Berreyesa family
Encyclopedia
The Berreyesa family was a substantial clan of Basque-heritage Spanish
-speaking settlers in early Northern California
who held extensive land in the greater San Francisco Bay Area
. The members of the family lost nearly all of their real estate holdings to Anglo
squatters
, debts and legal battles in the decades following the formation of the United States
Public Land Commission
in 1851—though pre-existing land grants of Mexican-era landowners had been continued by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
. In the 1850s, Anglo settlers of California killed eight Berreyesa men, and some Berreyesas chose to leave Northern California to save their lives. Antonio Berreyesa once said that his Californio
family was the "one which most justly complained of the bad faith of the adventurers and squatters and of the treachery of American lawyers."
The name Berreyesa comes from the Basque name Berrelleza, and was changed in California to several alternate spellings including Berelleza, Berrellesa and Berryessa. Lake Berryessa
is the largest geographical feature named for the family.
. This son, José de Jesús (Cayetano) Berrelleza, married 10-year-old María Nicolasa Micaela Leyba (or Leyva) in Sinaloa in 1735. In 1754, María and José Berrelleza welcomed a daughter, Ana Ysabel (also spelled Isabel), and in 1761 they produced a son, Nicolás Antonio. The children's mother died, and their father took a new wife that the children were very unhappy with.
In 1775, the Spanish government indicated its desire to settle Alta California against further encroachment by Russian fur trappers, so in October, the Lieutenant Colonel
Juan Bautista de Anza
formed a party of 200 colonists including soldiers for protection. Ana Ysabel, 21, and Nicolás Antonio Berrelleza, 14, joined the group, traveling with the Gabriel Peralta family. The party arrived at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
in January 1776, then continued on to land at Monterey, California
in March.
. His new wife was five years younger and also a native of New Spain, born at the Presidio de Tubac
(in modern-day Arizona
) in 1766.
María and Nicolás Berrelleza produced nine children from 1780 to 1797, born in San Francisco and the Santa Clara area
. Three of their four sons went on to hold large Mexican land grants: José de los Reyes
held land in San José
including the rich New Almaden
quicksilver
mine, Nazario Antonio raised great herds of livestock on Rancho Las Putas
for himself and his sons, and Nicolás Antonio II was granted Rancho Milpitas
. The eldest daughter, María Gabriela
, married into the Castro family; she and her husband settled Rancho San Pablo
in what is now called Contra Costa County
.
María Gertrudis Peralta Berrelleza died at age 36 in December 1802 and was buried at Mission San José (Her brother Luís María Peralta
later became a powerful landowner, with holdings in San José as well as the extensive Rancho San Antonio.). Nicolás Berrelleza remarried in November 1803, to 13-year-old María Ignacio Amador, and produced a son, Francisco, in May 1804. Berrelleza died in October 1804 at the age of 43, and was buried at Mission Santa Clara. His widow bore him a daughter seven months later.
(also spelled Berreyesa) was born November 26, 1780, and christened the same day at Mission Santa Clara. She was the first child of the family. On February 16, 1795 she married 22-year-old Francisco María Castro, third son of Joaquín de Castro, one of the founding settlers of San José and a corporal in the artillery company of San Francisco. The two made their home in San José and produced thirteen offspring during 1796–1824. Castro was made an elector in 1822 after which he served as alcalde and on a civil board that heard disputes.
Castro explored land at the northeast edge of San Francisco Bay in 1823, and was granted Rancho San Pablo
by Governor Luís Antonio Argüello
. He and his family moved to the rancho some time after 1824. He died in 1831 at San Pablo.
María Gabriela Berreyesa Castro died on December 21, 1851, and was buried at Mission San Francisco de Asís
, known as Mission Dolores. Rancho San Pablo was patented to her children in 1852.
(also spelled Berreyesa) was born at Mission Santa Clara on January 6, 1785, the third child and first son in the family. He served as an army sergeant at El Presidio Real de San Francisco
. In 1805, he married María Zacarías Bernal at Mission Santa Clara. The couple had 13 children during 1807–1833, with 10 living past infancy. They moved in 1834 to hold land in Almaden Valley
.
