ARCHIVES 1

ARCHIVES

Echoes of Arroyo: Branch granted rancho, sets up valley’s first industry

By Jean Hubbard/Contributing Writer

A drawing depicting Rancho Santa Manuela, including the big adobe at right and smaller log cabin, appeared in “A History of San Luis Obispo County” published in 1883. //Contributed
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In the spring of 1837, Mexican Gov. Juan Bautista Alvarado granted the first three ranchos in the South County.

Manuela Carlon and Francisco Ziba Branch were granted the upper Arroyo Grande Valley, called Rancho Santa Manuela in her honor.

Maria Josepha Carrillo and Capt. William G. Dana were given Rancho Nipomo, and Bolsa de Chamisal, in lower Arroyo Grande Valley, was granted to Francisco Quijada.

Branch’s friend, Luis Burton, wasn’t granted land. But he was young and single and made a deal with Quijada — who seemed to be in poor health — to help stock his rancho, build corrals and a house on the 13,000-plus acres and in return receive part of what is roughly Oceano and Oso Flaco today.

Quijada was said to take his spyglass and make his way on horseback up Mt. Picacho, where he had a view of his land and could give his vaqueros directions.

As a result of injuries suffered when he was robbed at Cave Landing, Burton later went back to Santa Barbara, where he was cared for by the Carlos Carrillo family.

He married one of the Carrillo girls, became the first American mayor of Santa Barbara and lost interest in the cienaga.

When Branch later purchased the land, the papers were signed by Quijada’s sisters and a brother, Nasario Quijada, who worked for Capt. Dana.

While waiting for the grant to clear a number of committees, Branch brought several men up the Arroyo Grande Valley to clear land and set up a saw to turn the trees into lumber.

The big adobe Casa Santa Manuela was to be built on the south side of the valley atop a knoll with a spectacular view. However, a small house of willows and other trees was first built at the base of the knoll near a spring.

Branch and Burton had sold their Santa Barbara trading post to Alphus Thompson (the supercargo in Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s book “Two Years Before the Mast”).

Branch became one of his best customers, ordering household items as well as the latest in farming equipment — he had the first all-iron plow to till the valley soil.

With a temporary log cabin awaiting, the Branches loaded up the mules and horses and brought everything they owned to Rancho Santa Manuela.

The trail that Father Junipero Serra had pioneered was still the only way by land from Santa Barbara to the Arroyo Grande Valley.

Not even a carreta, or cart, could be used. Their son Ramon was not yet 2 years old and had to be carried by the riders.

Manuela told her grandson, Fred Jones, about coming out at a viewpoint near Newsom Springs Canyon, where the Arroyo Grande Valley was visible.

Branch, with great gusto, swung his arm wide and said, “All you can see belongs to us.”

Manuela confessed she fought back tears. All she could see was a wilderness

of large trees with ponds of water here and there. She could imagine the bears, lions and wildcats it harbored.

But she would come to love the valley as much as her husband did.

The first year, their small house had many visitors. George Nidiver came to seek land for himself and Isaac Sparks, and he had so much fun killing grizzly bears, he stayed until he had killed 48.

In 1844, when the Boston clipper ship California docked in Santa Barbara, the supercargo immediately sent a courier to let Branch know he had been able to purchase millstones in Mexico and when the ship would arrive at Cave Landing.

The ship would, of course, take tallow and hide pesos de cuero, or “leather dollars,” in trade for the stones as well as anything else the Branches might want.

By 1846, the stones had been moved to the rancho, and Branch set up the valley’s first industry.

He employed a millwright and built a 12-foot overshot waterwheel to power the mill, where a few years later grain for all the ranchos was being ground at a rate of 30 barrels a day.

Today, the one remaining millstone is displayed in Heritage Square between the old Santa Manuela Schoolhouse and the Barn Museum owned by the South County Historical Society.

Arroyo Grande resident Jean Hubbard wrote a history column for the Times-Press-Recorder every week some 30 years ago and periodically in the early 2000s.