Rancho Los Alamitos—Part 1: Abel Stearns
By Claudine Burnett
Published: October 24th, 2024
In researching my latest book, Amador City: A Haunting History, 
I was surprised to find references to Michael Reese, who I knew once owned the Rancho Los Alamitos. I had never realized there were so many connections between Amador County and Long Beach. I knew the Bixbys and Flints got their start in the county, but now I had found another tie. I decided I needed to investigate Reese, of whom little has been written. I found a unique, quirky individual with quite a story to tell. Before I do so, let me present some background on the Rancho and owner Abel Stearns. Part 2 of this series will be about Michael Reese.
The Rancho Los Alamitos was carved from the vast Rancho Los Nietos in 1804 following the death of Manuel Nieto. The portion that was to become Los Cerritos went to Dona Manuela Nieto de Cota, the neighboring section, Rancho Los Alamitos, was inherited by Don Juan Jose Nieto. For five hundred dollars in cash ($18,400 in 2023) Juan Jose Nieto sold his Los Alamitos ranch to Jose Figueroa, governor of California in June 1834. Governor Figueroa never lived on the rancho. He hired Jose Justo Morillo to manage the property. On Figueroa’s death, which took place in Monterey in September 1835, his brother and supposedly sole heir, Francisco, joined Morillo. They remained in charge until the rancho could be sold. In the spring of 1840 Abel Stearns began negations to purchase the Alamitos.
Abel Stearns
Contemporary accounts disagree as to the actual amount Stearns paid for the property. “I bought my rancho Los Alamitos in 1842, for $6,000 ($231,000), including 900 cattle, nearly 1,000 sheep and 240 horses.” (The Cattle on a Thousand Hills, p.192) But the figures cited by Stearns do not agree with an inventory made in 1842, nor with the statements of other persons who were acquainted with the details of the transaction. Most if not all of the proceeds derived from the sale went to satisfy the debts left by Governor Figueroa.
Stearns is an interesting character in Southern California history. Besides his connection with Long Beach’s Rancho Los Alamitos, he witnessed the development of the ranchos, the annexation of California by the United States, the turmoil of the Gold Rush, the cattle boom of the 1850s and the Great Drought of the 1860s.
Born in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, February 9, 1798, he went to sea at age 12, following the death of his parents. A life of travel and adventure followed, but by 1829 he was in Los Angeles settled into a life as a storekeeper and merchant. His warehouse in San Pedro (now the site of Fort McArthur), allowed him to efficiently furnish visiting ships with hides and tallow. By maintaining a substantial supply of cash, in a land where barter was almost universal, he was able to buy more advantageously than his competitors and aid influential ranchero owners who needed ready money.
By 1841 the 43-year-old took enough time from his business dealings to marry 14-year-old Arcadia Bandini, daughter of Don Juan Bandini, one of the most influential rancho owners and politicians in Southern California. A year after his marriage Stearns purchased the Rancho Los Alamitos, beginning his career as landowner. Seven years after the purchase the Gold Rush ushered in a spectacular cattle boom. With the Rancho Los Alamitos as a center, Stearns built up the largest land and cattle empire in Southern California.
As more and more “foreigners” arrived in California, the Spanish Dons were compelled to secure confirmation to their land grants under the Land Act of 1851. Under the Mexican regime, taxes had not been levied on land or improvements, the sole revenue being derived from a tax on brandy and wine. Wholly unfamiliar with the Anglo-American system of land taxation and the workings of a monetary economy, the ranchos were ruinously affected not only by drought but by the transition to American rule. At least 40% of the land owned under Mexican grants was sold, Carey McWilliams points out (in Southern California County), by the owners to meet the costs and expenses involved in complying with the Act of 1851.
Stearns’ knowledge of the financial difficulties of other large landowners enabled him to buy one ranch after another at little cost. But first he had to settle his claim to Rancho Los Alamitos. Certain inquisitive San Francisco lawyers began to challenge the validity of Stearns’ purchase of the Alamitos in 1842 on the grounds that Governor Jose Figueroa, who supposedly died intestate, actually had three legitimate sons in Mexico to whom he left the ranch, and that Francisco Figueroa and Nicolas Gutierrez, administrators of the governor’s estate, illegally suppressed the will, kept the other sons in ignorance of their title to the Alamitos, and fraudulently disposed of the property of the estate. To put an end to the matter Stearns commissioned Don Juan Temple in 1856 to serve as his confidential agent in Mexico and draft a compromise with the claimants. Temple carried through the negations successfully, but it cost Stearns over $10,000 ($371,000) to secure a clear title to the Rancho Los Alamitos.
By 1862 Stearns had acquired over 200,000 acres of some of the choicest land in Southern California with properties extending between Santa Maria to Baja California. But with the decline in livestock prices, he found himself in a precarious financial position. Though land and cattle rich, he was cash poor and the Great Drought of the 1860s brought on troubled times. In 1861 he mortgaged the Rancho Los Alamitos to Michael Reese of San Francisco for $20,000 ($714,000) to secure money for various ventures. During the barren years of the drought, Stearns was compelled to default both principal and interest on the note; and on February 18, 1865, in the “Case of Michael Reese, Plaintiff, v. Abel Stearns, Defendant,” the district court of Los Angeles County issued a decree of sale against the Rancho Los Alamitos. Although Stearns was able to obtain a year’s extension on the note, he failed to raise the necessary funds; Reese held the mortgage on the Alamitos property and foreclosed on Stearns in 1865, acquiring the 26,289-acre property at a court-ordered auction in 1866.
In 1868, in return for a mortgage on all his ranch properties in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, the Hibernia Loan and Savings Society of San Francisco advanced Stearns $43,000 ($951,000) to meet his financial obligations. The loan enabled him to consolidate his debts and postpone the impending threat of bankruptcy. During this breathing spell, Alfred Robinson, Stearns former business associate and good friend, succeeded in interesting a number of San Francisco investors in a plan to subdivide and sell Stearns’ holdings in Southern California. The group formed the Los Angeles and San Bernardino Land Association (also known as the Robinson Trust). Together they embarked upon one of the most ambitious real estate promotions in the history of the state. Stearns conveyed to the Association all his ranchos in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties; in turn the syndicate agreed to pay him a dollar and a half an acre for the properties, as fast as the land was sold; to make an advance of $50,000 ($1,110 million) for the liquidation of his debts; and to allow him an eighth interest in the Association.
The Association, with the help of the Southern California Immigrant Union, flooded the East with literature describing the benefits Southern California had to offer. The ranchos were divided into 650-acre tracts; and each tract further broken up into farms containing from 20 to 160 acres. Towns, such as Compton, were also mapped out. Abel Stearns was free of debt when he died in San Francisco on August 23, 1871. The only casualty in his financial battles was his first land purchase, the Rancho Los Alamitos.
In part 2 of this series, Michael Reese’s story will be told.
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