José Joaquín Castro (1768–1838), the son of Joaquin Ysidro de Castro and Maria Marina Botiller, had come as a boy with his family to California from Mexico with the
De Anza Expedition in 1775. His brother José Mariano Castro (1765–1828) was the grantee of Rancho Las Animas; his brother Carlos Antonio Castro (b.1775) was the grantee of Rancho San Francisco de las Llagas; and his brother Francisco María Castro (1775 - 1831) was the grantee of Rancho San Pablo. Jose Joaquin Castro, after serving as a soldier for 13 years, came with his wife Maria Antonia Amador (1780–1827) to settle the new community of Villa de Branciforte in 1798. Maria Antonia Amador died in 1827, and Castro married Maria Rosario Briones (b. 1816) in 1830. Castro received the two square league Rancho San Andrés grant in 1833. In 1838, José Joaquín Castro died of smallpox.[4]
With the
Public Land Commission in 1853,[5][6] and the grant was patented to Guadalupe Castro and Juan José Castro et al. (the 13 children of José Joaquín Castro) in 1876.[7]
After the patent was issued, there was a boundary dispute with José Amesti's Rancho Los Corralitos which adjoined Rancho San Andrés on the east.[8][9][10]
In 1873, a partition suit (Briody vs. Hale) was brought and Rancho San Andrés was subdivided.[11]
^Ogden Hoffman, 1862, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Numa Hubert, San Francisco
^ McKinley vs Tuttle , 1867, Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of California, Vol. 34, pp. 235-242, Bancroft Whitney, San Francisco
^ McKinley vs Tuttle , 1872, Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of California, Vol. 42, pp. 570-578, Bancroft Whitney, San Francisco
^Amesti v Castro, 1874, Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of California By California, Vol. 49, pp. 325-331, Bancroft-Whitney Company