Rancho San Ramon (St. Raymond Ranch in Spanish) was a

Mexican land grant The Spanish and Mexican governments made many concessions and land grants in Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish Concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an inducement fo ...

in the northern

San Ramon Valley The San Ramon Valley is a valley and region in Contra Costa County and Alameda County, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California. Geography The valley is between the Oakland Hills on the west, and the Diablo Rang ...

of present-day

Contra Costa County, California ) of the San Francisco Bay , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_name1 = California , subdivision_type2 ...

Rancho San Ramon (Amador) Rancho San Ramon (St. Raymond Ranch in Spanish) was a Mexican land grant in the southern San Ramon Valley of present-day Contra Costa County, California. Rancho San Ramon (Pacheco-Castro) was adjacent in the northern San Ramon Valley. It was gi ...

was adjacent in the southern San Ramon Valley. It was given in 1833 by Governor Jose Figueroa to Mariano Castro and Bartolome Pacheco. Governor Figueroa granted Castro and Pacheco two square leagues of

from the crest of the western ridge to the crest of the east. Castro had the northern square league, and Pacheco the southern. The grant included present-day

Alamo The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San An ...

, Danville and northern San Ramon.

History

Bartolome Pacheco (1766–1839), the son of Juan Salvio Pacheco (1729–1777) and Maria Carmen del Valle, came to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

with his family in 1776 with the Anza Expedition. He was the cousin of Salvio Pacheco, a noted Californo ranchero. Bartolome Pacheco joined the military company of the

Presidio of San Francisco The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis) is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part o ...

. He was present at the dedication of Mission San José in 1797, and retired after 20 years as a soldier. Mariano Castro was his nephew (Bartolome Pacheco's sister, Barbara Pacheco de Castro, was Mariano Castro’s mother). In the 1830s, the San Ramon Valley was still wild country, and Pacheco and Castro received permission to live out of the valley. Mariano Castro and his family lived in the

Pueblo of San José San Jose, California, is the third largest city in the state, and the largest of all cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California, with a population of 1,021,795. Site chosen by Anza For thousands of years before the arrival of E ...

. Bartolome Pacheco lived in the San Mateo area and, when he died in 1839, his son Lorenzo Pacheco became the owner. Lorenzo Pacheco and Rafaela Soto were married in 1837 and lived in Pueblo of San Jose. When Lorenzo died in 1846, Rafaela Soto de Pacheco and her four small children inherited the Pacheco square league of the Rancho San Ramon. 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 jurisdict ...

of California to the United States following the

Mexican-American War Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexic ...

, 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 San Ramon 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 a three-member Public Land Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican l ...

in 1852. The notorious American land attorney

Horace Carpentier Horace Walpole Carpentier (1824–1918) was a lawyer and the first mayor of Oakland, California. He is also remembered as president of the Overland Telegraph Company and for defrauding the Peralta family, a prominent Californio family who histor ...

"helped" Rafaela Soto de Pacheco with her title challenges, and ended up owning the entire Pacheco-Castro rancho land. The grant was patented to Horace W. Carpentier in 1866. Report of the Surveyor General 1844 - 1886

References

{{Contra Costa County, California San Ramon Pacheco-Castro San Ramon Danville, California San Ramon, California San Ramon

History

See also

References