Rancho Las Camaritas

Rancho Las Camaritas was an Alta California land grant, a square of 300 Mexican varas on each side; varas being one pace, in this case 2.75 feet (16.625 acres or 6.73 hectares) to José de Jesús Noé on January 21, 1840, by Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado. Millions of acres of California land was given at no charge to men between 1784 and 1846 by the Spanish (1784–1810) or Mexican governments (1819–1846) mostly for military service to raise cattle on. About 300 of the 800 Land grants were sizable varying from a few thousand to 1.5 million acres^[1] – see List of ranchos of California for the larger grants. Following the Mexican–American War, the land grants were challenged with most of them falling into American hands. Only one land grant has remained undeveloped (see Rancho Legacy). The ownership of Las Camaritas was disputed in court by the U.S. government from 1856 until 1882 due to conflicting documentation presented by its American owner Ferdinand Vassault after a string of sales initiated by Jose Noe sometime between 1842 and 1846.