Rancho Primer Cañon o Rio de Los Berrendos was a Mexican land grant in present day

Tehama County, California Tehama County ( ) is a county located in the northern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 65,829. The county seat and largest city is Red Bluff. Tehama County comprises the Red Bluff, California ...

given in 1844 by Governor

Manuel Micheltorena Joseph Manuel María Joaquin Micheltorena y Llano (8 June 1804 – 7 September 1853) was a brigadier general and adjutant-general of the Mexican Army, List_of_governors_of_California_before_1850#Mexican_governors_of_California_(1837–47), gover ...

to Job Francis Dye. Rio de Los Berrendos means River of the Antelopes. The grant was on the east side of the

Sacramento River The Sacramento River () is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River D ...

and was bounded by Antelope Creek on the north and

Rancho Rio de los Molinos Rancho Rio de los Molinos was a Mexican land grant in present-day Tehama County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Albert Gallatin Toomes. "Rio de los Molinos" means "River of the Mills". The long narrow grant extende ...

and Dye Creek on the south.

History

Job Francis Dye (1807–1883) was born in

Allen County, Kentucky Allen County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 20,588. Its county seat and only municipality is Scottsville. The county is named for Colonel John Allen, a state senator and soldier ...

. In 1830, he joined a party of trappers heading west from Fort Smith. After wintering and spending most of 1831 in

Taos, New Mexico Taos () is a town in Taos County, New Mexico, Taos County, in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Santa Fe ...

, Dye joined another band of trappers which arrived in Pueblo de Los Angeles early in 1832. After a year of sea otter hunting, he worked for Captain John B.R. Cooper on his Rancho El Sur from 1833-35. Moving north again, Dye rented a portion of Joaquin Buelna’s Rancho Zayante near Santa Cruz, and built a small grist mill and a distillery. In 1839, Dye married Escolastica Rodriguez (b. 1822). Dye arrived at his six square league grant in the company of Robert Hasty Thomes ( Rancho Saucos), Albert G. Toomes (Rancho Rio de los Molinos), and William Chard (

Rancho Las Flores Rancho Las Flores was a Ranchos of California, Mexican land grant in present-day Tehama County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to William Chard. The name means "ranch of the flowers". The grant was on the west side of t ...

). With the cession of California to the United States following the

Mexican-American War Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United State ...

, 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 Primer Cañon o Rio de Los Berrendos 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 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 ...

to Job Francis Dye in 1871. In 1857 Dye sold at the southern end of his grant to F.W. Fratt and T.K. King. The boundary between Rancho Primer Cañon o Rio de Los Berrendos and Toomes Rancho Rio de Los Molinos grants was roughly Dye Creek. However the location of the exact boundary was the cause of several lawsuits. In 1871, Robert Hurd Blossom (b. 1829) purchased F. W. Fratt's portion of the Dye Grant. In 1882 Blossom sold it to Major Joseph Spencer Cone (1822–1894), who owned the greater portion of the Dye Grant, reuniting that rancho. Cone also bought the northern half of the Toomes Grant. Cone's widow, Anna R. Cone, sold Cone Ranch sold to the Los Molinos Land Company in 1905.Margaret Bauer, 1992,''History of the Los Molinos Land Company and of Early Los Molinos'', Tehama County Museum, Tehama, CA. Dye was moderately successful in gold mining in 1848, and in 1853, he married Sarah Adeline Herrall (1826–1862). After the death of his wife and daughter in 1862, he joined the

Silver rush A silver rush is the silver-mining equivalent of a gold rush, where the discovery of silver-bearing ore sparks a mass migration of individuals seeking wealth in the new mining region. Notable silver rushes have taken place in Mexico, Chile, the U ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

and then

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

. Later, he moved to

Santa Cruz County, California Santa Cruz County (), officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Sa ...

where he married Jemima Boyce (b. 1813), in 1873, and died there March 4, 1883.

References

External links

Sketch of Rancho El Primer Cañon, or Rio de los Berrendos
at The Bancroft Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Primer Canon O Rio De Los Berrendos Ranchos of California Ranchos of Tehama County, California Rancho Primer Rancho Primer 1844 establishments in Alta California