Cañada de Herrera Rancho
Size: 6658.35 acres
Original Grantee: Domingo Sais
Governor: Manuel Jimeno
Date of the grant: August 10, 1839
Reference: Hoffman 84
DOMINGO SAIS
b. ? ??, 1805 in San Jose
d. November 16, 1853 in Fairfax, Marin County, California
In 1839, Domingo Sais’s father sent him to Monterey, California, on an important mission. The Sais family had been squatting on a section of land in Marin (the site of today’s San Anselmo and Fairfax) for the past three years and it was the job of Domingo Sais—the eldest of nineteen children—to convince acting governor Manuel Jimeno that the family should stay. In 1840, Jimeno acquiesced and Sais returned to the tule hut in which his family had been living to inform them of the good news. To the chagrin of his family, though, the grant that Domingo Sais brought home had been made in his name rather than in his father’s. At once, Sais’s mother spanked him¹ (he was nearly forty at the time and had served for seven years as a soldier in Yerba Buena) and his father left to live with William Richardson in Sausalito. Despite the protests of his parents, he set about settling the land, planting crops and building an adobe hut, which he called “La Pavidion.” He also raised cattle, horses and sheep, and fished for salmon in San Anselmo Creek. While living at Rancho Cañada de Herrera, he befriended Dr. Alfred Taliaferro, to whom he gave a 32-acre tract of his land. With his wife, Manuella Augustina Miranda, he raised eleven children. In 1853, he died after a fall from his horse.
The U.S. Land Commission confirmed Rancho Cañada de Herrera on October 21, 1853. Upon Sais’s death less than a month later, James Black and George W. Cozzens bought portions of the ranch from Sais’s widow, who kept 1539 acres of it for herself. Although he lacked proof of ownership, Dr. Alfred Taliaferro transferred his piece of the ranch to Lord Charles Snowden Fairfax, after whom the town of Fairfax is named. During the 1880s, the North Pacific Coast Railroad, which wanted to extend its operations onto Manuella Sais’s share of Rancho Cañada de Herrera, bought a tract of land there, on which it built railroad tracks and a park.
Footnote:
1. Mason, Jack, Early Marin, p.74.
References:
1.) Bonneau, Thomas S., comp. Index of Estates and Summary of Probate and Guardianship Matters of Marin County with Rules of the Superior Court. San Rafael: Marin County, 1892.
2.) Mason, Jack. Early Marin. Petaluma: House of Printing, 1971.
3.) Mason, Jack, comp. Marin People. Vol. I. Marin Historical Society, 1971.
4.) Northrop, Marie E. Spanish-Mexican Families of Early California, 1769-1850. Vol I. Burbank: Southern California Genealogical Society, 1987.
5.) Spitz, Barry. San Anselmo: A Pictorial History. San Anselmo: Potrero Meadow, 2003.
6.) California Room Map Collection: Cañada de Herrera Diseno. Map #373. (Anne T. Kent California Room Collection)
7.) California Room Clipping Files: “Land Grants—Pamphlets I”. (Anne T. Kent California Room Collection)
COPYRIGHT 2003, Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library
