Several Sonoma County Sections
Small sketch map of the area including Rancho Cañada de Pogolimi and the town of Freestone.
The map locates several houses and barns owned by Jasper O'Farrell, along with a road. a "Higgins" House is also shown.
While we have no specific evidence to support our theory, we believe this the work of Jasper O'Farrell.
Jasper O'Farrell (1817–1875) was an Irish-American politician who served as the first surveyor for San Francisco. He designed the "grand promenade" that became today's Market Street. O'Farrell Street in San Francisco is named after him. O'Farrell found work with the Mexican government and surveyed much of Marin and Sonoma counties. He was one of the first settlers of Sebastopol, where he purchased Rancho Estero Americano in 1843. Following the American conquest of San Francisco, O'Farrell conducted the first official survey of town under American rule. O'Farrell's map covered the area bounded by Post, Mason, and Green Streets and the Bay, and also corrected the Vioget street designs, which were 2½ degrees off true right angles.
O'Farrell acquired significant land holdings. He was the grantee of Rancho Estero Americano and claimant for Rancho Cañada de Jonive and Rancho Cañada de Capay. At one time, he owned a part of Rancho Nicasio. Jasper O'Farrell married Mary McChristian in 1849. He was elected as State Senator from Sonoma County in 1858. He died November 16, 1875 in San Francisco.
Freestone
The town of Freestone is named after a sandstone quarry that was developed in the area around 1861.
The area once consisted of three ranchos: Rancho Cañada de Jonive, Rancho Estero Americano and Rancho Cañada de Pogolimi. The area was split into three ranchos as the result of a dispute between three early settlers, James McIntosh, James Black and James Dawson. T
Jasper O'Farrell moved into the area in 1849, after exchanging Nicasio Rancho for Rancho Cañada de Jonive. He eventually purchased Rancho Estero Americano. A land surveyor, O'Farrell surveyed the surrounding area, which he called Analy Township. O'Farrell found success in the area, acquiring a total of 560 acres of land. He was elected to the California State Senate in 1859. Within a year he had to sell his land and in 1870 he moved back to San Francisco.
Freestone had a saloon by 1849, followed by a general store the next year. Freestone became a stop on a new stagecoach line in 1853. That same year, an inn was built as well as two blacksmith shops. The inn burned down in 1861. A depot for the North Pacific Coast Railroad was built in Freestone, with the train starting to stop in the village in September 1876. A second inn, the Hinds Hotel was built by the depot in August, just prior to the train stop opening.
The first school was built in Freestone by the 1880s. In 1881, the first church was built in Freestone, a Methodist church. The town had a post office by the 1880s.
Rancho Cañada de Pogolimi -- Mexico's Defense of California Against The Russians in the 1830s
Rancho Cañada de Pogolimi (also called "Cañada de Pogolome" and "Cañada de Pogolomi") was an 8,800 acre Mexican land grant in present-day Sonoma County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to María Antonia Cazares, widow of James Dawson.
Prior to the grants, in 1835, at the direction of Governor José Figueroa in 1835, General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo began construction of the Presidio of Sonoma to counter the Russian presence at Fort Ross. To extend the settlements in the direction of Fort Ross to further frustate and encroach upon the lands claimed by the Russians, Vallejo sent three men (Edward McIntosh, James Black (1810–1870), and James Dawson) west toward the Russian settlement, directing each to settle on the lands. The three men had arrived by ship in California about 1830, along with Captain Juan B.R. Cooper, General Vallejo's brother in law, and had established themselves as early California pioneers, with Dawson and McIntosh applying for Mexican citizenship. Black settled upon what is now known as Rancho Cañada de Jonive, while Dawson and McIntosh settled upon what would become known as Rancho Estero Americano. They formed a partnership to build a saw-mill on Salmon Creek, near the town of Freestone.
The Russian-American Company left Fort Ross and sold it to John Sutter in 1841. The mill on Rancho Cañada de Jonive operated until 1849, at which time its owners sold all the lumber they had and left for the gold mines.
McIntosh and Dawson agreed to make application jointly to the Mexican government for the two square league grant known as the Rancho Estero Americano, to confirm the title given them by General Vallejo. McIntosh went the capital in Monterey to get the necessary papers in 1839. However at that time, the Mexican authorities did not like making grants to multiple owners. When McIntosh returned, Dawson on examining the papers, found that they were made out only in the name of McIntosh. Believing that he had been defrauded, legend provides that Dawson sawed in half the home he and McIntosh had built on the land, before proceeding to successfully petition for his share of the land, which would become known as Rancho Cañada de Pogolimi (or Pogolome).
In June 1840, James Dawson married 14-year-old María Antonia Cazares. Dawson continued to reside on his rancho with his wife until his death in October 1843. The Rancho Cañada de Pogolimi grant was made to his widow, María Antonia Cazares (1826–1880) in February 1844.
María Antonia Cazares de Dawson married Frederick Gustavus Blume (1815–1890), a Sonoma, California physician, surgeon and merchant, in November 1847. Blume was born in Bautzen, Kingdom of Saxony in 1815, and first traveled to California in late 1842. From Sonoma, Blume put his brother-in-law Henry Hagler in charge of his wife's rancho for the winter. The Blumes moved from Sonoma to live on the rancho in 1848, on a prominence overlooking the town of Freestone.
The town of Bloomfield, located on the rancho, was named in honor of Blume.
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 Cañada de Pogolimi was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was formally patented to María Antonia Cazares in 1858, 4 years after this survey was completed.