The Evening News. October 14, 1916.

17. The First Frame House. Part II.

The Chaboya ranch has seen many stirring events. Here Gen. Fremont stopped on his first expedition to California in 1846. Wherever Gen. Fremont stopped the air still echoes with his conduct. In 1846 Don Pedro Chaboya supplied San Jose with milk. Fremont was on his way north from Monterey. His post was at the ranch owned by the Fishers at Coyote, Laguna Seca. He wanted food for his forces. He sent a messenger ahead to demand supplies of the Chaboyas.

"My father was absent at the time," said Mrs. Long, daughter of Don Pedro, who still owns the old Chaboya home on the Tully road. "My mother and the children were in the old house alone. A soldier rode up and demanded cattle. The forman refused to give them. The soldier clubbed the foreman over the head and made his face bleed. This frightened my mother. She took her youngest child and ran screaming from the house. She hid all day in the tules. The low land about here has been filled in, but it used to be covered with tules. My mother went nearly insane because she heard the sound of firing and she didn't know what was happening.

"Captain Fremont came to the ranch and demanded cattle. He and his men begin shooting our best dairy cows. He shot sixty. He took flour, corn, wheat, wine, grapes, everything he wanted. My father came home and Captain Fremont promise to pay $8700 for what he had taken. He gave my father a contract to that effect. My father thought the United States government would pay."

"Years later when we needed money we sent our original contract to Washington, but we kept a copy. Both the original and the copy were lost by congressman. We think the original is filed somewhere in Washington, but we have no money to locate it with. And so, the Fremont claim has gone with the rest of the ranch. Spanish people in California are unlucky," said Mrs. Long. We were standing on the porch of the ranch. She pointed to the lot facing it. A little to the north in the center of the orchard rose and oak tree. "Over there by the oak was the corral. Captain Fremont camped by the corral. That was where he killed the sixty cows."

Transcribed by Claire Martin, for the Santa Clara Co. CAGenWeb Project. 2007

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