C. Lands Grants and Early Settlement in the Olema Valley 6 



Prior to the 1833 secularization act passed by the Mexican Congress, 

 most of the land in the San Francisco Bay area belonged to the missions, the 

 Presidio of San Francisco, the Spanish crown and, after 1822, the Mexican 

 government. Mission San Rafael claimed all of today's Marin County, and the 

 Missions San Francisco de Asis (Dolores), San Jose, and Santa Clara held rights 

 to huge tracts along the south and western shores of the bay. During the 1820s 

 only seven veterans of the Spanish and Mexican frontier troops of the San 

 Francisco district received grants of land, all of which were in the east and 

 south bay areas. Many other soldiers also expressed a desire to settle on some 

 land of their own, and many filed for land grants after the decree to secularize 

 the missions went into effect in 1834. 7 



The Mexican government in 1824 and 1828 tried to encourage settlement 

 on the California frontier by passing a colonization law and then formulating 

 regulations for obtaining title to the lands requested. The 1828 regulations 

 gave the Governor of California exclusive right to make land grants of up to 

 eleven leagues, or nearly 50,000 acres. Most of the ranches granted, however, 

 contained five leagues or less. 



The process of acquiring a land grant proved to be the critical factor in 

 determining the legitimacy of Mexican ranches after the American government 

 took possession of California. A person requesting a land grant had to follow 

 certain procedures laid down in the regulations of 1828. First, he submitted a 



6 Sections C through F are adapted and expanded from original text by Anne Coxe Toogood in 

 the Historic Resource Study, A Civil History of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point 

 Reves National Seashore. California (Denver: Historic Preservation Branch, Pacific 

 Northwest/Western Team, Denver Service Center, National Park Service, Department of the 

 Interior, 1980), with alterations reflected in a draft National Register nomination compiled by 

 James P. Delgado (Historian, WR/GOGA), Roger Kelly (Regional Archeologist, WR), Anna C. 

 Toogood (Historian, DSC), Gordon Chappell (Regional Historian, WR), Robert Cox (Regional 

 Historical Architect, WR) and Thomas D. Mulhern (Chief, Cultural Resources Management, WR), 

 May 1, 1979. Many portions have been added and some corrections to the original text made by 

 the author. 



7 W. W. Robinson, Land in California . . . (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 

 45-57; Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California. 7 Volumes (San Francisco: The History 

 Company, 1884-1890), Vol. 2, pp. 592-593; Beechey, on his visit to the San Francisco Presidio in 

 1826, learned that the soldiers felt aggrieved that they did not receive a portion of land after ten 

 years service on the frontier. John W. Dwinelle, The Colonial History of San Francisco (San 

 Francisco: Towne and Bacon, Book and Job Printers, 1863), p. 43. 



