Rancho San Mateo was a
Mexican land grant on the
San Francisco Peninsula
The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is Los Altos and Mountain View, ...
, in present day
San Mateo County, California
San Mateo County ( ), officially the County of San Mateo, is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 764,442. Redwood City, California, Redwood City is th ...
.
It was given in 1846 by Governor
Pio Pico
Pio or PIO may refer to:
Places
* Pio Lake, Italy
* Pio Island, Solomon Islands
* Pio Point, Bird Island, south Atlantic Ocean
People
* Pio (given name)
* Pio (surname)
* Pio (footballer, born 1986), Brazilian footballer
* Pio (footballer, ...
to Cayetano Arenas.
Rancho San Mateo extended from the foothills of the
Santa Cruz Mountains
The Santa Cruz Mountains ( Mutsun Ohlone: Mak-sah-re-jah, "Sharp Ridged Mountain of the Eagle" or "People of the Eagle Mountain") are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States, constituting a part of the Pacific Coast R ...
to
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
. It included
Coyote Point, about one-half the present city of
San Mateo, all of
Burlingame and most of
Hillsborough.
History
Pio Pico, the last governor of California under Mexican rule, made the grant to his secretary, Cayetano Arenas of the
Pueblo de Los Ángeles
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, shortened to the Pueblo de los Ángeles, was the Spanish colonial pueblos and villas in North America, Spanish civilian ''pueblo'' settled in 1781, which became the ...
, for his family’s service to the government. Cayetano Arenas father was
Luis Arenas.
Arenas sold the property in 1846 to
Yerba Buena (Pueblo de San Francisco) merchant and American immigrant
William Davis Merry Howard. Howard with his wife, Agnes, retired from the city to live on the rancho in 1854, and built a residence named "El Cerrito" and developed a successful working ranch.
With the
cession of California to the United States following the
Mexican-American War
Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United State ...
, the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). It was signed on 2 February 1848 in the town of Villa de Guadalupe, Mexico City, Guadalupe Hidalgo.
After the defeat of its army and the fall of the cap ...
provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho San Mateo was filed with the
Public Land Commission
The California Land Act of 1851 (), enacted following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the admission of California as a state in 1850, established the California State Lands Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican l ...
in 1852, and the grant was
patented
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
to William Davis Merry Howard in 1857. A claim by
José de la Cruz Sánchez was rejected.
Howard's early death in 1856 at the age of thirty-seven led to the sale of most of the land to
William C. Ralston, a prominent banker.
In 1861, Henry F. Teschemacher and Joseph P. Thompson were opposed in an important court case concerning the Rancho San Mateo patent and land under water at high tide.
In 1866,
Anson Burlingame, the
US Minister to China visited Ralston, and by the time he left he was the owner of of land. His name “Burlingame” was put onto the parcel map for reference. That visit to the San Francisco Peninsula, was Burlingame’s last. On a visit to Russia in 1870, Burlingame died. With his death the land reverted to Ralston. Ralston had plans for the area which he called “Ralstonville”, but he died in 1875 without many of his plans being realized.
The land passed to Ralston's business partner Senator
William Sharon. Sharon died in 1885, and Sharon's son-in-law,
Francis G. Newlands, became executor of Sharon’s estate.
See also
*
*
List of ranchos of California
References
{{San Mateo County, California
San Mateo
Burlingame, California
San Mateo, California
San Mateo