In 1842, José de los Reyes Berreyesa received from Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado
a grant giving him one square league, or 4438 acres (18 km²), of the land he had been cultivating, called Rancho San Vicente
, near the Santa Teresa Hills and at the south end of Almaden Valley. The grant included a large section of the rocky hills upon which a rich source of mercury
-carrying cinnabar
ore was found in 1844–1845, and the discovery was made public. Mercury was an important part of gold- and silver-mining operations, and was in demand the world over, and especially in the California gold fields after 1848. The neighboring grant, Rancho Cañada de los Capitancillos
, was now held by Andrés Castillero, who claimed the mercury mine was part of his land. Robert Walkinshaw and some other men squatted on the land in February 1845 and began to take lumber and limestone away for sale in August. The New Almaden
mercury mine began producing a small amount of rich ore in 1846.
In 1846, during the Bear Flag Revolt, three of the sons of José de los Reyes Berreyesa were imprisoned by John C. Frémont
in Sonoma, California
, where one of the sons, José de los Santos Berreyesa
, had been serving as alcalde. Accompanied by two cousins, twin sons of Francisco de Haro
, the 61-year-old father went to see how his sons were being treated in prison. After they landed their boat in San Rafael
, the three men were shot and killed by three of Frémont's men, including Kit Carson
, and they were stripped of their belongings. When asked by prisoner José de los Santos Berreyesa whether their father had been killed, Frémont said it might have been a man named Castro. A soldier of Frémont's was seen wearing the elder Berreyesa's serape, and Frémont refused to assist José de los Santos Berreyesa in retrieving it as a final token of their father to give to their mother. The three brothers resorted to buying the serape from the soldier for the extortionate price of $25 ($ today.) Later, Carson told Jasper O'Farrell that he regretted killing the Californios, but that the act was only one such that Frémont ordered him to commit.
The New Almaden mine was taken in possession by Robert Walkinshaw of the New Almaden Mining Company in April 1847 by means of a forged grant document supposedly bearing the signature of the alcalde of Presidio San José, José Dolores Pacheco, who always signed documents "Dolores Pacheco"—the questionable document was signed only "Pacheco", and in a finer hand than his. Three of the Berreyesa sons battled with the squatters, trying to dislodge them from the mining works. Their mother, the widow María Zacarías Bernal de Berreyesa, fought for the land by filing suit in court against the New Almaden Mining Company. Castillero filed suit to prove his claim on the mine, and the United States worked to prove the mining land was public, not part of any grant, so that the government could seize the mine. The case dragged on for years as witnesses were called from Mexico. In July 1854, her ninth son, José de la Encarnación Ramón Antonio Berreyesa, was grabbed by a posse, tied with rope around the neck and questioned, but was set free. Several days later, her fifth son, Joseph Zenobia Nemesio Berreyesa, was guarding the New Almaden mine at night when he was seized by masked men and hanged. In 1856, men broke into the home of her seventh son, Francisco Antonio Berreyesa, and killed him. Aftering leaving for the relative safety of Ventura, José de la Encarnación Ramón Antonio Berreyesa was caught on February 5, 1857 by a band of vigilantes that had been told he consorted with the bandit Juan Flores
. The vigilantes, a group called the El Monte Rangers who were frustrated at the recent escape of Flores, saw the rope scars around Berreyesa's neck and assumed he had somehow foiled a prior attempt at execution, so they hanged him until dead.
An 1863 court decision in the Berreyesa's favor allowed them to sell the rights to work the mine for $1,700,000 in 1864. Eventually, the United States was able to prove that the two adjoining land grants did not include the rocky hills and the mine, and the mining operation was nationalized. The Berreyesa family was finally rewarded on June 24, 1868 with a patent issued by the United States Supreme Court stating that the arable land of the rancho was theirs, but not the rocky hills containing the mines. Doña María died in 1869 in San Rafael.
1876 was the year that the greatest amount of mercury was removed from the New Almaden mine: 3610341 pounds (1,637,623 kg) of the liquid metal. By 1880, $16 million worth of mercury had been mined, about $ million in current value.
, called Rancho Las Putas
, named for Putah Creek
which ran through it. Nazario raised 5,000 cattle, 20,000 horses and grew grain crops throughout the fertile valley that became known as Berryessa Valley. The livestock holdings extended northward over some rocky hills to a neighboring valley, Rancho Cañada de Capay
, ranched by Berreyesa cousins.
