Rancho San Jose y Sur Chiquito was a 8,876-acre (35.92 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Monterey County, California given in 1839 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Marcelino Escobar. The grant extended along the Pacific coast from the Carmel River on the north, past Soberanes Point to Palo Colorado Canyon on the south.
History
Governor Juan Alvarado granted two square leagues of land in 1839 to Marcelino Escobar, a prominent official in Monterey. In 1841, Escobar’s two sons, Juan and Agustin, sold the rancho to Maria Josefa de Abrego, wife of José Abrego. Abrego had arrived in California in 1834 with the Hijar-Padres Colony and married Maria Josefa Estrada (1814–unknown), daughter of José Raimundo Estrada (1784–unknown), and half sister of Governor Alvarado. Abrego was granted Rancho Punta de Pinos. His wife Maria deeded the land to a group of soldiers from the Monterey Presidio in 1842. In 1844, the soldiers of the Presidio turned the Rancho over to their supervising officer, Colonel José Castro.
When Mexico ceded California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, Castro filed a claim for Rancho San Jose y Sur Chiquito with the Public Land Commission in 1853, but his claim was denied in 1855. Castro filed an appeal with the United States District Court, and as the litigation dragged on, he sold his land to Joseph S. Emery and Abner Bassett, leaving to them the legal fight for ownership. Bassett died in 1874, leaving his undivided one-half interest to his wife and eight children.
Ownership was complicated by the fact that only two of the Escobar children, Juan and Augustin, sold the rancho to Josefa de Abrego in 1841. The other Escobar heirs contested the sale, and to finance the legal battle, agreed in 1859 to give their attorney Delos R. Ashley one-half of the rancho if he obtained title to it. In 1860, these same heirs sold a portion of the half they claimed was theirs to Mathew G. Ireland. Ireland had purchased a quit claim deed to the property from the Abrego family in 1859.
After lengthy litigation, Castro won his legal appeal. The court confirmed his title to the land in 1885, and he obtained a legal land patent in 1888. Ashley, Ireland, and others were foreced to relinquish their claims.
In the early 1880s coal deposits were found on the rancho. Shortly after receiving the patent for Rancho San Jose y Sur Chiquito in 1888, those who claimed the rancho formed the Carmelo Land and Coal Company, and thus, for the first time in almost half a century, Rancho San Jose y Sur Chiquito came under one ownership.