Images from the Article
Don José Antonio Aguirre, a native of San Sebastian de Viscaya
in Spain, went to live in the State of Louisiana as a youth of fifteen Years.1
Some time later, he moved to Mexico, where he went into business trading goods
he had imported from Manila and Canton.2 In the course of his adventures, Don
Antonio became owner of a hacienda in Tepic, but the Mexican government soon
confiscated his hacienda, and Don Antonio became one of many men expelled from
Mexico for remaining loyal to Spain.3 By 1826, he had returned to New Orleans,
and two years later, had applied for citizenship in the United States. His
Naturalization Paper was signed in the Parish Court for the Parish and City of
New Orleans on January 29, 1831.4 At that time, Don Antonio (then thirty-two
years of age) began to plan for a new and exciting future.
His first step toward this new future was to buy the American
ship Dolphin in 1833. He changed its name to the Leonidas and
sailed to San Blas (a town near Tepic) to register it under the Mexican flag.5
It was his plan to trade in the Mexican Province of Alta California, taking
hides and tallow in trade for goods he imported from China and Peru.
Don Antonio was thirty-four years of age when he sailed into San Diego Bay.
His hair and eyes were light brown and his skin was very fair. Don
Antonio, often called "Aguirron" (big Aguirre) because of his large size,
traveled with a servant of African descent, which distinguished him as an
aristocrat and a man of the world.6
When the Leonidas was anchored near La Playa (the
beach on Point Loma), Don Antonio rode by horseback to the little village below
the Presidio of San Diego. At that time there were about forty adobe homes. The
four largest homes belonged to the Pico, Estudillo, Bandini, and Argüello
families. Don Antonio became close friends with members of these families; twice
in the years to come, he became a son-in-law of Don José Antonio Estudillo and
his wife, Doña Victoria Dominguez.
Don Antonio established a warehouse for storing hides and
tallow at La Playa.7 From Peru, he shipped a variety of goods, including fine
household furnishings. From China, he brought camphor wood trunks
filled with silks and satins. He sold those trunks complete with their contents
to the eager Californians.8 Don Antonio also purchased hand-embroidered shawls,
which were much loved by the California women. He was allowed to purchase the
shawls, but he never was allowed into the rooms where they were made.9 In those
rooms, Chinese women and young girls stitched so carefully that one side of a
shawl was equal in beauty to the other.
Another Spanish gentleman, Don Miguel Pedrorena, came to Alta
California in 1835.10 He brought a consignment of goods on the ship
Juan José, which had sailed from Lima, Peru. Perhaps at this time, the two
Spaniards met in San Diego. Within a few years, they became partners in the
trading business.
In January 1840, Don Antonio was living in a home in the
Presidio of San Diego. He traveled one day to the Mission San Diego where he
found that Padre Narciso Duran had been taken ill while visiting with Padre
Vicente Pasqual Oliva. Don Antonio insisted that Padre Duran accompany him to
the Presidio, where he could be nursed back to health, Padre Duran wrote to
William Hartnell of Monterey that he thought he would have gone to his grave
without the care given to him by Don Antonio.11
Don Antonio was unmarried when he arrived in Alta California.
During 1840, Señorita María Francisca Estudillo, eldest daughter
of Don José Antonio Estudillo, caused Don Antonio to think seriously of marriage and of
building a home in Santa Barbara. It was to be more luxurious than any other
home in that village, and he knew that at least one year would be needed to
complete it.
Throughout the year 1840, Don Antonio kept exceptionally
busy. He was gathering supplies in Peru for the house he was starting in Santa
Barbara, and in addition, he had horses and cattle pastured on the Rancho los
Alamitos in care of Don Abel Stearns.12 Also, Don Antonio had bought the Boston
ship Roger Williams, and in March, had registered it in San Blas as the
Joven Guipuzcoana (Maid of Guipuzcoa).13
After returning to Alta California from San Blas, Don Antonio
anchored his new ship in the Port of Verba Buena (San Francisco). Before it
could be loaded with tallow and sent to Peru, it was chartered by Governor Juan
Bautista Alvarado, who wished it to carry twenty-six foreigners to Mexico as
prisoners.14 Traveling with Don Antonio and Captain Joseph Snook (Master of the
vessel) were the two men sent to escort the political prisoners—Don José María
Covarrubias and General José Castro, Military Commander of Alta California.15
This voyage kept the Joven Guipuzcoana away from California until
September 1840.16
During most of the year 1841, Don Antonio (now forty-two
years of age) traveled up and down the coast of Alta California. On one of his
visits to the Mission San Juan Capistrano, he found Padre José María Zalvidea
greatly in need of financial help. Don Antonio advanced four hundred dollars
worth of goods from his ship, agreeing to accept brandy and cowbells
as payment.17 On another occasion, when Padre Zalvidea again borrowed
from Don Antonio, the debt was repaid in liquids made at the mission. During this year,
Don Antonio also did business with Padre Tomás Esténaga, who paid gold to buy
clothes for the neophytes of the Mission San Gabriel.18
Late in the year 1841, Don Antonio married Señorita Francisca
Estudillo. Her father was now Administrator of Mission San Luis Rey, and they
may have been married by Padre Vbarra in the church of that mission.19 Soon
after the wedding, Don Antonio left his bride with her family and returned to
Santa Barbara to complete their new home. When everything was perfect, he
planned to send a ship for his little "esposa."
