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Rancho San Rafael, named for Saint Raphael, the guardian angel of humanity, was one of the first Spanish land grants in California. For nearly a century its mountains and valleys were owned by an old, respected family, the Verdugos. It was granted to Corporal Jose Maria Verdugo for years of honorable service in the army. The City of Glendale and twelve surrounding communities now occupy the area, which was once a 36,000-acre rancho. The Verdugo name is still familiar in this vicinity as many landmarks are named for this prestigious family. Several adobe casas were built during the rancho's existence, but today only two remain.
One adobe, located at 2211 Bonita Avenue in Glendale, is the Catalina Verdugo Adobe, named for one of the original owners. Catalina Verdugo, the blind unmarried daughter of Corporal Verdugo, inherited one-half of San Rafael from her father in 1831. The other half went to her brother, Julio Verdugo. Currently, the house is a private residence.
The other adobe, known as La Casa Adobe de San Rafael, is at 1330 Dorothy Drive in Glendale. It was built in the 1870s by Tomas Sanchez, who married a granddaughter of Jose Maria Verdugo. This small, but beautifully restored house is now owned by the City of Glendale and is opened to the public two days a week.
The story of Rancho San Rafael begins with the Indians who first lived in the area. The Gabrielino village of Hahamogna was located within the wide spread boundary lines of the rancho. It is difficult to identify the exact site of this extinct rancheria because there is evidence of several settlements in the vicinity. Early accounts place Hahamogna along the banks of the Arroyo Seco near Garfias Springs . It was at the intake of "La Zanja", an irrigation ditch used by Verdugo. Rancho San Rafael was referred to the early Spanish as Rancho La Zanja (Ranch of the Ditch) because of the extensive irrigation system there. Historian W.W. Robinson wrote; "Indian brush huts clustered near the river and the sycamore groves along the Arroyo (Seco). But, he referred to this village as Haleameupet .
In August 1795, Father Vicente de Santa Maria, a Franciscan missionary, visited the rancheria known to be Hahamogna at Paraje de la Zanja (Place of the Ditch). The priest and his small party were in search of a prospective mission site between the Mission San Gabriel and Mission San Buenaventura (Mission San Fernando Rey had not been founded by this time). The party reported seeing a large watermelon field tended by an Indian named Requi. There were crops of beans and sugar melons belonging to the Indians. Either, they made an agreement with Verdugo to use the land or they were there without his permission.
Significant amounts Gabrielino artifacts were found in Verdugo Canyon, along Chevy Chase Drive at the base of the foothills and along the west bank of the Arroyo Seco (Dry Stream). One of these sites near the arroyo was in the vicinity of San Remo Road and San Rafael Avenue in Pasadena. Articles found here may have been from Hahamogna. But, the site most significant to the Gabrielinos can be located off the north side of the Ventura Freeway (134) where North Figueroa Street ends. Here, a large rock formation resembles an eagle in flight. Known to the Spanish as "Piedra Gorda" or "Fat Rock", this outcropping has no known Indian name. The eagle had strong cultural and religious influence upon the Gabrielinos and the site was often visited by them in order to pay homage to the bird's likeness. Today, it is known as Eagle Rock, and although eroded by the elements over the years, the resemblance to an eagle is still apparent.
There were two brothers who enlisted in the Royal Spanish Army at Loreto, Mexico in the 1760s. In 1769 they were part of the forty leather jacket soldiers assigned to protect the first land expedition into Alta California. Jose Maria Verdugo and Mariano de la Cruz Verdugo were both privates when they arrived in San Diego under the command of Captain Fernando de Rivera y Moncada. After fifty days of arduous marching from La Paz they reached San Diego on May 14, 1769. Their mission was to establish the first colony of New Spain in the frontier of Upper California. The brothers would spend the rest of their long military careers in the new frontier, but at separate posts.
Mariano Verdugo was promoted to the rank of corporal and placed in command of the guard at Mission San Luis Obispo in 1773. In 1781, he was elevated to sergeant and put in charge of the Monterey Presidio (fort). In 1782, when Governor Felipe de Neve's expedition headed back to Mexico via the Colorado River, Verdugo led the military escort of the return trip. Mariano's first wife died in San Diego in 1780. He soon remarried to a woman named Gregoria Espinosa.
