The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Fall 1991, Volume 37, Number 4
Richard W. Crawford, Editor
by Leland E. Bibb
Co-winner of the James S. Copley Library Award: American Period
of San Diego History in the 1991
San Diego History Center Institute of History
Until early in 1990, a low mound of melted adobe on the south bank of Temecula Creek marked the location of the Apis Adobe, an important historic house of early San Diego county.1 It was the home of Pablo Apis, a prominent Luiseño Indian leader of the 1840s and 1850s. Later, it served as a ranchhouse, store, and the Temecula station of the Overland Mail Company.
The house was a quarter mile east of the historic Indian village of Temecula and three miles southeast of modern downtown Temecula near the intersection of State Highway 71 and Redhawk Road. Prior to the 1920s, Temecula Creek ran year-round. The Mission fathers dammed the creek and some springs to create a pond from which to supply irrigation water. This water supply led to the founding of the Indian village and, later, construction of the Apis Adobe.
Running past the front door of the Apis Adobe was a trail known variously as the Gila Trail, the Sonora Road, the Emigrant Road, the Butterfield Stage Road, and the Overland Road.2 This trail or road was the direct link between the Yuma crossing of the Colorado River and Los Angeles, and was on the southern route from the Eastern States and Mexico.
Pablo Apis, a Luiseño Indian, was born about 1792 at Guajome near Mission San Luis Rey.3 He had been educated at the mission, and was literate. His position as one of the mission’s Indian alcaldes, or magistrates, suggests that he had superior intelligence and innate leadership ability.4 During the decade following secularization of the missions he was one of the Luiseño leaders who tried to keep the mission lands out of the control of the Californios. In 1843, Father José María Zalvidea and Administrator José Joaquin Ortega of Mission San Luis Rey provisionally granted Pablo Apis a half league of land (about 2200 acres) in Temecula Valley as a reward for his service to the Mission.5 This grant was confirmed by Governor Pío Pico in 1845,6 as one of several half-league tracts of land granted to Luiseño Indians by Father Zalvidea during this period, the others being Guajome, Buena Vista, Cuca, La Jolla (near Cuca) and, perhaps, Pala. This appears to have been part of an attempt by Father Zalvidea and of some of the Californios to assist the Indians by granting their village lands to Indians. The Indian village at Temecula was probably the largest in southern California during this period,7 and was within the Apis grant.
When Pablo Apis first moved onto his land grant at Temecula in 1843, he lived in an adobe house in an unspecified location.8 Sometime later in the 1840s he built and occupied his second house, which is now known as the Apis Adobe. This second house was already there during the Gold Rush in late summer of 1849 when The Texas Monument correspondent referred to it on August 4 as an ‘old Mexican rancho.’9 Again, on September 17, George Pancoast called it a ‘poor-looking rancho.’10
The grant to Apis was timely since Mexican rule was about to end in California. In 1846, the war between the United States and Mexico began, and after several months of resistance by the Californios, they formally surrendered to the Americans at Cahuenga on January 13, 1847.11 Also during that month, the Mormon Battalion, under command of Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke, reached Temecula after marching from Iowa. The battalion received orders there to turn south to San Diego rather than continue north to Los Angeles.12 This epic march marked the first time an American force came through Temecula and heralded the veritable flood of Americans in the next several years.
Some fifty miles northwest of Temecula was Chino Rancho, one of the most prosperous ranchos of early Southern California. It was the home of Isaac Williams,13 who came to California as a beaver trapper in 1832, and had been a widower since his wife’s death in 1842.14 Chino Rancho required a considerable number of laborers, especially herdsmen (vaqueros) to manage the vast herds of cattle. Since Indians usually performed this work and the Luiseños had a reputation for intelligence and industriousness,15 it may be that Williams went to Temecula, and on to Pala, in 1844 or 1845 to check on the availability of laborers among the Luiseño. This would have brought him to Pablo Apis, who had been at Temecula just since 1843, and his son Pablito, living at Pala, both of whom were Luiseño. In this way Williams began his close relationship with the Apis family, which soon expanded from a business relationship to include a personal one as well. In 1846, two daughters of Pablito Apis, María Antonia and María Jesus, at the tender ages of 13 or 14, each bore a daughter to Isaac Williams, who was 47. Over the next four years María Antonia further bore him two more daughters and a son. The 1850 U.S. Census shows María Antonia and her three oldest children, Victoria, Concepcion, and Feliciano in her father’s household at Pala,16 while Francisca, the daughter of María Jesus, was in Isaac Williams’s household at Chino Rancho.17 We can only speculate that this unusual situation was part of a “patron” relationship which firmly bound the Apis family, the Luiseño, and Temecula to Isaac Williams and his family at Chino. Although Williams died in 1856, this relationship was continued by his son-in-law, John Rains, until he too died in 1862.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war between the United States and Mexico and transferred California to the United States, was ratified in 1848, just months before the gold discovery at Sutter’s Mill in northern California became known. Temecula, which had been a back country Indian settlement and rancho, became a popular place to camp along the Gila Trail on the way to the Gold regions.