While Francisca was waiting at the Mission San Luis Rey,
Bishop García Diego (the first Bishop of Alta California) arrived in San Diego.
He had been ordered by the Pope to establish headquarters for the Catholic
Church in that town. But Bishop García Diego found the village in a state of
decline and unsuitable for a grand Episcopal See.20 Word of the Bishop's
displeasure with San Diego reached Don Antonio in Santa Barbara. A message was
soon on its way to the Bishop, inviting him and his retinue to travel with Doña
Francisca when she sailed north with her family. With his reply accepting Don
Antonio's kind offer on its way, Bishop García Diego happily anticipated his
departure from San Diego. He planned never to return.
At eleven o'clock on the morning of the eleventh day of
January 1842, the Joven Guipuzcoana was anchored in the rolling swells of
the ocean near Santa Barbara. The Bishop and his retinue debarked first.21
After a sumptuous meal in La Casa de Aguirre, the Bishop and those with him
would leave for the Mission Santa Barbara.
Doña Francisca and her family went ashore several hours
after the Bishop had debarked. They rode uphill from the water until at last,
Francisca saw her new home. This home, La Casa de Aguirre, was of whitewashed
adobe bricks built in the form of a hollow square and roofed with tiles.22
Across the front of the casa was a wide covered porch, its roof supported by a
row of ten fluted columns. A large door on the southwest side of the casa opened
into the Aguirre store; the door near the right-hand end of the porch opened
into the "sala" (living room). There were many windows in La Casa de Aguirre,
each with small panes of glass which could be protected on the outside by
hinged shutters. Much of the wood used for this house was mahogany shipped from
Peru by Don Antonio. He had built the house with wooden floors on a raised stone
foundation. A stone wall surrounded the grounds, enclosing the area of the
well, fruit orchard, and flower and vegetable gardens.
A smiling Don Antonio led Francisca and her family across the
front porch and pushed open carved mahogany doors near the left-hand end of the
porch. With the doors opened, a passageway was revealed, and beyond the
passageway could be seen the secluded court of the casa. Wide covered
corridors extended from all four inner walls of the house,
forming a square around an open area in the center of the court. Intricately
hand-carved columns decorated the court and supported the roofs of the
corridors. The open area in the center had a stone floor and a canopy which
could be closed to shut out the sky. With the canopy closed, the court was
converted into a great hall forty feet square. Exotic flowering vines grew in
the garden, and wooden benches had been placed close to the walls of the shaded
corridors. In days to come, Francisca would sit with her guests, admiring the
flowers and listening to the songs of the native birds. This court of La Casa de
Aguirre was reminiscent of patios in Spain. Not even La Casa Grande of Captain
José Antonio de la Guerra, Commandant of the Santa Barbara Presidio, had a court
such as this.
When Francisca had admired the details of the court, Don
Antonio took her to see the nineteen spacious rooms of their new home. Most of
the rooms opened directly onto the corridors of the court, and all of them
contained the finest of imported furnishings. After showing these rooms to
Francisca, Don Antonio led her to the "sala," the room he had designed
especially to delight her. There she saw a room some thirty feet in length with
a floor of polished hardwood. Antique tables of rosewood or mahogany, and sofas
with chairs that matched were arranged around the room. On delicately frescoed
walls were tapestries, oil paintings, and large mirrors in ornate gilt frames.
From the ceiling hung three chandeliers, their crystal pendants glistening in
the candlelight, their images repeated in the mirrors on the walls. This room,
the grand "sala" of La Casa de Aguirre, was the most beautiful room of all.
