built of logs as thick as a man's thigh, plastered with clay, with a thatched tule 

 roof, measuring about 15 by 12 feet and seven feet high. 31 



Within months after winning title, Snook mortgaged his Rancho Punta 

 de los Reyes and traded it to Antonio Maria Osio on September 28, 1839. Osio, 

 the administrator of the custom house in Monterey and grantee of Rancho Isla 

 de los Angeles (Angel Island) on San Francisco Bay, soon petitioned the 

 governor for the remaining eleven leagues, or sobrante, on Point Reyes. After 

 three years of administrative delays Governor Manuel Micheltorena awarded 

 the 48,829-acre grant on November 20, 1843, to Osio, who moved his family to 

 Point Reyes that year. 32 



Osio soon found himself in a dispute over proper boundaries of the 

 rancho, setting the stage for later events. Berry, who had retained six leagues 

 of his grant in the Olema Valley, began to run his cattle on Osio's sobrante. 

 Berry had been pushed out of his own land by Rafael Garcia, grantee of Rancho 

 Tomales y Baulines to the south; Garcia had given his Bolinas land to his 

 brother-in-law Gregorio Briones and moved north onto Berry's ranch, where he 

 had settled in comfortably, calling his new property Rancho Al Punta El Estero. 

 Until Osio received his vast sobrante, the apparent feeling in the area was that 

 there was plenty of land to spare, hence the informal mode of use and 

 settlement. 33 



Osio sued Berry in 1844, an action that brought to light Garcia's move 

 north. Jose Maria Castanares, the government attorney in Monterey, ruled in 

 Osio's favor and recommended that Garcia return the land to Berry by moving 

 back to Bolinas. But Berry pulled out of the fray abruptly, transferring his 

 property to his friend Stephen Smith of Bodega, "being debtor to Don Estevan 

 [Smith] for various sums with which he has aided me." Berry, who had 

 reportedly acquiesced to Garcia, died soon after. In the end, Garcia stayed on 

 Berry's property and Osio was satisfied that his rancho was not being 

 encroached upon. 34 



31 Mason, Point Reyes, p. 22-23; G. W. Hendry and Jacob N. Bowman, "The Spanish and 

 Mexican Adobes and Other Buildings in the Nine Bay Area Counties, 1776 to about 1850," 

 unpublished manuscript, 1940, pp. 96-97. 



32 Munro-Fraser, Marin County, pp. 190, 194. 



33 Becker, Point Reyes, p. 42; Mason, Point Reyes, pp. 42-43. 



34 Mason, Point Reyes, p. 25. 



21 



