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Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante

Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante was a 48,189-acre (195.01 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day western Marin County, California, given by Governor Manuel Micheltorena in 1843 to Antonio Maria Osio.[1] The name means "Leftover of Point Reyes Ranch". It comprised much of what is now western Marin County and the Point Reyes National Seashore.[2][3][4]

History

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Antonio Maria Osio

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Antonio Maria Osio (1800–1878) was born in and died in Mexico. Osio married Dolores Argüello, sister of Luis Antonio Argüello, the first governor of California. In 1838, Osio settled in Monterey. In 1839, Governor Alvarado granted Osio, Angel Island, on the condition that Osio would set aside part of the island for a fort. However, Osio never took up residence there. In 1839, Osio bought Rancho Punta de los Reyes from Joseph Snook (1798–1848), and sought about acquiring the adjacent eleven square league Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante, which Governor Micheltorena granted him in 1843. Osio was also the grantee of the six square league Rancho Aguas Frias given by Governor Micheltorena in 1844.

After Osio was granted Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante, he built a few structures, but didn't spend much time there. He moved his family to San Rafael. In 1843, when Rafael Garcia moved onto part of the neighboring Rancho Punta de los Reyes of James Richard Berry; Berry, in turn, moved west onto a portion of Osio's Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante. Though Osio protested this incursion onto his land with the authorities in Monterey, nothing ever came of it.[5][6][7]

In 1846, during the Mexican–American War, Osio fled to Honolulu, where he lived until 1849. After returning to Monterey in 1850, Osio sold his Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante to Andrew Randall, who also bought Rancho Punta de los Reyes, and Rancho Aguas Frias. Osio returned to Mexico in 1852. With his second wife, Narcisa Florencia Soto, he had thirteen children. He died in San José del Cabo in 1878.[8][9]

Andrew Randall

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Andrew Randall (1819–1856), a native of Rhode Island, came to California on the U.S.S. Portsmouth in 1846. Randall was a geologist with medical training. He founded, and was elected chairman of the California Academy of Sciences. In addition to Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante and Rancho Punta de los Reyes in Marin County, Randall was the claimant for Rancho Cañada de la Segunda and Rancho San Lorenzo in Monterey County; and Rancho Aguas Frias in Butte County – a little over 110,000 acres (445 km2). However he had stretched his credit to the limit, and Randall could not or would not pay immediately. Joseph Hetherington a creditor undertook to force payment by hounding him on every occasion with insults and threats. Hetherington fatally shot Randall in a San Francisco hotel on July 24, 1856, and the Committee of Vigilance hanged Hetherington July 29, 1856.

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 Punta de los Reyes Sobrante was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852,[10][11] and the grant was patented to Andrew Randall in 1860.[12]

Shafter family

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In 1857, the complex real estate litigation resulted in the law firm of Oscar L. Shafter and James McMillan Shafter winning a victory for their client of 75,000 acres of farm land at Point Reyes in Marin County.[13] The client sold the property to the Shafters.[14] They leased it to dairy farmers who provided milk and butter to an ever-growing San Francisco and prospered.[15] The Shafter families owned most of Point Reyes from 1857 to 1919, when the land was sold in parcels.[16]

National Park Service

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The National Park Service acquired the land on Point Reyes to form the Point Reyes National Seashore.

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Ogden Hoffman, 1862, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Numa Hubert, San Francisco
  2. ↑ Diseño del Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante
  3. ↑ Marin County Ranchos Archived 2008-11-14 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ Original Mexican Land Grants in Marin County Archived 2011-06-12 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ↑ Livingston, Dewey (1995). A Good Life: Dairy Farming in the Olema Valley. San Francisco: National Park Service. p. 419.
  6. ↑ Dairy and Beef Ranches on the Point Reyes Peninsula 1834–1945 D.S. Livingston, National Park Service
  7. ↑ Robert H. Becker, "Historical Survey of Point Reyes," Land Use Survey. Proposed Point Reyes National Seashore (San Francisco: Region Four Office, National Park Service, February, 1961)
  8. ↑ Antonio Maria Osio, Robert M. Senkewicz, Rose Marie Beebe, 1996, History of Alta California: A Memoir of Mexican California, University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 978-0-299-14974-1
  9. ↑ Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz, 1996, Osio's La Historia de Alta California, Recovering the U. S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, pp. 168–184, Arte Publico Press, ISBN 978-1-55885-139-9
  10. ↑ United States. District Court (California : Northern District) Land Case 236 ND
  11. ↑ Finding Aid to the Documents Pertaining to the Adjudication of Private Land Claims in California, circa 1852-1892
  12. ↑ Report of the Surveyor General 1844–1886 Archived 2013-03-20 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ↑ "Point Reyes Station, California: 1857-1919: The Shafter Empire". SeeCalifornia.com. Retrieved July 18, 2017.
  14. ↑ Tippin, Brenda L. (May 2016). "History Lesson: Past and Present: Pt. Reyes Morgan Horse Ranch" (PDF). National Park Service. p. 27. Retrieved July 18, 2017. Senior partner Oscar Lovell Shafter was, at that time, considered the foremost title lawyer in California
  15. ↑ Pranka, Carol A. (Spring 2014). "Good as Gold: The Marin-Sonoma Artisan Cheese Cluster, a Ph.D. dissertation" (PDF). University of California, Berkeley. p. 20. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 16, 2017. Retrieved July 18, 2017. soon after a group of San Francisco lawyers, led by brothers Oscar and James Shafter and son-in-law Charles Webb Howard, acquired much of the land in the Point Reyes area
  16. ↑ "Big Marin Estate Sold to Operator". Healdsburg Tribune. No. 27. California Digital Newspaper Collection. 4 December 1929. p. 1. Retrieved July 19, 2017. The sale was made by Mrs. Julia Shafter Hamilton, daughter of the late Judge James McMillan Shafter, who bought the tract in 1876.

38°01′12″N 122°59′24″W / 38.020°N 122.990°W / 38.020; -122.990

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