Rancho Sausal was a Mexican land grant in the

Salinas Valley The Salinas Valley is one of the major valleys and most productive agricultural regions in California. It is located west of the San Joaquin Valley and south of San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley. The Salinas River, which geologically ...

, in present-day

Monterey County, California Monterey County ( ), officially the County of Monterey, is a county located on the Pacific coast in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, its population was 439,035. The county's largest city and county seat is Salinas. Monte ...

, 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 ...

to José Tibúrcio Castro. An additional grant was made by Governor Pío Pico 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 Lasuén of the Franciscan order, the mission was the fifteenth of the Spanish missions established in presen ...

. 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 Jacob Primer Leese (August 19, 1809 – February 1, 1892), known in Spanish as Don Jacobo Leese, was an Ohio-born Californian ranchero, entrepreneur, and public servant. He was an early resident of San Francisco and married into the family of pr ...

, 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 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 Sausal was filed with the Public Land Commission 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 p ...

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.

References

{{California history Sausal Sausal Sausal

History

See also

References