People

Isaac Slover and his wife, María Bárbara Aragón Slover, regularly assisted travelers on the Old Spanish Trail. Isaac opened his smokehouse and supplied the famished travelers with bacon and squashes, a feat of generosity that seems to have been a regular occurrence.

In September of 1841, Apolonia Vaca and Nestora Peña, the youngest daughters in their respective families, traveled the Old Spanish Trail from Abiquiú, New Mexico, to California. Juan Felipe Peña and his wife, Ysabel Gonzales, also brought their five sons along; Apolonia Vaca had the company of her father, Juan Manuel Vaca, and seven siblings.

Hipólito Espinosa was among the first colonists to arrive in Alta California from New Mexico via the Old Spanish Trail. Like many who emigrated from New Mexico over the Old Spanish Trail, Espinosa had some advance knowledge of California before moving his family there. Espinosa worked as a driver for numerous trade caravans that traveled annually on the Old Spanish Trail.

Jean Baptiste Chalifoux began his professional career as a fur trapper, first in French Canada and then in western North America. By the late 1820s, he had parlayed his knowledge of the landscape into a career as a mercenary and horse thief, traveling the trails between New Mexico and southern California.

Barely a teenager when he left England as an apprentice on a whaling vessel, White arrived in Baja California in 1817. White arrived in Santa Barbara in 1828, eventually making his way to Mission San Gabriel—which at that time consisted of little more than a few houses around the plaza, a church, some gardens, and some irrigable land.

In 1834, Mexico decreed the secularization of the missions and made their considerable holdings available to individual citizens who promised to develop private ranchos. On 10 March 1836, Julián Antonio Chávez, an “españole [sic]” from Abiquiú, New Mexico, petitioned the ayuntamiento (governing council) of Los Angeles for a grant of “swampy lands” nearest to the pueblo, declaring that it was “entirely vacant."