Jose Maria Verdugo was assigned to the San Diego Presidio. When the Mission San Gabriel was founded in 1771, he was promoted to corporal and placed in charge of the "escolta" or the Mission Guard. This small detachment remained under the authority of the San Diego Company. In 1779, Verdugo married Maria de la Encarnacion at the San Gabriel Mission. The couple raised four daughters and a son. Verdugo was credited for bringing the first grapevines to the area.
While at San Gabriel, Corporal Verdugo took part in sporadic campaigns against renegade Indians. One revolt in particular occurred on the night of October 25, 1785. Verdugo learned beforehand of a heinous plot conspired by local Indian neophytes to murder the mission's two padres and the eight-man guard. He and former fellow trooper, Manuel Nieto, devised a clever ruse and were able to capture ten Indians inside the mission compound without firing a shot, and not a single arrow was slung during the attack.
The Corporal was not as lucky in San Diego the following month. Verdugo was temporarily in charge of the company there when local Indians massacred several soldiers and a priest. Fortunately, Verdugo was not at the presidio at the time and survived the attack. He was the first to report the tragic incident to the nearby mission.
By the early 1780s, Corporal Verdugo accumulated a respectable amount of cattle and horses, which he was allowed to graze south of Mission San Gabriel. In 1784, Verdugo learned that long time friend and fellow soldier, Juan Jose Dominguez, received a substantial land grant from Commandante Pedro Fages. Known as Rancho San Pedro, the 74,000-acre grant was the first in California. Fages was the military governor of Alta California at the time. Verdugo filed a petition with Fages, his former lieutenant, for his own piece of land. He applied for a sizeable triangular shaped tract located one and a half leagues (4.5 miles) west of the San Gabriel Mission along the road to Monterey. The tip of the triangle was located at the convergence of Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River, then reached far north as the hills. It bordered the land belonging to the pueblo of Los Angeles to the north. Consisting of 36,000 acres, the land was neither used by the pueblo or the mission.
On October 20, 1784, Governor Fages granted Jose Maria Verdugo permission to use the rancho Verdugo referred to as "La Zanja". It was a provisional grant stipulating that Verdugo was not to infringe upon mission property or that of the citizens of the pueblo. An additional condition included that he was to care for the Indians living there. Upon receiving this concession, the Verdugo moved his livestock onto the rancho. He built an adobe house at the base of the Verdugo Hills. No longer standing, his homesite was located at the north end Brand Boulevard in Glendale.
Corporal Verdugo, still in active service with the Royal Army, was unable to settle upon his newly acquired property. In his stead, he sent his brother Mariano, who had retired from the army in 1787 presumably due to a disability. Mariano built a crude house of sticks, cultivated a garden, and laid out a vineyard. During this period of retirement, Mariano served as alcalde (mayor) of Los Angeles from 1790 to 1793, then again in 1802.
In 1795, he received his own land grant known as Rancho Portzuelo. The name "Portzuelo" was colloquial Spanish for "threshold" or "gateway". It was used to describe the pass between the San Rafael Hills, the Verdugo Mountains, and the Hollywood Hills, which linked the San Gabriel Valley to the San Fernando Valley. Portzuelo, although a smaller rancho, was adjoining Rancho San Rafael to the west. Mariano Verdugo abandoned the property by 1810. Present site of Portzuelo was the flat land of eastern Glendale and Burbank. Part of this long lost rancho may have been consolidated with San Rafael.
By 1797, the animals owned by Jose Maria Verdugo grew in number. He had 200 head of cattle, 200 horses, and 150 sheep. Being afflicted with dropsy, which greatly hampered his work as a guard or a scout, the old Corporal wanted to retire. On December 4, 1797, he wrote a letter to the governor, requesting permission to retire from his post at San Gabriel because of his invalid state and asked to live at his rancho. Under Provisional Law in New Spain, a soldier who was no longer able to perform his duties due to illness was obligated to reside within the confines one of the pueblos. Because of this rule, Verdugo was faced with the possibility of not being able to live on his own land. Therefore, he made this special request. On January 12, 1798, Governor Diego de Borica replied to Verdugo, allowing him his retirement and the right to live at La Zanja, or otherwise known as Rancho San Rafael. Verdugo immediately moved to his rancho to join his brother. He received an honorable discharge the following year.