, an area equal to one square league, or 4458 acres (18 km²), by the alcalde of San José, Pedro Chaboya. The governor of Alta California, José Castro, granted a neighboring tract to José María Alviso
sixteen months later, in 1835. In 1852, Anglo squatters were living on the Alviso and Berreyesa grants in numbers too great for the Californios to eject. A man named James Jake described to Nicolás Antonio Berreyesa a scheme wherein Berreyesa and three of his sons would emulate the squatters and mark out four new plots to build dwellings and establish their claim on the land. Jake quickly moved into the empty Berreyesa adobe and claimed the whole grant. Berreyesa lost $500 in paying for a failed court battle to regain his rancho. Another Anglo settler laid out Alviso's claim using measurements that included a sizable piece of the Berreyesa claim, including crops and buildings. Berreyesa sued, but his lawyers dropped out of sight while supposedly covering his case in Washington, D.C.
, losing irreplaceable documents. Berreyesa burned the rest of his real estate documents in a mad rage. The Alviso claim won out in 1871. Nicolás Antonio Berreyesa died in 1873.
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
-speaking settlers in early Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
who held extensive land in the greater San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
. The members of the family lost nearly all of their real estate holdings to Anglo
Anglo
Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to the Angles, England or the English people, as in the terms Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-American, Anglo-Celtic, Anglo-African and Anglo-Indian. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British Isles descent in The Americas, Australia and...
squatters
Squatting
Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use....
, debts and legal battles in the decades following the formation of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Public Land Commission
Public Land Commission
The Public Land Commission, a former agency of the United States government, was created following the admission of California as a state in 1850 . The Commission's purpose was to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican land grants in California.California Senator William M...
in 1851—though pre-existing land grants of Mexican-era landowners had been continued by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is the peace treaty, largely dictated by the United States to the interim government of a militarily occupied Mexico City, that ended the Mexican-American War on February 2, 1848...
. In the 1850s, Anglo settlers of California killed eight Berreyesa men, and some Berreyesas chose to leave Northern California to save their lives. Antonio Berreyesa once said that his Californio
Californio
Californio is a term used to identify a Spanish-speaking Catholic people, regardless of race, born in California before 1848...
family was the "one which most justly complained of the bad faith of the adventurers and squatters and of the treachery of American lawyers."
The name Berreyesa comes from the Basque name Berrelleza, and was changed in California to several alternate spellings including Berelleza, Berrellesa and Berryessa. Lake Berryessa
Lake Berryessa
Lake Berryessa is the largest lake in Napa County, California. This reservoir is formed by the Monticello Dam, which provides water and hydroelectricity to the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area....
is the largest geographical feature named for the family.
New Spain
In the early 18th century, a married couple from the Berrelleza and Cayetano families left the Basque region of Spain to travel to New Spain, and in 1717 they bore a son in SinaloaSinaloa
Sinaloa officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales....
. This son, José de Jesús (Cayetano) Berrelleza, married 10-year-old María Nicolasa Micaela Leyba (or Leyva) in Sinaloa in 1735. In 1754, María and José Berrelleza welcomed a daughter, Ana Ysabel (also spelled Isabel), and in 1761 they produced a son, Nicolás Antonio. The children's mother died, and their father took a new wife that the children were very unhappy with.
In 1775, the Spanish government indicated its desire to settle Alta California against further encroachment by Russian fur trappers, so in October, the Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
Juan Bautista de Anza
Juan Bautista de Anza
Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto was a Novo-Spanish explorer and Governor of New Mexico for the Spanish Empire.-Early life:...
formed a party of 200 colonists including soldiers for protection. Ana Ysabel, 21, and Nicolás Antonio Berrelleza, 14, joined the group, traveling with the Gabriel Peralta family. The party arrived at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
The Mission San Gabriel Arcángel is a fully functioning Roman Catholic mission and a historic landmark in San Gabriel, California. The settlement was founded by Spaniards of the Franciscan order on "The Feast of the Birth of Mary," September 8, 1771, as the fourth of what would become 21 Spanish...
in January 1776, then continued on to land at Monterey, California
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
in March.