The Gold Rush, starting in the summer of 1849, saw great numbers of gold seekers from the Eastern States enter California over the Gila Trail. Many kept journals or diaries of their experiences. A correspondent for the La Grange, Texas Texas Monument arrived in Temecula on August 4: “traveled twelve miles to an old Mexican rancho.” This was the ranch of Pablo Apis. “At this place we were fortunate in procuring good beef. We saw several farms here, cultivated by Indians raising corn and beans. They seemed happy and contented.”18 On August 21, Benjamin Harris noted: “The next camp was Temecula, where alder trees exceeded a foot in diameter, under whose shade Indians were gambling19… .” George Evans, “…encamped at the rancho of San M’Call [Temecula]…” on September 13, 1849. “This, we are told, belongs to an English gentleman, but he is now absent at the mines and his gardens show the want of the owner much. Peach, pear, and apple trees are left to the mercy of all animals at large and vineyards are eaten off close to the ground…” There are many Indian huts and two adobe buildings here, and corn is cultivated pretty extensively. They dam up the many springs here and then by ditches distribute the water over the land.”20 Just days later, on September 17, Charles Pancoast also came through: “Near night we passed a poor-looking Rancho, and camped a short distance beyond, near a small Lake alive with Ducks and Geese. We visited the adobe House, and found it occupied by a Spanish Californian who was dressing a Beef. For twenty cents he gave us nine pounds of good rump steak, which we devoured for Supper and Breakfast.”21
A few months later (January 26, 1850), Benjamin Hayes passed through Temecula and described it and the Apis Adobe: “A vineyard is being set out here. There is a pear and peach orchard. The bottoms of the creek occasionally spread out to the width of near a mile. Thirty or more thatch wigwams; the Chief lives in an adobe house, with an adobe corral around it; his house has several rooms. There are some other adobe houses in the village.”22 The corral was most likely the wall which enclosed the patio of the house. These descriptions of Temecula and the Apis Adobe provide a good view of this Indian community. It is interesting to speculate on the decision of Pablo Apis to locate his house where he did. As noted above, it was built prior to the Gold Rush, and the description of the building by the Texas Monument correspondent” as an “Old Mexican rancho” indicates this. Apis apparently located it due to the natural advantages of a view across the surrounding lands and an adjacent water supply, both of which were prerequisites for locating ranch houses by the Californios. In fact, there are only two high points along the south bank of the creek and near the planting grounds within the Apis grant which would have been a good location for a ranch house: The village of Temecula already occupied the westerly of the two, so Apis built his house on the easterly high point, the only one which was available. The Gila Trail coming from the Colorado River ran along the south bank of Temecula Creek until reaching Temecula village, where hills on the south bank narrowed the valley some and the Indians’ dam made it easier to cross23. This route required the travelers to pass the Apis Adobe. There were advantages and disadvantages to having all of the travelers pass your door. It was advantageous if you had things to sell, and Pablo often sold beef. Add to this the other foodstuffs grown at Temecula and a considerable income was possible, especially for an economy that was otherwise based on subsistence farming and stock raising. A disadvantage of being directly on the trail was to have so many down-and-out gold seekers going past your house. Theft by the travelers was something to guard against.24 Descriptions of Pablo Apis indicate that he took on the guise of a non-Indian to guard against abuses by the gold seekers. To Pancoast,25 he was a “Spanish Californian,” which would indicate that with his fluent Spanish (the gold seekers knew few words, if any) and his Californio clothing he was simply a ranchero, and the first one to be seen in California at that. And Evans26 was told that the rancho belonged to an Englishman who had gone north to the Gold country.
