Dig Into Roots of San Diegans And You’ll Find City’s Pioneers

In the late 1820s a beautiful, stubborn, adventurous girl, Josefa Carillo, visited the trading ship Marie Ester in the San Diego port. She intended to find material for a new dress as she boarded the ship with her cousin, Pio Pico.

The captain of the Marie Ester was a Bostonian, Henry Delano Fitch (an ancestor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt), and Josefa’s sparkling beauty captured the Yankee seaman. It is said she flirted outrageously with him, but when he asked for her hand in marriage, her father refused the captain. Fitch persevered, however, and was baptized into the Catholic religion. The family then relented and allowed the wedding but, as the ceremony started, a messenger from the governor arrived, forbidding the padre to continue, since Fitch was considered a foreigner in California.

Undaunted, the daring sea captain and his bride-to-be plotted with Pico, and one Friday Pico picked up Josefa and took her to the pier to meet Fitch. By the time she was missed at home, the Marie Ester had already sailed for Valparaiso, Chile, where the couple were married.

Today, state historian Alexandra Luberski said, it is estimated that thousands of the descendants of these two and other well-known early San Diegans live in the area. Since 1985, 45 individuals and their families have joined Descendants of Early San Diego Pioneers, a sub-organization of Boosters of Old Town, sponsored by the state Parks and Recreation Department.

The 12 remaining historic houses in Old Town have real meaning for these descendants, in the form of stories their families have told them about life in the area before 1872, when New Town, in the present-day Horton Plaza area, began to grow.

Luberski, a historian for the Department of Parks and Recreation, organized the group of descendants in 1980 while she worked in the state’s regional office in Old Town.

“During that time I often heard people say things like, ‘My great-great-grandmother lived here, referring to the Estudillo house, or ‘My mother once told me. . . .’

“I thought, I’ve got to get these people together. They should meet. So, I did a small mailer, and pulled together the first Descendants’ Day.”

The people who came to that first Descendants’ Day either carried the names of or were related to the prominent families in San Diego’s early history (before 1872)--Lopez, Cabrillo, Bandini, Estudillo, Pico, Machado--as well as Philip Crosthwaite (an important landowner who had fought in the Battle of San Pasqual on Dec. 6, 1846), and Robert Decatur Israel (the city’s last lighthouse keeper).

The descendants’ group is open to those San Diegans whose ancestors lived in San Diego before 1872--as well as anyone interested in the history of the city (historians, archivists, genealogists).

According to Luberski, a new interest in heritage has been evident since “Roots” and America’s Bicentennial.

“I wanted to help families with genealogy, to investigate family history, and to provide resource people to answer questions. For example, one year I invited Sister Catherine Louise La Coste to speak. She is an archivist for the Catholic Church at USD (University of San Diego).

“Most of the early families were rooted in Catholicism, so the family history is recorded in church records. The non-Catholic men who came to California during that period married California girls and became Catholic.”

Descendants’ Day is held the second Sunday in June (this year on June 14), and there are other activities during the year. Many members of the descendants group also belong to the San Diego Genealogical Society and Boosters of Old Town (who are sponsoring Evening in Old Town, featuring tours, dinner and a melodrama, on Saturday.

The goals of the group are to promote public awareness and interest in the heritage of early San Diego, to clarify misinformation about all eras of San Diego history, to organize gatherings of descendants to exchange information, to renew or create family ties, to assist and encourage the writings of biographies as a part of the family genealogy, and to conduct oral history interviews on family histories.

Some of the family histories have been documented. Students of Richard Griswold de Castillo, a professor of history at San Diego State University, have helped with oral history projects, including one of Joseph Montijo, 82, of Old Town.

An article about Prudencia Vallejo Lopez de Moreno, on file at the San Diego Historical Society, has been written by Helen Pearl Mygrant Long, a member of the descendants group. Long wrote the biography of her great-grandmother before she joined the group. Prudencia was born in Old Town in 1832, and was the great-granddaughter of Juan Francisco Lopez (he came to Alta California with Father Serra’s expedition).

