Rancho San Agustin was a

Mexican land grant In Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California, ranchos were concessions and land grants made by the Spanish and Mexican governments from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an indu ...

in present-day

Santa Cruz County, California Santa Cruz County (), officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Sa ...

given in 1833 by Governor

José Figueroa José María Figueroa (1792 – 29 September 1835) was a Californio politician and military leader. He was a General and the Mexican Governor of Alta California from 1833 to 1835. His ''Manifesto'' (1835) was the first book published in Calif ...

to José Antonio Bolcoff. The grant was bounded by the

San Lorenzo River The San Lorenzo River () is a river in the U.S. state of California. The name San Lorenzo derives from the Spanish language for "Saint Lawrence" due to its reported sighting on that saint's feast day by Spanish explorers. Its headwaters origin ...

on the west and Rancho Carbonera on the south, and encompassed present-day Scotts Valley.

History

José Antonio Bolcoff (1794–1866) was born Osip Volkov in

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (, ) is a city and the administrative center of Kamchatka Krai, Russia. It is located in the Far East of the country and lies along the coast of Avacha Bay by the Pacific Ocean, nearby Khalaktyrskoye Lake. As of the 202 ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. Working for the

Russian-American Company The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company, United American Company. Emperor Paul I of Russia chartered the c ...

, Bolcoff was captured on shore by the Spanish in 1815. He quickly assimilated into the Spanish culture, and was given the name José Antonio Bolcof. Bolcoff traveled with Governor

Pablo Vicente de Solá Pablo Vicente de Solá (1761–1826) was a Spanish officer and the twelfth and last Spanish colonial governor of Alta California (1815-1822). He was born in Mondragón, Gipuzkoa, Spain. Land grants Solá granted in 1821 the Rancho Rincón de l ...

, acting as an interpreter. In 1822, Bolcoff settled in Branciforte and married María Candida Castro, grantee of Rancho Refugio. Bolcoff was

alcade ''Alcalde'' (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian '' cabildo'' (the municipal counci ...

of Branciforte in 1833. In 1833, Bolcoff was granted the one square league Rancho San Augustin, and moved his family to the rancho and built an adobe. In 1839, Bolcoff replaced Francisco Soto as administrator of

Mission Santa Cruz Mission Santa Cruz (Spanish: ''La Misión de la Exaltación de la Santa Cruz'', lit. The Mission of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross) is a replica Spanish Californian mission in Santa Cruz, California. Located on the San Lorenzo River floodp ...

. In 1839, Bolcoff sold Rancho San Augustin to Joseph Ladd Majors. Joseph Ladd Majors (1806–1868), a trapper from

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

, came to California over the Santa Fe Trail with Isaac Graham in 1834. In 1838, Majors became a naturalized Mexican citizen and was baptized as Juan José Crisostomo Mayor. In 1839, Majors married María de los Angeles Castro (1818–1903), daughter

José Joaquín Castro José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced very differently in each of the two languages: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''J ...

of Rancho San Andrés and a sister-in-law of Bolcoff. Over the next decade, Majors would use his naturalized status as the middleman for a series of land deals, obtaining land holdings in his name, and then leasing or selling the land back to his American partners. In 1841, Governor Alvarado granted Rancho San Agustin along with the abandoned

Rancho Zayante Rancho Zayante was a Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Cruz County, California. The grant, measuring one league by one-half league (2,658 acres), straddled Zayante Creek and the San Lorenzo River. It included most of the present-day communit ...

to Mayor / Majors. 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 jurisdicti ...

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 Agustin 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 Joseph Ladd Majors in 1866. In 1852, Majors started selling Rancho San Agustin to Hiram Daniel Scott (1823–1886). Scott had come from

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

to California in 1846 as a crewman on a merchant ship, and jumped ship in

Monterey Monterey ( ; ) is a city situated on the southern edge of Monterey Bay, on the Central Coast of California. Located in Monterey County, the city occupies a land area of and recorded a population of 30,218 in the 2020 census. The city was fou ...

. He left to try his luck as a miner during the

California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

, and stayed to open a hotel in Stockton in 1850. Between 1853 and 1856, Scott brought his relatives from Maine to Rancho San Agustin. In 1856, Hiram Scott, went back to the gold mines, and his father, Captain Daniel Scott, took over the rancho. Scott sold to Joseph and Grace Errington in 1865. The Erringtons established the first dairy in Scotts Valley.

Historic sites of the Rancho

* Hiram D. Scott House Built by Hiram Daniel Scott in 1853.

References

{{California history, state=collapsed San Ag San Agustin