive of California. 1860. Retrieved May 15, 2016.