Version 2012 Apr 22

NEWS FLASH Apr 2012:

An 1857 map (detail below) shows a HOUSE near the “Road from Jurupa to Guapa.” This was POSSIBLY the “house” noted in a Dec 1838 survey of Juan Bandini’s recently granted Rancho Jurupa (see citation below, Puntney from Brumgardt, p 4). The house on this map (dated only 19 years later) MAY HAVE BEEN Bandini’s adobe on Rancho Jurupa, commemorated in June 1933 (as described in the newspaper article below).

Part of the 1857 map may be found on page 11 of Hatheway’s report “The Pomona-Rincon Road and Its Place in the Regional Transportation Network” (http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA226945). The caption clearly identifies the site as being very close to the meridian between Townships T2S R7W and T2S R6W, which is the same alignment now followed by Hamner Ave north of the Santa Ana River. The HOUSE is marked just west of this line, apparently even closer to the Hamner alignment than Gould’s “3000 feet west” (below) or Patterson’s “1000 feet west” (as also quoted by Lech in “Along the Old Roads,” p 35).

Survey coordinates for Southern California’s “Initial Point” on Mt San Bernardino were established in 1852: see http://www.mdshs.org/duffy.html .

The detail (below) is from the map in Hatheway’s report, showing “Road from Jurupa to Guapa” near the house, along the bluff (indicated by “eyebrow” markings) about a half mile north of the Santa Ana river. I have added a red box to highlight the house site. The bold vertical line on the 1857 survey map marks the meridian, now followed by Hamner Ave north of the Norco bridge crossing.

Even if this house is not the original Bandini adobe from 1838, still the map locates a historically important road through East Vale, passing near the present site of the fire station on Hamner Ave, and close to Eleanor Roosevelt High School. This was the main route, even before Mexican independence and mission secularization, between Mission San Gabriel and its “San Bernardino” outpost near Redlands. Travelers turned south along Chino Creek to the Santa Ana River, to avoid the “Cucamonga desert.”

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Please note: There was another Adobe on the portion of Rancho Jurupa later owned by Louis Robidoux.This Adobe was just across the river from Riverside. It is NOT the “First Bandini” (1839 Rancho Jurupa) Adobe.

Click here for Robidoux Adobe description, transcribed from the first chapter of this book:

ADOBES, BUNGALOWS, AND MANSIONS OF RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA REVISITED , By Esther H. Klotz and Joan H. Hall. Highgrove Press, Riverside, California, 2005; CHAPTER 1 [pages 1-8]: THE ROBIDOUX ADOBE

Libraries at University of Southern California and Southwest Museum in Los Angeles have photos of the Robidoux Adobe, mis-labeled as Bandini’s 1839 residence. The Robidoux Adobe “north wing,” constructed in 1842, was perhaps the second structure, and at any rate one of the earliest structures, erected on the 1838 Jurupa grant.

