[6][7] Captain Fitch continued trading up and down the coast, with Rancho Sotoyome as one of the many business enterprises directed from his San Diego base.
After the discovery of gold, Fitch planned to move his family north to Rancho Sotoyome, but had not done so before he died in 1849.
[8] Their third son, Guillermo (William) married Clara Piña, whose relatives owned the adjacent Rancho Tzabaco.
[9] 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.
[12] Alexander filed a claim in 1853 for his two square leagues (part of the 1841 grant by Governor Alvarado to Fitch), but it was rejected by the Land Commission.