Verdugo began farming the most fertile regions of the land and irrigated a good amount of acreage by digging zanjas from the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River. There was also a natural dam located on the property adding to the abundant water sources.
For years Verdugo improved his land and enjoyed the quiet pastoral life style. However, due to obscure boundary descriptions of his grant, he started experiencing problems with his neighbors, the missions. The lands of Mission San Gabriel lay to the east of San Rafael, while those of Mission San Fernando were situated to the west.
It was generally understood that the Arroyo Seco was the dividing line between San Gabriel Mission property and Verdugo's rancho. In 1814, Joaquin Pascual Nunez, a new padre assigned to the mission, directed the construction of a sheep ranch on the west side of arroyo, which was on the Verdugo side. Corrals and huts for the Indian sheep tenders were built and flocks of sheep were brought here. Verdugo protested to the Governor, who quickly ordered the mission sheep removed. This confirmed the Arroyo Seco as the eastern boundary of rancho San Rafael.
To the west, no one was quite sure of distinguishing the division between San Fernando Mission and Verdugo property. Mission cattle roamed onto grazing land belonging to Verdugo and the mayordomo of the mission refused to have them moved. Also, Indians from the mission were harvesting corn and beans from Verdugo's fields. The ranchero made a second appeal to the governor. In 1817, the governor instructed the alcalde of Los Angeles and representatives from both parties to conduct an official survey to settle the dispute. They rode on horseback throughout the valley and used sycamores, hollow oaks, and piles of stone for boundary markers, thus officially identifying the division between Rancho San Rafael and San Fernando Mission land.
The official boundary lines of Rancho San Rafael as compared to modern references are as follows:
Commencing at the junction of the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River, the boundary followed north along the east bank of the river, wrapping westerly around Griffith Park to a point near Travel Town. From here a straight line branched off in a northwest direction paralleling Scott Road in Burbank until stopping at Chandler Fire Road north of Verdugo Mountain Park. The line cut back to the northeast until reaching the intersection of Saint Esteban and Tujunga Canyon Boulevard in Tujunga. From this point the boundary headed southeasterly taking a jagged form, roughly following along Blanchard Canyon Channel, then the Verdugo Wash, until reaching the terminus of Ramsdell Avenue in Verdugo City. Here the boundary continued in a straightened form heading southeast to the south rim of Devil's Gate Reservoir. From the reservoir the rancho's eastern border went south following the course of the Arroyo Seco back to the Los Angeles River.
The Verdugo land grant was officially surveyed as being 36,403.32 acres. Today, there are four incorporated cities and nine communities that evolved within the old boundaries of Rancho San Rafael. It included the following cities: Glendale, Burbank, La Canada-Flintridge, and the eastern part of Pasadena. The communities or districts included are: Atwater Village, Cypress Park, Eagle Park, Glassell Park, Highland Park, La Crescenta, Montrose, Mount Washington and Verdugo City.
On July 28, 1817, Verdugo reported to the governor that he had 1800 head of grown cattle, 1000 calves, 600 unbroken horses, seventy tame horses, fifty wild mules, and twenty tame mules. By 1829, these numbers doubled.
In 1822, Mariano de la Cruz Verdugo died. Six years later, the health of Jose Maria Verdugo worsened as he was bleeding frequently from dropsy. On August 13, 1828, he made out will making provisions for his children. His two favorite children, Julio and Catalina Verdugo were each destined to inherit Rancho San Rafael. Jose Maria Verdugo, the venerable military man and ranchero, lived on for three more years with discomfort, finally succumbing on April 12, 1831.
The title of San Rafael passed to Julio and Catalina Verdugo, with Julio receiving the southern half and Catalina the northern half, which was called La Canada (The Mountain Valley) by her father. This should not be confused with neighboring Rancho La Canada, which was a separate land grant. Along with land, the Verdugo siblings received other items according to their father's will. Julio inherited fine saddles, guns, aguardiente (brandy), a large still, and a small crucifix. Catalina acquired a small two-room adobe with furniture, cattle, horses, oxen, a granary, and a vineyard. The two each received half of the fruit trees on the rancho.