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	Corona Daily Independent 05 Aug 1933
TRANSCRIPTION [LPM Nov 2011]: Corona Daily Independent 22 Jun 1933 [courtesy of Kevin Bash]
Norco Clubwomen Dedicate Sign Locating Bandini House; Historical Account is Read High tribute was paid Don Juan Bandini, one of California’s most colorful pioneers, when the Women’s Progressive club of Norco placed a permanent sign-marker near the Chino road, one-half mile north of the Norco bridge, designating the site of the original Bandini rancho home. The tribute was written by Mrs. Chester [Janet nee Williams] Gould of Corona, an authority on early California history. It was read by the retiring president of the Norco club, Mrs. Kirk Parmenter, because of the unavoidable absence of the writer, who had been invited to dedicate the marker. This sign, inscribed: “Site of Don Juan Bandini’s house. 3,000 feet west from this spot. Built in 1839. Marker placed by Woman’s Progressive Club, (C.F.W.C) June 21, 1933,” was read to the group gathered for the ceremony by Mrs. Parmenter in dedicating it as a memorial of her two years’ service as president of the Norco club. Pioneers Risked All Following the reading of Mrs. Gould’s interesting historical paper, little Marion and Franklin Lane, children of the retiring corresponding secretary of the organization, Mrs. L.L. Lane, unveiled the sign. Mrs. Gould’s account of Don Juan Bandini’s career follows: Any day is a good day for us to pause and remember the pioneers, but today is an especially fitting day. For the few years which have just past, have not only purged our souls with grief and loss and hardships, but they have turned our thoughts back to those who not only did without, but who risked all they had or hoped to have on one bold hazard. Pioneers, all of them, for the history of most of us and particularly true of the United States is the history of one migration after another. Today we are here to honor the memory of a pioneer – Don Juan Bandini – who in 1839 built on his Jurupa Rancho the house site of which we mark today. The Bandinis are said to have descended from Italians who were princes and robber barons. Then they were in Spain, where Jose, the father of Don Juan, was born in Andalusia in 1771. He was a mariner, was in the battle of Trafalgar, was in Lima [Peru], where Juan was born in 1800, and brought military supplies to California on a ship that was strangely enough called “Reina de Los Angeles.” Don Juan possibly came with his father to California and to San Diego to live when he was a lad of 19. A Romantic Picture Don Juan was in succession a member of a disputación, commissaria of revenues, supplente congressman, fomented the revolution against Governor Victoria, went to Mexico and was a member of their congress. Coming back in 1834 to California, he was Vice Inspector of the customs of Natilio. His colony scheme failed, and it is said that the Indians of his Tecate ranch on the frontier near San Diego almost ruined him. Then Governor Alvarado made him administrator of San Gabriel and in 1838 granted him Jurupa. It was on this grant of 23,000 acres that he built the adobe home, the site of which we know and mark today. In 1839 he bought an additional league of land called the Rincon grant and added this to Jurupa, christening the whole San Juan del Rio. I like to see this picture in my mind: Don Juan, a charming, educated, Spanish gentleman riding with jingling spurs and costume flashing with silver – along the Santa Ana river; planning what he could do with his land; establishing his home and becoming a great man in the country with the prestige his courage, initiative and charm gave him. He was the kind of a man who lived, who was in the thick of everything that went on. We know how he loved politics and revolutions. We know what great balls and fiestas he held in San Diego and in “Two Years Before the Mast,” the author says he danced like a faun. In other words he enjoyed life and much of the romantic history of Southern California clings to the name of Juan Bandini. His first wife was Dolores Estudillo. One of their daughters, Isadora, married Cave J Coutts, an American Army officer from Tennessee. A descendant of theirs is here today, owner of an acreage which belonged to the mighty … [acres?] of his grandfather where 2,000 head of cattle and 260 head of horses roamed the wide territory. He is C .J. Coutts [or Couts] of East Sixth Street [Norco]. Rich Field for Study He [Bandini] has written a history of California which is in the Bancroft Library, telling of Don Juan’s political struggles, of his beautiful daughters and of his social life. May I suggest that a life so rich in history which so well epitomizes the days which were golden, before we Anglo Saxon-Americans came to California, merits study by the children of your schools? Is it too much to hope that some one who lives here may some day write a play which would enroll his whole story and depict it dramatically? My heart holds regrets that things unforeseen prevent my being here with you today. But I shall be thinking of the company gather[ed] on this bright June day to pay a tribute to the memory of Don Juan Bandini and I shall mentally join with you as you call to memory his courage and his accomplishments. We like to think of you – gallant Don Juan, and as we set a marker to memorialize the site where you set your home, we can imagine that we have been your guests today and that, as we ride away from your broad acres, you are saying to us that lovely Spanish farewell – “Adiós, vaya con Dios!” The attitude is worth cultivating. The beautiful needs to be shown far and wide. No man sees it without reverencing it and growing better. For, whether expressed on canvas, in the statue of marble, or in whatever form, beauty is beauty because of its nearness to perfection, to truth. All men are the purer and the better for seeing the likeness of truth in any form.

Corona Daily Independent 05 Aug 1933

HELP WANTED TO LOCATE MISSING RANCHO MARKER

It is to be deplored that anyone, young or old, should stoop so low as to remove and carry away the sign marker placed one-half mile north of the Norco river bridge. This marker was erected June 21 by the Norco Progressive Club in tribute to Don Juan Bandini who in 1839 built a home 3000 feet west of the marker.

