As early as July 1852, Gregorio Briones began to sell his lands to the 

 Americans, contingent on the confirmation of his title to Rancho Baulines. On 

 July 4, 1852, he sold to Isaac Morgan a tract of land on the east side of Bolinas 

 Bay, contained by Richardson's Rancho Sausalito boundary, the ridge line, and 

 the San Rafael trail which dropped west from the ridge to the bay shore. 

 Either Briones was extremely generous or very naive with financial 

 arrangements, for Morgan was able to live rent free on the land he planned to 

 buy until Briones received a valid title, and then he paid only five dollars per 

 acre. Thus, until 1857, Morgan held claim by agreement to the eastern shore of 

 Bolinas Bay without compensating Briones, and beginning that year the Briones 

 family's lands were reduced by about 2,600 acres. 



Briones' rancho possessed two physical advantages: the protected harbor 

 of Bolinas Bay and the redwood trees in the gulches of Bolinas Ridge. With San 

 Francisco growing by great leaps and bounds, several Americans beginning in 

 1849, had made arrangements with Briones to cut timber and run sawmills on 

 2,200 acres on the northeast quarter of the rancho. Briones sold the acreage to 

 Charles Correns, and that land passed through many hands before becoming 

 the Wilkins and Bourne Ranches of the 1870s. 



The Briones family livestock and residences remained on the western 

 half of the bay until, parcel by parcel, Briones' heirs began to sell off the 3,000 

 acres left to them by Gregorio 's will. Today, after the passing of Rose Briones 

 of Dogtown, no known member of the Briones family or then- descendants lives 

 upon the Rancho las Baulines. 40 



2. Rancho Tom ales y Baulines 



Rafael Garcia's transition years under American authority followed the 

 same general pattern as Briones', with the exception that his decline in 

 material possessions was much more rapid. According to the 1851 county tax 



40 Deeds Book B, pp. 3, 156-158, 296-297, Book C, pp. 102, 187-188, Book D, p. 67, Marin 

 County Recorders Office (hereinafter cited as MCRO); Mason, Last Stage, pp. 15-16; on pp. 15-16 

 and 94-95, in the same source, Jack Mason identified Captain Morgan as an 1849 American 

 pioneer in Bolinas Bay and as one of Gregorio Briones' only American friends. Morgan worked on 

 timber crews which sent lumber for wharves to San Francisco. Munro-Fraser, Marin County, p. 

 267. 



27 



