The Evening News. October 19, 1916

20. The Miracle Ranch, Part I.

The Santa Teresa ranch began with a miracle. There are still miracles at the Santa Teresa. It is about three miles east of Edenvale, and has been longer occupied by one family than any other ranch near San Jose. It is still the valuable property of Mrs. Ygnacio Bernal, who has more than three hundred acres left of the nine leagues granted to Joaquin Bernal, great grandfather of the present generation of Bernals. Joaquin Bernal received it as a gift from Charles III because he was the first assayer of mines in California.

The first miracle at Santa Teresa was seen by the Indians before the Bernals came to California. After Joaquin Bernal took possession of his grant he lived in a cabin while building an adobe house. The Bernal vaqueros became friendly with the Indians by giving them bandana handkerchiefs and other little gewgaws. Then the Indians confided in Joaquin Bernal that miracles were in the great spring back of his house.

Whenever an Indian was ill a lady in flowing robes with a white bandage on her forehead came over the hills, took some spring water from the deep spring that gushed from the rocks under the oak trees near Joaquin Bernal's cabin and healed the sick.

This story Joaquin Bernal related to the padres, who often came from Santa Clara to say mass under the trees on the ranch and to gain converts. The padres were greatly impressed by the miracle of the lady of the hills. They decided that the lady on the Bernal ranch was no other than Santa Teresa. So that was how the name came nearly a hundred and fifty years ago.

With such a beginning one is prepared for any future for the spot. One treads softly lest one should step on fairies. One would not be surprised at anything at Santa Teresa. There is $10,000 in buried treasure on the ranch.

Not long since outcroppings of quicksilver were found on the place, and it is said that the far reaching tunnels from the Almaden have almost reached the Santa Teresa.

Miracles don't often bring profit, but Mr. Pedro Bernal, great grandson of Joaquin Bernal, the first settler, has for years sold the Santa Teresa mineral water to the people of San Jose.

The other miracle was discovered by Mr. Pedro Bernal. He had often noticed on the hills back of the house that close to the surface were decomposing shells. As a boy these shells used to thrill him. He knew that they told the story of the day when Santa Teresa was covered by the sea. When Pedro Bernal went abroad a few years later he saw the lime marl pits in England from which vast quantities of carbonate of lime marl fertilizer had been made. It was almost a joke. They had the very pit at the Santa Teresa.

On Mr. Bernal's return to Edenvale he had the deposits on his mother's place assayed. It was the same fertilizer they had used so, widely in Europe. The hills were one vast clam bed. When these decomposed clam shells were crushed into powder, they produced carbonate of lime marl. There are a hundred acres of natural fertilizer on the Bernal ranch, enough to manufacture forty tons a day for eighty years. Among all the wrecked Spanish families Pedro Bernal and his sister have been able to survive commercially. They have marketed miracles.

Transcribed by Kitty LaFavor, for the Santa Clara Co. CAGenWeb Project. 2008

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