But the Temecula Indians, and especially Pablo Apis, had their patron Isaac Williams, to provide them with some protection as well. This is inferred by the presence of Americans at Temecula, most of whom are identified as employees of Williams. The earliest of these was Louis A. Rouen, who was at Chino Ranch in the 1850 Census (January 1851), at Pala in the 1852 California Census, and at Temecula in the summer of 1854, according to County tax records. He had been a mountain man and so was accustomed to living with the Indians. Rouen was followed by John Rains, who was to oversee a herd of cattle for Williams at Temecula on shares in 1854. He is reputed to have made fifteen trips across the west bringing cattle and sheep from Texas and Mexico to California’s gold country between 1849 and 1853. Since the Apis house had several rooms, these men may have lived there. While at Temecula, John Rains also held the position of Indian sub-agent for some time.
Rains is noted for his marriage to Merced, oldest daughter of Isaac Williams just days after the latter’s death in 1856. This marriage gave Rains wealth and prestige. By marrying into the Williams family, Rains was also a “relative” of the Apis family, and he continued the patron relationship with them and the Luiseño into the early 1860s.
Following the initial gold rush of 1849, hordes of Americans and Mexicans continued to enter California over the Emigrant Road through Temecula for many years. This was also the route by which Rains and others brought great herds of livestock to California.
The peace and relative prosperity of Temecula were suddenly jeopardized in November 1851, when Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians living in and near Warner’s Ranch, led by Antonio Garra of Cupa (Warner Springs), tried to unite all of the tribes of Southern California to drive out the Americans. At the time the reason for this outbreak, known as the Garra Revolt,27 was ascribed to the levying of taxes upon the Christianized Indians by the sheriff of San Diego County. It seems unlikely that taxes could have been the only cause of the revolt, and some Californios were accused of complicity, but nothing was ever proven. Indians greatly outnumbered Anglos and Californios in Southern California and this kept the latter groups on the alert.28
The revolt began when the Indians killed four invalids at Warner’s Hot Spring and two of Warner’s employees as well as two groups of sheepherders crossing the desert. Other Indians declined to participate, actively helping the Americans instead. Juan Antonio, a chief of the Cahuilla captured Antonio Garra and turned him over to the Americans. Pablo Apis wrote the alcalde of San Diego on November 21 that “…we (the Temecula village) wish to leave here for the Mission of San Luis Rey…until things are settled.”29 Apis also wrote to Abel Stearns in Los Angeles, who had cattle at the Laguna (Lake Elsinore), advising him to move his herds to safety at San Luis Rey.30 The Luiseños gathered at the Mission and remained there until the end of December when the danger had passed, at which time Pablo and the Indians returned to Temecula.31 The American populace of Southern California gratefully acknowledged Apis’ role in keeping the Luiseño out of the conflict.
In a brief campaign in late December, the Army captured and executed some of the leaders of the revolt at Los Coyotes village east of Warner’s Ranch and a volunteer force from San Diego burned the village of Cupa (also know as Agua Caliente).32 After hostilities had ceased, the U.S. Indian Commissioner, Oliver M. Wozencraft, who had accompanied the military force against the Indians, directed that the chiefs and headmen of the Luiseño, Cahuilla, and Serrano tribes meet him at Temecula, as a central location, in order to sign a treaty. Sixteen treaties with the Indians of northern and central California had already been concluded.33
The Cahuillas, most of whom had not participated in the revolt, at first, would not go to Temecula because of the great hatred and distrust they had for the Luiseño,34 but were finally persuaded to go.
“They had a very warlike appearance as they rode up to Apis’ Rancho…”
“For some time there appeared to be nobody in existence except Juan Antonio (chief of the Cahuillas). At night he was called into Pablo’s private room, and addressed by the Commissioner35… .”
Wozencraft told Juan Antonio that the Americans knew that he had communicated with the tribes of the San Joaquin Valley and the Colorado River about joining the uprising.36 Properly chastised, Juan Antonio no longer offered any resistance. The next day, January 5, 1852, the Treaty of Temecula was signed at the Apis Adobe.37 The treaty provided for a reservation to protect the Indians and their lands from American and Californio incursions, for the Indians to cede all other lands to the government, and assistance to the Indians to establish agriculture for their sustenance.
