The decision was, I think, entirely in accordance with fact, law, and equity; though many abler men still hold the contrary opinion. Among the many champions of the respective sides in the controversy may be appropriately named Edmund Randolph and William Carey Jones against the pueblo title, and in favor of it Henry W. Halleck and John W. Dwinelle, the latter's Colonial History of San Francisco being the most extensive and satisfactory treatise on the subject. As is their wont, the lawyers succeeded in making of a comparatively simple matter a very complicated one; but their efforts were valuable contributions to local history.
The settlement of Yerba Buena, nucleus of the modern city, had its humble beginning in this decade, and contained in 1840 more than half-a-dozen structures. As we have seen, the name Yerba Buena had been transferred from the anchorage west to that south of Loma Alta, or Telegraph Hill, where several vessels had anchored before 1830, where a French trader had landed to build a boat, and where the construction of a guard-house had been ordered in 1827, there being no evidence that it was ever built.[1] At any rate in 1831-4 all was in a state of nature but for the presence of a party of foreign boat-builders for a time in 1831 or 1832.[2] Vessels were still per-
- ↑ See vol. ii. p. 590.
- ↑ James W. Weeks, Reminiscences, MS., 68-72, states that himself, George
gov. — though it was customary in Cal. to ask his advice and opinion on the most trifling measures — at the presidio; was instructed by the govt that it had the right to grant lots at Yerba Buena; and later received like instructions respecting Dolores. Lots were granted at these two points, and would have been granted at other points within the probable pueblo limits had they been desired. The gov. and dip. had no powers in the granting of lands that could be delegated to an ayunt. They could inform the ayunt. as to its powers, and to a certain extent regulate their exercise. The right of the pueblo to its lands was recognized indirectly by the govt in several ways, even in the granting of ranchos which infringed on the conventional four leagues. There can be no doubt that at any time before 1846 the local authorities might have had four leagues of land formally set apart for the town. Whether their failure to do so forfeited the city's right under the U. S. was a question for the U. S. to settle; but having assumed the obligations of Mexico by relinquishing the pretension to insist on perfect titles in the case of private ranchos, the govt virtually conceded the pueblo title, and the courts could not do otherwise than confirm it.
