Mariano Coronado and his
future wife, Louisa Madrid, grew up in the Napa area. Mariano lived with his family in the
foothills of Yountville and for a while in the Salvador area just north of Napa
City. Louisa lived in Napa City and then
in the Yountville area.
Although Mariano and
Louisa were married in Napa in 1884 and their first child, Marianita was born in Napa in 1885,
they were to raise their large family in Vallejo, just south of the Napa County
line. An intriguing question is: why did
they move?
Mariano’s good friend, and
witness at his wedding, Manual Madrid[1],
had moved to Vallejo in 1880 where he worked on the 1,000-acre Tobin[2]
ranch. In his third year there, he was
promoted to manager of the ranch and remained in charge for twelve more years.
I suspect that shortly
after his marriage and birth of his first child, Mariano worked on the Tobin
ranch with Manual. Mariano and his
family may also have lived in a home on or near the ranch. Mariano and Louisa’s next three children were
born in Vallejo[3]:
Dolph in 1887, Hess in 1888 and Guadalupe in 1890.
In early 1891, first-born
5-year-old Marianita took ill with tuberculosis and died on 26 January
1891. Her death certificate[4]
said that she died at the Tobin Ranch, supporting my premise that the Coronado
family lived on the ranch. Misery in the
family continued when Guadalupe, who had just been born in 1890, suddenly died
on 11 April 1891.
I can only surmise that
Mariano finally decided through the grief of their lost children that his new
family needed a home of their own. He
didn’t look very far and found a good piece of land not far from the Tobin
ranch – about 1 ½ miles away. The land was
between the main road that led from Vallejo towards Napa - and the Southern Pacific railway. It was a long stretch
of land, trapezoid in shape – about 3 ½ acres.
On 22 August 1891, M. P.
Coronado[5]
paid Simon Corcoran[6]
$300 in gold coin for the land, likely savings from wages earned working on the
Tobin ranch.
The map to the left is the area north of Vallejo and just south of the Napa County border.[7] The blue arrow shows the strip of land that
M.P. Coronado purchased – between the Napa-Vallejo Road and the Southern Pacific
railroad line. The first red arrow
points toward one of the Tobin ranches (1,000 acres in size) that was likely
the farm where Manual Madrid and Mariano Coronado and families lived and
worked. It is located about 1 ½ miles
from the newly purchased Coronado property.
Just southwest of the Tobin Ranch is another red arrow showing the
Vallejo Sulphur Springs location. After
1895, Manual Madrid would manage and then own this Sulphur Springs – renaming
it Blue Rock Springs, which became a well-known resort.
This is a detail
showing the 3 ½ acres that Mariano purchased[8]. The Napa-Vallejo road and the railroad are
the vertical lines that surround the property.
Note that there is a road that intersects the Napa-Vallejo road just
south of the family property. It was
called the Sulphur Spring Road – and was the main road that led to the Sulphur
Spring resort and passed by the Tobin Ranch.
Mariano would later open a restaurant and bar at this important
intersection.[9]
I don’t know if there was
a house on the property that Mariano bought in 1891, but my guess is that there
was not. That meant that Mariano may
have organized friends and neighbors to help him build his new home. He would eventually plant the area with trees
(eucalyptus along the road, fig, quince, apple, peach, pear and grapefruit),
vegetables, and raised cattle, pigs and horses on the property.
Below is a close up photo
of the family on the porch. Based on the
ages of the children these photos were taken in 1899.
 |
| Mother, Louisa Coronado, holding baby John (Doc) (3 months old). Hess in the middle row (11). Dolph (12), Jimmy (2), Dutch (7) & Louise (6) in the bottom row. |
[1]
According to my mother, Cecelia Coronado Phipps, Manuel Madrid and Louisa
Madrid were cousins. I haven’t been able
to confirm this, but I know that they lived next door to one another in the
1870 Census. As further evidence of the
close family relationship between Manuel and Mariano, Manual Madrid courted
Mariano’s sister, Angelita Coronado, and married her in Napa on 18 July 1886.
[2]
James F. Tobin was an Irishman born in 1830.
When nineteen years old he moved to America, and settled initially in
New York. In 1855 he moved to
California, first San Francisco and then Vallejo. His first occupation was as a butcher, but he
then moved into farming and stock-raising activities. By 1880 he owned 3,000 acres in the Vallejo
area. History of Solano County, …, A
Full and Particular Biography of Its Early Settlers and Principal Inhabitants,
Wood Alley & Co, San Francisco, 1879, page 394.
[3]
Church baptism records show the children were born in Vallejo; the records are
not specific about the actual location.
[4] Certificate
of Death, City of Vallejo Death Records, 1891, page 350, accessed from
Solano County Genealogical Society Library.
[6] Simon Corcoran bought land from John
Williamson the previous year. The
property he sold to M.P. was part of his larger purchase. The property purchased by M.P. on 22 August
1891 is recorded in the Solano County, California, land records, Book 112, Page
154.
[7]
This map is a portion of the Historical Atlas Map of Solano County,
Compiled, Drawn and Published from Personal Examinations and Surveys, By
Thompson and West, San Francisco, Cal., 1878, page 46-47, map no. 7. Current GPS coordinates for the locations on the map: blue arrow (family property): https://tinyurl.com/y2u4gqcu ; north red arrow (Tobin Ranches): https://tinyurl.com/y6qhotlt ; south red arrow (Vallejo Sulphur Springs): https://tinyurl.com/y6hzz6vo (My son, David, identified these current GPS locations and recommended that I include them.)
[8]
Ibid
[9]
The Sulphur Spring Road is generally where Lewis Brown Drive exists today along
with Highway 37. What used to be the
Napa-Vallejo Highway now follows the alignment of Lincoln Highway or
Broadway. The main highway from Vallejo
to Napa is now Sonoma Blvd or Highway 29.
[10]
These two photos of the first Coronado home and the family are colorized
versions of the original black & white photos in my files. I used the online My Heritage genealogy
website which uses a computer generated method of colorizing photos. They turn out to be clearer than the original
black & white photos.