Even though the Anglos and Californios acknowledged Pablo Apis as the leader of the Luiseño Indians, he did not sign the Treaty of Temecula. This is notable since the treaty was signed at his house. Manuelito Cota, who was appointed Capitan General of the Luiseño in September, 1853, also did not sign the treaty. However, the actual capitans or headmen of the villages signed it, among whom was Pablino ‘Coo-hac-ish’ of Pala. Both Pablito and Pablino are diminutive terms for Pablo, and Apis has been written elsewhere as Hapish so this appears to be Pablito Apis, step-son of Pablo Apis, who lived at Pala. The 1850 U.S. Census includes Pablito Apis, listing him as Pablo Apis, and showing him as literate38. The signer for Temecula was Lauriano “Cah-par-ah-pish” and again the family name Apis is seen within the Indian name. Lauriano was Capitan of Temecula for many years, since he is found in the 1860 Census39 as ‘Lorian, Capt. Tribe’ and in Schedule 4 (Productions of Agriculture) of that census, he is listed as Loriano with produce and number of livestock of the village for the year. One other signer of the Treaty of Temecula should be noted here because of his relationship with the Apis family–Isaac Williams, who was one of the American witnesses.
In all, eighteen treaties were concluded between the three U.S. Indian Commissioners and California Indian tribes, the eighteenth being at Santa Ysabel in San Diego County.40 The majority of the Americans in California opposed these treaties because they threatened loss of either farming or mining land. The California legislature recommended to the United States Senate that it not confirm the Indian treaties and the Senate concurred, rejecting them on July 8, 185241.
The Treaty of Temecula was the only major event to have occurred at Temecula. In recent years, writers appear to have been considerably confused as to where it was signed. As noted above, contemporary newspaper reports mention “Apis’ Rancho” and “Pablo’s private room,” providing evidence that the event occurred at the Apis Adobe. Given the number of Indians, soldiers, and American civilians present, the treaty was most likely signed outdoors, in front of the Apis Adobe. Field notes of U.S. Deputy Surveyor Henry Washington in 1853 show at Temecula only the Indian village and a large dwelling house, which we know from its location, to be the Apis Adobe. Despite the lack of other buildings at Temecula in 1853, others have stated that the treaty was signed at either Magee’s Store or at Wolf’s Store. However, there is no evidence that either of these buildings existed at that early date. Magee’s Store, a quarter mile to the west of the Apis Adobe, appears to have been built after 1857 and Wolf’s Store, a little farther to the northwest on the north bank of Temecula Creek, was built in the late 1860’s. A bronze plaque placed on the Wolf Store building in 1950 erroneously named it as the place of the signing of the treaty.42
The U.S. Army had established a post at the Yuma crossing of the Colorado River in 1850 to protect emigrants from the Yuma Indians. It had been abandoned in December 1851 during the Garra Revolt and reoccupied in the spring of 1852, just six months after the signing of the Treaty of Temecula. Because of the extreme heat and isolation, duty there was perhaps the harshest of any Army post in the Western territories, and soldiers often deserted. In one such case, in early June 1852, Corporal William Hayes and Private John Condon deserted and headed westward toward the coast. Near New River, midway across the desert, they came upon Lt. Col. Louis Craig and two sergeants who were members of the Army escort for the U.S. Boundary Commission. Already alerted to be on watch for these deserters, Col. Craig tried to convince them to surrender and return to Ft. Yuma, but they refused. When he looked away for an instant, Hayes fired his musket, killing the colonel. Condon shot and wounded one of the sergeants, but the other escaped. The deserters fled, leaving the colonel to die of his wounds, while the sergeant, with a wound in his leg, crawled away down the road and was found several hours later by an Army patrol. Lt. Thomas Sweeney, an officer at Ft. Yuma related what happened then:
June 24th (1852)–Hayes and Condon, the deserters who killed Colonel Craig, have been arrested near Temecula, about forty miles from the Aguas Callientes (Warner’s Springs), on the 13th instant, by the Indians. They were making their way north through the mountains. Couriers had been sent from San Diego to the chiefs of the Sierra tribes and also to Lower California to intercept them and take them alive at all risks.