It is believed that this act of vandalism was committed a week ago. Anyone knowing anything about it will confer a favor by getting in touch with Mrs. Kirk Parmenter, history and landmarks chairman of the Norco Woman’s Progressive Club.

Site of First Bandini Adobe on Rancho Jurupa

As of 10 Jan 2012, the earliest source I have found for this site is in “Historic Spots in California: The Southern Counties,” by H.E. Rensch and E.G. Rensch (Stanford Univ Press, 1932 – copy located at California Room, Martin Luther King Jr Library, San Jose CA), page 131:

“Juan Bandini was one of the first white settlers in Riverside County, and in 1839 he built his first home on the Rancho Jurupa. The site was on a high bluff along the northwest side of the Santa Ana River, about one thousand yards west of Hamner Boulevard – the road from Norco to Mira Loma. The old adobe has long since disappeared.”

Descriptions identical or similar to this one have appeared in many later publications, including several editions of “Historic Spots in California.” Later documents often locate the site at 1000 feet west of Hamner – due perhaps to either a transcription error or an update. Tom Patterson in “Landmarks of Riverside” (1964, p 17) adds that “its melted walls were traceable as late as 1928.”

Source notes at the end of this chapter in “Historic Spots in California” include the citation: “Notes on the Historical Spots of the Country Around Corona (MS 1930)” by Janet Williams Gould. Further study of the Gould papers at Corona Public Library (Heritage Room) is planned.

The phrase “near the Chino road,” in the first paragraph of the 1933 newspaper article, may have been the reporter’s and not originated by Ms Gould.

Note also that the 1933 marker text said, “Built in 1839,” but a report of the Dec 1838 survey supervised by Los Angeles alcalde Luis Arenas refers to a tableland where Bandini “had established” a house.

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Another document gives some information about the early days of Bandini’s ownership of Rancho Jurupa. Note the reference to tableland “where the river makes a turn.” If the accompanying map is to be taken literally, this would be the turn just east of Etiwanda Ave. and almost three miles east of Hamner.

US Army Corps of Engineers document (Jun 1983)

Historians: Ann H. Johnson, PhD and Susan D Buchel, MA
Sponsor: Dept of the Army, Los Angeles District, Corps of Engineers, Contract # DACW09-82-M-2399

The Century of El Rincon: Historical Synthesis of the Bandini-Cota Adobe. Prado Flood Control Basin, Riverside County, CA.

Publisher: Theodoratus Cultural Research, Inc., Fair Oaks, CA

Page 27:

Soon after Bandini was appointed administrator of Mission San Gabriel in 1838, he requested and received a grant of seven leagues of grazing land which had formerly belonged to the mission. The location of this grant, along with the later grant of El Rincon adjoining it, is shown in Figure 8 [LPM excerpt].

Since Bandini’s name for his ranch, “Jurupa,” conforms to that used by Mission San Gabriel for one of its San Bernardino ranchos, we can assume that the two parcels composed approximately the same territory. A mission father once described this ranch as composed of five sitios of mission land [Engelhardt 1927:189].

Engelhardt refers to a Jan 1840 letter from Father Duran to Mission Inspector William Hartnell:

“Yesterday I received a letter from Fr. Tomás (Esténaga) who, speaking of San Gabriel, writes as follows: ‘The administrator, Don Juan Bandini, assured me that through the whole of February he will with his entire family be at his ranch which comprises five sites and which were granted him by the government. …’ ”

Bandini’s count of five sites (sitios) could mean five residences on Jurupa-El Rincon; or it could include Jurupa, El Rincon, and three grants from Mission San Diego land or elsewhere.

As stated in “Century of El Rincon” (p 29, see below), the El Rincon adobe was constructed during 1840.

Engelhardt states in a footnote a few pages later [195] that Bandini apparently left his position as administrator at San Gabriel “after the departure of Hartnell” (1841?).