Nicolás Antonio Berrelleza
In 1777, Ana Isabel Berrelleza married Juan José Peralta, another member of the Anza colonist party, but they did not have children. At the age of 18, Nicolás Antonio Berrelleza married Peralta's sister, María Gertrudis Peralta, in 1779 at Mission Santa Clara de AsísMission Santa Clara de Asís
Mission Santa Clara de Asís was founded on January 12, 1777 and named for Santa Clara de Asis , the foundress of the order of the Poor Clares. Although ruined and rebuilt six times, the settlement was never abandoned.-History:...
. His new wife was five years younger and also a native of New Spain, born at the Presidio de Tubac
Tubac Presidio State Historic Park
Tubac Presidio State Historic Park, located in Tubac, Arizona, USA, preserves the ruins of the Presidio San Ignacio de Tubac and various other buildings, thereby presenting a timeline of human settlement in this Southern Arizona town...
(in modern-day Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
) in 1766.
María and Nicolás Berrelleza produced nine children from 1780 to 1797, born in San Francisco and the Santa Clara area
Santa Clara County, California
Santa Clara County is a county located at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010 it had a population of 1,781,642. The county seat is San Jose. The highly urbanized Santa Clara Valley within Santa Clara County is also known as Silicon Valley...
. Three of their four sons went on to hold large Mexican land grants: José de los Reyes
José de los Reyes Berreyesa
José de los Reyes Berrelleza was born at Mission Santa Clara de Asís in Las Californias on January 6, 1785, the third child and first son in the family of María Gertrudis Peralta and Nicholas Antonio Berrelleza. He served as an army sergeant at El Presidio Real de San Francisco. In 1805, he...
held land in San José
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
including the rich New Almaden
New Almaden
The New Almaden quicksilver mine in the Santa Teresa Hills in Santa Clara County, California, United States, is the oldest and most productive quicksilver mine in the U.S. The site was known to the Ohlone Indians for its cinnabar long before a Mexican settler discovered the ores in 1820...
quicksilver
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
mine, Nazario Antonio raised great herds of livestock on Rancho Las Putas
Rancho Las Putas
Rancho Las Putas was a Mexican land grant in present day Napa County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to José de Jesús Berreyesa and Sexto "Sisto" Berreyesa. The name Las Putas came from Putah Creek, which ran through the property...
for himself and his sons, and Nicolás Antonio II was granted Rancho Milpitas
Rancho Milpitas
Rancho Milpitas was a Mexican land grant in Santa Clara County, California. The name comes from the Nahuatl word for maize and could be translated "little cornfields". The grant included what is now the city of Milpitas.-History:...
. The eldest daughter, María Gabriela
María Gabriela Berreyesa Castro
María Gabriela Berrelleza was born November 26, 1780, and christened the same day at Mission Santa Clara de Asís in upper Las Californias, near present day San José . She was the first child of the family of María Gertrudis Peralta and Nicholas Antonio Berrelleza...
, married into the Castro family; she and her husband settled Rancho San Pablo
Rancho San Pablo
Rancho San Pablo was a land grant in present day Contra Costa County, California given in 1823 by Governor Luís Antonio Argüello to Francisco María Castro , a former soldier at the San Francisco Presidio and one-time alcalde of the Pueblo of San José. The grant was reconfirmed by Governor José...
in what is now called Contra Costa County
Contra Costa County, California
Contra Costa County is a primarily suburban county in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 1,049,025...
.
María Gertrudis Peralta Berrelleza died at age 36 in December 1802 and was buried at Mission San José (Her brother Luís María Peralta
Luís María Peralta
Luis María Peralta was a soldier in the Spanish Army, who received one of the largest of the Spanish land grants, Rancho San Antonio, a plot that encompassed most of the East Bay region of California.-Biography:...
later became a powerful landowner, with holdings in San José as well as the extensive Rancho San Antonio.). Nicolás Berrelleza remarried in November 1803, to 13-year-old María Ignacio Amador, and produced a son, Francisco, in May 1804. Berrelleza died in October 1804 at the age of 43, and was buried at Mission Santa Clara. His widow bore him a daughter seven months later.
María Gabriela Berreyesa Castro
María Gabriela BerrellezaMaría Gabriela Berreyesa Castro
María Gabriela Berrelleza was born November 26, 1780, and christened the same day at Mission Santa Clara de Asís in upper Las Californias, near present day San José . She was the first child of the family of María Gertrudis Peralta and Nicholas Antonio Berrelleza...