Long has documented the fact that Prudencia was present at the original raising of the American flag in Old Town on July 29, 1846. In fact, Prudencia was on the roof of the Machado house at the time, Long writes, and then ran into the plaza shouting, “A million Gringos are coming!”

Many of the descendants keep biographies they have been working on at home and share them on Descendants’ Day. These biographies, or copies of them, are expected to eventually go into a library for descendants, to be in the planned reconstruction of the Robinson-Rose house, next to the Hamburguesa in the Bazaar del Mundo. (Ron Quinn, state historian located in the Old Town area, says the building will also house a visitors center and has a fall construction date).

In 1984, Luberski turned the group over to three descendants who volunteered to take the responsibility--Corey Braun, Elena T. Orozco and Henry Israel.

Braun, 27, chairman of the descendants’ group, is an archivist for the San Diego Historical Society. Sitting in the reading room at the Historical Society, Braun said his family has been in San Diego for nine generations, “Maybe 30, in California, if I count one Indian ancestor.”

Braun is a sixth cousin of Josefa Carillo, who married Fitch, and a great-great-grandson of Philip Crosthwaite, who lived in San Diego from 1845-1874. Crosthwaite fought in the Battle of San Pasqual on Dec. 6, 1848, and married Maria Josefa Lopez in 1848, a member of the prominent Lopez family of Old Town who owned several homes, one of which is now Carlos Murphy’s restaurant.

Braun’s ancestor, Crosthwaite, was indirectly responsible for the San Diego Union starting here. Crosthwaite visited his sister and her husband, William Jefferson Gatewood, near Sacramento, where Gatewood was editing and publishing the San Andreas Register. Crosthwaite told Gatewood there was no newspaper in San Diego, so Gatewood came to San Diego and went into partnership with Edward W. Bushyhead. They started publishing the Union in 1868.

Crosthwaite owned a general store, was school commissioner for awhile, and a deputy sheriff in his early San Diego days. In 1891, the Union reported that he owned (along with three of his seven sons) 45,000 acres, 5,000 head of cattle and 400 horses.

Braun said he always knew his family was significant in San Diego because he had read numerous early interviews the Union had done of Crosthwaite, and, “I was close to my grandmother, and she told me stories.

“To be a descendant, and be interested in the background, is rare. There are a lot of descendants out there who aren’t interested. I’m one of five brothers, for example, and I’m the only one in my family who is interested. Even my mother isn’t interested at all.”

One important aspect of the descendant’s group, according to Braun, is to “act as watchdog to look out for the perpetuation of myths--keeping the information correct. There are a lot of misconceptions about the Spanish ancestors. Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel, ‘Ramona,’ really helped create that myth. Early California wasn’t glamorous with rancheros surveying vast cattle land. And the women’s life was hard--doing work and laundry. They were all ordinary people, trying to survive. It was a tough, driving existence, though the weather was not as intense as in the East.”

The interchange between descendants fills in history with human stories. For example, says Braun, “The other day I heard from a descendant that the Spanish soldiers cut their braids after the Mexicans took over in 1822. I didn’t know until then that they had those long single braids down their backs.”

Elena T. Orozco, 38, is second chairman of the descendants’ group. Orozco is related to Josefa Carillo, so she is also distantly related to Braun.

In fact, Braun says, “Elena and I are 6th, 7th, and 8th cousins, but then maybe it ends up we are really closer since we are related so many ways. There were so few families back then, and the area was isolated, so people almost always married people they were related to.

“When you’re tracing ancestors, and see you’re related in one way, you look further, and often see you’re related in another way. Many of the descendants are related six or seven times.”

“California (genealogically) reminds me of Hawaii,” said Orozco. “There is such a mixture. People were jumping ships, changing names. Genetically it’s a nightmare. My full name is Elena Teresa Orozco Espinoza Gastullen Carillo Marquis Villalobos, and there is even a Smith in there,” she said, laughing.