Julio Verdugo built family home after the death of his father. He had many young sons to assist with the operation of the rancho. He constructed several houses for the older sons and some other small huts about his vast acreage. The huts served as temporary homes as Don Julio worked on fields far from the main house. His fields were rich with barley, wheat, corn, beans and hay. Julio continued the rancho's cattle business and raised horses as well. Cattle hides and tallow were shipped to New England ports such as New York or Boston. In addition to ranching, Don Julio was the auxiliary alcalde of Los Angeles in 1833 and 1836. In 1840, he served as Juez de Campo, which was comparable to an old fashion country judge.
Catalina Verdugo suffered a serious case of smallpox as a child, which left her totally blind. Sadly, due to this unfortunate burden, she never married. She spent a good part of her life living with different nephews who would take care of her. Catalina's half of San Rafael was mostly mountainous terrain with numerous canyons and streams. Although, not conducive to farming, her land was abounded with natural beauty. Wild willow, sycamore and oak trees were abundant. A large population of wild bears lived in the local canyons. Travelers had to be escorted by vaqueros, firing guns and waving serapes to keep the intimidating creatures away.
Rancho San Rafael was the setting of an episode during the Mexican War. In January 1847, combined American forces of army, navy and marines lead by Commodore Robert F. Stockton and General Stephen W. Kearny were rapidly approaching Los Angeles from the south. After American victory at the Battle of La Mesa on January 9th, the Californio troops under the leadership of General Jose Flores retreated to Verdugo Canyon on Rancho San Rafael. General Flores fearing that Stockton would have him shot if captured, decided to flee to Mexico. Before his departure, he held final council with about 100 of his men beneath the branches of an old oak tree. Here he passed the responsibility of Chief of the National Forces of California to General Andres Pico. Known as the Oak of Peace, it survived for nearly a century and a half, and stood next to the Catalina Verdugo adobe on Bonita Street. In recent years, the rotted tree fell down and was removed.
Stockton and Kearny took Los Angeles on January 10th without firing a shot. Meanwhile, Colonel John Charles Fremont and his Buckskin Battalion were coming from the north. On January 11th, while camped at the San Fernando Mission, Fremont sent a captured Mexican scout as an envoy to the Californio's camp near the oak in Verdugo Canyon. Fremont offered to meet with Pico to negotiate terms for surrender. Fremont advised General Pico to capitulate to him rather than Stockton or Kearny, because his terms would not be as harsh as theirs. The Mexican general agreed, and on January 13, 1847, Fremont and Pico signed the Treaty of Cahuenga, thus ending the war in California.
After the Mexican War, California became a part of the United States. In 1851, the new government created the Board of Land Commissioners to investigate Spanish and Mexican land grants in California. If land claims were found to be legitimate the Board would confirm the titles. In 1852, Julio and Catalina Verdugo filed their claim to Rancho San Rafael, Land Commission Case Number 403. Their claim was based upon the Spanish concessions in 1784 and 1798 given to Jose Maria Verdugo. They hired Los Angeles lawyer, Joseph Lancaster Brent. An authority in land law, Brent represented many rancheros in Southern California. The Verdugos received confirmation of the title to the 36,403-acre Rancho San Rafael on September 11, 1855. It was not until 1882 that a United States Patent for the rancho was issued on behalf of Julio and Catalina Verdugo, after both had died. Joseph Brent received a portion of the grant for his legal fees.
The 1850s was a lawless period in California. The Gold Rush of 1849 brought in many disreputable individuals seeking fortunes, in one way or another, in the north. Many of those bent on unlawful methods to get rich were expelled from the mines and headed south. Southern California had to contend with cattle rustlers and horse thieves. Rancho San Rafael was a prime target and many of the Verdugo horses were stolen. The rancho was vulnerable because of the main road linking north and south passed through and it contained several canyons, which offered ideal concealment for the desperados. In the 1870s, the infamous bandit Tiburcio Vasquez hid from a pursuing posse in Verdugo Canyon.
