Rancho Sausal 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 the

Salinas Valley The Salinas Valley (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Valle de Salinas'') is one of the major valleys and most productive Agriculture, agricultural regions in California. It is located west of the San Joaquin Valley and south of San Francisco Bay and ...

, in present-day

Monterey County, California Monterey County ( ), officially the County of Monterey, is a county (United States), county located on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 439,035. The count ...

, given in 1834 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 Tibúrcio Castro. An additional grant was made by Governor

Pío Pico Don (honorific), Don Pío de Jesús Pico IV (May 5, 1801 – September 11, 1894) was a California politician, ranchero, and entrepreneur, famous for serving as the List of governors of California before 1850, last governor of Alta California und ...

in 1845. The name is Spanish for "willow grove". The grant encompassed present-day Salinas.

History

José Tibúrcio Castro was living on Rancho Sausal before the 1834 grant of two square leagues. His father, Jose Macario, was a sergeant in the Spanish army. Jose Tiburcio Castro (1780–1840) was also a soldier, and later civil administrator of secularized

Mission San Juan Bautista Mission San Juan Bautista is a Spanish mission in San Juan Bautista, San Benito County, California. Founded on June 24, 1797, by Fermín de Lasuén of the Franciscan order, the mission was the fifteenth of the Spanish missions established in ...

. Jose Tiburcio Castro married Maria Rufina Alvarez and they had two children: José Antonio Castro and Maria Francisca Castro. Castro sold the land to Jacob P. Leese, who had married General Vallejo’s sister, and acquired extensive land holdings, in 1852. 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 The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...

, 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 Sausal 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 1853, 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 Jacob P. Leese in 1859. Leese is considered to be one of the founders of Salinas, although he left the area in 1865 and did not return until 1885. Leese sold to Elias Howe, who is usually credited as the founder of Salinas, in 1856. In 1860, Leese sold the rancho to Eugene Sherwood.http://lcweb2.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/ca/ca0400/ca0413/data/ca0413data.pdf

References

{{California history

Sausal The Sausal () is a small mountain range in the southwestern parts of Austria's state Styria. It thrusts up from the northern banks of the Sulm valley, west of the district town of Leibnitz. Its highest point, the summit of the Demmerkogel, rises ...

History

See also

References