“The other day a visitor from out of state came into the office where I work. He said, ‘I want to meet a real California girl.’ I knew he meant a tall, blue-eyed blonde, but I thought, ‘Here I am--I’m a true California girl.”

Walking through Old Town, Orozco pointed out houses of historical significance and sites where such houses once stood.

“My great-great-great-grandfather, Joaquin Carillo, lived in the Carillo House (now on the golf course in Old Town), and he was the father of Josefa.

“The Bazaar del Mundo is on the site where Pio Pico’s (the last Mexican governor of California) house was.”

The Pico house fell into disrepair by the 1930s, she explained, and a hotel was built on the site, incorporating what still stood of the original structure.

“The grass plaza of Old Town was dirt in its active days,” she said. “It was here that bullfights, rooster fights, bull and bear fights were held.

Old Town is in the midst of a 25-year development plan that began in 1977. Orozco said it is being “rebuilt by the state to simulate the way it was during its most active period, from 1822 to 1872.”

Historian Quinn said, “The idea is to build as many (reconstructions of original buildings) as possible around the plaza to give people the feeling of the Mexican and American period. It is difficult to predict how long this will take. It may take longer than the projected period.”

Orozco was a docent in Old Town four years before joining the descendant’s group. “I want people to know about the life that was here in the early days, and to remember the way it looked, too--the dirt and chaparral. While things were happening in the East, history was being made here, too. And in terms of descendants, it’s important to get the stories documented.”

Henry Israel is the third chairman of the descendants’ group. He is related to the Machado family. His grandmother was Maria Arcadia Alipaz, daughter of Juana Machado of the Machado-Wrightington house (Orozco will portray Juana Machado Wrightington during the Evening in Old Town). His grandfather, Robert Decatur Israel, was the lighthouse keeper at Cabrillo Lighthouse on Point Loma. His wife, Maria, was assistant keeper, and their three children, including Henry Israel’s father, were all raised there.

“I’d love to have known him,” said the present-day Israel as he pointed to a portrait in the historical society’s files of his grandfather, “but he died in 1908, and I was born in 1915. I was always interested, but never pursued the history until the last five or six years.”

Braun, Orozco and Israel all have backgrounds which include European (including Spanish), Mexican and Indian heritage, and are representative of the blending of the cultures of the early descendants.

“The Spanish soldiers married the Indian women until they brought their women later,” said Luberski, “and at least eight European or Anglo men married these California women (daughters of the Spanish soldiers) before the arrival of the Americans. Fitch and Josefa Carillo are the most famous example. (Some attention was drawn to Fitch in 1969 when his grave was discovered in an excavation in the Presidio area).

“With statehood and the Gold Rush, this became a land of intermarriage in the 1850s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

“It is difficult,” she said, “to trace the Kumeyaay Indians who married into the Spanish families, because the records are poor. Spanish surnames were taken by many Indians. It was hard to be an Indian. A person wasn’t hired. Families starved. So the Indians often said they were Mexican. Now we find your people trying to go back, to trace those Native American ancestors, and having a difficult time.

“And,” she said, “there are often barriers in families for unknown reasons. You find sensitive areas if you do genealogy, especially with Native Americans. You must win the trust of the elders. It’s not always easy or fun--even when people really want to know.”

Luberski said she is interested in history without romantics. “Folklore and stories are part of the heritage and history, but keeping it in perspective is equally important. The descendants make phone calls back and forth, and this generous sharing of family information pays off. It comes back tenfold.

“These people are not stuffy, but from all walks of life. Age-wise the descendants are really mixed.” The retired people outnumber the younger ones right now, she explained, because they have more time. “They (the retired descendants) try to get the young people involved.

“Early California history is a real high. It’s not like Medieval England--far away in a land we can’t feel or touch. We are physically on the same soil.”

Though not a descendant of early San Diego herself, she feels the excitement. “Once you discover you are from one of those families, you are related to half of the settlement of Alta, California.

“This kind of historical research is not just an article on a shelf. It’s the real person, gracing down his own story. This isn’t dead. This is about your place of residence, and connecting research with families.”