On December 5, 1838, Luis Arenas, alcalde of Los Angeles, supervised the survey of the Jurupa ranch boundaries. Evidently his chief concern was to establish an equitable division of land between Bandini and his neighbor, Yorba. However, the boundary issue remained unclear as evidenced by the following document from the Los Angeles Ayuntamiento, dated November 2, 1839:

Another communication from the Prefect was received, remitting two expedientes, one from Jose Anto Yorva [sic], the other from Juan Bandini. The 1st contains a decree of the Sup’r Dept’l Government, that he should outline his boundaries and procure a map; the second contains another decree requesting Bandini to state which “cajon” he solicits and to whom it belongs; both were referred to the committee on vacant lands [Los Angeles City 1823-1850:n.p.].

Bandini lived off and on at Jurupa while administrator of Mission San Gabriel. The December 1838 survey noted above documents the presence of a house located on tableland “where the river makes a turn” (as cited in Putney 1977:4).

Puntney from Brumgardt, p 4

On December 5, 1838, Luis Arenas, first alcalde of Los Angeles, rode out to the new rancho to supervise the official survey of its boundaries. Accompanied by Bandini and Don Carlos Dominguez, representative for the Yorba family, whose property (the Rancho La Sierra) it adjoined, Arenas, by his own witness, selected and swore in two vaqueros to act as ‘cord-bearers.” The cord-bearers stretched a long rawhide riata between them and began to ride off the necessary distances. Beginning at the southeast corner on a small lone mountain called “Pachappa” [Tom Patterson and others have noted that there have been several candidates for this name], the southern boundary ran for thirty thousand varas [southwestward] along the Santa Ana River to “the point of the same tableland where Mr. Bandini had established the house and where the river makes a turn.” The property line then ran north, “crossing between the two springs of Guapan (probably Guapas)” for another seven thousand varas where “the first sand hill” marked the north-west corner. The final corner, the north-east, was another thirty thousand varas east of the sand hill at a hill called “Catamalcay.” Rectangular [trapezoidal?] in shape, the Rancho Jurupa stretched for more than seventeen miles from east to west and for nearly four miles from north to south and included approximately thirty-one thousand acres [Translation of the Juridical Possession, Document H.H. No. 2, Case #361].

Bandini lost no time in establishing the Jurupa. In testimony before the United States Land Commission in 1852, Abel Stearns recalled that Bandini “built a house on it [in 1838] … He planted a vineyard – cultivated a portion of the land and had stock on it … Bandini lived on the land from 1839 until the year 1843” [Deposition of Abel Stearns, Case #361]

However, until spring of 1840, all Bandini’s letters to Stearns were written from the San Gabriel Mission, which would make us think that the mission was his primary residence. While at San Gabriel, however, Bandini certainly attempted to develop his ranch. He bought clothing for his ranch “servants” at this time (Stearns 1840, Bandini to Stearns, January 19, 1840), and traveled back and forth between mission and ranch (Stearns 1840, Bandini to Stearns, February 17, 1840). Besides building a house, Bandini planted a vineyard, sowed crops, and, of course, ran cattle. (US Circuit Court 1852a: Deposition of Abel Stearns).

Certainly Bandini and/or his family occasionally resided at Jurupa during 1838-1839. For example, when Augustin Janssens visited Jurupa while Bandini worked for the mission, he found Bandini’s in-laws by his first marriage, the Estudillos, as well as his father, Jose Bandini, living on the ranch. He described it as follows:

The ranch was level, valuable, and prosperous. The San Bernardino [sic] River flowed through it. There was a ranchería of Cahuillas, who worked on the ranch and who were always having dances. One could see across the plain all the way to Cucamonga [as cited in Putney 1977:5].

The Indians of this ranchería were responsible for building the adobe, planting the crops, and tending the harvest. Bancroft suggests that Bandini may have dismantled the mission outpost at San Bernardino and used the bricks and timbers for his dwelling (Engelhardt 1927:196). [But Engelhardt seems to be saying that this happened a bit later, probably for construction of the larger house on El Rincon.] This [Jurupa] adobe was a modest one-story building.

