Loretto Coronado Dies in Yountville

In earlier posts (Loretto’sLand - Part One and Loretto’s Land - Part Two) I discussed how my great-grandfather, Loretto Coronado, and his wife, Guadalupe Villa Coronado, raised a family in the Napa Valley beginning in the 1850s.  I wrote about how he applied for and eventually received 160 acres of homestead land and planted one of the early vineyards in the Napa foothills.

Guadalupe Villa Coronado and her husband Loretto Coronado.  This is the only known photo of Loretto and was probably taken about 1885, shortly before his death.  Guadalupe lived until 1902, when she died in Napa at 80 years of age.

But then in March 1886 Loretto was involved in a terrible accident when his horse went off the steep road on the way to his farm and pulled the buggy with Loretto over the side of the road – apparently the horse and buggy rolling over Loretto several times.  He suffered dangerous internal injuries as well as bruises to his face and shoulders.

About a year and a half later in October 1887, the following items about my great-grandfather appeared in the local newspapers:

Died from Drink

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     Loretto Coronado, a Mexican, who is well known in Napa, was found dead in Yountville Wednesday morning, with an empty whisky bottle lying beside him.  Coroner Lawrence went up and held an inquest.  The verdict of the jury was that Coronado came to his death from exposure and drink.

     The funeral of Loretto Coronado took place yesterday.  The interment was in the Napa cemetery.[1]

Found Dead

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     Thomas Hopper came down from Lake County yesterday, stopping at Yountville Tuesday en route.  He says at an early hour Wednesday, Loretto Coronado, a well known Spaniard, was found dead in the street of Yountville, opposite Mrs. Gill’s.  Beside him lay an empty whisky bottle and it is supposed that overdoses of the tangle-leg[2] caused his death.  He had been on a long spree and had of late been indulging freely.  The Coroner was sent for.  Coronado leaves a large family.

LATER

     Coroner Lawrence and James Giles returned from Yountville at 1:30 o’clock this afternoon.  At the inquest the jury found that deceased was a native of Mexico, aged 60 years and that he came to his death through drinking and exposure.[3]

I was originally bothered by the manner of Loretto’s death when I first learned about it.  But on reflection I’ve tempered my thoughts.  He was 60 years old living in the 19^th Century when life expectancy was less than it is today and access to medical care was limited.  Loretto led a long and tough life – farming in the rough foothills of the Napa Valley and raising a family of five children.  To add to this was his horse and buggy accident in the previous year which may have and probably did leave him in constant pain.  On the other hand, coroners in the 19^th Century were not necessarily medical doctors and there was no autopsy performed.  He could have died of an unnoticed ailment with whisky and exposure to the elements a contributing cause.

Loretto left his estate, valued at $500 for the 160 acres of land and $100 for farm animals and equipment, to his wife Guadalupe.  Apparently unable to sign her name, Guadalupe marked the probate court documents with an “X” and appointed her son Marciano as administrator of the estate.[4]

The probate court documents[5] tell us a few things about the family Loretto left behind in 1887.  Living in Napa were his wife, Guadalupe (63 years old)[6], son Marciano (26 years old) and Ignacio (22 years old) and daughter Paula (19 years old).  Mariano, my grandfather, was 28 and living in Vallejo with his new wife Louisa and their two children.  Angelita Coronado, the eldest (age 29) had married Manuel Madrid the previous year and was living in Vallejo.

In a future post, I will discuss the circumstances and location of Loretto’s burial in Napa’s Tulocay Cemetery.

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[1] Napa County Reporter, Napa, California, 28 Oct 1887, 3:3, accessed by microfilm at the Napa County Library, Napa, California

[2] “Tangle-leg” or “tangle-foot” was a colloquialism for any intoxicating liquor.  A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English by John Stephen Farmer and William Ernest Henley, G. Routledge & Son, 1905, page 465.

[3] Napa Register, Napa, California, 28 Oct 1887, 3:4, accessed by microfilm at the Napa County Library, Napa, California.

[4] Probate of Estate, Letters of Administration for Loretto Coronado.  Napa County, California, Superior Court records, 1887, case number 278, Loretto Coronado.

[5] Ibid.

[6] If the estimate of her age is correct, Guadalupe was relatively old when she began to have children (34) and when she had her last child (44).