Pleasant Hill Annexed to Lafayette!

1934 view of Pleasant Hill from the bottom. Photo courtesy of Pleasant Hill Historical Society

The dirty deed actually happened on November 24, 1980. Thirty-one years ago. And Pleasant Hill has been part of Lafayette ever since. Don’t believe it? City Resolution Number 40-80. Look it up.

The story begins back in 1821, coincidentally the same year Mexico declared her independence from Spain. A British ship named Lady Blackwood slipped into Bodega Bay, which was, of course, Mexican territory at the time. A young sailor named William Welch perhaps thought the green hills looked a bit like his native Ireland, or he might simply have decided to seek his fortune. In any case, he jumped ship and took a launch to the nearby village of Yerba Buena. But that collection of raw shacks held little appeal. He pressed on to the south, all the way to Pueblo de los Ángeles.

On arrival at the great Pueblo, he must have wondered why anyone would build a city in a desert. Nevertheless, he stayed two years before heading back north.

He halted at the Pueblo de San José, where he learned that the Mexican government, anxious to populate this vast new land with settlers, was actually giving away vast tracts of land for nothing! Now twenty-eight years old, he decided it was time to become a Land Baron.

But they told him, “You must be Mexican to own land.” He applied for Mexican citizenship. And was told, “You must be Catholic to be Mexican.” He went to the mission. “You will need to be baptized,” the priest said. “And take a Mexican name.”

He mixed a good Mexican name with a good Irish one: Guillermo Welch.

Then he found that if he really, really wanted the Governor to grant (give) him some land, it would be much easier if he first became a soldier. “You see,” they told him, “the government has no money to pay the soldiers. It gives them land, instead.” So he went to the Presidio. The Commandante eyed the fair-skinned European named Guillermo with the peculiar accent and made him a sargento on the spot.

In 1828, history records that the Sargento Guillermo, now a wily Irish-Mexican, accumulated a herd of cattle. But a fellow with a herd of cattle must have a place to keep his herd of cattle. Guillermo petitioned Governor Echeandia for a nice tract of land called La Laguna de los Bolbones, in the Contra Costa. In 1832, having not heard back from the Governor for four years, he asked for, and received, permission from the local Alcalde and from Capitàn Arguello to move his cattle to the new location.

Wrong move. When the cattle arrived, Señor José Ygnacio Sibrian y Pacheco, (the local Alcalde), discovered that the cattle were now pastured on Monte del Diablo, a tract of land Señor Pacheco himself  had already petitioned for!!

Señor Pacheco at once protested to the Governor, who reprimanded Capitàn Arguello. He fined Guillermo 50 pesosand ordered him to remove the cattle. Fortunately, Ignacio Martinez, the owner of the nearby Rancho el Pinole, took pity on the unfortunate Irish-Mexican and allowed him to keep the herd temporarily on his Rancho.

While still awaiting the Governor’s response to his petition, Guillermo returned to the Pueblo de San José, somehow bought a house (remember: he’s wily), and married Maria Antonia Galindo. At once, he set to work starting a family.

Many, many, times he rode the long distance between his growing herd of children in San José and his growing herd of cattle in Pinole. There was only one answer to the dilemma, he told himself: he simply must get his own Rancho.

Want to know how this story ends? Look for Part Two in October!


-Ray Peters