USA > California > Land in California, the story of mission land, ranches, squatters, mining claims, railroad grants, land scrip, homesteads > Part 6
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Juan Mariné not only looked on San Pascual, he be- came its first owner-excepting, of course, the Indians and the King of Spain himself-and this happened soon after secularization of San Gabriel. The story of Mariné and of later claimants and owners may be found in United States Land Commission Cases 272 and 345, transcripts
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of which are a part of the court records in the office of the United States District Court in San Francisco. These Land Commission proceedings include copies of perti- nent expedientes (land-grant files) obtained from the Mexican archives transferred in the 1850's from Mon- terey to the Surveyor General's Office in San Francisco. ' Throughout these documents there is inconsistency in descriptions and areas.
The Mariné story opens with a petition to the governor dated July 15, 1833, more than a month before seculari- zation was decreed and a year or more before it was made effective. This was the first step required of a prospective ranch owner under the rules and regulations for colo- nization adopted by Mexico in 1828. Juan Mariné's peti- tion reads:
I, Juan Mariner, a retired Lieutenant of Artillery of the Department of Mexico, now in Upper California and a resi- dent of the Mission of San Gabriel, having had the misfor- tune to lose by the floods of the year 1831 an orchard in the Pueblo of Los Angeles, I went to the Mission of San Gabriel with the Rev. Father Sánchez that he might do me the favor of giving me a parcel of land for cultivation, build a house and keep there my livestock and he informed me that when- ever the Indians agreed to it he would be ready, whereupon the (Indian) Alcaldes met and said it was all right and the tract would be given to me. The Rev. Father told them that it would not be for one or two years but forever and they answered that it was all right and they made preparations to measure the lands and give me the place named El Rincon de San Pascual to the extent of three leagues round about to keep my cattle where I drove it in the presence of the Ser- geant stationed at said Mission as also the tract where the house is located together with the garden to the extent of one hundred steps in width by three hundred in length.
I ask and pray your Honor to grant me the place I solicit as a favor I hope to receive.
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The governor of California was Figueroa. The law re- quired him to make an investigation of the merits of this petition. Figueroa sent the petition to Father Tómas Estenaga of San Gabriel, successor to Sánchez on the lat- ter's death in 1833. On the margin the governor wrote: "Let the Rev. Friar Tómas Estenaga Minister of this Mission make his report hereon." Estenaga, very coöp- erative, added: "There is no obstacle to the grant solicited by the petitioner, Juan Mariner, a retired Lieutenant of Artillery."
Going ahead with the investigation from Monterey, California's capital, the governor asked the ayuntamiento of Los Angeles which had jurisdiction over San Pascual to find out if San Pascual was within twenty leagues of the frontiers or ten leagues from the seacoast (limitations referred to in the colonization laws of 1824), and what sort of land it included, to get proof that the applicant, Mariné, was a Mexican citizen, to check his marital status, and whether he was a man who conducted himself well and had served in the army. Also, did the land applied for belong to any person, pueblo, or corporation and was it irrigable, arable, or pasture land? And, further, did Mariné have the cattle to stock San Pascual? The ayunta- miento made its report a month later:
In session of yesterday this Illustrious Ayuntamiento in conformity with the foregoing decree of the Hon. the Political Chief of the territory, ordered that a report be made stating that Don Juan Mariné a Spaniard by birth has the requisite qualifications required by law to be considered in his peti- tion, for, besides the fact of his having resided about forty years in this territory, he has rendered various services in favor of the country, conducting himself honorably; that the land he solicits does not lie within the twenty leagues from the frontiers nor within the ten leagues from the littoral, but
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that it comprises irrigable, arable and pasture land and apper- tains to the Mission of San Gabriel and for the purposes that may be convenient.
I sign as president of the said corporation, together with the secretary thereof.
José Antonio Carrillo Vicente Moraga, Secy.
The alcalde or mayor of Los Angeles contributed his share also:
In the Pueblo of Our Lady of Los Angeles, territory of Upper California, on the 8th day of January, 1834.
