Fulgencio Higuera (1799–1878), was the son of Jose Loreto Higuera (1778–1845), grantee of Rancho Los Tularcitos, and grandson of Ygnacio Anastacio Higuera, who came to California with the De Anza Expedition. His brother Valentin Higuera was the grantee of Rancho Pescadero. In 1820, Fulgencio Higuera married Maria Clara Saturnina Pacheco. In 1836 Fulgencio Higuera was granted the two square league Rancho Agua Caliente, formerly Mission San José land.[4] In 1845, Higuera married Maria Celia Feliz.
Higuera gradually sold off his holdings in the 1850s. An attorney, Abram Harris, purchased the southern portion of this land in 1858 and established what briefly became known as Harrisburg. In 1850, Clement Columbet bought 640 acres (2.6km2), and developed a resort and one of the state’s first wineries. However, the resort did not survive the 1868 Hayward earthquake. Leland Stanford bought the property in 1869 and founded Leland Stanford Winery at the corner of Stanford Ave and Vinyard Ave, in what is now Fremont.[8] Thomas W. Millard, who had come from New York to California in 1853, bought a large portion of the Rancho in 1855.[9]
Historic sites of the Rancho
Galindo Higuera Adobe.
Leland Stanford Winery. This winery was founded in 1869 by Leland Stanford, and operated by his brother Josiah Stanford. The restored buildings and winery are now occupied and operated by Weibel Champagne Vineyards.[8]
Ogden Hoffman, 1862, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Numa Hubert, San Francisco