DIVISION ONE — PRE-PASADENIAN. 73 



annual interest !) — all to be paid within one year ; or, failing of this, they 

 were to forfeit all payments and improvements they had made, without 

 recourse. It was an iron-clad contract. Their plans failed ; and all their 

 claims, interests and improvements reverted to Garfias.* Thus the Spanish 

 Don was nearly forty years ahead of the Yankees as a " boomer ' ' of these 

 lands. His prices (according to the times) and his rate of interest beat any 

 record of Pasadena's famous "boom" period — so the "boom class" will 

 liave to let this historic old Spaniard go up head. 



On April 25, 1854, the United States Board of Land Commissioners 

 passed judgment on the validity of the Garfias claim above mentioned, and 

 confirmed it — and thus the Rancho San Pasqual entered upon its first legal 

 status and recognition under the United States law.f 



On September 18, 1858, a document was issued at San Francisco and 

 signed by I. W. Mandeville, United States Surveyor General for California, 

 from which I quote the following points of historic record in regard to this 

 ranch. [Book i, p. 14 of Patents, Los Angeles Co.] 



"Whereas, it appears from a duly authenticated transcript, filed in the 

 General Land Office of the United States that, pursuant to the provisions of 

 the Act of Congress, approved the third of March, one thousand eight hun- 

 dred and fifty-one, entitled, " An Act to ascertain and settle the Private 

 Land Claims in the State of California, Manuel Garfias, as claimant, filed 

 his petition on the sixteenth day of September, 1852, with the commisioners 

 to ascertain and settle the Private Land Claims in the State of California, 

 sitting as a Board in the City of Los Angeles, in which petition he claimed 

 the confirmation of his title to a tract of land called San Pasqual, contain- 

 ing three and one-half square leagues, a little more or less, situated in the 

 County of Los Angeles and State aforesaid : said claim being founded on 

 a Mexican Grant to the petitioner, made on the 28th day of November, 

 1843, by Manuel Michel torena, then Governor of the Department of the 

 Californias, and approved by the Departmental Assembly on the 7th day of 

 May, 1846. And, Whereas, the Board of Land Commissioners aforesaid, 

 on the 25th day of April, 1854, rendered a Decree of Confirmation in favor 

 of the claimant, which Decree or Decision was on appeal affirmed by the 

 District Court of the United States for the Southern District of California. 

 And the said Court further adjudged and decreed that the claim of the 

 above mentioned Appellee is good and valid, and the same is confirmed to 

 him, to the exent of three and one-half square leagues within the bound- 



*3ome of our pioneer settlers in 1870-74 noticed the crumbling walls of an adobe house on the Arroyo 

 bottom at foot of Hanaford's bluff, a short distance above Sheep Corral Springs ; also remains of old 

 water ditches there and at other places along up the Arroyo. It has always been a great mystery who 

 made them. They were simply relics of work done by Hanewald and Pine, who believed they could 

 wash gold from these Arroyo sand beds. 



tAugust 27th, 1852, the United States I,and Commissioners reached Los Angeles. September i6th 

 Garfias filed his petition on his San Pasqual claim. September 23rd, says the Centennial History, p. 44. 

 " there was a grand ball at the dwelling of Don Manuel Garfias, in honor of the Land Commissioners." 

 This of course was a social affair at the very top of the scale in Los Angeles society. The Garfias man- 

 sion was a spacious structure of adobe, and fronted on Main street at corner of First street, where the 

 Lichtenberger block now stands. Mr. G. W. Robinson, now 86 years old, and his wife (of 441 Commercial 

 street), then lived in a part of the Garfias house and were at this grand ball. The commissioners had 

 rooms in the same building. Mr. Robinson was deputy sheriff several years ; and at another time 

 had a lot of his own stock on Rancho San Pasqual, and built tor himself a house made of tules. up 

 against Dona Encarnacion Abila's adobe house, before Garfias ever lived on the ranch. Mr. and Mrs. 

 Robinson were the parents of the first child ever born in Southern California whose parents were both 

 Americans. 



