Rancho Tinaquaic was a 8,875-acre (35.92 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Barbara County, California given in 1837 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Benjamin Foxen. The grant comprised most of what is now known as Foxen Canyon, northeast of Los Alamos.
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History
William Benjamin (Guillermo Domingo) Foxen (1798–1874), a native of Norwich, England was a sea captain who came to Santa Barbara in the early 19th century. Foxen married Eduarda Osuna, the stepdaughter of Tomás Olivera of Rancho Tepusquet in 1831. In 1837, he was granted the two square league Rancho Tinaquaic. In 1846 during the Mexican–American War, Foxen guided John C. Frémont over the Santa Ynez Mountains at San Marcos Pass. The Californios felt he was a traitor to his adopted country Mexico, and his property was raided several times. In a confrontation in 1848, Foxen killed Agustín Dávila of Rancho Corral de Cuati. Foxen was sentenced to four years in jail.
With the cession of 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, a claim for Rancho Tinaquaic was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was patented to Benjamin Foxen in 1872.