Born about 1798, Pérez may have received his surname (the native peoples, of course, not having there prior to the Spanish occupation) from Eulalia Pérez, the famed llavalera (or keeper of the keys) at Mission San Gabriel. One of the few documents mentioning him noted that he was an "Indio viudo de Margarita," or "Indian widow of Margarita," this wife obviously being another native person.
The document, in fact, was a reference to Manuel Antonio's marriage in 1824 to María Florentina Alvitre. Florentina was a daughter of Sebastian Alvitre and María Rufina Hernandez, early settlers of Alta California in the Spanish era, and many of whose children were among the earliest, if not the first, settlers of the Misión Vieja community. The couple had at least six children, though some sources indicate that only two daughters lived.
It has also been stated that Manuel Antonio was a Mission San Gabriel mayordomo, or ranch foreman, and that this was the primary factor in his receiving the grant to Potrero Grande. This was done on 8 April 1845 by Governor Pío Pico, and the amount of land specified was one square league, or 4,432 acres.
The shape of the rancho is a slanted parallellogram with the southern line running fairly straight to the west diving the rancho from its neighbor, Rancho La Merced, from Rosemead Boulevard a short distance above the intersection of San Gabriel Boulevard/Durfee Avenue, crossing the Río Hondo and then San Gabriel Boulevard a short distance west of Lincoln Avenue, skirting the southern edge of the Montebello Town Center, crossing the 60 Freeway at the Paramount Boulevard exit and running along the south edge of Resurrection Cemetery and crossing Potrero Grande Drive before turning northeast.
The western boundary, then runs west of Potrero Grande Drive and crossed Del Mar Street, Graves Avenue, San Gabriel Boulevard and Walnut Grove Avenue before coming to a point just below Interstate 10 along Burton Avenue in Rosemead.
The northern boundary moves on a slight southeasterly angle crossing Rosemead Boulevard, the Río Hondo, Merced Avenue and the intersection of Garvey Avenue at Santa Anita Avenue before moving past Tyler Avenue and Peck Road before coming to a point at Mountain View Road just north of Elliott Avenue in El Monte.
The eastern line travels in a southwest direction along Mountain View and then east of Tyler and Santa Anita through South El Monte neighborhoods, crossing the 60 Freeway and then into the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area. Once the line crossed Santa Anita Avenue after it turns in towards Durfee Avenue, it follows the northern edge of Rancho Potrero Chico and through Legg Lake. Crossing Rosemead Boulevard the line heads toward the Río Hondo and then turns sharply to the southeast and back to the beginning at Rosemead.
In all, large sections of the cities of South San Gabriel, Rosemead, South El Monte and El Monte are within the rancho, along with unincorporated Los Angeles County lands falling within the flood plain of the San Gabriel River system and managed by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.
As to Pérez, his ownership of the rancho appears to have lasted only about seven years. He does appear in the 1850 federal census, which was taken in early 1851 (Pérez and family were enumerated on 11 February) because California was not admitted as a state until September 1850. There, he is listed as 52 years old, and is shown as a farmer with a self-declared value of real estate as $2,000. Listed with him is "María," meaning María Florentina, age 40, and three children: María Bárbara, 21, María Antonia, 16, and Juan, 7.
In addition, the agricultural schedule of that census shows that Manuel Antonio had 20 unimproved acres of land valued at $200. This is a curious item, because there was a column next to that for improved land and there is a blank there. How his self-declared value of $2,000 is to be squared with the agricultural census valuation of one-tenth of that and only twenty listed acres is not clear. In any case, he was shown as having $20 worth of farm implements, eleven horses, two oxen, 100 cattle, and sixty sheep and the the value of his animals was given as $1,440.
Within a little more than a year, however, much had changed. On 9 June 1852, Manuel Antonio sold 172 acres of Potrero Grande to Inocencia Reyes, who happened to be his neighbor in the aforementioned census. Inocencia, as noted elsewhere in this blog, was the common-law wife of Teodocio Yorba, of the prominent family of what is now northeast Orange County, and bore him a large family until they were married in 1860, three years before Yorba's death. In the 1850 (1851) census, Inocencia had five children, ranging from a few months to sixteen years. Perhaps she raised her family on this property she acquired from Pérez.
Four months later, on 13 October 1852, a land claim to Potrero Grande, under the terms of the California land claims act of 1851 concerning Spanish and Mexican grants, was not made by Manuel Antonio, but by Juan Matias Sánchez, half-owner of the neighboring Rancho La Merced. There doesn't appear to be a located deed for the sale of everything but Inocencia's property to Sánchez and a reason is certainly not known. Did Pérez sell because of financial problems, even though the Gold Rush was in full flower and money was made in copious amounts by southern California rancheros supplying fresh beef to mining region residents? Perhaps he passed away in 1851 or 1852 and his widow decided to sell the property. At this point, there is no way to tell.
