History
Ygnacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar, owned a considerable number of horses and cattle, which they kept at Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas owned by Maria Rita Valdez de Villa. The place was too crowded for the livestock of three families, so Palomares and Vejar sought their own land. In 1837, Mexican Governor Alvarado granted Rancho San Jose to Palomares and Vejar. The Rancho was created from land from the secularized Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. The boundaries were laid out by Palomares and Vejar on March 19, 1837, the feast day of St. Joseph, thus leading the men to name the ranch after the saint. Father José Maria de Zalvidea accompanied the party from the San Gabriel Mission, performing the first Christian religious ceremony in the Pomona Valley when he performed a benediction for settlers of the rancho under an oak tree located at what is now 458 Kenoak Place in Pomona.
Luis Arenas, Ygnacio Palomares' brother-in-law, joined up with Palomares and Vejar, and they petitioned Governor Alvarado for additional grazing lands. They were granted the one square league addition, which became known as the Rancho San Jose Addition, in 1840. In 1846, Arenas sold his one third share of Rancho San Jose to Henry Dalton of Rancho Azusa de Dalton.
With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho San Jose was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was patented at 22,340 acres (90.4 km2) to Dalton, Palomares and Vejar in 1875. A claim for the Rancho San Jose Addition was filed with the Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was patented at 4,431 acres (17.9 km2) to Dalton, Palomares and Vejar in 1875.
Palomares and Vejar conducted sheep and cattle operations on Rancho San Jose, also growing crops for consumption by the residents of the rancho. In the early 1860s, a severe drought decimated the ranch's population of sheep and cattle. Ygancio Palomares died in 1864, and his widow began selling the ranch land in 1865. Vejar lost his share by foreclosure to two Los Angeles merchants, Isaac Schlesinger and Hyman Tischler, in 1864. In 1866, Schlesinger and Tischler sold the ranch to Louis Phillips.
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