MEET PINOLE’S FIRST FAMILY
By Jeff Rubin, President, Pinole Historical Society
Don Ygnacio Martinez and his wife, Doña Maria
Martina Arellanes, settled with their large family in the
Pinole Valley in the 1820s.
Here they built a big adobe home as the centerpiece of
their 18,000- acre Rancho El Pinole.
The land was granted to Don Ygnacio for his 41 years
of service as a soldier to Spain and Mexico.
The expansive rancho had some 8,000 cattle and 1,000
horses.
Pinole Valley was then a wild place of dangerous
grizzly bears and maurauding bands of Indians who
attacked the rancheros and stole
horses. The Martinez family kept a brass cannon for
protection in front of their adobe home.
Don Ygnacio and Doña Martina had 13 children.
Nine daughters and two sons survived early childhood
— 10 married and nine had families with many
descendants.
Rancho life in pre-American California centered on
social interaction and marriages among neighboring
Spanish-speaking “Californio” Rancho families and
some approved English immigrants as well.
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The marriages of the Martinez children were:
• Maria Antonia, the oldest, married William
Richardson;
• Juana Maria married Jose Joaquin Estudillo;
• Maria Encarnacion married Jose Altamirano;
• Jose Jesus (eldest son) first married Carmel Peralta,
and after her death, married Catherine Tennent.
• Vicente Martinez first married Guadalupe Moraga,
and after her death, married Nieves Soto;
• Maria Luisa married Victor Castro;
• Susanna Martinez’s three marriages were to William
Hinkley, William Smith, and Benoit Vassero Merle;
• Maria Rafaela married Samuel Tennent in 1849;
• Maria Dolores married Pedro Higuera.
Family lore recounts the Martinez daughters as
exceptional horseback riders who roped grizzly bear for
sport.
Don Ygnacio’s eldest son, Jose, died of blood
poisoning from a steer-roping accident, while legend
has it that son Vicente was horse- whipped by his
mother for his second marriage to an unapproved mate
below the family’s social station.
Don Jose Martinez
Dona Maria Martina Arellanes de Martinez
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