(also spelled Berreyesa) was born November 26, 1780, and christened the same day at Mission Santa Clara. She was the first child of the family. On February 16, 1795 she married 22-year-old Francisco María Castro, third son of Joaquín de Castro, one of the founding settlers of San José and a corporal in the artillery company of San Francisco. The two made their home in San José and produced thirteen offspring during 1796–1824. Castro was made an elector in 1822 after which he served as alcalde and on a civil board that heard disputes.
Castro explored land at the northeast edge of San Francisco Bay in 1823, and was granted Rancho San Pablo
Rancho San Pablo
Rancho San Pablo was a land grant in present day Contra Costa County, California given in 1823 by Governor Luís Antonio Argüello to Francisco María Castro , a former soldier at the San Francisco Presidio and one-time alcalde of the Pueblo of San José. The grant was reconfirmed by Governor José...
by Governor Luís Antonio Argüello
Luis Antonio Argüello
Luis Antonio Argüello was the first native governor of Alta California from 1822 to 1825, during the period California was under Mexican rule, twelfth overall. He was the only governor to serve under the Mexican empire, and the first native Californian to hold that office...
. He and his family moved to the rancho some time after 1824. He died in 1831 at San Pablo.
María Gabriela Berreyesa Castro died on December 21, 1851, and was buried at Mission San Francisco de Asís
Mission San Francisco de Asís
Mission San Francisco de Asís, or Mission Dolores, is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco and the sixth religious settlement established as part of the California chain of missions...
, known as Mission Dolores. Rancho San Pablo was patented to her children in 1852.
José de los Reyes Berreyesa
José de los Reyes BerrellezaJosé de los Reyes Berreyesa
José de los Reyes Berrelleza was born at Mission Santa Clara de Asís in Las Californias on January 6, 1785, the third child and first son in the family of María Gertrudis Peralta and Nicholas Antonio Berrelleza. He served as an army sergeant at El Presidio Real de San Francisco. In 1805, he...
(also spelled Berreyesa) was born at Mission Santa Clara on January 6, 1785, the third child and first son in the family. He served as an army sergeant at El Presidio Real de San Francisco
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...
. In 1805, he married María Zacarías Bernal at Mission Santa Clara. The couple had 13 children during 1807–1833, with 10 living past infancy. They moved in 1834 to hold land in Almaden Valley
Almaden Valley, San Jose, California
Almaden Valley is an upper-class neighborhood of about 37,000 in the southwestern portion of San Jose, California, USA, roughly equivalent to the 95120 ZIP Code. The neighborhood is south east of the town of Los Gatos, west of the Santa Teresa neighborhood of San Jose and south of Coleman Ave...
.
In 1842, José de los Reyes Berreyesa received from Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado
Juan Bautista Alvarado
Juan Bautista Valentín Alvarado y Vallejo was a Californio and twice Governor of Alta California from 1836 to 1837, and 1838 to 1842.-Early years:...
a grant giving him one square league, or 4438 acres (18 km²), of the land he had been cultivating, called Rancho San Vicente
Rancho San Vicente (Berreyesa)
Rancho San Vicente was a Mexican land grant in present day Santa Clara County, California given in 1842 by Governor Juan Alvarado to José de los Reyes Berreyesa. The grant was located west of the Santa Teresa Hills at the south end of Almaden Valley...
, near the Santa Teresa Hills and at the south end of Almaden Valley. The grant included a large section of the rocky hills upon which a rich source of mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
-carrying cinnabar
Cinnabar
Cinnabar or cinnabarite , is the common ore of mercury.-Word origin:The name comes from κινναβαρι , a Greek word most likely applied by Theophrastus to several distinct substances...
ore was found in 1844–1845, and the discovery was made public. Mercury was an important part of gold- and silver-mining operations, and was in demand the world over, and especially in the California gold fields after 1848. The neighboring grant, Rancho Cañada de los Capitancillos
Rancho Cañada de los Capitancillos
Rancho Cañada de los Capitancillos was a Mexican land grant in present day Santa Clara County, California given in 1842 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Justo Larios. The name means the Valley of the Little Captains. The grant was south of present day San Jose and bounded on the west by the...
