Samuel Freeman Miller

“ It has been strenuously urged that if the original half league petitioned for by Sanchez has been correctly located, that the remainder of the league granted her should be taken out of the surplus of the Gonzales grant, instead of extending the grant eastward to the Sierra for quantity. It is sufficient to say that we see no reason for making the distorted survey which this would require, and encroaching upon settlers who have made pre-emptions, merely that claimant may get better land than he does by extending his grant eastward to the mountains, as his grant seems to demand. ”

“ Their ideas of the relation of the points of the compass to the objects on the map were very inaccurate; and as these sketches were made by uneducated herdsmen of cattle, it is easy to imagine how imperfect they were. Yet they are now often the most satisfactory, and sometimes the only evidence by which to locate these claims. ”

“ The next grant in order of time is that to the present claimants, under Ramona Sanchez. She, in 1837, made application for a half league of land, and the governor issued to her a provisional concession for a league in 1838. Of the location of this we will speak hereafter. Next came Simeon Castro, who, in 1842, obtained from the government a grant of four square leagues, bordering to the east on the Sierra, to the west on the sea, to the north on the rancho of Don Juan Gonzales, and to the south on that of Don Ylaria Buelna. ”