After the Aguirres were settled in Santa Barbara, Bishop
García Diego appointed Don Antonio to be treasurer of his fund for building the
Episcopal See in Santa Barbara.23 But money from the Pious Fund (which the
Bishop had planned to use) was confiscated in Mexico, and the Bishop's plans all
came to nothing.24 During this difficult time, Don Antonio loaned twenty-six
thousand dollars (a considerable sum in those days) to the Catholic Church for
use by the missionary fathers in Alta California.25
It was possible for Don Antonio to lend such a large amount
of money because by then he had become one of the most prosperous merchants in
California. In 1842, a French traveler, Count Eugène Duflot de Mofras, noted
that Don Antonio and his friends, Commandant José Antonio de la Guerra and Padre
Narciso Duran, exerted great influence in the country, especially among the
Spaniards.26
Don Antonio and Francisca lived happily in Santa Barbara for
ten months, and then sorrow came to La Casa de Aguirre. By the last week in
October 1842, the time had come for the arrival of their first baby. Joyous
expectation first turned into troubled concern, and then Don Antonio's dreams of
living with his family in La Casa de Aguirre came sadly to an end. Padre Narciso
Duran performed the last rites of the Catholic Church for little Francisca, not
yet eighteen years of age. She was the first woman to be interred in the
crypt of the Santa Barbara Mission Chapel.27
Undoubtedly this was in consideration of Don Antonio, a good friend always to the padres.
For a few months only, the grand "sala" and court of La Casa
de Aguirre had been used for fiestas and balls. It would never again be the
same. Unable in his grief to remain in the casa, Don Antonio hired Don Agustín
Janssens to manage his store and returned to the sea. He went to Santa Barbara
between voyages, but never remained for long in La Casa de Aguirre.28
On November 11,1843, Don Antonio received his first rancho
grant.29 He and Don Ignacio del Valle became equal partners of Rancho El Tejon
(his share was 48,808 acres). This rancho contained a forest of oak trees and
many Indians.30 Neither of the owners lived on the rancho. They chose instead
to hire a "mayordomo" (ranch foreman) to be in full charge of
the vaqueros needed to guard the cattle.
Don Antonio was in San Diego during March 1845, attending a
little to business and a little to his personal affairs. Don Miguel Pedrorena
had married Don José Antonio Estudillo's second daughter, María Antonia, in
1842. In 1845, Don Antonio was becoming interested in the Estudillos' third
daughter, Señorita María del Rosario. She was then seventeen, beautiful, and
dignified beyond her years. Don Antonio was thinking very seriously of rejoining
the Estudillo family.
While he was attending to his business from San Diego, Don
Antonio wrote to Don Santiago (James) Orbell, Master of the Joven
Guipuzcoana, and to the supercargo of the ship, Don Gaspar Oreña.31 This
letter was delivered to them in Monterey through the kindness of Don Cesario
Lataillade. Three months later, Don Antonio was one of the witnesses to the
marriage of Don Cesario to María Antonia de la Guerra, daughter of Don José
Antonio de la Guerra, retired Commandant of the Santa Barbara Presidio.32
During this year, Mr. Thomas O. Larkin, United States Consul
to California since 1843, wrote to the Secretary of State, James Buchanan, that
Don Antonio was a man of much influence among the Spaniards and the clergy of
California and that he enjoyed, but did not become involved in politics.33
Around the first of the year 1846, while the possibility of
war hung over Alta California, Señorita Rosario Estudillo was preparing for her
marriage to Don Antonio. Although he still owned the home in Santa Barbara, they
would not go to live in La Casa de Aguirre.34 It held too many sad memories of
her sister, Francisca. Instead, when they were ready, Don Antonio would build a
home for them in San Diego.
On the fourteenth of February, early in the morning, Señorita María
del Rosario Estudillo dressed for her marriage to the tall and handsome
Don Antonio.35 Señorita Rosario was a slender girl, small in stature, with long
dark hair, fair skin, and dark brown eyes. As she dressed, Rosario carefully
pulled on her long white silk stockings (size three) which had been
extravagantly embroidered up the front in the most delicate of hand-made
stitches.36 She put on her satin shoes, a petticoat with a flounce at the
bottom, her wedding dress, and last of all, her veil of sheer silk cloth. When
it was time, Rosario walked sedately from her room and down the covered corridor
to the chapel of La Casa de Estudillo. Don Antonio was waiting with Padre
Vicente pasqual Oliva of the Mission San Diego, and the two witnesses: Don
Miguel Pedrorena and Don Santiago Argüello. Before these people and others who
wished to be present, Padre Oliva proceeded with the ceremony. Then, when Don
Antonio had become Rosario's "esposo," men of the village fired guns in salute,
and the wedding fiesta began.