I, José Perez, Constitutional Alcalde, with the previous summons as ordered by the foregoing decree of the Hon. Political Chief, caused to appear before me and the assistant witnesses in default of a notary public, Don Juan Mariné who presented the qualified competent witnesses, citizens Maximo Alanis, Manuel Moreno and José Manuel Silvas and having questioned them according to the foresaid decree answered unanimously that they know Don Juan Mariné to be a native of the Province of Catalonia, Spain, married to a woman of this country by whom he had a large family; that his conduct during the forty years they have known him has been irreproachable; that most of that time they knew him to have served the nation in the army until he was retired with the grade of Lieutenant; that the lands he solicits appertain to the Mission of San Gabriel and is arable and pasture land, laying in the shape of a triangle extending on the South one league and one-half; that they know he has been in possession of it since the year 1833 and in proof of the truth of the fore- said witnesses signed the foregoing declaration with me and the assistant witnesses and as citizens Máximo Alanis and José Manuel Silvas knew not how to write each one made a cross.
With the petition and these reports in front of him, as one document, Governor Figueroa on May 6, 1834, de- clared Don Juan Mariné the "owner in fee of the land
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known by the name of Rincon de San Pascual, bounded by the Mission of San Gabriel, the Sierra and Arroyo Seco, subject to the conditions that may be stipulated." He ordered a title to be issued and the record to be sent the Territorial Deputation for its approval.
The formal grant of title was in these words:
José Figueroa, General of Brigade of the Mexican Repub- lic, Commandante General, Inspector and Superior Chief of Upper California:
Whereas, Don Juan Mariner, a meritorious Lieutenant, has solicited for his personal benefit and that of his family the tract of land known by the name of Rincon de San Pas- cual, bounded by the Mission of San Gabriel, the Sierra and Arroyo Seco; the proper proceedings and investigations hav- ing previously been had agreeably to the provisions of the laws and regulations in virtue of the authority on me con- ferred in the name of the Mexican Nation I have thought proper by a decree of the 6th May last to grant to the fore- said Don Juan Mariner the above mentioned tract of land of El Rincon de San Pascual, declaring it his property by the present letters, understanding the said concession in entire conformity with the provisions of the laws subject to the approval or disapproval of the Exct, the Territorial Deputa- tion and of the Supreme Government, and under the follow- ing conditions:
ist. That he will submit to the conditions that may be stip- ulated by the regulations to be framed for the distribution of vacant lands and that in the mean time neither the grantee nor his heirs shall divide nor alienate the land hereby granted to him nor subject it to rent, entail, bond, mortgage, nor other encumbrance even though it were for a charitable cause, nor convey it in mortmain.
2nd. He may enclose it without detriment to the crossways, roads and servitudes. He will enjoy it freely and exclusively, putting it to the use or cultivation that may suit him best, but before the end of one year at the furtherest he shall build a house and it shall be inhabited.
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grd. When the ownership shall have been confirmed to him he will request the proper magistrate to give him the juridical possession in virtue of this title whereby the boundaries shall be marked out, at the limits whereof he shall set besides the land marks, some fruit or forest trees of some utility.
4th. The land of which donation is hereby made to him is of the extent of one-half (sitio de ganado mayor) square leagues, little more or less, as explained by the map annexed to the record of proceedings. The magistrate who may give the possession will cause it to be measured agreeably to the ordinance for the marking of boundaries, the surplus (so- brante) which may result in favor of the nation remaining for convenient purposes.
5th. If he contravene these conditions he shall forfeit his right to the land and it shall be open to denouncement by another party.
In consequence I order that the present serving as his title and holding it as firm and valid it be recorded in the corres- ponding book and be delivered to the interested party for his security and further purposes.
Given in Monterey on the 18th February, 1835.
José Figueroa Agustín V. Zamorano, Secretary.
There is this entry, too:
This title is recorded in the book of grants of land leaf 63, No. 61 on file in the secretary's office under my charge.
Monterey, February 18th, 1835.
Zamorano.
The Territorial Deputation, California's Assembly, took a few months to act, but on August 27, 1835, referred the matter to its committee on vacant land. Juan Castro, who headed this committee, acted promptly and the next day gave approval to Citizen Mariné's concession. The deputation's approval came on August 29, 1835, the nota-
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tion being: "In session of this day ... the Deputation approved the foregoing opinion and it was agreed that the record of proceedings be forwarded to the Superior Political Chief for the conclusion thereof."
The record of Mariné's acquisition of Rancho San Pascual, beginning with his petition and ending with the final approval of the Assembly, made up his land-grant file. It was given the number of 211 in the Jimeno Index at Monterey, and a copy appears in the proceedings of Land Commission Case No. 272 and the United States District Court (Southern Division) Case No. 116.