In 1861, an official partition of Rancho San Rafael was conducted to determine the equitable sections of Julio and Catalina Verdugo. The dividing line began at a point on the east bank of Los Angeles River directly across from the adobe of Antonio Feliz, where North Atwater Village Park is today. From the river the line crossed the rancho in a northeasterly direction through La Piedra Gorda (the Eagle Rock) and continued on to the Arroyo Seco, where California Institute of Technology now stands. As before, Catalina kept the northern half and Julio remained in possession of the southern half.
Don Julio had an extravagant life style. Like his father, he would dress up in the finest traditional caballero attire while riding horseback into the pueblo. His hospitality overflowed to anyone visiting his hacienda, and he held grand rodeos for guests that were remembered well into the twentieth century. Fancy parties, called fandangos, were common occurrences at Rancho San Rafael. This lavish way of living was typical of most of the early California rancheros. This unfortunately contributed to their financial difficulties that ultimately caused them to loose their cherished ranchos. Don Julio was no exception and incurred a substantial debt. Furthermore, when he needed money to improve his ranch house, he had taken out a loan to pay his mounting expenses.
On July 2, 1861, Julio Verdugo signed a loan agreement with Jacob Elias for $3445.47 and mortgaged Rancho San Rafael. The terms of the loan included a three- percent interest payment due every four months. The Great Drought of the early 1860s severely hampered the cattle and farming industries in Southern California. Don Julio, also affected by the drought was unable to repay the loan, which in eight years had soared to $58,750. He lost his rancho through foreclosure. On March 8, 1869, Rancho San Rafael was sold at a Sheriff's auction to Alfred B. Chapman, who paid the amount of the debt incurred by Verdugo. Six months later, when Chapman received the deed he gave back 200 acres and the ranch house back to Julio Verdugo out of pity for the once proud ranchero. But, even this was taken by his creditors. Rancho San Rafael was no longer a Verdugo ranch.
During the late 1860s, several other parcels of San Rafael were either sold, or lost due to foreclosures. Many individuals were claiming ownership to multiple sections of the rancho. In 1871, law partners Alfred B. Chapman and Andrew Glassell, in conjunction with Prudence Beaudry and Ozro W. Childs, filed a lawsuit against thirty-six separate defendants. The case known as "The Great Partition" was considered one of the greatest land cases in California. The plaintiffs contended that there were numerous alleged property owners occupying tracts of land whose boundaries were illegally established. Once the validity of the claims were proven, a partition was demanded. Ultimately, Rancho San Rafael was divided into thirty-one sections given to twenty-eight different people, some of which included members of the Verdugo family.
Among the Verdugos receiving substantial apportionment of the land were: Catalina and Teodoro Verdugo, 3300 acres; Rafaela Verdugo de Sepulveda, 909 acres; and Maria Sepulveda de Sanchez, 100 acres. Other Verdugos received significantly smaller sections. Other claimants sharing the partition included: Benjamin Dreyfus, 8,000 acres; David Burbank, 4,607 acres; Prudent Beaudry, 1,702 acres; Captain Cameron E. Thom, 724 acres; and Alfred B. Chapman shared 5,745 acres with Andrew Glassell .
Don Julio Verdugo lived the remainder of his life in an adobe belonging to his wife on the old Portzuelo section of Rancho San Rafael. Some rancheros, who faced losing their land to American creditors, had transferred ownership of their adobe houses to their wives so that their families still had a place to live. This must have been done by Don Julio. He died at Portzuelo in 1876.
The acreage belonging to Beaudry, Thom, Chapman, and Glassell evolved into the City of Glendale. The area was primarily used for growing citrus, as well as groves of peaches, apricots, and prunes. Around 1883, investors began buying land for development rather than horticultural purposes. A group of the property owners joined together to plan a townsite. Harry J. Crow, Cameron Thom, and his nephew, Erskin B. Ross, along with B.F.Patterson and B.T.Byram were the men responsible for the creation of Glendale. In January 1887, a survey of the site was conducted. On March 11, 1887, the map of the town of Glendale was filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders Office. The name, Glendale, was actually decided upon three years before at a community meeting in a little schoolhouse. Other names considered, but deselected were Etheldean, Minneapolis, Porto Suelo (Portzuelo), Riverdale, San Rafael and Verdugo.