Five months later, the Americans came, and would ultimately
conquer California. At that time, Don Antonio was one of the major landholders
of Alta California. He owned one-half of Rancho El Tejon (48,808 acres);
Rancho San Jacinto de Sobrante of 48,847 acres (granted in
Rosario's name); 44,000 acres of Santa Cruz Island; and 8,800 acres of the
Rancho San Pedro on which he was pasturing 3,700 head of cattle.37 Altogether in
1846, Don Antonio owned 150,455 acres (a little more or a little less) of
Southern California land. This amount of land far exceeded that owned by most
other rancheros. In later years, he owned even more.
It appears that the Aguirres were living in San Diego during
1846 and 1847, possibly in La Casa de Estudillo with Rosario's family. During
1848 and 1849, Don Antonio was in partnership with William Heath Davis in San
Francisco.38 Don Antonio (and probably also Doña Rosario) was living with the
Davis family until the summer of 1849. Doña Rosario was a cousin of Mr. Davis's
wife, María de Jesús Estudillo of Northern California. María de Jesús had lived
with the Estudillo family in San Diego from 1832 to 1842, and the two girls were
close friends.
During the summer of 1849, the Aguirres again were living in
San Diego. Their first baby, Miguel, was born in La Casa de Estudillo (the home
of his grandparents) on the twenty-fifth of August.39
Before the end of 1849, Don Antonio had sold his last ship,
the Joven Guipuzcoana, to Reading and Company of San Francisco.40
Previously, sometime after January 1842, he had sold the Leonidas.41 Now,
his days with the trading ships were over. Following the discovery of gold in
Northern California, cattle drives to the mines had replaced the hide and tallow trades.
In 1850, Don Antonio began to build a new home in Old Town
San Diego. He also went into partnership with Don Miguel Pedrorena, William
Heath Davis, and three other men in starting a new town closer to the bay. Soon
after the land for "New Town" San Diego had been purchased, the town was in
mourning for Don Miguel, who had died suddenly on March 31, 1850.42 Don
Miguel, forty-two years of age, was the second burial in San Diego's El Campo
Santo cemetery.43
Don Antonio and the other partners continued with the New
Town plans. He also bought 8,877 acres of the Rancho Valle de las Viejas
(located thirty-three miles northeast of San Diego) from Leandro Osuna and his
wife, Francisca Marrón.44
In the year 1850, Don Antonio took some of the first gold from the
northern mines to a jewelry shop in San Francisco. He had a very
special gift in mind—a mantilla comb for Doña Rosario. It was to be decorated in
the center with tiny flowers shaped from gold nuggets, leaves and scrolls were
to be engraved on each side of the center decoration, and gold nuggets were to
form a border around the outer edge. Eight teeth would be needed to hold the
comb upright in Rosario's dark hair. There was also to be a long gold hairpin
attached to the comb by a fine chain. This pin would be used to hold the hood of
Rosario's black silk lace mantilla in place. In time, when the jeweler had done
exactly as he had been directed, he inscribed Rosario's initials on the back of
the comb, and then, in very small letters below the initials, he
imprinted the name of his shop—W. A. Woodruff, San Francisco.
When Antonio presented this special gift to Rosario, she saw
a blue-green jewelry box irregular in shape and slightly higher at the back than
it was in the front. When she opened this box, the shining gold mantilla comb
was resting against a white velvet lining. Since her husband was one of the
wealthiest men in California and had friends throughout the State, Rosario must
have worn this comb on many special occasions. For years it was one of her most
treasured possessions.
La Casa de Aguirre was completed in San Diego early in the
year 1851.45 Before Don Antonio moved his family into their new home, he filled
it with imported furnishings, some of them formerly used in the Santa Barbara
house.46 In one bedroom, Doña Rosario used her Chinese bedspread of rosy red
satin, brightly embroidered with butterflies (no two exactly the same) and
flowers of every hue. The bedspread was edged with a long silk fringe of many
bright colors.
To protect her fair complexion, Rosario used a dainty parasol
of red satin which was embroidered with a life-size dragonfly and tiny
multi-colored flowers. A piece of finely carved ivory formed the tip of the
little parasol. Sometimes Rosario carried a different parasol, all black, which
had a handle that was hinged in the middle.
