:''This article refers to the land grant. For the Rancho Petaluma Adobe, see Rancho Petaluma Adobe'' Rancho Petaluma was a Mexican land grant in present-day Sonoma County, California given in 1834 by Governor

José Figueroa José Figueroa (1792 – 29 September 1835), was a General and the Mexican Governor of Alta California from 1833 to 1835. He wrote the first book to be published in California. Background and governorship Figueroa was a Mestizo of Spanish ...

Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo Don (honorific), Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (4 July 1807 – 18 January 1890) was a Californios, Californio general, statesman, and public figure. He was born a subject of Spain, performed his military duties as an officer of the Republic of ...

. Rancho Petaluma stretched from

Petaluma River The Petaluma River is a river in the California counties of Sonoma and Marin that becomes a tidal slough for most of its length. The headwaters are in the area southwest of Cotati. The flow is generally southward through Petaluma's old town, ...

on the west over the hills and down to

Sonoma Creek , name_etymology = , image = Beaver Dam Sonoma Creek, Sonoma Thanksgiving 2009.jpg , image_caption = Beaver dam on Sonoma Creek at Maxwell Farms Regional Park in Sonoma, California, 2009 , image_size = 300 , ma ...

on the east, including all land that lay between these two waterways from the edge of San Francisco Bay to approximately the present site of Glen Ellen. The rancho included present-day

Petaluma Petaluma (Miwok: ''Péta Lúuma'') is a city in Sonoma County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 according to the 2020 census. Petaluma's name comes from the Miwok village nam ...

and Lakeville.

History

In 1833, Lieutenant Vallejo was ordered by Governor Figueroa to examine the country north of

Mission San Rafael Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

, and to visit

Fort Ross Fort Ross ( Russian: Форт-Росс, Kashaya ''mé·ṭiʔni''), originally Fortress Ross ( pre-reformed Russian: Крѣпость Россъ, tr. ''Krepostʹ Ross''), is a former Russian establishment on the west coast of North America i ...

and Bodega Bay. On his way to Fort Ross, Vallejo crossed the fertile valley of Petaluma. Later, he built a small house and a corral, and in the spring he was ready to petition for a grant of land where he could place his livestock. The land grant was approved by Governor Figueroa in June 1834. Governor Figueroa gave Vallejo vastly increased powers; his title was Military Commander and Director of Colonization of the Northern Frontier, and he was specifically requested to take charge of the

mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

at Sonoma, reduce it to the status of a parish church, free the Indian workers, and distribute the mission lands and other assets among the population at large. The ten square league (approximately ) grant was confirmed by Governor Manuel Micheltorena and increased by five square leagues (approximately ) in 1843. Although Vallejo's rancho was centered on Petaluma, he made his home in Sonoma. With the

cession The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdictio ...

of California to the United States following the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...

, the 1848

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ( es, Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo), officially the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, is the peace treaty that was signed on 2 ...

provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Petaluma was filed with the Public Land Commission 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 p ...

to Mariano G. Vallejo in 1874. James H. Watmough, purser on the USS ''Portsmouth'', bought land from Vallejo in 1847. In 1853 Watmough was an unsuccessful claimant for a one square mile () part of Rancho Petaluma. As settlers made their way into Sonoma County in the mid-1850s, Vallejo subdivided and sold most of the rancho. In 1864, Vallejo sold the last remaining of the original Rancho Petuluma to San Francisco banker Alfred Borel.

Historic sites of the Rancho

* Rancho Petaluma Adobe historic adobe ranch house owned and constructed by Vallejo. * Jack London State Historic ParkCultural Resources of Jack London State Historic Park (1987)
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References

{{Coord, 38.25, -122.58, region:US-CA_type:landmark, display=title

Petaluma, California

Pet A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive appearances, intelligence ...