Patriarchs of Alta California: Sunol and Amador

My curiosity was piqued recently when I pulled an antique leather-bound book from my library shelf. I had purchased the liturgical Latin Missale Romanum altar prayer book in the late 1960s as part of St Patrick’s and St. Joseph’s church libraries.
The weighty missal’s leather cover is gold-embossed: “IN MEMORIAM JOSEPHINE SUNOL –1906”. As I ran my fingers over the inscription I wondered if Josephine’s family may have donated the missal in memory of a Don Senor Antonio Sunol descendant. Research soon revealed that Josephine Sunol was indeed the granddaughter of Alta California land grantees; Jose Joaquin Bernal and Antonio Sunol for whom the town of Sunol is named.

Research connected the Sunol family to the original St. Joseph’s Church and San Jose historic archives revealed that Antonio Sunol had donated land and funded the building of St Joseph’s first church in 1835, then known as San Jose de Guadalupe. The historic landmark church, since rebuilt and renovated, was designated a cathedral basilica in 1997 by Pope John Paul.

With nothing tangible to go on, but the name Josephine Sunol, I soon discovered she was a St Joseph parishioner when she occupied her grandfather’s adobe in the 1880s at 243 Guadalupe Street, now Market Street. Old directories indicated other Sunol family members lived at 189 Delmas Street, a stone’s throw away.

The adobe on Guadalupe Street was once part of a Mexican land grant where the present Roberto-Sunol Adobe National Landmark stands at 770 Lincoln Avenue in Willow Glen. After renovation, San Jose Historian the Honorable Judge Paul Bernal guided its donation to California Pioneers of Santa Clara County.

When Josephine Sunol’s Guadalupe adobe home was demolished in the mid-20th century, the rancho land later became the sites of the Civic Auditorium, Centre for Performing Arts, and an office complex. As Josephine Sunol’s backstory unfolded, I discovered how she fit into San Jose’s early history, and her connection to Bernal, Sunol and Amador Mexican land grantees; Alta California pioneers of the post-New Spain era. Excitement soared as internet sleuthing got underway.

According to the 1860 San Jose Census, widower Antonio Sunol, 65-year old gentleman, lived at the 243 Guadalupe Street adobe with his children after he sold the Roberto-Sunol Adobe to a Dalmatian sea captain.

And an Alameda County 1880 census shows farmer Jose Narcisio Sunol, born 10 June 1835, and wife Rosario Palomares (daughter of Pacheco land grantee), had six children including 6-year old Josephine and Juanita, born 1874. They were twins!
When I found Josephine Sunol’s significant historic connection to my own book, I delved into the lives of her grandfathers, Don Senor Jose Joaquin Bernal and Don Senor Antonio Maria Sunol. Bernal, a soldier in the 1775 De Anza Expedition, was granted 64,000 acres in 1839 from San Jose to Santa Teresa north of Morgan Hill.

Sunol, Spaniard-turned-Californio, married Bernal’s daughter Dolores which added to his riches. He was a ranchero, orchardist, cattleman, mayor and philanthropist. And was brother-in-law to fellow ranchero Jose Maria Amador owner of Rancho San Ramon, who married 16-year old Magdalena Maria Trinidad Bernal in 1818 thus forging powerful alliances.
My in-depth sleuthing revealed that the largest landowners in Alta California; Bernal, Amador and Sunol were all intrinsically linked by their vast estates that spanned from Santa Teresa to the golden hills of San Ramon until statehood in 1850 when newcomer “Americanos” finagled the rules of land grant ownership.

THE CALIFORNIOS
Antonio Sunol, born in Barcelona in 1797 to afrancasado parents, (close ties to France) was educated in Bordeaux. After the Royal House of Bourbon fell, he joined Napoleon’s French Navy. Rumor has it that Sunol was present when Napoleon surrendered and was exiled to St Helena. Later Sunol sailed on the “Bordelaise” around Cape Horn to California. The 20-year old adventurer jumped ship at Yerba Buena, San Francisco, on 15th August 1817. The intrepid sailor made his way sixty miles on horseback to Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe, governed then by Sargente Luis Maria Peralta of the Spanish Army whose original adobe still stands at 184 West St John Street, San Jose.

