Community Guide 2017
History of the San Geronimo Valley 1844–2017 by Jean Berensmeier
Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain and Naples, and elder broth- er of the infamous Napoleon Bonaparte. After the family’s exile from Spain, Louis Mailliard retrieved from Switzerland a strongbox filled with the family’s jewels, and brought the treasure to their new home in New Jersey. Adolph Mailliard purchased the rancho, to celebrate the birth of his son Joseph, for $50,000, a mighty sum considering it was purchased a mere eight years earlier for $1,000! In 1868 Adolph Mailliard and his family moved from New Jersey to San Rafael, where Adolph engaged in horse breeding and railroad construction. In 1873 Adolph and his wife, Annie, set out to establish a grand estate on Rancho San Geronimo, building their home of 18 rooms and 11 fireplaces near Castle Rock in Woodacre. Annie’s aunt described it as “an unremarkable house with a deep veranda all around and small rooms with high ceilings.” Her sisters pitied her isola- tion, and visitors from the East wondered how Annie could put up with straw matting on her floors, awkward servants, and austere furniture. In fact, Annie loved her house and her Valley, and refused to ever leave. Annie’s sister, Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and an active abolitionist and suffragette, would often enjoy relaxing at the Mailliards’ home in the Valley during her travels. Early in the second half of the nineteenth century Adolph Mailliard transferred title to tracts of 400-600 acres each to James and Thomas Roy in San Geronimo and to James Dickson and Calvin Dickson in Woodacre in payment of debts he owed them. Little other division of the rancho occurred through the end of the century. In 1895 Annie Mailliard died of breast cancer in the home she loved so dearly. Her husband died a year later. In 1924, their home became the clubhouse of the Woodacre Improve- ment Club. A swimming pool was built for the membership. The building burned in 1958 and was replaced. Later, a room was added and used by the Valley Pioneers, an elders group. In 2010, they discontinued their use and it is now a small fitness
Note: This history is compiled from early records and memories by Betty Gardner, Robin Barnett, Jean Berensmeier, Wendi Kallins, and Brian Dodd, and from the printed works of Jack Mason, Helen Van Cleve Park, Joseph Revere, Louise Hall Tharp, A. Gray Dickinson, and Louise Teather. With a nod and thank you to the Miwok Indians who took care of this lovely Valley for 10,000 years before we discov- ered it, here is a summary of white settlers’ impact from 1844 – 2017. It describes who they were, what they did, when and why, and ends up with you and me. Enjoy and love the San Geronimo Valley. Settlement and Development Rafael Cacho, a military officer and friend of General Mariano Vallejo, was the first person to hold title to the San Geronimo Valley. On February 12, 1844, he was granted the 8,800- acre Rancho Cañada de San Geronimo (The Valley of Saint Jerome) by the Mexican government, in acknowledgment of his loyal service as a Mexican citizen. Cacho lived in the Valley with his wife and children, grazing cattle and horses, until his finances forced a sale in 1846 to Lieutenant Joseph Revere, who purchased the rancho for $1,000 and an interest in a very small ranch in Napa. Revere, a naval officer and grandson of Paul Revere, had served under General Vallejo, and had released the beleaguered general from imprisonment at Sutter’s Fort. Revere had discovered the Valley while hunting elk, and immediately determined to make it his own. He wrote: “The Canada of San Geronimo is one of the loveliest valleys in California, shut in by lofty hills, the sides of which are covered with redwood forests, and pines of several kinds, and interspersed with many flowering trees and shrubs peculiar to the Country. Through it flows a copious stream, fed by the mountain brooks; and the soil in the bottomlands is so prolific,
that a hundred bushels of wheat to the acre can be raised with the rudest cultivation and other crops in corresponding abundance.” Joseph Revere retained ownership of Rancho San Geronimo for only four years, and then sold it to Rodman Price for $7,500. Price returned to New Jersey, where he was elected Governor, and hired Lorenzo White, a 49er gold miner, to manage Price’s cattle operation on the rancho. For many years the rancho was known as White’s Valley, and White’s Hill still bears his name. Title to Rancho San Geronimo was then sold several times, finally, in 1857, to Adolph Mailliard, whose father was Louis Mailliard, “natural son” of
Woodacre Lodge, formerly Adolph Malliard residence, circa 1914 (Photo courtesy of Jim Staley collection)
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SGVCC
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