Rancho Yerba Buena or Rancho Socayre 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 for ...

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 1833 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 Antonio Chaboya (also spelled Chavoya or Chabolla). The grant was between Coyote Creek on the west and the foothills, and encompassed present day

Evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...

neighborhood of southeast San José.

History

Francisco Xavier Antonio Chaboya (1803–1865) was the son of

De Anza Expedition Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto (July 6 or 7, 1736 – December 19, 1788) was an expeditionary leader, military officer, and politician primarily in California and New Mexico under the Spanish Empire. He is credited as one of the founding fa ...

soldier Marcos Chaboya, and a brother of Anastasio Chaboya, grantee of Rancho Sanjon de los Moquelumnes. Antonio Chaboya married his first wife Maria Juliana Feliciana Rosario Buitron in 1826. After her death, he married Maria Ramona Encarnacion Higuera in 1846. 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 Yerba Buena was filed with the Public Land Commission 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 p ...

to Antonio Chaboya in 1859. Gustave Touchard (1818–1888) bought part of Rancho Yerba Buena from Chaboya. Touchard was a San Francisco furniture dealer, and president of the Union Insurance Company from 1866 to 1888. During a lengthy court proceeding regarding a boundary dispute, squatters settled on portions of the property. In 1861, San Jose sheriff Murphy evicted the squatters. Antonio Chaboya died in 1865, leaving the property to his family. His son, Francisco Chaboya, and nephew, Salvador Chaboya (1837–) were named as executors of the will. The marshy area of the rancho known as Laguna Socayre was drained for farmland, and is now the site of Lake Cunningham Park and Eastridge Mall in San José; Lake Cunningham serves as storm water

retention basin A retention basin, sometimes called a wet pond, wet detention basin, or stormwater management pond (SWMP), is an artificial pond with vegetation around the perimeter and a permanent pool of water in its design. It is used to manage stormwater r ...

.Coyote Creek Watershed Historical Ecology Study
Santa Clara Valley Water District 2006

References

{{California history

Yerba Buena Yerba buena or hierba buena is the Spanish name for a number of aromatic plants, most of which belong to the mint family. ''Yerba buena'' translates as "good herb". The specific plant species regarded as ''yerba buena'' varies from region to regi ...

Yerba Yerba mate or yerba-maté (''Ilex paraguariensis''; from Spanish ; pt, erva-mate, or ; gn, ka'a, ) is a plant species of the holly genus ''Ilex'' native to South America. It was named by the French botanist Augustin Saint-Hilaire. The leave ...