The House That Vicente Built and Some Aptos History by Allen Collins
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The House That Vicente Built and Some Aptos History by Allen Collins n 1855, for his twentieth birthday, Vicente Castro’s father gave him 700 Who was Vicente Castro? I acres of land north of today’s Aptos Vicente Castro’s great-grandfather, Joaquín Village. He built his first home on the Ysidro Castro, was one of the twenty-eight, southern tip of his land, between the steep soldiers of the Spanish Army who trekked, banks of Trout and Valencia Creeks. He with his wife and eight children, from Tubac, married Jesus Fuentes in 1858. She died of Mexico, to San Francisco, California, in 1776. pneumonia in that home six years later, Joaquín was part of the historically famous shortly after their third son was born. Anza Party, 240 brave souls, determined to A few months before Vicente’s second settle Alta California. marriage, to Vicenta Pico in 1867, he started a Vicente’s grandfather, José Joaquín long program of selling-off selected parcels of Castro, was five or six years old when he the land his parents had given him. A week trekked with his parents to California in 1776. after his second marriage, he purchased from José Joaquin was granted Rancho San Andres his parents a seven plus acre apple orchard in 1833, a Mexican land grant of nearly across the Coast Road (Soquel Drive) from 9,000-acres along the Santa Cruz County today’s Rancho Del Mar Shopping Center. coast extending from north of La Selva Beach Vicenta Castro came from a huge to near Watsonville. socially and politically prominent Santa Clara Vicente’s parents were Don Rafael de County family. She and Vicente had six Jesus and Soledad (Cota) Castro. Rafael was children, the first four were born in their granted a 6,686-acre spread in 1833 as a home between Trout and Valencia Creeks. reward for military and political services In the middle 1870s, the Castros built rendered to the Mexican Government. It a huge two-story home centered in their extended from today’s Cabrillo College to orchard, across the Coast road from the first (almost) La Selva Beach, and averaged about Aptos .school. This is our House That Vicente 2.5-miles inland from the coastline. It became Built, the subject ~f this story, where the known as Rancho Aptos, and was patented by family lived for the next twelve years. the United States Government in 1860. The story of that home, and of the Rafael and Soledad were land rich, various owners over the years, provide and became prominent as shrewd politicians important insights into this history of the area. and cattle ranchers in what became Santa The house is occupied and maintained today Cruz County. Their ranch home was a huge (1994) as a park-like gem hidden in a vibrant two-story hacienda built in 1840 on a ridge- commercial section of Aptos. top off Wharf Road, just a few hundred yards south of today’s Rancho Del Mar Shopping Center, on Soquel Drive, Aptos. The hacienda burned to the ground in 1920, and today’s Page 1 of 12 The House That Vicente Built freeway (California Highway 1) was cut Aptos Village. A round-trip to the Village for through the site in 1948. a sack of flour was one-and-a-half miles. Rafael and Soledad raised ten Vicente and Jesus had three boys: children. It was family policy to gift-deed a Audel, Rudolph, and Albert. Albert died in significant portion of the Rancho to each of infancy. Jesus died October 5, 1864 (age 25) their children when they matured, married, or of pneumonia, not long after her son Albert had their first baby, whichever came first. was born. She was buried in Holy Cross Because of this policy, the senior Cemetery, Santa Cruz; the burial is recorded, Castros gift-deeded to their son Vicente about but the grave is not marked. 700-acres of land in 1855 for love and icente was thirty-one when he affection. This land was called the potrero, married Vicenta Adalayda Pico in Spanish for pasture or cattle ground, or V San Jose in June 1867. Vicenta was grassland. Vicente was the eighth child, one of eight children of Antonio single, age twenty, and this was a birthday Maria Pico and María Lutgarda de Pilar present. The land was a rough triangle, Bernal, both very prominent and important bounded by Canada de la Novillos (later families in city (San Jose), county (Santa called Bernal Creek, now Trout Gulch) to the Clara), and state business and politics. west, the Anoyo del Chino (Valencia Creek) Vicenta’s father, Antonio María Pico, to the east, and the Soquel Augmentation had been Mayor of San Jose in 1833, a co- Rancho to the north. grantee of Valle