From the mid 1870s to the mid 1880s, Loretto Coronado, his wife, Guadalupe, and his five children lived on a 160-acre ranch in the foothills of Napa Valley east of Yountville. He was not a wealthy man, so how could he have acquired such a large piece of property?
In May 1875 Loretto
submitted a homestead application[1]
for 160 acres of land under the federal government’s Homestead Act of
1862. He was immediately approved (but
see the endnote below). The land was
quite rugged and rocky and was a steep ride by horse up from the valley floor.
Over the next eight years,
Loretto built a small house (16 ft x 20 ft) and enclosed 10 acres with a stone
and mesh fence. Inside the fence he had
over 50 bearing fruit trees, 1,000 grape vines and a corral[2]. He was one of Napa’s first viticulturists.
But in March 1886, just
shy of his 60th birthday, Loretto was in a terrible accident as he
was returning to his ranch – an accident that would trouble him for the rest of
his life.
This is the account from
the local newspaper:
On
last Monday afternoon at about four o’clock as Mr. L. Cornado (sic) was
ascending the grade near his home in Foss Valley the horse became frightened,
and backed off the grade. The vehicle
was overturned and Mr. Cornado thrown out, the horse and buggy in its descent
to the gulch below rolling over the gentleman several times. Mr. Cornado was picked up in an insensible
condition and conveyed to his home by friends.
It was found on examination that he had received dangerous internal
injuries, besides having his shoulders and face bruised considerably. A physician was called in and rendered
necessary medical assistance, and at last accounts the injured gentleman was
getting along well, though suffering considerable pain. The buggy was broken up considerably. The horse however escaped with only a few
slight cuts.[3]
I am glad that the horse
was in good condition, but the injuries my great-grandfather, Loretto, must
have endured are hard to imagine. He
died a year later, but that’s another story.
[1]
Homestead Application No. 1956, Land Office at San Francisco, California, 5 May
1875. There were some issues with this
application and a new application was submitted in 1883, but this is a story
for another post.
[2]
Homestead Application No. 2158 and Final Certificate No. 2158, Land Office at
San Francisco, California, 13 March 1883.
[3]
Napa County Recorder, Napa, California, 26 March 1886, 1:7, accessed by microfilm at
the Napa County Library, Napa California.