On January 21, 1839, Juan Bandini petitioned for an additional league of land “upon the margin of the river and in continuation of the boundaries” (as cited in Putney 1977:5). He justified this extension because what he called the “bolsa” or “pocket” (officially called “Rincon o Bolsa de Santa Ana de Chino,” and later known as Rincon or “corner”) consisted of “tillable land on which he relies for his support” (as cited in Putney 1977:5). He also noted the land was easily irrigated. …

To Bandini, Rancho El Rincon was indeed just an extension of his former ranch. He always treated them as one holding. In fact, in his letters to Abel Stearns at this time, he noted his address as “San Juan del Rio” (Stearns 1840-1841, Bandini to Stearns, May 9 1840 to December 31, 1841). Similarly, his daughter, Arcadia, always referred to the two properties jointly as “Jurupa? (Brennan n.d., 3:”Jurupa”). We cannot discern, based on these documents, in which house – the one on Jurupa or the one on Rincon – Bandini actually resided at any given time.

One of Bandini’s reasons for requesting the Rincon extension was probably to obtain its excellent building site to construct a “proper” home for his large family, so that they could move from the smaller, more hurriedly constructed adobe on Jurupa. In the 1852 lands case, Bandini testified that he began construction of the house [to become known as Bandini-Cota adobe] in April 1840 (US Circuit Court 1852a: Deposition of Juan Bandini). This is probably a fairly accurate date; on March 10, 1840, he wrote Stearns for advice about “bearings and distances” on his “extension,” to use in his correspondence with Monterey (Stearns 1840, Bandini to Stearns, March 10, 1840). In October, 1840, he brought in brea (tar), probably for the roof of the adobe, suggesting that construction was completed at about that time (Stearns 1840, Bandini to Stearns, October 17, 1840).

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Another Bandini Adobe Marker (1969)

Another marker (also now lost) was authorized by a state commission in June 1969. It was described as Prop.#: 147744 BANDINI ADOBE SITE; HIST.RES. SPHI-RIV-027 7L 06/06/69 ST HIST RES COMMISSION 7L: SHLs 1-769, and it bore the following inscription:

About 1,000 feet west of this marker stood the adobe home erected in 1839 for Juan Bandini, political leader and land speculator of the late Mexican and early U.S. eras in California. It was headquarters for Rancho Jurupa, granted to him in 1838 and occupying the river bottom and adjoining lands from this region to Colton.

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LPM Note (Jan 2012): Information concerning this Historical Site, identified as Case 653, is stored at the Eastern Information Center of California Historical Resources Information System (CHRIS), located at the Riverside campus of University of California. However, many CHRIS files contain sensitive archeological data that is not made public for fear that a site might be vandalized.

Based on some information I was able to obtain, I now believe most of the documentation in the Case 653 file pertains to the Bandini-Cota adobe on Rancho El Rincon.

Cave Johnson Couts (1821-1874)

As stated in Janet W Gould’s historical summary (printed in the 1933 newspaper article above), Juan Bandini’s daughter Isadora married Cave Johnson Couts (1821-1874), an American Army officer from Tennessee. (The marriage was on April 5, 1851, and brother-in-law Abel Stearns gave them Rancho Guajome, now the site of a San Diego Co museum, for a wedding present.)

His uncle, Cave Johnson (1793 - 1866), had served in the Tennessee state militia under Andrew Jackson in 1813, and was elected to the US Congress (1828-1837 and 1839-1845). President Polk, a close friend, appointed him Postmaster General. Johnson is credited with creating the modern postal service and introducing adhesive postage stamps.

A descendant (one of at least 3 who also bore the same name) lived at Norco during the 1930s. According to Gould’s prepared remarks, this Norco resident Cave Johnson Couts (1883-1975) attended the ceremony. He was a friend of my dad, Manly Meissner, and I met him on various occasions. The 1930 census shows him living at Norco on 6th Street.

Cave Johnson Couts (1821-1874)
http://courses.csusm.edu/hist347as/vc/vc021.htm	Courtesy: County of San Diego, Dept of Parks and Recreation, History Office.

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EAST VALE AREA HISTORY before 1950

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RIVER WALKS – Essays by LPM

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