In 1867, a dentist from New Hampshire named David Burbank purchased Rancho Providencia from Alexander Bell and David W. Alexander. Providencia was an old rancho once belonging to the San Fernando Mission. It bordered Rancho San Rafael to the west. Burbank also acquired over 4,600 acres of Rancho San Rafael, which was adjacent to his Providencia ranch. In 1880, he established the Providencia Land and Water Development Company and began subdividing the land. Here, the city of Burbank, named for David Burbank, was founded and incorporated in 1911.
After living with several different relatives, Dona Catalina eventually came to live with her nephew, Teodoro, one of Julio Verdugo's thirteen sons. Teodoro promised his aunt, that when he got married, he would build a house on her land and have her come live with him. He built a modest adobe on the west side of Verdugo Canyon, possibly between 1860 and 1865. Although, the state marker indicates that the house was built in the 1830s, it was probably constructed much later. However, Dona Catalina did live in her own casa that she inherited from her father in the early 1830s, but it was not the same house surviving today. Catalina Verdugo lived here with Teodoro's family until her death in 1871.
Catalina Verdugo Adobe
Today, the Catalina Verdugo adobe stands partially hidden by a giant rose vine at 2211 Bonita Drive in Glendale. There is an old garden surrounding the casa with aged oleander, orange, olive and pomegranate trees. The trees in the garden are so tall and dense that the adobe is completely shaded, even in mid afternoon. Also, located in the front yard is the stump of the huge oak where General Andres Pico assumed command of the Mexican Forces in California during the Mexican War in 1847. The adobe is recognized as State Registered Landmark #637. It was privately owned residence until recently when the property was acquired by the City of Glendale. The Glendale Recreation and Parks Department use the adobe as a headquarters for Park Rangers. The grounds are open to the public (everyday, 7:00 a.m. to dusk), but the adobe is not. There are plans to turn this beautifully restored adobe into a museum.
Maria Sepulveda de Sanchez was a granddaughter of Jose Maria Verdugo, the original grantee of Rancho San Rafael. Her mother was Rafaela Verdugo and her father was Fernando Sepulveda. Maria married Tomas Sanchez, a famous vigilante and later the Sheriff of Los Angeles County from 1860 to 1867. Sanchez inherited Rancho Las Cienegas O' Paso de la Tijera from his father, Don Vicente Sanchez. This 4,400 acres rancho was located near Baldwin Hills in the southwestern part of Los Angeles.
After the Great Partition of 1871, Maria Sepulveda de Sanchez received a 100-acre tract on what was once her grandfather's princely rancho. Between 1872 and 1875, Tomas Sanchez built an adobe house on this tract of land for he and his wife. In 1875, Cinches sold his Rancho La Tijera for $75,000 and moved to the much smaller property owned by his wife. In time, the adobe was abandoned and fell into a ruinous state. In 1930, it was purchased by the California Medicinal Wine Company. The company planed to tear down the house and began cutting down the lofty eucalyptus trees on the property, when shocked neighbors put a stop to the destruction. They looked for an alternate plan that would save the house as a historic landmark. The city of Glendale bought the adobe in 1930, and started restoration efforts. By 1932, La Casa de Adobe de San Rafael was completely refurbished.
Casa Adobe de San Rafael
Today, this one story rectangular adobe sits in the midst of a small municipal park at 1330 Dorothy Drive in Glendale. The front of the house with its Monterey style corredor (covered porch) faces south where there is a beautiful sunken garden and a brick patio.
The front adobe walls are painted a bright white as are the thin wood beams supporting the overhang of the gray shake roof. The long narrow front windows are adorned with hunter green shutters. The east and west sides of the adobe are covered with a dark wood paneling. The color contrast is appeasing to the eye. Like many California adobes built in the later 1800s, it has a certain New England style of architecture. Inside, the house contains furnishings from the nineteenth century.
Next to the front door to the left, a bronze plaque is fastened to the wall. The inscription denotes a construction date of 1865, but it was most likely built ten years later. Casa Adobe de San Rafael is California Historical Landmark #235. It is open to the public two days a week, Wednesdays and Sundays, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.