Sunol, Spanish entrepreneur-trader, travelled over the valleys selling leather hides, tallow candles and precious lace. This may have been when Sunol crossed paths with Jose Maria Amador and wife Magdalena Bernal Amador. After rotating out of the Mexican Army in 1827, Amador was granted a 4,400-acre rancho that spanned from Mission San Jose to San Ramon Valley as far as the eye could see.

It was just a matter of time before Sunol too became owner of a large rancho. The 2,219-acre Rancho de los Coches on Los Gatos Creek in San Jose belonged to Mission Indian Roberto Balermino. Roberto owed Sunol $500 and paid the debt in 1847 by deeding his rancho and adobe.

Sunol purchased 500 horses, 5,000 sheep and 10,000 head of cattle. He sold hides, leather goods and saddles. He built a brick house adjacent to Roberto’s Adobe where he proudly flew three flags; Spanish, French and Mexican. He opened San Jose’s first mercantile store; sold calico, furs, brandy, wine, wool serapes and blankets, kerchiefs at $16 a dozen, and lariats. He cultivated wine grapes and a superabundance of peaches, pears, oranges and figs. He cooked meat and bread in the clay oven outside Roberto’s Adobe.

Don Antonio, an educated man, could read and write Spanish, French and English. Known for gracious hospitality, the gallant Spaniard held fiestas, caballeros played guitars, guests danced fandangos, people played monte card games, and ex-soldiers shared war stories about fighting Indians. Landowners Bernal and Amador were linked by their Mexican military service; Sargente Bernal was part of the 1776 De Anza Expedition and Pedro Amador, Jose Maria’s father, had been with Portola’s 1769 Overland Expedition who said upon retirement, “The only compensation I got for 18 years of service was 14 Indian arrows in my body.”

When Spain missionized Alta California with twenty-one religious and military outposts on Camino Real, soldiers manned them to support the priests’ work with the Indians. By the 1830s the missions were secularized and large ranchos were granted to ex-soldiers. Senor Amador married 16-year old Magdalena Bernal on May 28, 1818, and Sunol married her sister Maria de los Dolores Bernal at Santa Clara Mission Church on November 7, 1823.

Legend has it that weddings lasted three days. Young brides sat side-saddle in front of a family member, silk slippers golden braid-entwined, and rode in procession through tree-lined avenues to Santa Clara Mission Church. Serenade music escorted cavalcades of caparisoned horses for grooms and brides to unite their influential families in blissful marriages. These intra-family marriages forged enduring alliances between the Bernal, Amador and Sunol clans—the three most powerful ranchero families in the valley whose vast lands reached from south San Jose Santa Teresa to present-day Dublin and deep into the San Ramon Valley.

Amador outlived three wives and had 22 children. He married his beloved 16-year old Magdalena Bernal who died during childbirth after having 5 children by age 25. Jose Maria died June 12, 1883 and is buried at St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery in Gilroy; his tombstone stands a few yards from my own mother’s grave. With such a large family I deducted that Jose Maria Amador must have had many local descendants. I had to look no further than my own circle of friends. Fellow Friends of Blackhawk Museum, Jill Brennan, told me that her husband Bob possessed impeccable Amador descendants’ genealogies.

I met with longtime resident Robert John Brennan at his Danville home. His drafting table was strewn with pedigree charts, vintage photographs, and history books confirming his auspicious Amador roots. Bob Brennan is the great-great-grandson of Jose Maria Amador and Magdalena Bernal Amador, once owners of the historic San Ramon Mission Rancho and Mission El Valle de San Jose Rancho. “We are very proud of our heritage.” Bob said, showing me charts of the Hispano-Mexican pioneers and photographs of the Amador descendants.