, was now held by Andrés Castillero, who claimed the mercury mine was part of his land. Robert Walkinshaw and some other men squatted on the land in February 1845 and began to take lumber and limestone away for sale in August. The New Almaden
New Almaden
The New Almaden quicksilver mine in the Santa Teresa Hills in Santa Clara County, California, United States, is the oldest and most productive quicksilver mine in the U.S. The site was known to the Ohlone Indians for its cinnabar long before a Mexican settler discovered the ores in 1820...
mercury mine began producing a small amount of rich ore in 1846.
In 1846, during the Bear Flag Revolt, three of the sons of José de los Reyes Berreyesa were imprisoned by John C. Frémont
John C. Frémont
John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...
in Sonoma, California
Sonoma, California
Sonoma is a historically significant city in Sonoma Valley, Sonoma County, California, USA, surrounding its historic town plaza, a remnant of the town's Mexican colonial past. It was the capital of the short-lived California Republic...
, where one of the sons, José de los Santos Berreyesa
José de los Santos Berreyesa
José de los Santos Berreyesa , a member of the Berreyesa family, was the last alcalde of Alta California...
, had been serving as alcalde. Accompanied by two cousins, twin sons of Francisco de Haro
Francisco de Haro
Francisco de Haro was the first Alcalde of Yerba Buena in 1834.-Life:De Haro was born in Compostela, Nayarit, Mexico and came to San Francisco in 1819. He was the first Alcalde of Yerba Buena in 1834. He was instrumental in planning the street grid of the town along with Englishman William A....
, the 61-year-old father went to see how his sons were being treated in prison. After they landed their boat in San Rafael
San Rafael, California
San Rafael is a city and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area...
, the three men were shot and killed by three of Frémont's men, including Kit Carson
Kit Carson
Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson was an American frontiersman and Indian fighter. Carson left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a Mountain man and trapper in the West. Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married...
, and they were stripped of their belongings. When asked by prisoner José de los Santos Berreyesa whether their father had been killed, Frémont said it might have been a man named Castro. A soldier of Frémont's was seen wearing the elder Berreyesa's serape, and Frémont refused to assist José de los Santos Berreyesa in retrieving it as a final token of their father to give to their mother. The three brothers resorted to buying the serape from the soldier for the extortionate price of $25 ($ today.) Later, Carson told Jasper O'Farrell that he regretted killing the Californios, but that the act was only one such that Frémont ordered him to commit.
The New Almaden mine was taken in possession by Robert Walkinshaw of the New Almaden Mining Company in April 1847 by means of a forged grant document supposedly bearing the signature of the alcalde of Presidio San José, José Dolores Pacheco, who always signed documents "Dolores Pacheco"—the questionable document was signed only "Pacheco", and in a finer hand than his. Three of the Berreyesa sons battled with the squatters, trying to dislodge them from the mining works. Their mother, the widow María Zacarías Bernal de Berreyesa, fought for the land by filing suit in court against the New Almaden Mining Company. Castillero filed suit to prove his claim on the mine, and the United States worked to prove the mining land was public, not part of any grant, so that the government could seize the mine. The case dragged on for years as witnesses were called from Mexico. In July 1854, her ninth son, José de la Encarnación Ramón Antonio Berreyesa, was grabbed by a posse, tied with rope around the neck and questioned, but was set free. Several days later, her fifth son, Joseph Zenobia Nemesio Berreyesa, was guarding the New Almaden mine at night when he was seized by masked men and hanged. In 1856, men broke into the home of her seventh son, Francisco Antonio Berreyesa, and killed him. Aftering leaving for the relative safety of Ventura, José de la Encarnación Ramón Antonio Berreyesa was caught on February 5, 1857 by a band of vigilantes that had been told he consorted with the bandit Juan Flores
Juan Flores
Juan Flores was a 19th century Californio bandit who, with Pancho Daniel, led an outlaw gang known as "las Manillas" and later as the Flores Daniel Gang, throughout Southern California during 1856-1857...
. The vigilantes, a group called the El Monte Rangers who were frustrated at the recent escape of Flores, saw the rope scars around Berreyesa's neck and assumed he had somehow foiled a prior attempt at execution, so they hanged him until dead.