In a mahogany wardrobe or in a trunk in her bedroom, Rosario
kept her beautiful dresses, embroidered Chinese shawls, beaded purses, fans,
gold jewelry, silk stockings, and silk lace mantillas. Don Antonio bought her
anything she desired, all of the very finest quality.
For dining, the Aguirre's table in the "comedor" was set with
Dresden china and a silver service made of Chinese coin silver. The silverware
was in the shell pattern, with extremely heavy forks. Don Antonio bought service
for thirty-six, and among the extra pieces, he had included a large silver soup
ladle.47
Soon after they were living in their new home, Don Antonio hired the
artist, Leonardo Barbieri of San Francisco to paint in oils the
portrait of his beautiful Rosario. Mr. Barbieri lived with the family while
Doña Rosario posed for this painting.48 She wore a black dress trimmed in black
lace, black lace mitts, a cameo set in gold on her right wrist, and a long,
heavy gold chain with a lady's watch at the end. The watch was attached to her
dress at the waist. Doña Rosario held a delicate fan as she sat in a chair
upholstered in a soft shade of red velvet. This Spanish señora was then
twenty-two years of age. Don Antonio paid the sum of five hundred dollars for
the portrait.49
Dona Rosario was awaiting the birth of another baby while her
husband was busy developing New Town. In La Casa de Aguirre, on August 6, 1851,
Rosario gave birth to a baby baptised with the name of María de los Dolores del
Rosario.50 Padre Oliva had gone from the Mission San Diego by July 1846, and
Padre Holbein of San Diego Parish baptised Dolores on the fifteenth of August.
Her godparents were Don José Antonio Estudillo and Dona Victoria (her
grandparents).
On January 17, 1853, Don Antonio bought the Rancho Nuevo y
Potrero belonging to the estate of Don Miguel Pedrorena for ten thousand dollars
in gold coin.51 It was the twenty-second of August before the deed
was registered by the Recorder of San Diego County. At that time, Don Antonio
owned over 208,000 acres of rancho land, La Casa de Aguirre of Santa Barbara, La Casa
de Aguirre of San Diego, and quite a large number of unimproved lots in San
Diego's Old Town, New Town, and La Playa.
During the year 1853, New Town slipped into a decline. The
beginning of a depression, New Town's lack of good water for drinking, and the
shortage of expected settlers caused problems the promoters of New Town could
not overcome. However, the wharf in which Don Antonio had invested twenty-five
thousand dollars (the first wharf in San Diego) continued to be used by the
sailing vessels and steamships which were traveling along the California
coast.52
A second son joined the Aguirre family on the first of August
1853.53 He was named José Antonio after his father. Padre Holbein baptised this
infant on the eighteenth of August, naming the baby's uncle, José María
Estudillo, and his aunt, María de los Reyes Estudillo, as the godparents.
Little José Antonio, born in 1853, died the third of February
1855, at eighteen months of age. Padre Holbein had been transferred from San
Diego by then, and the padre residing in San Juan Capistrano attended to
Catholic services in San Diego whenever he could. The death of this baby was
not entered into the church register until Padre Bagaría arrived in town on the
tenth day of July 1856.54
Another son was born to Doña Rosario and Don Antonio in
1856.55 He was named José Antonio for the little son who had died the year
before.
Don Antonio sold his undivided half interest in Rancho El
Tejon to Don Juan Temple on the twentieth of August 1857, for twelve thousand
dollars.56 Don Antonio was forced to sell his share in the rancho because he had
signed a note for Don Santiago Argüello, one of his good friends, who could not
pay.57
In 1857, Padre Juan Molinier came to serve the San Diego
Parish as the resident priest. He was given a room in the home of Don Antonio
and Doña Rosario.58 Dolores Aguirre remembered a carriage which was often
driven into the court of La Casa de Aguirre to pick up the padre. A dog sitting
on the seat of the carriage held the reins in his mouth as the carriage pulled
into the yard.59
In the village of San Diego, there were two chapels: one in
La Casa de Estudillo and one in La Casa de Aguirre. There was no church, since
both the presidio church and the church of the Mission San Diego were in ruins.
No doubt, Padre Molinier often spoke with Don Antonio about the need for a
church in San Diego. In 1858, Don Antonio made the decision to buy some property
close to El Campo Santo on the New Town Road for use as a church. He signed the
deed on the third of February, paying three hundred and fifty dollars for Lot I,
Block 26 (Couts Map of 1849) and the building with a wooden floor which had been constructed in 1850 by
John Brown. Don Antonio included this floor and other useful items in his church.