Jose Maria Amador, whose name aptly translates to ‘gold lover’, had beaten the 1849 Gold Rush by mining in early 1848 with brother-in-law, presumed to be Antonio Sunol, who also wrote of finding gold near John Sutter’s sawmill. Amador returned from the camp (now Amador County) with 114 pounds of gold nuggets in coffee cans. He wrote that he shared the golden yield with Indians and family, and gave the rest to the church for chalices. Eureka!

SUNOL AND VALLE DE SAN JOSE
As Bernal descendants, Maria Dolores Bernal Sunol and Magdalena Bernal Amador inherited half of a 64,000-acre parcel around Mission San Jose. Antonio and Maria Dolores Sunol had several children; Jose Antonio, Jose Narcisio, Jose Dolores, Josepha, Antonia, Francisca, Incarnacion, and Paula who married Frenchman Pierre Sansevain, San Jose’s first vintner.

A glimpse into history tells of Hispano-Mexicans before California entered statehood in 1850. When gold was first discovered in 1848 near Sacramento on the American River banks near John Sutter’s sawmill, Sunol rushed there with Amador and some Indians. John Sutter had bought cattle from Sunol and paid the debt with a land parcel near Sacramento.
Sunol returned to San Jose with about $3 million worth of gold nuggets which he shared with Indians and split with family to play the monte card game.

The Gold Rush and subsequent Land Rush were historic turning points for Alta California. The Spanish had once forged frontiers from St Augustine, Florida all the way to San Francisco where un-scarred pristine lands were belted by forests of redwoods, heritage oaks, and alamo cottonwoods that ran along rivers. Rolling hills were ornamented by purple needle-grass, and luscious wild oats grew as tall as a bull’s horns, clusters of wild azalea, poppies, and thickets of huckleberry carpeted ravines where no men had yet tread. Wanderers and Ohlone Indians bivouacked on open plains or near rivers’ fording places where bears spooked their horses. Vaquero cowboys lassoed groaning cattle and rode herds in canadas through steep arroyos to faraway markets.

ALTA CALIFORNIA GAINS STATEHOOD IN 1850
After the Mexican-American War, over 100,000 Californios reluctantly yielded to statehood in 1850 becoming the Union’s 31st state. Gold Rush opportunities enticed the largest western-bound migration in human history. Westward wagon trains carried thousands of trekkers a day. Some eastern speculating interlopers became unlawful squatters, gunslingers, horse thieves, and cattle rustlers. Many grabbed rancho lands, panned rivers, built cabins on private property and dynamited outcrops.

New State laws allowed squatters to pre-empt the rancho lands that had not yet been confirmed under previous Mexican Land Grants. Most parcels had been allocated to ex-military servicemen with charts and the watertight integrity of a handshake. Jose Maria Amador sold off his land parcels in 1850 and, some say may have died a pauper after paying exorbitant legal fees. Many “American” interlopers sequestered parcels of Hispano-Mexican ranchos and wanton bandits forged their names into history.
Notorious cattle rustler and monte card dealer, Joaquin Murrieta from Mexico, was one of the most famous desperados. His gang raided mining camps, stole gold from prospectors and rancheros in the Sunol hills and Livermore Valley. Murrieta’s Well Winery on Mine Road in Livermore is named for the desperado who has since gained folk hero status. It is said that the bandit’s head, preserved in a jar of brandy, travelled around California and could be viewed for a dollar. And newcomer land grabbing squatters and interlopers made big trouble for rancheros. It was only a matter of time that disaster would strike the Sunol family.

While Sunol’s son, Jose Antonio was tending to 25,000 heads of cattle on the 48,000-acre El Valle de San Jose Rancho, 15 miles north of Pueblo de San Jose, now Niles-Fremont-Sunol, an argument broke out with squatter John Wilson. After Wilson had killed several animals, Jose Antonio approached on horseback, “If you want meat I will give you all the meat you can eat, just don’t kill our cattle.” Wilson aimed his rifle and shot Jose Antonio dead. It was March 7, 1855. Wilson escaped, was never brought to justice.

