Rancho Llano Seco

Keyser, born in Austria, was a trapper who had accompanied John Sutter in 1838 from Missouri, through New Mexico to California.

He settled on the Bear River and married Elizabeth Rhoads, later selling his interest in the ranch over to Charles James Brenham in 1849.

[3][4] With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored.

He was appointed United States Consul at Mazatlán from 1837 to 1846, getting reappointed to the position in 1848 following the Mexican–American War until his resignation and move to San Francisco in 1850.

In 1862, he bought part of Rancho de las Pulgas, and six years later he built his Baywood residence and estate.