José Antonio Yorba

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Yorba's cenotaph at the Mission San Juan Capistrano cemetery.

José Antonio Yorba (July 20, 1743 - January 16, 1825), also known as Don José Antonio Yorba I, was one of the important early settlers of Spanish California, then known as the Territory of California. Born in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia (San Santurnino) in Catalonia, Spain, Yorba first came to the New World as an officer in the Portolà Expedition of 1769. For his service, Yorba was awarded with an enormous land grant from the Spanish Empire in 1784 that comprised a significant portion of today's Orange County in Southern California. Covering some 15 Spanish leagues, Yorba's great rancho included the lands where the cities of Olive, Orange, Villa Park, Santa Ana, Tustin, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach stand today. Upon his death in 1825 he was buried at his request in an unmarked grave in the cemetery at Mission San Juan Capistrano (a cenotaph was later placed in Yorba's honor).

Among José Antonio's many children, Bernardo Yorba (1801-1858) would rise the farthest, accumulating ever larger territories for the family's massive cattle herds. Don Bernardo introduced irrigation agriculture into California near his seat, the Rancho San Antonio, which was amongst the largest adobe dwellings in Alta California. It reportedly contained hundreds of rooms, including workshops and a chapel. After the Mexican-American war, American rule was established in California in 1848, the Yorba lands were amongst the very few to be preserved intact, due to marriages and grants to American immigrants, and it has been supposed for this reason that the Yorba family was particularly close to the American cause during this war. Not all agreed the Yorba family was close to the American cause, especially the great grandson of Yorba, Lawrence Silvas. One of Yorba's daughters, Ramona, married Benjamin Davis Wilson, an American trapper from Tennessee who hunted grizzly bear in the area now known as Big Bear Lake. Wilson soon settled in the San Bernardino area and through this marriage dowry, obtained Rancho Jurupa from José Antonio Yorba, which would become the community of Riverside County.

Throughout this American and Mormon migration period, descendents of the Yorbas continued to marry into other prominent Spanish families, including the famous Grijalvas, Perraltas, and Dominquez, who also married and granted lands to Americans to attempt preservation of their lands and heritage. Many of today's recognizable American names in the Southern California area, including the Kraemers and Irvines, married into these Spanish families. In the early twentieth century, Samuel Kraemer, who had married the last of the "grand" Yorbas, Angelina Yorba, tore down the historic Rancho San Antonio after the city of Yorba Linda refused to accept it as a donation. Today, the legacy of the Yorba Family can still be appreciated at the historic Yorba Cemetery, established in 1858 at Woodgate Park.