The Chief, Pablo, acted with a great deal of caution and prudence. After buying their muskets and paying for them, he asked to look at their only revolver, and when it was handed to him he told them they were his prisoners. They attempted to make a resistance, when, at a signal from Pablo, they were surrounded by about twenty warriors, who immediately bound their hands and feet. They were given up to
Colonel Magruder at the Mission of San Diego, where they are at present in separate cells and double-ironed. They will be tried by a civil court.43
The esteem which the American population of San Diego County already felt for Pablo Apis was greatly increased by his constructive role in this Army deserter incident.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided for the protection of property rights recognized by the Mexican government. In order to determine exactly which lands were held by private grants and which were public and thus belonging to the U.S. Government, Congress established a Board of Land Commissioners in 1851. Claimants to land were required to appear before the Board and provide proof of their claims.44 Those which the Board ruled to be valid would be confirmed to the grantees. The Board usually met at San Francisco but held one session at Los Angeles in the fall of 1852. It was at the Los Angeles session that the claim of Pablo Apis to a half-league of land in Temecula was filed on November 1, 1852, by attorney Elisha O. Crosby.45 Isaac Williams had retained Crosby as his attorney before the Land Commission and probably paid Crosby to represent Apis, who may have been otherwise unable to pursue his claim before the Land Commission.46 In many cases attorney fees were so great that a grantee had to borrow to pay them or ended up giving a portion of the land to the lawyer.
A year passed before the Board gave its decision, rejecting the claim of Pablo Apis on November 15, 1853.47 This rejection was based solely on a technicality of the grant documents, which did not include an exact description of the location of the half league of land in the Temecula Valley. The Board stated that:
“There would be no difficulty in entering a decree of confirmation, had there been any proof by which the particular parcel of land granted could be identified and its boundaries established….neither the grant itself nor any of the testimony in the case furnishes the least evidence to show in what part of Temecula the land is situated, or what particular portion of the tract known by that name was intended to be granted48… .”
While the commission was considering the Apis land claim, the County made a tax assessment listing his personal property and improvements as follows:49
1 house and corral
200 ganada (cattle)
8 saddle horses
40 sheep
15 mares
50 lambs
25 cows
The value of this property probably exceeded that of most Americans and Californios in San Diego County.
Sometime in late 1853 or early 1854, around the time the Land Commission rejected his claim, Pablo Apis died at about 61 years of age. In September 1853, Cave Couts, Indian sub-agent for the Luiseño, appointed Manuelito Cota as capitan general, or chief, over the Luiseño and Cupeño.50 This may indicate that Pablo Apis, who had held that position, at least unofficially, had become incapacitated or declined to continue. Soon after the San Diego Herald of October 22, 1853 stated “Pablo Apis: the celebrated Indian Chief will be in town the early part of the coming week on a friendly visit to our popular young friend, Doctor Snead.” The next reference to Apis is a tax return dated July 10, 1854 containing the phrase “including the Houses where Pablo lived.”51 Thus his death occurred between October 22, 1853, and July 10, 1854, but no notice of the exact date has been found. Robert D. Israel, who had come to San Diego County in 1850, many years later stated:52
Pablo Apis was widely known among the white people of the city of San Diego, and County of San Diego at that time, and was held in high regard by them because of his loyalty and kindness toward the white population. [I] distinctly remember having frequently heard the regret expressed by residents of this country, at that time, that Pablo Apis was dead.
EPILOGUE
The rejection of the Apis land grant was appealed in 1856 and the court found in favor of the heirs of Pablo Apis,53 proof that an Indian could own land in California in the 1850s. In the late 1850s, the Apis adobe served as the Temecula station of the Overland Mail Company’s transcontinental stage line and as a store. As late as 1865 it was still a store and, evidently, the social center of the Temecula community when it was the subject of a sketch by artist Edward Vischer. Sometime before 1872 it was apparently abandoned. Louis Wolf, pioneer storekeeper of Temecula, acquired the Apis grant in that year and would not have allowed a store to remain in the Apis Adobe in competition with his on the north side of Temecula Creek. Thereafter, the site was completely abandoned and part of a pasture for over an hundred years.
As a part of the mitigation plan for one of the many housing developments currently being built in Temecula, the Apis adobe was archaeologically excavated in 1989.54 The foundations of this historic building were bulldozed into oblivion on March 7, 1990.
1. Temecula was the only settlement in San Diego County north of Palomar Mountain until the 1880s. It became a part of Riverside County in 1893, long after the Indian village of Temecula and the Apis adobe were deserted and in ruins. See: Leland E. Bibb, “The Location of the Indian Village of Temecula,” Journal of San Diego History 18 (Summer 1972): 6-11.