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| This detail from a copy of an 1877 map of southern California shows the Rancho Potrero Grande, which is noted as having 4,431 acres. There are some subdivided areas, including at the northeast portion by Lucky Baldwin, who bought 203 acres of the ranch in December 1875, prior to foreclosing on most of the rest of the property a few years later. |
As to the descendants of Manuel Antonio and Florentina Pérez, it appears that two daughters survived of their several children. In the 1860 census, no one by that name appears in the El Monte township count. But, a decade later, there was María Pérez, 31, and daughter Josefa, 7, living next to Pedro Archuleta and his wife Bárbara. It would seem that these would be the two oldest daughters and the 1880 census showed them living in the same houseshold. Juan Matias Sánchez, the new owner of Potrero Grande, married Luisa Archuleta, the recent widow of Rafael Martinez, and Luisa's brother, Pedro, married Barbara Pérez. The Archuletas like Sánchez were from New Mexico. Aside from these census listings, little information is known about the Pérez descendants (though someone might see this and help fill in the gap?)
What is known is that Sánchez owned the vast majority of the rancho and, interestingly, there is a record of a mortgage that Sánchez executed with Andrés Pico, a well-known Californio hero of the resistance against the Americans during the Mexican-American War and younger brother of the governor who granted the rancho to Manuel Antonio. By October 1853, however, the mortgage was released, as Sánchez obviously repaid a loan for which the rancho was used as collateral.
In March 1857, Sánchez sold half of his stake in Potrero Grande to his compadres F. P. F. Temple and William Workman. As stated elsewhere in this blog, Sánchez had been mayordomo for Workman at the latter's portion of Rancho La Puente, east of Old Mission. Workman obtained Rancho La Merced, below Potrero Grande, by foreclosure from Casilda Soto de Lobo in the early 1850s and then granted it to his son-in-law Temple and to Sánchez. This friendship between the three men was further manifested in Sánchez' sale of the half of Potrero Grande to Workman and Temple, but there may have been a more practical reason.
The land claim initiated by Sánchez in 1852 came, as they all did, with great cost. Lawyers to represent the claimant and surveys to submit to authorities required ample funds. Sánchez did have his claim confirmed in October 1854 by the commission that heard the initial cases. As with all land claims cases, the federal government automatically appealed, regardless of who the claimant was, so that they could try to free up as much land as possible in a California that was the site of huge numbers of migrants who wanted land when their golden dreams in the mines failed, as they usually did.
Still, Sánchez prevailed at the local federal district court at the end of 1856, to which the feds appealed the claim to the same court. This was rejected in March 1858 and there was an option for the government to pursue the appeal to the Supreme Court in Washington. Not only was this not exercised, but Sánchez had the distinction of being the first claimaint in the Los Angeles region to receive his patent, which was issued in July 1859. Whereas the average time to get to that level was seventeen agonizing, expensive years, Sánchez was able to get through the process in just under seven.
However, the land claims papers reveal that there were problems. First, Gold Rush-era migrations brought large numbers of people from the American South to the area in the early 1850s, leading to the settlement of the "New American Town", otherwise known as Lexington and then El Monte. Some of these new arrivals occupied lands that were within the Potrero Grande boundaries. Richard Fryer, one of these migrants who later moved to Spadra in today's Pomona, filed an affidavit that, when he arrived, Manuel Antonio had placed "flag polls" with white rags atop them to mark his boundary along those areas, mainly to the north and east, where the settlers were locating their new homes. According to Fryer, he decided to move two miles north to avoid any conflict. There were others, however, who did not.
Meantime, the sale of half of the Potrero Grande property to Temple and Workman came along three months after Sánchez had his claim heard successfully in federal court in Los Angeles. It may be that Temple and Workman agreed to help with the thorny problem of squatters if Sánchez sold them half the ranch, and that half probably included the disputed area. It also turned out that the official ranch survey for the land claim, drawn up in 1857 by county surveyor Henry Hancock (whose Rancho La Brea was later part-owned by his son and is the location of the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles), was paid for by Workman.
Indeed, more affidavits were filed, by William W. Rubottom (another Southerner who came to El Monte, later ran a tavern and hotel at Rancho Cucamonga, built a cut-off road with Temple from Los Angeles to Cucamonga, and then settled and named Spadra for his home area in Arkansas) and Doctor Nehemiah Beardslee, who lived in the Azusa/Duarte area. Beardslee stated that, in 1854, Sánchez walked him along the rancho boundaries, perhaps to show the doctor that he had a legitimate border over which squatters had breached.
Rubottom, meantime, stated that Workman offered to sell him, in 1857 shortly after acquiring his part of Potrero Grande, his new lands at $6 an acre, but that Rubottom was concerned that "as this affiant and many others had settled upon what they supposed to be public land, but by the owners of said grant was claimed to be upon said grant," he turned down the offer. Workman asked Rubottom to have Sánchez walk the boundaries with him.
Further, Rubottom noted that, "he had a conversation with the said William Workman after Hancock had made the survey of said Rancho or grant, and that said Workman stated to him that he had paid to said Henry Hancock, the sum of Seven thousand dollars [underlining originally in the affidavit here and below] . . . and that he had loaned him Seven thousand dollars more." It might be noted that Hancock was also part-owner of Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas and lost it to Workman in foreclosure in 1862, perhaps because of his loan. Workman retained ownership of that section of Rodeo de las Aguas for seven years before selling it, not knowing this would later by Beverly Hills (and its famed Rodeo Drive!)
