Joseph Yves Limantour
Joseph Yves Limantour (1812, Ploemeur, France - 1885, Mexico City, Mexico) was a French merchant who engaged in the California sea trade during the years preceding American occupation of that Mexican province in 1846. He was also known in California as José Limantour.
Life
Limantour, was a Breton trader and sea captain who traded all along the Pacific coast from Valparaíso to California. He arrived in Veracruz in 1831, and was based after 1836 in Mexico City.[1]
Limantour Beach bears his name because he wrecked his schooner, the Ayacucho, on Point Reyes in October 1841.[2] Although much of the cargo was saved, Limantour was stranded in California with no means of transport. During his time in northern California, Limantour sold his cargo for cash and credit to the local elite, but the value of the Ayucucho’s cargo far exceeded the local capacity for purchase. General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Commander General of California, was a major exception and he owned Rancho Suscol in Sonoma with plenty of cattle. Gale and company wanted cattle, and Limantour wanted the schooner. In a three-way deal, Vallejo purchased the Star of Oregon for 350 cows, and then transferred ownership to Limantour.
In 1853, Limantour filed claims at the Public Land Commission for 47 square leagues (200,000 acres) of Mexican land grants. The claims included eighty square leagues of Cape Mendocino;[3] Tiburon peninsula, the Farallones, Alcatraz;[4] four square leagues of San Francisco (all the land south of California Street);[5] Rancho Ojo de Agua;[6] the eleven square league Rancho Laguna de Tache;[7] the eleven square league Rancho Cienega del Gabilan;[8] the eleven square league Rancho Lupyomi;[9] and the six square leagues Rancho Cahuenga.[10] All granted by Mexican governor Manuel Micheltorena. His claims were judged fraudulent in Federal court.[11] Limantour arrested in December 1857, but posted bail and went back to Mexico.[12][13][14]
He was married to Adele Marquet, and their son, José Yves Limantour, was Secretary of Finance of Mexico from 1893-1911.[15] Joseph Y. Limatour died in Mexico City in 1885.[16][17]
References
- ↑ Limantour, The Maritime Heritage Project
- ↑ California Place Names, University of California Press, 1960
- ↑ United States. District Court (California : Northern District) Land Case 315 ND
- ↑ United States. District Court (California : Northern District) Land Case 429 ND
- ↑ United States. District Court (California : Northern District) Land Case 424 ND
- ↑ United States. District Court (California : Northern District) Land Case 307 ND
- ↑ United States. District Court (California : Southern District) Land Case 311 SD
- ↑ United States. District Court (California : Southern District) Land Case 314 SD
- ↑ United States. District Court (California : Northern District) Land Case 317 ND
- ↑ United States. District Court (California : Southern District) Land Case 321 SD
- ↑ Limantour v United States, 1958, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, pp. 389-451, Numa Hubert, San Francisco
- ↑ A Nice Piece Of Real Estate By Richard Reinhardt, American Heritage Magazine, December 1971,Volume 23, Issue 1
- ↑ A Pamphlet Relating to the Claim of Senor Don Jose Y. Limantour to Four Leagues of Land in the County Adjoining and Near the City of San Francisco, California. Whitten, Towne and Company. 1853.
- ↑ Fritz, Christian G. (1991). Federal Justice in California: The Court of Ogden Hoffman, 1851-1891. University of Nebraska Press.
- ↑ B W Aston, The Public Career of Don Jose Ives Limantour, dissertation (1972), Texas Tech University"The Public Career of Don Jose Ives Limantour (1972)" (PDF). etd.lib.ttu.edu. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
- ↑ Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1886). The History of California.
- ↑ Michael Werner,2001,Concise Encyclopedia of Mexico, Routledge, ISBN 978-1-57958-337-8
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