In November, when it was completed, the little church could
be seen for miles around. A cross had been placed on each end of the building at
the peak of the red tile roof, and two bells hung from a framework of poles
close to the south end of the building.60 Many times in later years, Dolores
Aguirre de Pico (wife of Don Francisco Pico, married in 1884 by Father Ubach)
told her daughters that Don Antonio had spent six thousand dollars to build this
church.61
Padre Molinier wrote into the church records on November
22,1858, that he had blessed the new church before a large number of people of
different religions, and had dedicated it to the Immaculate Conception of the
Most Blessed Virgin. He wrote into the entry that it had been given by the most
Christian Don José Antonio Aguirre for the greater glory of God and for the good
of the faithful of San Diego. At that time, Padre Molinier wrote that after Don
Antonio's death, his body would rest within the church. The dedication was
followed by supper in La Casa de Aguirre, at which time, it is said, both
sentiment and wine flowed freely.62
This new church was not the only excitement in the Aguirre
household. Before the dedication, on the twenty-first of September, Doña Rosario
had borne another son. Padre Molinier baptised the new baby on the twenty-fourth
of September 1858, with the name of Martin Geronimo.63 His brother, Miguel (nine
years of age) and his cousin, Victoria Pedrorena (fifteen years of age) were
the godparents.
Don Antonio made out his will on the thirtieth of June
1860.64 At that time, he declared that he was suffering from a "fuente"
(possibly a sore that would not heal) on his left leg. He stated that Doña
Rosario was to be the guardian of their children, for she had been helping him
as a loyal wife and lovely mother, protective of her children. She was also to
be the executrix of his estate. Among the Declarations he made, he stated that
he was keeping his animals on the Rancho San Jacinto; that he was
owner of the Potrero of San Jacinto; that he owned houses in Santa Barbara and San Diego;
that he and Rosario had seven children, four of them living; that he was in
business with Don José Antonio Argüello and Don Pedro Porta; and that Rosario
was to be sole owner of the San Diego house with all of its furnishings. He did
not mention by name the Valle de las Viejas, but that rancho was still listed on
the tax assessment records for San Diego County in 1862 under the name of
Rosario Estudillo de Aguirre.65
One month and one day after writing out his will, Don
Antonio, a man of sixty-one years, died at six o'clock in the morning in his San
Diego home.66 Padre Molinier was there on that day, the thirty-first of July
1860, and made arrangements for Don Antonio to be buried in the Confessional of
the little adobe church he had donated to the town. He rests there still under a
marble slab inscribed in Spanish: "He was a benefactor of the poor and received
the blessings of God and Men."
On the day of Don Antonio's death, Doña Rosario Estudillo de
Aguirre gave birth to a daughter. Padre Molinier baptised her with the name of
María Antonia on the same day.67 This little baby, born into a house of grief,
always seemed sad during the sixteen months of her life.68 On the twenty-fifth
of November 1861, little María Antonia was buried in El Campo Santo.69
By the end of 1861, Doña Rosario was living with her four
children on the Rancho San Jacinto Viejo, where her mother, Doña Victoria
Dominguez de Estudillo, had built an adobe home.70 From that time on, no members
of the Aguirre family lived in Don Antonio's casa, the home he had furnished
with luxurious items from China and Peru.
For twenty-seven years, Don Antonio had made his home in Alta
California. During that time, he lived within the high adobe walls of the San
Diego Presidio, in Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and in Old Town San Diego. He
was the owner of two trading ships, a warehouse at La Playa, a store in Santa
Barbara, and two homes that were considered mansions in their day. He was one of
the major landowners in California and a leader in starting the first New Town
San Diego. Don Antonio was noted as a man of influence in California.
But perhaps more importantly, Don Antonio was a man known for
his kindness to others, a man called "Santo Aguirre" because of his generosity
to the poor.71 He was sincere in his faith and always generous to the padres
of the Catholic Church. When there was no church in San Diego, Don Antonio gave a
church to the people of the town.
Little recognition has been given to this Spanish pioneer of
dignity, integrity, wealth, and influence. Perhaps now Don José Antonio Aguirre
may be given a rightful place in the history of San Diego.
Acknowledgments
Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, Mrs. Gilbert Pico Harrison
(daughters of Dolores Aguirre de Pico) and Miss Anita Aguirre and Mr. Martin M.