Juan Mariné had still to be officially given possession of the property, but this matter was a local affair to be taken care of by the mayor of Los Angeles and assistants. It was a job for chainbearers and amateur surveyors pro- ceeding on horseback around the boundaries of the rancho, using a cord 100-varas long to each end of which was fastened a wooden stake, and placing proper land- marks as they went.
Shortly before Mariné had set in motion the machinery for getting his rancho he married a widow, Eulalia Pérez de Guillen, elderly nurse and midwife at San Gabriel, a woman destined to outlive Mariné and to become famous for her age. It was not his first marriage, for the Land Commission proceedings show his first wife to have been María Antonio Sepúlveda by whom he had six children. The second marriage to Eulalia, we may well believe, was a match made by practical-minded Father Sánchez. By it, San Gabriel could satisfy its obligations to the hard work- ing Eulalia-and Eulalia came to believe that Father Sán- chez gave the San Pascual to her. "When I married him," she said in later reminiscing about her marriage to Ma- riné, "I was a very old woman"-nearly sixty, probably-
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"but strong and active, with scarcely a gray hair. Never- theless, I never had any children by him."
Juan Mariné died in 1838. His widow retained the house and garden at San Gabriel, but his son Fruto, who was a soldier, sold his interest in the rancho to José Pérez, Eulalia's cousin, for six horses and ten head of cattle. The sale took place on April 1, 1839, Fruto going before the alcalde of Los Angeles, making known his purposes, in the presence of witnesses, and stating that his brothers had consented to the transaction, and acknowledging re- ceipt of the horses and cattle. The deed was drawn up as evidence and was filed with the alcalde who also acted as recorder. An English translation of this deed may be seen today in the office of the recorder of Los Angeles County (Book A).
But Mariné, it seems, had been really no ranchero at all. He had failed-and his heirs failed-to use and culti- vate San Pascual, though Governor Figueroa provided for this in the grant itself. The land laws of 1828 provided that failure to occupy or cultivate land voided a grant, and the fifth stipulation in the deed to Mariné said: "If he contravenes these conditions he shall forfeit his right to the land and it shall be open to denouncement by an- other party."
And so it happened. On April 10, 1840, Mariné's Rin- con de San Pascual was "denounced" by José Pérez and his friend Enrique Sepúlveda. Their petition to the governor, asking for this land and vacant land adjoining, accompanied by a diseño or map, was transmitted to Juan Bandini, then administrator of the mission. Pérez and Sepúlveda claimed that the land had been abandoned for the past four years.
Bandini reported the property to be "vacant sobrantes
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(surplus lands) for the benefit of the nation," and the prefect stated that the Mariné heirs had not met the gov- ernment's requirements.
Accordingly, on September 24, 1840, Governor Al- varado made a provisional grant of Rancho San Pascual to Pérez and Sepúlveda on condition that they would not obstruct the crossways and roads and would obey the rules which San Gabriel might adopt with respect to its "town limits."
The new owners took possession, with their horses and cattle. Each built a small house near the Arroyo Seco.
Then, for a second time El Rincon de San Pascual was to be abandoned by its owners and "denounced" by other landseekers.
"I was on the place in the year 1840 or 1841," said Abel Stearns, a witness for the new applicant, Manuel Garfias. "Sepúlveda and Pérez had each a small house on the land which was occupied. They had stock on the place. Sepúl- veda I recollect had a pretty good stock of horses and mares and a small stock of cattle. Pérez I think had stock there. The occupation of Pérez continued until he died, which was, I think, in 1841. Sepúlveda I think occupied it until his death which was I believe in 1843 ... "
At Pérez' death his cattle and horses were sent to the ranch of Antonio María Lugo, the widow's father. Sepúl- veda's animals were killed, stolen, or scattered, "all of which," he explained, "made me give up the desire to stock and cultivate the place."
Garfias, a young officer in the Mexican army, paid $70 to Sepúlveda and $100 to the widow of Pérez to com- pensate them for the two adobe houses. On November 28, 1843, he received the formal grant from Governor Michel- torena and took possession.