2. For an account of the early use of the Gila Trail, see Jack D. Forbes, “The Development of the Yuma Route before 1846,” California Historical Society Quarterly 43 (June 1964): 99- 118.
3. Personal Communication to the author from Stephen O’Neil, dated May 9, 1990, quoting from the “padron” of Mission San Luis Rey: “‘Pablo Apis’ was baptised at Mission San Luis Rey on June 15, 1798, at the estimated age of 6 years. His village of origin was Ojuaminga (Guajome).”
4. Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, San Luis Rey Mission (San Francisco: The James H. Barry Company, 1931), 103, 105.
5. United States Land Commission, case no. 55, “Temecula” (Pablo Apis), Southern District (1852-1871), Bancroft Library, University of California, pp. 10-14. Depositions favorable to the Apis claim before the commission were made by Hugo Reid and Abel Stearns, prominent Southern California land owners.
6. Ibid., 9.
7. This population estimate is based on the U.S. Census of 1860, which enumerated Indian villages in San Diego County and showed Temecula to have a population of 308 persons.
8. Land Commission, Deposition of Hugo Reid, November 4, 1852. “…(Pablo Apis) had a house on (his land).” “It is ten or twelve years since I knew Pablo Apis to be occupying the land. He had a house on it at that time in which he lived and he has resided on the place to the present time – another house having been built since that in which he first lived in (sic.).”
9. Ralph P. Bieber, ed., Southern Trails to California in 1849 (Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1937), 276.
10. Charles Edward Pancoast, A Quaker Forty-niner (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930), 265.
11. Neal Harlow, California Conquered (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), is perhaps the best and most comprehensive account of the Mexican War in California available.
12. Philip St. George Cooke, The Conquest of New Mexico and California (Albuquerque, NM: Horn and Wallace, Publishers, 1964), 191-195, covers the march of the Mormon Battalion from Warner’s Ranch to San Luis Rey, passing through Temecula.
13. Esther Boulton Black, Rancho Cucamonga and Dona Merced (Redlands, CA: San Bernardino County Museum Association, 1975), provides the complete life of Isaac Williams, his residence at Chino Rancho, and much information regarding his relationship with the Apis Family. Mary Haggland of Riverside, California, brought this important source to the attention of the author.
14. Ibid., 2, 219, 226. María de Jesus Lugo, daughter of Antonio María Lugo, owner of great ranchos throughout Southern California, was nineteen years old when she died giving birth to her fourth child in 1842. Isaac Williams never remarried.
15. Ibid., 16. U.S. Indian sub-agent John Rains noted in 1856 that the Luiseño “…are all Christians, raised to work; all cultivate more or less; all are good horsemen, and make good servants…”
16. U.S. Census of 1850, San Diego County, California. Transcribed by San Diego Genealogical Society.
17. Maurice H. Newmark – Marco R. Newmark, Census of the City and County of Los Angeles, California for the Year 1850 (Los Angeles: The Times – Mirror Press, 1929), 276.
18. Bieber, Southern Trails to California in 1849, 276.
19. Benjamin Butler Harris, The Gila Trail: The Texas Argonauts and the California Gold Rush (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960), 95.
20. George W. B. Evans, The Mexican Gold Trail (San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1945), 172.
21. Pancoast, A Quaker Forty-niner, 265.
22. Benjamin Hayes, Pioneer Notes from the Diaries of Judge Benjamin Hayes, 1849-1875 (Los Angeles: Marjorie Tisdale Wolcott, 1929), 63.
23. There has been some controversy during this century about the route by which the trail enters Temecula from the east. Some, remembering the first decades of the 1900s, believe that it ran about where State Highway 79 now is. See Roscoe P. Conkling and Margaret B. Conkling, The Butterfield Overland Mail (Glendale: Arthur H. Clarke, 1947), 2:243. However, as late as 1872, when the federal government at last surveyed the Apis grant, the field notes locate the “Road to Ft. Yuma” just 1 chain (66 feet) southerly of the south bank of Temecula Creek. Bureau of Land Management, Field Notes of Rancho ‘Temecula’ (Apis Family), 1872.
