SQUATTERS IN SAN LEANDRO?

In the last post we covered the spilt of the land grant between Castro and Estudillo but there was a 3^rd area left alone to the Native Americans, the Costanoan, who lived in the hills above Fairmont Hospital.  Archeologists have found the remains of shellmounds and burial grounds.  (When I was growing up the area was off limits but we would sneak up there to look at the area.)  Studies have revealed at least ten archeological sites between the north fork of San Leandro Creek and San Lorenzo Creek.  Three of these were on the banks of the inlets in the Marina Area, one at Oakland Airport, four along the north side of the reek and one on San Lorenzo Creek.   The largest was Fairmont.

Since the “Indian lands” exempted from Castro and Estudillo grants the borders and other lands on the fringe of Estudillo lands were not clearly defined they provided an excuse for squatters to encroach upon both grants disregarding the rights of any Indians still in the neighborhood.

Squatters first encroached upon Rancho San Leandro in 1851 when they began to settle against the wishes of the legal owner. The intruders made their first appearance on the banks of San Lorenzo Creek at a place subsequently known as Squattersville, now San Lorenzo.  They soon over ran the rancho but Estudillo, with the aids of his sons sons-in-law consistently “opposed the evildoers in seizing the land.  At times….there was a tendency…towards bloody affray….A malicious element among them did much damage, shooting horses and cattle under the cover of darkness and fencing Estudillo stock away from the creek.  During “all these turbulent times (1851-1854) the Estudillo families were in constant fear of their personal safety.”  After much legal interactions the Estudillo family ended up leasing then selling some of their lands to the squatters as a solution.

The most notable squatters were Jacob Harlan, their leader, who formed an organization for taking up of claims for sections of the lands.  He plowed 200 acres right through some disputed Estudillo land near downtown.

Captain William Roberts, Roberts Landing, was the squatter who created San Lorenzo.  He built a large shipping port at the foot of Lewelling Blvd.

Captain Thomas William Mulford stared the MULFORD LANDING OYSTER SHEDS. (Now the marina) had a large shipping business in the Marina & Oyster Bay.

Socrates Huff also owned oyster beds in the bay.  His home was on Huff and Callan where the fire station is now.  (When I was young, in the 50’s, this house was abandoned and we used to sneak in the windows and look through the house.  It was standing still in time)

“Oyster beds lined much of the shoreline in the late 1800s, when oystering was the most valuable fishing enterprise in the state. Larger companies soon swallowed up smaller owners such as Mulford, Roberts, and Huff. The San Leandro Reporter wrote about a takeover: “On Saturday morning just as the sun peeped over the brown Castro Valley hills a low rakish sloop with a Gatling gun mounted on the poop deck and with a crew of hardy men armed to their back teeth sailed into the quiet and peaceful harbor of San Lorenzo and in the name of, it is presumed, the Shoalwater Oyster Co., took possession of some of the oyster beds just south of those operated by the San Leandro Oyster Co.” (SLHPDC #2129.)”

Sources:

Garden Grows in Eden, Harry Schaffer

Simons, Cynthia Vrilakas (2008-10-22). San Leandro (Kindle Locations 191-195). Arcadia Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

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