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| This detail from an 1861 map showing land claims in California includes #371 at the left side, which refers to the Rancho Potrero Grande, the first patented claim in the Los Angeles region. From an original at the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry, California. |
With the issuance of the patent in 1859, Sánchez, Temple and Workman were able to pursue legal action against twenty-seven settlers/squatters and filed an ejectment suit in local district court. The settlers tried first to have the patent rescinded and then claimed that there was an expired two-year statute of limitations that prevented the owners from pursuing eviction against their clients. They also stated that the lands were swampy from overflow from the Río Hondo and San Gabriel River and were perhaps not accurately surveyed and that any surveys had fraudulently located their property in the rancho rather than on public land.
District Court Judge Benjamin Hayes, however, issued a ruling in early 1862 that favored the owners (at the same term of that court, Workman filed for a foreclosure on Hancock and others and got his "Beverly Hills" property that Fall.) Yet, it appears that at least some of the squatters remained on disputed property for years afterward.
In early 1874, F. P. F. Temple requested the county sheriff, William R. Rowland, to eject Bernard Newman from land on Potrero Grande. When a deputy was dispatched to serve papers, Newman shot and badly wounded the peace officer, who did survive. Newman, meantime, was convicted for the crime and went to prison. Stories of "land grabbing" by Temple, Workman and Sánchez appeared in Los Angeles newspapers even after this, but those stories were to be halted by a sudden turn of events.
As Temple and Workman moved further into business and development in Los Angeles' first growth boom, from the late 1860s into the middle 1870s, they got into banking, first with a partner, Isaias W. Hellman (who later ran Wells Fargo among other successful endeavors) and then on their own. When the economy in California crashed in late August 1875 due to a silver mining stock bubble bursting in Virginia City, Nevada, a panic erupted. The bank of Temple and Workman lacked cash reserves but faced hordes of depositors and were unable to satisfy their demands. Consequently, the bank closed until a loan could be arranged with Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin of San Francisco, who had pocketed millions of dollars in profit in Virginia City stock sales that helped bring the crash and then began investing in San Gabriel Valley real estate, notably Rancho Santa Anita earlier in 1875. In December 1875, just before the loan was executed, Baldwin purchased 203 acres for just over $6,000 of either the Potrero Grande, the Potrero de Felipe Lugo to the east, or both, from Sánchez, Temple and Workman. The 1877 map shown above seems to indicate that he chose property on Potrero Grande.
The loan, however, required the participation of Sanchez and his shares of the La Merced and Potrero Grande ranchos, a tale that will be told later in this blog. Regardless, the loan was provided but was futile, as depositors closed their accounts. The bank failed in early 1876 and Temple, Workman and Sánchez were ruined.
Baldwin waited three years to foreclose, allowing the interest to accumulate so that it would be impossible, as if it weren't already, to redeem the mortgage and its rising principal. After assuming ownership of Potrero Grande, he sold 566 acres of the ranch in the northwest corner to Richard Garvey. Garvey, an Irishman who came to Los Angeles in the late 1850s, was involved in mining and became associated with Baldwin at a gold mine near today's Big Bear Lake. He was an agent of Baldwins for many years and was also the court receiver sent to William Workman's residence on 17 May 1876 to serve him notice about pending court proceedings for Workman's estate in the aftermath of the bank failure. Distraught at the prospect of losing a real estate empire carefully constructed over thirty years, Workman took his own life that evening. Later, Baldwin and Garvey had a falling-out over how rents were collected on the ranchos near Old Mission that the former had acquired and the latter was helping to manage. Garvey was a shrewd businessman and amassed a substantial estate that made him a founder of Monterey Park and lived well into the 20th century.
Meanwhile, William Workman, in October 1862, decided to transfer his 1/4 share in the Potrero Grande to his daughter, Margarita Temple and her children, probably as a safeguard to keep land in the family's hands in case of any unforeseen problems. This 1100 or so acres remained in Workman's control until his death. Not long after Mrs. Temple took possession, she deeded the parcel to two of her sons, Francis and William, who then filed for a legal partition to distinguish their land from that of Baldwin. William, however, borrowed money from the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Los Angeles, using his 550 acres as collateral, and, after not repaying the loan, faced foreclosure and lost his land in June 1880. A few months later, Francis Temple deeded his 550 acres over to Baldwin and Garvey, he having taken possession of the home and 75 acres of his grandfather William Workman, which Francis had managed and occupied since Workman's death. Perhaps the sale of his Potrero Grande land was his way of acquiring the Workman Homestead, which took place at about the sae time in 1880.
From 1880, then, Baldwin and Garvey assumed ownership of all of Potrero Grande and subdivision gradually ensued, accelerating after Baldwin's death in 1909.
Contribution by Paul R. Spitzzeri, Collections Manager, Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry, California.