24. Hayes, Pioneer Notes, 63. Near Oak Grove (Jan. 25, 1850), “An old Indian…complaining that the emigrants have driven off his cattle,” and, [p. 64] between Temecula and Lake Elsinore (Jan. 27, 1850) “Came to an abandoned adobe house, it’s said the owner had to remove his cattle to a neighboring valley, off the road, in a consequence of the emigrants killing them.
25. Pancoast, A Quaker Forty-niner, 265.
26. Evans, Mexican Gold Trail, 172.
27. George Harwood Phillips, Chiefs and Challengers (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), provides the most detailed account of the Garra Revolt known to the author. Also see Leland E. Bibb, “William Marshall ‘The Wickedest Man in California’: A Reappraisal,” Journal of San Diego History 22 (Winter 1976): 11-25.
28. See the 1852 State Census, San Diego County. Transcribed by the San Diego Genealogical Society.
29. San Diego Herald, 5 December 1851; Alta California, 4 December 1851.
30. Francisco Rios to Abel Stearns, November 21, 1851, Stearns Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. The letter includes a note at the bottom signed by Pablo Apis, indicating that Apis wrote the letter for Rios.
31. San Diego Herald, 1 January 1852.
32. Phillips, Chiefs and Challengers, 71-129.
33. Ibid., 123-124.
34. This hatred may have been of long standing, but had recently been heightened by the massacre of thirty-eight Luiseños by Juan Antonio and his Cahuilla, who were employed by the Lugo family of San Bernardino. This massacre occurred between Temecula and Aguanga in late December, 1846, or early January, 1847 in retaliation for the deaths of eleven Californios by the Luiseño weeks earlier. See Horace Parker, The Temecula Massacre (Balboa Island, CA: Paisano Press, 1971).
35. San Diego Herald, 10 January 1852.
36. Phillips, Chiefs and Challengers, 119.
37. Horace Parker, The Treaty of Temecula (Balboa Island, CA: Paisano Press, 1967). Also see Phillips, Chiefs and Challengers, 120-123.
38. U.S. Census of 1850. Parker, The Treaty of Temecula, includes a photostatic copy of the treaty.
39. U.S. Census of 1860, San Diego County, California. Transcribed by San Diego Genealogical Society.
40. Phillips, Chiefs and Challengers, 120-123.
41. Ibid.
42. The earliest reference to John Magee at Temecula is in August, 1858, in Deed Book no. 1, p. 256, Office of the Recorder, County of San Diego. His store was on the south side of Temecula Creek some 300 feet easterly of the Indian Village and 900 feet southwesterly of the Apis Adobe. Louis Wolf was at Temecula in 1858 and had a store on the south side of Temecula Creek between the Apis Adobe and Magee’s Store. It appears that after the Civil War halted the Overland Mail Company stages in late 1861, he left Temecula and it was abandoned. Wolf returned to this area in 1868 and opened a new store on the north side of Temecula Creek beside the Overland Road. It is this later building which still stands and has been erroneously claimed to be the site of the signing of the treaty.
43. Arthur Woodward, ed., Journal of Lt. Thomas W. Sweeney, 1849-1853 (Los Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1956), 161.
44. W.W. Robinson, Land in California (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1948), provides a good discussion of ranchos and land claims in California.
45. U.S. Land Commission, case 55, p. 4.
46. Black, Rancho Cucamonga, 239.
47. U.S. Land Commission, case 55, pp. 18-21.
48. Ibid, 20.
49. Tax Assessment Records for 1853, “the Indian Pablo (Pablo Apis),” Research Archives, San Diego History Center.
50. Phillips, Chiefs and Challengers, 137.
51. Tax Assessment Records for 1854 (Isaac Williams), Research Archives, San Diego Historical Society.
52. Probate Court case files, R3.53, case no. 3576 (Pablo Apis), Research Archives, San Diego History Center.
53. U.S. Land Commission, case 55, p. 58.
54. Christopher E. Drover, Karen Swope, and Leland Bibb, “Archaeological Data Collection Apis Adobe 1845-1875; RIV-1520 old Temecula, California,” 1991, manuscript on file at the Eastern California Information Center, University of California, Riverside.
Leland E. Bibb is a licensed land surveyor in California. He received a B.A. degree in Asian Studies (1971) and a Master of Public Administration degree (1973) from San Diego State University. His research interests include the Spanish, Mexican, and early American eras of Southern California history, with emphasis on the period from the Mexican War to the Civil War.