An 1863 court decision in the Berreyesa's favor allowed them to sell the rights to work the mine for $1,700,000 in 1864. Eventually, the United States was able to prove that the two adjoining land grants did not include the rocky hills and the mine, and the mining operation was nationalized. The Berreyesa family was finally rewarded on June 24, 1868 with a patent issued by the United States Supreme Court stating that the arable land of the rancho was theirs, but not the rocky hills containing the mines. Doña María died in 1869 in San Rafael.
1876 was the year that the greatest amount of mercury was removed from the New Almaden mine: 3610341 pounds (1,637,623 kg) of the liquid metal. By 1880, $16 million worth of mercury had been mined, about $ million in current value.
Nazario Antonio Berreyesa
Nazario Antonio Berrelleza (also spelled Nasario Berreyesa, nicknamed José) was born at Mission Santa Clara on July 28, 1787, the fourth child and second son in the family. He served as an army corporal at Presidio San Francisco, 1819–1824. As payment for his government service, he accepted a 35516 acres (143.7 km²) grant of land contained in a river valley east of Napa, CaliforniaNapa, California
-History:The name Napa was probably derived from the name given to a southern Nappan village whose people shared the area with elk, deer, grizzlies and cougars for many centuries, according to Napa historian Kami Santiago. At the time of the first recorded exploration into Napa Valley in 1823, the...
, called Rancho Las Putas
Rancho Las Putas
Rancho Las Putas was a Mexican land grant in present day Napa County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to José de Jesús Berreyesa and Sexto "Sisto" Berreyesa. The name Las Putas came from Putah Creek, which ran through the property...
, named for Putah Creek
Putah Creek
Putah Creek is a major stream in Northern California, a tributary of the Yolo Bypass. The creek has its headwaters in the Mayacamas Mountains, a part of the Coast Range...
which ran through it. Nazario raised 5,000 cattle, 20,000 horses and grew grain crops throughout the fertile valley that became known as Berryessa Valley. The livestock holdings extended northward over some rocky hills to a neighboring valley, Rancho Cañada de Capay
Rancho Cañada de Capay
Rancho Cañada de Capay was a Mexican land grant in present day Yolo County, California given in 1846 by Governor Pío Pico to the three brothers Santiago, Nemicio, and Francisco Berreyesa. "Cañada de Capay" means "valley of the Capay" in Spanish. "Capay" comes from the Southern Wintun Indian word...
, ranched by Berreyesa cousins.
Nicolás Antonio Berreyesa II
Nicolás Tolentino Antonio Berrelleza (also known as Nicolás Antonio Berreyesa II) was born at Mission Santa Clara on July 12, 1789, the fifth child and third son in the family. He served as a leather-armored soldier (soldado de cuera) at Presidio San Francisco, and married María de Gracia Padilla in 1811 at Mission Dolores. In 1834, he was granted Rancho MilpitasRancho Milpitas
Rancho Milpitas was a Mexican land grant in Santa Clara County, California. The name comes from the Nahuatl word for maize and could be translated "little cornfields". The grant included what is now the city of Milpitas.-History:...
, an area equal to one square league, or 4458 acres (18 km²), by the alcalde of San José, Pedro Chaboya. The governor of Alta California, José Castro, granted a neighboring tract to José María Alviso
José María Alviso
José María de Jesus Alviso was an early settler of the Silicon Valley in California, alcalde of San José, and grantee of Rancho Milpitas. Alviso's house, the Jose Maria Alviso Adobe, is listed on National Register of Historic Places.-Biography:Alviso was born in 1798 and baptized at Mission Santa...
sixteen months later, in 1835. In 1852, Anglo squatters were living on the Alviso and Berreyesa grants in numbers too great for the Californios to eject. A man named James Jake described to Nicolás Antonio Berreyesa a scheme wherein Berreyesa and three of his sons would emulate the squatters and mark out four new plots to build dwellings and establish their claim on the land. Jake quickly moved into the empty Berreyesa adobe and claimed the whole grant. Berreyesa lost $500 in paying for a failed court battle to regain his rancho. Another Anglo settler laid out Alviso's claim using measurements that included a sizable piece of the Berreyesa claim, including crops and buildings. Berreyesa sued, but his lawyers dropped out of sight while supposedly covering his case in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, losing irreplaceable documents. Berreyesa burned the rest of his real estate documents in a mad rage. The Alviso claim won out in 1871. Nicolás Antonio Berreyesa died in 1873.