Don Guillermo Castro, born in 1809 in Spanish Alta California, was a Californio ranchero, military officer, local justice of the peace and surveyor who once owned vast land holdings in Alameda County.
[1] In 1834 his father Carlos Antonio Castro received a fee simple grant of the 22,300-acre Rancho San Francisco de las Llagas in Santa Clara County.
The couple had at least nine children: Juan in 1831, Francisco and José Ramon (twins) in 1833, Conception in 1835, Encarnacion in 1836, Loreta in 1837, Guillermo Jr. in 1840, Luis in 1842 and Edelfrida in 1844.
[3] This database shows Filemon born in February 1849 and Belisario Felipe in August 1848, which is gestationally impossible—presumably the birthdate is incorrectly recorded or transcribed.
The death of several children in such a short time must have been very hard on the Castro's, but was relatively common in that era, probably due in part to advanced maternal age.
He worked as a surveyor in 1838, assigned to define the vague outlines of the grazing commons of the pueblo of San José so it could be preserved against the onslaught of land privatization.
Guillermo Castro and his father Carlos wasted no time in applying for land on the secularized Rancho San Leandro.
Given the stated use as farmland, father and son were authorized to occupy a surely disappointing quarter of a league on December 7, 1837, being careful not to interfere with Estudillo.
In January 1840, Governor Alvarado gave Guillermo Castro provisional authority to occupy a vaguely described part of the Rancho San Leandro "in the direction of the hills, without passing the line which from north to south is formed by the springs on the place".
Negotiations dragged on, Estudillo's son-in-law William H. Davis characterized Castro's actions as intriguing with his relative, the governor.
Surely losing patience, Carlos Castro combined his two outstanding grant requests into a new petition submitted for his son on October 10, 1843.
[6] Castro built his home in what is now downtown Hayward and lived there undisturbed until the Gold Rush of 1849 brought giant herds of men from around the world to California.
The first squatters to make a claim in Castro Valley were Zachariah Hughes, a Methodist minister and farmer from Missouri, and his stepsons James and John William Jamison.
A single unreferenced historical source dating to 1876 stated that Castro's downfall was started by a gambling debt of $35,000 accrued during a trip to southern California to buy more beeves for his herd in 1852.
True or not, Guillermo Castro's fate was sealed not by a single event but by an accumulation of errors, old habits, squatters, taxes, usurious interest rates, bad luck, attorney fees and even the weather.
Castro had to defend his rancho to the U.S. Land Commission and repeatedly in the District Court, amassing huge legal fees for each step.
Starting in December 1861, forty-three days of rain turned California's valleys into lakes, rivers tore entire towns away.
The wet weather reached its crescendo with the Great Flood of January 1862, which was caused by the most intense "Pineapple Express" storm ever observed in California.
Castro started selling land in 1854, ultimately transferring a total of at least 1525 acres to thirteen people: In Castro Valley—Zachariah Hughes, William Mattox, Serril Corey and William Knox; in Hayward—William Hayward, George Brown; in Ashland—John Lewelling and Robert Farrelly; as well as S. W. Champlain, Matthias Jewett, Jesse Billings, Amelia Smith and Charles Whitmore.
He declared his plan to leave for Buenos Aires in a December 1863 court deposition and said he would never come back to California, a promise he seemingly kept.
Having cleared $130,000, equal to millions of dollars in 2023, it is evident that Don Guillermo Castro left the United States as a relatively wealthy man.