Saucelito (Sausalito) Rancho
Size: 19,571.92 acres
Original Grantee: Nicolas Galindo (1835); William (Guillermo Antonio) Richardson (1838)
Governor: Juan B. Alvarado
Date of the grant: February 11, 1835
Reference: Hoffman 104
WILLIAM RICHARDSON
b. August 27, 1795 in London, England
d. April 20, 1856 in Sausalito, Marin County, California
William Richardson spent his early years on the sea, first as a cabin boy and later as a captain. In 1822, while serving as first officer on the British whaler Orion, he went ashore at San Francisco Bay to collect supplies and to visit the local Presidio. The Orion left the next day, but Richardson, who had fallen out of favor with the captain, stayed on at the Presidio. Within three months, he had obtained permission to stay in California. By 1825, he had won Mexican citizenship and had married Maria Antonia Martinez, daughter of the commandant of the Presidio. In 1835, Richardson built a redwood shelter near Yerba Buena cove, the first house in what is now San Francisco. The following year, he built a large adobe on the same lot. In 1837 he was named Port Captain at San Francisco. He is also credited with turning the San Francisco Bay into one of the great whaling ports of its day.
After several unsuccessful attempts to obtain land in southern Marin, he persuaded Governor Alvarado to grant him nearly 20,000 acres at Rancho Saucelito in 1838. This same piece of land had been granted to Nicolas Galindo in 1835, but Galindo had fallen out of favor with the authorities in Monterey, who were happy to transfer the land over to Richardson. Richardson’s Saucelito adobe was located on today’s Pine St., near Caledonia. Here, he and his wife, by all accounts, led an idyllic life. “His wharf was a beehive of activity where he waxed rich shipping lumber, hides and tallow. Drinking water stored in tanks on the beach was sold to ships and carried in barrels to Yerba Buena.”¹
In 1844, Richardson was awarded a second tract of land along the Mendocino coast which he called the Albion Rancho. During the Mexican War, he supported the Americans, offering Commodore Robert Stockton lodging at his rancho in Saucelito. In 1847, he was rewarded for that support when Stockton named him collector and captain of the port. During the Gold Rush, he profited greatly by selling butter, milk and beef to San Francisco. After, this, however, the tide began to turn against him. Richardson made a series of poor investments and ended up massively in debt to many creditors. He lost his Mendocino ranch. He deeded 640 acres of his Saucelito rancho to his wife, in order to protect her, but had to put the rest of the rancho into the hands of an administrator, Samuel P. Throckmorton. When Richardson died in 1856, he had lost nearly everything.
Footnote:
1.) Mason, Jack. Early Marin, p.26.
References:
1.) Mason, Jack. Early Marin. House of Printing: Petaluma, 1971.
2.) Miller, Robert Ryal. Captain Richardson: Mariner, Ranchero, and Founder of San Francisco. Berkeley: La Loma Press, 1995.
3.) California Room Map Collection: Rancho Saucelito Diseño: Map #302. (Anne T. Kent California Room Collection).
COPYRIGHT 2003, Anne T. Kent California Room, Marin County Free Library
