History
Don José de Cañizares — diarist on the 1769 overland Portola expedition and who sailed with Don Juan Manuel de Ayala on the San Carlos, the first ship to enter San Francisco Bay on August 5, 1775 — named the cove north and west of Benicia Puerto de las Asunta (Asumption Harbor in Spanish) because he discovered it on that feast day in 1775. The cove is noted as "J" on Cañizares' famous 1781 Map of San Francisco Bay. The present name, Southhampton Bay, is for the Navy frigate Southampton, which Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones sailed, along with a small fleet, to the cove in 1849.
The sandstone point at Benicia SRA has been known as Rocky Point, Quarry Point and now Dillon Point. Stonecutter Patrick Dillon came to California from Tipperary, Ireland, during the 1849 California Gold Rush, settling in Benicia in 1851. General Vallejo leased Dillon the tidal flat at Southampton Bay and Rocky Point peninsula for a sandstone quarry. When the sandstone played out, the Dillon family and subsequent owners raised sheep and grapes until the State acquired the property in 1967.
Read more about this topic: Benicia State Recreation Area
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