Aguirre (children of Miguel Aguirre) have contributed invaluable information
and pictures for this article on their grandfather.
This biographical sketch of Don José Antonio Aguirre has been
taken from a more complete story of his life to be found in the author's
manuscript tentatively entitled, Spanish Pioneers of California: the Story
of a Land and Its People (1769-1866).
NOTES
1. Miss Anita Aguirre, interview in San Jacinto, October 1979. Information
taken from Aguirre's Naturalization Paper, January 29, 1831.
2. William Heath Davis, Sixty Years in California
(Title Page missing from this copy of the original edition), p. 363.
3. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in San Jacinto, July 1980.
4. Miss Anita Aguirre, interview in San Jacinto, July 1980.
Information taken from Aguirre's Naturalization Paper.
5. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California, Vol. IV (San
Francisco: The History Company, 1886), pp. 13, 104.
6. Earle Crowe, Men of El Tejon, (Los Angeles: Ward
Ritchie Press, 1952), p. 45: Agustín Janssens, Life and Adventures in
California of Don Agustín Janssens, with a Preface by William H. Ellison
and Francis Price (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1953), p. 24.
7. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, August 1980.
8. Clarence A. McGrew, "City of San Diego and County of San
Diego," American Historical Society, 1922, p. 61.
9. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, August 1980.
10. Davis, Sixty Years in California, p. 625.
11. Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, Missions and Missionaries
of California, Vol. IV (San Francisco: J. H. Barry Company, 1908-1915), p.
170. Duran to Hartnell, January 7, 1840. This letter includes the information
of Padre Duran's illness and that Aguirre had his home in the Presidio of San Diego.
12. Robert Glass Cleland, The Cattle on a Thousand
Hills, Second Edition (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1951), p. 253.
Stearns to Aguirre, April 9, 1840.
13. Bancroft, California, Vol. IV, p. 104.
14. Ferdinand Morris, "The Journal of a 'Crazy Man " (The
Narrative of Albert Ferdinand Morris), ed. Charles L. Camp, California
Historical Society, Vol. 15 (June, 1936), p. 128.
15. Bancroft, California, Vol. IV, p. 12, n. 16.
16. Ibid.. Vol. IV, p. 15.
17. Agustín Janssens, Life and Adventures, p. 107.
18. Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, San Gabriel Mission (San Gabriel: n.p.,
1927), p. 192.
19. Registers of the Missions San Diego and Santa Barbara
do not list this wedding. Mission San Luis Rey, where Francisca's father was
Administrator, is the next logical place. However, that mission's records are
missing, so the exact wedding location cannot be verified.
20. Msgr. Francis J. Weber, ed., Queen of the Missions,
p. 88. Bishop García Diego to Governor Alvarado, April, 25, 1842.
21. Alfred Robinson, Life in California, (Oakland: Joseph A. Sullivan,
1947), p. 123.
22. Sources used for description of La Casa de Aguirre:
John R. Southworth, Santa Barbara and Montecito (Santa Barbara: Oreña
Studios, 1920), pp. 124-25; Clarence Cullimore, Santa Barbara Adobes,
(Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Book Publishing Company, 1948), pp. 84-90; Miss
Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, August 1980; Mrs. Gertrude Pico
Harrison, interview in Riverside, August 1980.
23. Engelhardt, Missions and Missionaries, Vol. IV, p. 257.
24. Carlos Antonio Carrillo, Exposition Addressed to the Chamber of
Deputies of the Congress of the Union, trans. and ed. Herbert
Ingram Priestly (San Francisco: J. H. Nash, 1938), p. VII. The Pious Fund was
confiscated on February 8, 1842.
25. Msgr. Francis J. Weber, ed., Documents of California
Catholic History, (Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop, 1965), p. 154.
26. Duflot de Mofras, Duflot de Mofras' Travels on the
Pacific Coast, Vol. II, trans., ed., and annotated by Marguerite Eyer
Wilbur, with a Foreword by Dr. Frederick Webb Hodge (Santa Ana: The Fine Arts
Press, 1937), pp. 193-94.
27. Rudecinda Lo Buglio, "Mission Santa Barbara Burials,"
Antepasados, Los Californianos, 1978-79, Vol. III (San Francisco: P.O.
Box 5155, 94101), p. 26.
28. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, July 1980.