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A year before the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which California was ceded to the United States, the Pasadena area figured slightly in the contest between American troops and Mexican. After being de- feated at the Battle of La Mesa (January 9, 1847), the Californians under General Flores withdrew to Rancho San Pascual and to the south slope of Raymond Hill. Here was a stream of water, an oak grove and a building (now called the Flores Adobe). Sentinel horsemen were posted on top of Raymond Hill to watch for the coming of the United States troops. The Americans, however, ignored them; instead of marching to Pasadena they went into Los Angeles with flags flying and took formal possession.
The transition to American rule was an easy one, since local government was unaffected for the time being, and since local officials continued in office.
When the three members of the Board of United States Land Commissioners, Alpheus Felch, Thompson Camp- bell and R. Augustus Thompson, arrived in Los Angeles in August of 1852, they were greeted most warmly, espe- cially by those who expected to file land claims. Manuel Garfias gave a grand ball in their honor at his Main and First Street adobe residence in Los Angeles.
When Garfias filed his claim to San Pascual on Septem- ber 16, 1852 (Land Commission Case No. 345), he accom- panied it with a wealth of evidence and followed this up with the depositions of such eminent southlanders as Pío Pico, José Antonio Carrillo, Manuel Domínguez, An- tonio F. Coronel, Ygnacio del Valle, Fernando Sepúlveda, Agustín Olvera, Abel Stearns, and José del Carmen Lugo.
The claim was approved April 25, 1854, Thompson de- livering the opinion. Confirmation by the district court (Case 173, Southern District) came March 6, 1856. The
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survey, when completed, included 13,693.93 acres in the rancho. On April 3, 1863, the United States patent was issued. Abraham Lincoln's signature appeared on this document, which was recorded in Book 1, Page 14 of Patents, County Recorder's Office, Los Angeles. The Re- corder's Office, it might be noted, was part of the system of American county and town governments organized by the legislature in 1850, as provided for by the constitu- tion of California adopted in 1849.
Meanwhile, Garfias built an adobe house not far from the springs where the Indians once had a village. It be- came famous as a country place, a favorite spot for the Los Angeles friends of the owner. Judge Benjamin S. Eaton, coming to San Pascual Rancho in 1858, visited at the "Garfias hacienda." He described it as one of the finest country establishments in southern California. "It was a one and a half story adobe building, with walls two feet thick, all nicely plastered inside and out, and had an ample corridor extending all around. It had board floors, and boasted of green blinds-a rare thing in those days. This structure cost $5,000-in fact, it cost Garfias his ranch, for he had to borrow money to build it."
The walls of the Garfias adobe were pulled down dur- ing the boom of the 'eighties to make way for a sub- division. The ancient oak tree, known today as Cathedral Oak, which it faced still grows near the edge of the arroyo.
San Pascual was not the best of cattle ranges and when dry years came the fortunes of Manuel Garfias suffered. Then, too, Garfias liked politics better than ranching; he liked it better than serving in the army under Flores. While he acted as the county treasurer of Los Angeles in 1850-1851, his mother-in-law Doña Encarnación Sepúl- veda de Avila, ran the ranch. Finally his borrowings, at
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the usual ruinous rates of interest, forced him to sacrifice his property.
In January, 1859, Garfias deeded the ranch to Ben- jamin D. Wilson, the disclosed consideration being $1,800. The following year, in May, Wilson gave John S. Griffin a half interest for $4,000.
Benjamin D. Wilson-Don Benito-after whom a mountain, a canyon, a lake, a ditch, a trail, an avenue, and a school were named, had come to Los Angeles with trappers in 1841. In 1852 he bought what was known as the Lake Vineyard property, adjoining San Pascual, where he built his home near the "Old Mill." Dr. John S. Griffin had come as chief medical officer with the Amer- ican Army.
From time to time various parts of the ranch were sold and in 1873 Wilson and Griffin partitioned the unsold section between them. Griffin, who wished to sell out to the "Indiana Colony," took approximately four thousand acres. Wilson, who wanted to hold on, took sixteen hun- dred acres. The Griffin land included the original site of Pasadena.1
One fall day in 1873, Judge Eaton had taken a visitor from Indiana to the San Pascual Ranch. They drove from Los Angeles, following the Arroyo Seco, stopping at the Garfias adobe and then on to "Fair Oaks," Eaton's home. The pleasant valley and the luminous mountains capti- vated the Judge's guest, who was D. M. Berry, purchasing agent for the California Colony of Indiana. This organi- zation of Indiana people, hopeful of emigrating to Cali- fornia, had grown out of a meeting of friends at Dr. T. B. Elliott's home in Indianapolis one cold Sunday during
1 For Garfias-Wilson-Griffin deeds, see Book 4, p. 310; Book 5, p. 79; Book 27, p. 229, of Deeds, County Recorder's Office, Los Angeles.
