recorded as producing 3,000 pounds of butter from 100 cows during the previous 

 year, as well as raising peas, beans, wheat, oats, and 2,000 bushels of Irish 

 potatoes. Miller had horses, sheep, oxen, and pigs, valued at more than $6,000. 

 He evidently remained on the ranch throughout his prosecution for murder. A 

 correspondent from The California Farmer visited the Miller Ranch in early 

 1862 and published the following report: 



Mr. B. Millar [sic] has 217 acres of good land, and 

 rents a league more from the great "Shafter claim." 

 He has 300 head of stock, 75 milkers; makes no butter 

 yet; had no hay or root-crops; will plant root-crops this 

 year for stock. Made in 1861, from 30 cows, 75 to 100 

 pounds of butter a week. Mr. Millar [sic] has large 

 and well-planned barns, and good buildings generally; 

 desires good schools, roads, bridges, etc., and ready to 

 aid them. Has suffered much by unsettled titles. 43 



Miller put his property on the market in 1869, advertising a "1 1/2 story 

 dwelling house containing 8 rooms, also a fine orchard, straw & hay shed 

 130x30 ft, wood shed & all necessary out buildings, divided into 6 lots." Swiss 

 immigrant Giuseppe Bassi purchased the property for $5,000 in July 1869, and 

 the next month Miller auctioned his 25 milk cows, 25 two-year-old heifers, 39 

 spring calves, ten head of horses, 20 head of hogs, "a lot of poultry," farming 

 utensils, household furniture, and other items; he then moved to Watsonville 

 where he died in 1879. 



Giuseppe Bassi and his wife Mary occupied the ranch, making butter and 

 raising hogs, until selling the ranch to Henry Betten in 1872. Betten milked 

 cows at the ranch but did not make butter there, selling his milk to a creamery. 

 In 1880, Betten was listed as having produced $1,750 worth of milk and crops; 

 Betten also kept 70 chickens on the ranch. In 1883 Betten held a community 

 dance in his dairy barn. His house burned down on July 12, 1888, and a few 

 months later Betten sold his Jersey herd and tools and apparently moved to 

 Bolinas. 44 



Betten rented the dairy ranch to Toroni and Bareuchi in 1890. Daniel 

 Bondietti rented the Betten Ranch from 1895 to about 1913. Bondietti, a Swiss 



43 Agricultural Schedules, 8th U. S. Census, 1860; The California Farmer. April 4, 1862, p. 1. 

 44 Marin County Journal. September 26, 1883, July 12 and November 5, 1888. 



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