Loretto's Land - Part One

Loretto Coronado applied for a 160-acre land grant on May 5, 1875,[1] under the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862.[2]  The property he wanted was located in the steep foothills about 3 miles east of the town of Yountville in Napa Valley – not far from what is today known as Stags Leap.

In his application, Loretto testified in writing that he was the head of a family, over the age of 21 years and a citizen of the United States[3].  Further he said that the application was made for his own exclusive use and benefit and that the application was for the purposes of actual settlement and cultivation.  He was required to live on the land, build a home, make improvements and farm it for at least five years.

But he ran into trouble suddenly about two years later.  The land that he identified in his initial application was owned and occupied by someone else.  And this was after he had hired a surveyor to be sure that he was applying for the right piece of land.  It turns out that the shape of the land that he wanted was the same shape as what he applied for – but in the wrong location.  (Sounds like the surveyor’s error.)

On May 2, 1877 Loretto went to the land office to explain the problem and modify the application.[4]  He and his family had been living on a portion of the land that he wanted for two years and he had a house there, some fencing and a vineyard.  He explained the error of his initial application and that he didn’t know how it occurred.  He said that he was on good terms with his neighbor, Mr. Edington, and that he was a very poor man and did not want to go to litigation.

Loretto hired a new surveyor and identified a new more compact parcel of land that included the area where he and his family had been living.  He asked the land office to allow him to modify the application, abandon his claim to the land in error and to make a new homestead entry on the newly identified parcel.  Loretto said that if this application cannot be modified and he is refused, he will lose his homestead privilege and the property he has lived on and worked will be lost.

See Part Two for how the staff in the land office handled this plea from Loretto.

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[1] Homestead Application No. 1956, Land Office at San Francisco, California, May 5, 1875.

[2] The Homestead Act of 1862 sought to secure homesteads to those settlers who wanted to live and farm on land in the public domain.  See: http://www.nps.gov/home/historyculture/upload/MW,pdf,Homestead%20Act,txt.pdf

[3] Loretto may have filed an application for citizenship, but he was not granted citizenship until June 25, 1878.  Loretto may have been living in the area when California became a state of the US, but he would have been a citizen of Mexico.

[4] Homestead Application No. 1956, Land Office at San Francisco, California, modified application, May 2, 1877.