29. Rose H. Avina, Spanish and Mexican Land Grants in
California, Thesis, University of California, 1938 (R & E Research
Associates, 4843 Mission Street, San Francisco, 94112, reprinted 1973), p. 75,
#283.
30. Crowe, Men of El Tejon, p. 44.
31. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside,
January 1981. Aguirre to Orbell and Oreña, March 4, 1845.
32. Archives, Old Mission Santa Barbara, Marriage Register
of the Santa Barbara Presidio, #274.
33. George P. Hammond, ed., The Larkin Papers, Vol.
IV (Berkeley: University of California Press for the Bancroft Library, 1953),
p. 323.
34. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, November 1980.
35. Archives, Diocese of San Diego, Mission San Diego Book
of Matrimony, #2046, February 14, 1846. Copy furnished by Sister Catherine
Louise La Coste, Archivist.
36. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, February 1981.
37. Davis, Sixty Years in California, p. 598.
38. Ibid., p. 505.
39. Mr. Martin Aguirre, interview in San Jacinto, October 13, 1979.
40. Julian Dana, Sacramento, River of Gold (New York: Farrar &
Rinehart, 1939), p. 217.
41. Last mention of the Leonidas was for December 1841.
42. Archives, Diocese of San Diego, Mission San Diego Book
II of Deaths, #2. Miguel died March 31,1850, buried by Padre Holbein April
1,1850. Information from Sister Catherine Louise La Coste, letter July 17, 1981.
43. Ibid. Entry #1 was Juan Adams, November 7, 1849.
44. Winifred Davidson's Notes dated 1935, San Diego
Historical Society Research Archives. The deed was dated May 10, 1850,
Deed Book 2, p. 13, San Diego Recorder's Office.
45. H. M. T. Powell sketch of San Diego done early in 1850
does not show the Aguirre house. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico was told by her
mother, Dolores Aguirre de Pico, that she (Dolores) had been born in La Casa
de Aguirre August 6, 1851.
46. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, January 1982.
47. Mrs. Gertrude Pico Harrison, interview in Riverside, January 1982.
48. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, July 1980.
49. Ibid.
50. Archives, Diocese of San Diego, St. Joseph's Church
Book of Baptisms, Book 3, #53. Copy furnished by Sister Catherine Louise La
Coste, Archivist.
51. San Diego County Deeds, Book 4, pp. 163-66.
52. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, July 1981.
53. Archives, Diocese of San Diego, St. Joseph's Church
Book of Baptisms, Book 3, #19. Copy furnished by Sister Catherine Louise La
Coste, Archivist.
54. Ibid., St. Joseph's Church Book of Deaths, July 10, 1856.
55. U.S. Census, San Diego County, 1860, p. 2. The younger
José Antonio Aguirre is listed at four years of age.
56. Crowe, Men of El Tejon, p. 46.
57. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, November 1981.
58. U.S. Census, San Diego County, 1860, p. 2. Padre
Molinier is shown living with the Aguirres.
59. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, September 1980.
60. Mrs. Gertrude Pico Harrison and Miss Ruth Margaret
Pico, interview in Riverside, January 1982. They each have a piece of tile
taken from the original roof of the Little Adobe Chapel.
61. Mrs. Gertrude Pico Harrison and Miss Ruth Margaret
Pico, interview in Riverside, September 1980.
62. San Diego Herald, November 27, 1858, p. 2, col. 1.
63. Archives, Diocese of San Diego, St. Joseph's Church Book of Baptisms,
#60. Copy furnished by Sister Catherine Louise La Coste, Archivist.
64. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, August
1980. Copy made of Aguirre's will.
65. San Diego County Tax Assessment record for Rosario
Aguirre dated May 3, 1862. San Diego Historical Society Research Archives.
66. Archives, Diocese of San Diego, San Diego Parish Book
of Deaths, #84, July 31, 1860. Copy furnished by Sister Catherine Louise La
Coste, Archivist.
67. Archives, Diocese of San Diego, St. Joseph's Church Book of Baptisms, p.
24, July 31, 1860.
68. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside, June 1981.
69. Archives, Diocese of San Diego, San Diego Parish Book of Deaths, #89,
November 25, 1861.
70. Miss Ruth Margaret Pico, interview in Riverside,
September 1980. Doña Victoria had been a widow since 1852. She had moved to
the rancho in 1860.
71. San Diego Union, August 3, 1936, obituary of
Dolores Aguirre de Pico, San Diego Public Library, California Room.
THE PHOTOGRAPHS are courtesy of the author and the Aguirre Family.
