Rancho Bolsa de San Felipe was a 6,795-acre (27.50 km2) Mexican land grant in present day San Benito County, California given in 1840 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Francisco Perez Pacheco.[1] Bolsa means "pockets" and refers to pockets of land in the Tequisquina Slough. The grant was bounded on the north by Rancho Ausaymas y San Felipe and the south by Rancho San Justo, and encompassed Dunneville.[2][3]
Contents |
The two square league grant was made to Francisco Pacheco, who was the owner of Rancho Ausaymas y San Felipe and Rancho San Justo.[4] Francisco Perez Pacheco (1790–1860), born in Mexico, came to Monterey in 1819.[5]
In 1840, his daughter María Jacinta Pacheco (1813 – ) married Sebastián Nuñez, grantee of Rancho Orestimba y Las Garzas. In 1850, his daughter María Ysidora Pacheco (1829–1892) married Mariano Malarin (1827–1895), son of the grantee of Rancho Chualar.[6]
With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Bolsa de San Felipe was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852. The district court, while upholding the Pacheco title, limited it to one square league.[7] Ysidora Pacheco de Malarin and Sebastián Nuñez, who were the executors of Francisco Pacheco's estate, appealed the district court ruling to the US Supreme Court. In 1863, the court validated a grant of two square leagues even though the original document had been altered, changing it from one square league to two.[8] The grant was patented to Francisco Perez Pacheco in 1871.[9]
James Dunne (-1874), who had come from Ireland to join the California Gold Rush, bought Rancho Bolsa de San Felipe and half of Rancho Ausaymas y San Felipe from Francisco Pacheco. In 1862, James Dunne married Catherine O'Toole Murphy widow of Bernard Martin of Rancho San Francisco de las Llagas.[10]
|