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the winter of 1872-1873. Berry had been sent on to spy out the promised land.
When at last Berry saw the San Pascual Ranch, after weary months of colony-site hunting, he knew he need go no farther. Meanwhile the panic of 1873 had nearly wrecked his original Indiana group. So, to buy and colo- nize San Pascual land, he formed a new organization in Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association, most of the stockholders of which were not Hoosiers. Before the end of the year incorporation was completed, as shown by articles of incorporation filed in the County Clerk's office. Capital stock in the amount of $25,000, divided into shares of $250 each, was subscribed by those eager to settle on the rancho.
On December 26, 1873, John S. Griffin made a deed of his four thousand acres to Thomas F. Croft, one of the directors of the new corporation, and three days later Croft gave title to the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association. The consideration passing to Griffin was $25,000.ª
Since buying Griffin's land, the association had sur- veyed and platted fifteen hundred acres lying west of what is now Fair Oaks Avenue, each colonist to get fifteen acres for each share of stock. (Two years more were to pass before B. D. Wilson's holdings, lying east of the Avenue, would be subdivided.) The lots ranged on both sides of Orange Grove Avenue, which was given its name by Calvin Fletcher.
By ten o'clock on the morning of January 27, 1874, buggies began to arrive on the plain that was to be Pasa- dena. In the buggies were men, women, children, and
2 The Croft deeds are recorded in Book 27, pp. 251 and 267, of Deeds, County Recorder's Office, Los Angeles.
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picnic baskets. The hills were green and flowers were out, for there had been early rains. After lunch, on that im- portant January day in 1874, there was a roll call of subdividers. Then the lots were chosen and assigned.
Cultivation began at once. By the end of May the colony had houses, a reservoir to hold 3,000,000 gallons of water, an irrigating system, 80 acres of grain raised for hay, 100,000 grape cuttings set out, 10,000 small trees purchased for nursery planting, and a large area of land prepared for corn.
Apparently no colonist thought of drawing upon local terms in christening the village. So "Indiana Colony" gave way to "Pasadena" at a meeting of the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association held April 22, 1875. "Pasa- dena," coined out of the Chippewa language, was offered by Dr. T. B. Elliott. Its meaning is "valley between hills.""
Such is the story of Rancho San Pascual and its trans- formation into a city. If continued to the present mo- ment, it would include the life stories of every owner of every parcel of land in Pasadena. The story as presented has been told largely from original sources, and in chrono- logical order. The professional title searcher, however, asked to "search" the title to a piece of Pasadena land, would reverse this procedure. He would start with a lot in a particular block in a particular Pasadena subdivision. Beginning with the deed to the present owner of that lot, he would work backward, examining every recorded deed and every recorded or filed document or proceeding re- lating to it. Soon, he would be dealing with land before its present subdivision, in time he might come across a conveyance from the San Gabriel Orange Grove Associa-
$ Phil Townsend Hanna, The Dictionary of California Land Names (Los Angeles, 1946).
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tion itself, and, further back, a deed from John S. Griffin, one from Benjamin D. Wilson, and another from Manuel Garfias in whose name the title to all of Rancho San Pas- cual was vested. He would find the recorded United States patent confirming Garfias' title, and, if he were bent on rolling back local history, he would dig into all the Land Commission and district court proceedings relating to this rancho, as well as the records of the Mexican and Spanish periods-local and state-and not overlook the supplementary and illuminating items to be furnished by histories and personal accounts. An insurer of land titles, however, would have no occasion to go back of the Garfias patent, since United States patents in confirma- tion of Spanish or Mexican titles are today incontestable.
San Pascual is only one rancho. Probably every other rancho in California would have a revealing, human- interest story if its chain of title were prepared and the source materials studied.
CHAPTER VIII
The Land Commission
TWENTY DAYS out of Panama, the steamship Oregon ar- rived in the pleasant port of Monterey, California, one September night in 1849. It brought lawyer William Carey Jones, confidential agent of the United States gov- ernment.
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