*** Source: Thompson, Robert A., Historical and descriptive sketch of Sonoma County, California. Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1877, 122 pgs. Notice: This data is donated to the Public Domain by TAG, 2004, and may be copied freely by anyone to anywhere. *** ---page 13--- The foreigners to whom land was granted in this section were Jacob P. Leese, John Fitch, Juan P. Cooper, John Wilson and Mark West. The three former were brothers-in-law of General Vallejo. The site of the present town of Santa Rosa was granted to Mrs. Carrillo, the mother of Julio Carrillo, and the country between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, to Joaquin Carrillo, a brother of Mrs. Vallejo. Captain Stephen Smith was granted the Bodega ranch, which included thirty-five thousand four hundred and eighty-seven acres. Captain Smith was a remarkable man; he came to California from Chili, and was a fine type of the pioneer, honest, hospitable and generous to a fault. Juan B. Cooper was another old sea-captain; he owned the rancho "El Molino," translated--the mill-ranch. He had just gotten up his mill when a tremendous freshet came in 1840-41, and washed it all away. The Ross ranch was granted to Manuel Torres. The German ranch on the coast above Ross was granted to a number of Germans, and they gave to the stream which flowed through their land the appropriate name of Valhalla. Jasper O'Farrel exchanged a ranch in Marin county for the Canada de Jonive, and purchased of James McIntosh the Estero Americano. The reader will remember that Black, McIntosh and Dawson were the very first English- speaking settlers in Sonoma county. The home of Jasper O'Farrel, in Bodega, in the early history of Sonoma county, was the seat of princely hospitality. From far and near it was made a stopping place, and we have been told by old settlers, that a beef was killed every day and consumed at his generous board. He possessed the genius, the wit and the liberality which distinguish his race. He was afterwards a member of the State senate, in which he ably represented Sonoma county. Mark West was a sailor, and a different type of man from those above described. His grant included six thousand six hundred and sixty-three acres between Mark West and Santa Rosa creeks, and was the richest body of land of the same number of acres in the State. There was not an acre of it that would not produce from seventy-five to one hundred bushels of wheat. He lies buried on a stony point near the residence of H. C. Mizer, and none of his descendants own a foot of his splendid estate, which is to-day worth over half a million of dollars. The total number of acres included in all the grants in the county was four hundred thousand one hundred and forty-three, just less than one half its whole area as now bounded, which is estimated at eight hundred and fifty thousand acres. All of the valleys we have elsewhere described were covered by grants without an exception. The public land all lay in the low hills on the border of the valleys, and in the mountains. Fortunately for the future wel- fare of the county, these grants were sub-divided and sold in small tracts at a very early day. The titles to most of them were settled without much dispute or delay; and the sub-divided lands were purchased by industrious and enter- prising farmers, who have since lived upon and improved them. They have converted the long-horned worthless Spanish cattle into the short horn, and the mustang horse into the thorough-bred, and the pastures of this worthless stock into homes of beauty and teeming abundance. With one exception all the grants have been sold in small tracts, and that is the Cotate ranch, on the *** end ***