de San Jose Rancho in 1839 and Rancho Pescadero in 1843, a delegate to Vicente’s Adventures the California Constitutional Convention in Vicente was twenty-three when he married 1849, the first Lt. Governor of California, a Maria Refugia de Jesus Fuentes (known as judge of the California Supreme Court, and Jesus) in December 1858, in Santa Cruz. was appointed by President Lincoln as the Their home was at the extreme southern end Registrar of the U. S. Land Office in Los of his 700-acre ranch, within the vertex of his Angeles in 1861. Pio Pico, Vicenta’s first triangle, at the junction of Trout and Valencia cousin, once removed, was Governor of creeks — at the southern tip of today’s California twice: for three-months in 1832, Valencia Elementary School yard. Over short and for the duration of the Mexican regime, but steep trails they could bucket domestic from 1845 to 1848. water from either creek. Conveniently, they Vicenta’s mother, Lutgarda Pilar were just across Trout Gulch from Vicente’s Bernal was a daughter of Jose Joaquin Bernal sisters, Antonia Bernal and Augustia Arano, and Josepha Sanchez, grantees of the 10,000- and across Valencia Creek from his sister acre Rancho Santa Teresa in Santa Clara Maria de Los Angeles Valencia. County. Trout and Valencia Creeks, in the At some time before February, 1867, Aptos area, flow in canyons forty to fifty-feet Vicente planted an apple orchard and built a deep, with very steep sides. Foot paths and small barn, on 7.5 acres of land belonging to horse trails crossing these canyons were his parents. In February 1867, he bought this possible and prevalent, but wagon or buggy land from his parents for $500. The land roads were impossible and bridges were few description in the deed of sale defines the and far between. The main access to boundaries of Vicente’s Orchard. The site was Vicente’s home was a wagon road along the on the north side of the Coast Road (Soquel top of the east bluff of Trout Creek. It crossed Drive), across from today’s Rancho Del Mar the gulch three-quarters-of-a-mile upstream of shopping Center. Page 2 of 12 The House That Vicente Built Some months before his second first school became overcrowded, but the year marriage, a week before buying his orchard, of this is not known. Vicente started selling-off selected parcels of The new two-story home was a master the 700-acres that his parents had gift-deeded piece in its day, and it is, in 1994, beautifully to him twelve years before. His first sale was restored, lived in, and maintained as an 120-acres, for $600, in February 1867, to historic attraction. The original structure was Edward (“Ned”) Porter, a prominent well-built, withstanding both the 1906 and storekeeper and wheeler-dealer in Soquel and 1989 earthquakes with little or no damage. a member of a prestigious family from Massachusetts that will enter our story in In 1872, Claus Spreckels, the important ways later on. And then, he sold fabulously rich “Sugar Kmg” from San 348-acres for $5,500 in November 1872, to Francisco, purchased 2,400-acres from Claus Spreckels, the “Sugar King” from San Rafael, Vicente’s father, leaving him and his Francisco, whose families and business wife their 15-acre homesite and an 83-acre interests would make important historical strip near today’s Cabrillo College. And then, impacts on our Central Coast for the next fifty four months later, he purchased an additional years. l00-acres of ranch land for $4,500 from Maria Castro Valencia Hipolito, and an additional Vicente was a skilled and enthusiastic 348-acres of ranch land for $5,500 from cattle rancher in constant demand as a Vicente Castro. “contractor” for peak-load ranch services for others in and out of the County (round-ups, Spreckels’ final purchase was in 1878. branding, dehorning, castrating, driving to When, almost as a favor to Castro, he bought market, etc.). He nurtured a profitable Vicente’s old 7.3-acre homesite at the orchard, had money from land sales, and his junction of Trout and Valencia Creeks for family was growing. $425. With that sale, Vicente and Vicenta’s only remaining property in Santa Cruz Vicente and Vicenta, raised six County was their home orchard (now 9.944- children: Catherine, Aurora, Albert, Rosamel, acres). They had sold every square inch of the Emilie, and Ana. Rosamel was born in San 700-acres that Vicente had received as a gift Juan Bautista, the others in Aptos. In addition, from his parents in 1855, twenty-three years the Castros raised Juan Castaveja, an Indian before. orphan, and kept a mature Indian, named Manuel, as a live-in ranch-hand for many The loss of these family lands was, years.