The murder of Sunol’s oldest son was a devastating blow to all ranchero families. Jose Narcisio, brother to Antonio, moved to the El Valle San Jose Rancho. He married Rosario Palomares in March 1858. These were Josephine Sunol’s parents.
There were other relatives with interesting stories. I found an online legal document stating that 19-year old Narcisio M. Sunol, born in 1853 two years before Jose Antonio’s murder, was admitted to Stockton Insane Asylum in 1872 by Cristobal Palomares (Rosario’s brother?) for reason of insanity. Could this asylum inmate, who died of consumption five years later, have been orphan son of Jose Antonio who was murdered by the squatter in 1855? The plot thickens.

Don Antonio Sunol, devastated by his son’s death, drew up a last will and testament naming his children and future heirs to his vast fortune, including not-yet-born granddaughter Josephine Sunol. His beloved wife Maria Dolores Bernal Sunol had died in 1845, and Antonio died on the Feast of St Joseph, March 19, 1865 at his Guadalupe Street adobe home.
The Spaniard of noble birth had not only mingled with Emperor Napoleon, but also with Bernal, Amador, John C. Fremont, Thomas O. Larkin, John Sutter, John Gilroy, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo of Petaluma, and Roberto Livermore all of whom left indelible marks on Northern California.

The near-forgotten legacies of Jose Maria Amador still lives through Amador County and San Ramon Valley that he named for his mother Ramona, and Antonio Sunol still lives through Sunol Valley and the historic town named for him. Sunolians value their small town atmosphere and strive to keep it intact. Sunol gained an odd sort of tongue-in-cheek fame when Bosco, a Re-pup-lican dog was elected town mayor on a lark in the 1990s. Communist China even commented on America’s canine democracy.

And today when irate I-680 commuters are idling on the highway from Silicon Valley to San Ramon, Senor Antonio Sunol’s memory comes alive all too vividly on the bottle-necked Sunol Grade.

Sunol Valley also shares some pre-Hollywood film history where it once attracted moviemakers to Niles Canyon. Curly-kop Mary Pickford posed near Warm Springs, and iconic Charlie Chaplin filmed “The Tramp” years before Hollywood became filmdom’s epicentre.

Today tourists visit Livermore Valley’s superb wine region and historic Niles Railroad Museum. Visitors ride the Niles Canyon Railway steam train that meanders through canyons where bands of Ohlone Tribes lived 5,000 years ago.
Today heritage oaks, sycamores and alamo cottonwoods spread dappled shade across rail tracks or reach for the sun. Lush valleys, yellow-crisp in summer, still echo where caballeros serenaded, and cattle once roamed along Canada de la Tasagera, now Camino Tassajara.

Slow trains carry riders from Niles, not only through the canyon, but back in time where once proud Hispano-Mexican pioneers, like Jason’s Argonauts, forged a forever history in California’s own El Dorado golden hills.
Again I touch the book’s embossed dedication; “In Memoriam Josephine Sunol—1906”. Now I know Josephine’s story. Her grandfathers, Jose Bernal and Don Antonio Sunol, together with Jose Maria Amador, forged history in the Santa Clara and San Ramon Valleys.

Josephine’s grandmother was Dolores Bernal Sunol; aunt was Magdalena Bernal Amador. And maybe unbeknownst to some readers until my ALIVE Magazine revelation, Bob Brennan is also Josephine Sunol’s distant cousin. And his great-great-great grandfather Jose Joaquin Bernal was a member of the De Anza Expedition.
Josephine’s grandparents, Antonio and Dolores Sunol, were godparents on July 26, 1825 to Jose Amador’s son Jose Antonio,

Brennan’s great grandfather, at Mission Santa Clara. And it was Josephine’s uncle Jose Antonio Sunol who died at Rancho El Valle de San Jose at the hands of a renegade squatter in 1855.

And now as I return my old mass book back to its place of honor on my library shelf, I know the rest of Josephine Sunol’s once-secret story.