Rancho Santa Teresa 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 present-day

Santa Clara County, California Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County together ...

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 a ...

to José Joaquín Bernal. The grant extended west from Coyote Creek to the

Santa Teresa Hills The Santa Teresa Hills are a range of mountains in Santa Clara County, California, located primarily in the city of San Jose. They separate the San Jose neighborhoods of Almaden Valley to the west and Santa Teresa to the east. Geography The r ...

, and included present-day Santa Teresa.

History

Don Bruno Bernal (Rancho Santa Teresa en S

José Joaquín Bernal (1762–1837), a member of the 1776 De Anza Expedition, was a soldier at 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 pa ...

and by 1805 at 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 ...

. In 1819 he retired from the army, and in 1826 he settled his family of eleven children near Santa Teresa spring, ten miles south of San Jose. In 1837, Jose Joaquin Bernal died, leaving an estate to be divided equally among his widow and his ten children. Four of his children were granted

Rancho Valle de San Jose Rancho or Ranchos may refer to: Settlements and communities * Rancho, Aruba, former fishing village and neighbourhood of Oranjestad *Ranchos of California, 19th century land grants in Alta California ** List of California Ranchos * Ranchos, Buenos ...

in 1839. In 1844, the Treaty of Santa Teresa was signed at the rancho by Governor Micheltorena and former Governor Alvarado. 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 was filed by Agustín Bernal, son of José Joaquín Bernal, 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 1853. The grant was one square league, and was confirmed by the U.S. District Court. But the 1867 official survey and

patent 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 sufficiency of disclosure, enabling disclo ...

to Agustín Bernal in 1867 was for . In 1855, another of José Joaquín Bernal's sons, Bruno Bernal (1799–1863) moved to his

Rancho El Alisal Rancho El Alisal was a Mexican land grant in present-day Monterey County, California, given in 1833 by Governor José Figueroa to the brothers Feliciano and Mariano Soberanes and to William Edward Petty Hartnell. Alisal means Alder tree (sycamor ...

, leaving the ranch to his sons Ygnacio (1841–1906), Francisco and Antonio.

Historic sites of the Rancho

*Rancho Santa Teresa Historic District/

Santa Teresa County Park Santa Teresa County Park is an park in the Santa Teresa neighborhood of San Jose, California, located within the Santa Teresa Hills Park description It is operated by the Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department. Most of the park c ...

. *Bernal Adobe Site.Remains of the J.P. Bernal adobe
/ref> *Santa Teresa Spring. Ygnacio Bernal's son, Pedro, established the Santa Teresa Springs Water Company around 1910. *Bernal-Gulnac-Joice Ranch/Santa Teresa County Park. The ranch was passed down through descendants of Jose Joaquin Bernal. In 1858, Carlos Maria Gulnac, son of William Gulnac, married Joaquin's granddaughter (Ygnacio's sister) Rufina Bernal. Their daughter, Susan Gulnac, married Patrick Joice. The Joice family ran the ranch until it was sold to IBM in 1980.

References

{{California history Santa Teresa Santa Teresa Santa T