Democratic hopeful Bill Richardson shares name with Sonoma pioneer

William Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, former Ambassador to the United Nations, Energy Secretary and now one of the hopefuls for the Democratic presidential nomination, was visiting in Sonoma Valley a couple of weeks ago. I asked him if he was familiar with his namesake William A. Richardson. He answered that he was not. Most Bay Area and Sonoma residents don’t know more than the name of the original William Richardson, or his important role in our history.
In 1835 the governor of the Mexican territory of California ordered Lt. Mariano Vallejo to ride north to the settlement of Sonoma and the Mission San Francisco de Solano. Vallejo had two instructions: “Secularize” the mission and set up a pueblo, a frontier town. Secularization, pursuant to a newly enacted federal law, meant taking control of the extensive mission properties and reducing the authority of the church and the local padre to that of a parish priest.
Establishing a town out of the near-wilderness that stretched beyond the fields near the mission for 20 square miles was a major undertaking. Vallejo was determined that the pueblo would be accurately mapped and surveyed, unlike the casual descriptions that plagued most of the Spanish/Mexican California settlements. Vallejo’s Sonoma was a pueblo in name only, and he needed help.
It was only natural that Vallejo would turn to William A. Richardson, who had just been appointed Captain of the Port of San Francisco by newly installed Governor Jose Figueroa. Richardson was completing the task of bringing some order to the sand dunes, military presidio, the path to the Mission San Francisco de Assisi and the handful of squatters in Yerba Buena. An expert in ship navigation, he put together a team of scarcely trained surveyors and laid down a grid of streets and lots in hilly future San Francisco. Richardson picked a prime lot for himself and with Indian labor built the first permanent residence on the San Francisco peninsula.
In Sonoma. Vallejo and Richardson plotted streets, blocks, lot lines the 8-acre central plaza, the main road (Broadway) and siting of the barracks and other buildings. Many property descriptions in Sonoma deeds refer to the Old Pueblo map.
Richardson had arrived in San Francisco Bay in 1822, a 27-year-old English mate on the whaling ship Orion. When the ship sailed, he stayed and began building boats that he employed in shipping around the bay. He delivered to the growing town of Yerba Buena water in barrels from a Sausalito stream and lumber cut from forests near the shoreline.
In 1825 Richardson followed a typical pattern for a foreign immigrant. He converted to Catholicism, a necessity for Mexican citizenship, which was soon granted on condition he would agree to teach navigation and carpentry to young Californios. These prerequisites made him eligible to marry his love, Maria Antonia Martinez, daughter of Presidio Commandante Ignacio Martinez.
Richardson put in a request to the incumbent governor in 1828 for a land grant of southern Marin from the headlands north through Sausalito to Tamalpais Valley and along the coast as far as Stinson Beach. It was denied. Discouraged, he and his family moved to the San Ferrnando Valley for several years. He returned to the Bay Area in time for the appointment as Port Captain by Governor Figuereroa, but the Sausalito land grant went to someone else.
Figuereroa died in late 1835, and was succeeded by two inept appointed governors. The first arrived with a young women he called his “niece” and imposed himself on native girls. After only three months, a mob literally ran him out of town. His brief successor tried to dissolve the territorial legislature, triggering a revolt. He gave up when rebels fired their only cannon ball onto the roof of his house.
In his place, the California House of Disputacios chose Juan Bautista Alvarado, the first elected governor and the first born in California. Alvarado was also Vallejo’s cousin, and promoted Vallejo to the rank of Commanding General for the territory. Alvarado approved Richardson’s claim for the Sausalito land grant of 19,571 acres in February, 1838. However, that was just on paper. To perfect his title he had to ride around the entire boundary of his grant (his wife and children along) accompanied by an official to verify his description. Richardson chose the Alacalde from Sonoma for that task and on Oct. 15, 1841 his title was thereby perfected.
Captain Richardson built his hacienda toward the northern end of the Sausalito settlement at the corner of two trails (modern-day Caledonia and Pine streets) about a block from the shore of the bay, which an 1841 map entitled Richardson’s Bay, which extends from Sausalito to Mill Valley.
Richardson did not make a city plan for Sausalito, probably because in his lifetime there was very little population, the choicest areas were steep hills originally more suited for paths than streets. He could make a profitable pleasant living raising cattle and horses. Like the golden age of the Californios, the Richardson hacienda was the scene of hunting, music, dances and banquets for guests and his growing family. The depth of San Francisco Bay close to the Sausalito waterfront provided a superior location for boat repairs, and attracted many visiting mariners among the Richardsons’ guests.
Shortly after the Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma, Captain John C. Fremont and his California Battalion were hunting for Mexican soldiers near San Rafael. Fremont had sent orders to Richardson to provide him with horses. Richardson dispatched his 15-year-old son, Steven, with a fresh herd. Steven arrived just in time to witness with horror the point-blank shooting of prominent Mexican civilians, Francisco de Haro, Ramon de Haro, and their elderly uncle Jose de los Reyes Berryessa, father of Sonoma’s Alcalde at the time.
That atrocity was symbolic of an end of that era. Richardson was living off borrowed money secured on parcels of his property. In difficult times, he defaulted and foreclosures began. His three ships (uninsured) were lost in a storm, and efforts to restructure his finances, handled by an unscrupulous attorney, did not help anyone but the lawyer. In 1856, Captain Richardson died at age 61, bankrupt and broken-hearted.
Like so many who lived carefree during Mexican days, his son and son-in-law innocently sold their scant remaining interests for only $5,000 each. The 640 acres in the name of Maria Richardson had been kept free of debt, but she sold it for less than its potential value. Purchased by developers that parcel became a large and profitable segment of the town of Sausalito.
William A. Richardson should be remembered for his contribution to the early days of Sonoma. He has not been totally forgotten. In November, 1942, on the Sausalito shoreline that had been the Richardson Hacienda, the rapidly constructed Marinship yard launched its first Liberty Ship, christened the William A. Richardson.
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