There were two choices for a photo in what's left of San Lucas, the town which Alberto Trescony built: 1)a bright yellow house which stood out amongst all the other houses of white, blue, etc. or 2)the San Lucas Catholic Mission. I chose to photograph the latter. While there's usually a cemetery on the right side of older Catholic Churches, not so in this case. And since I had to head south to San Miquel, settled for the photo to the right.
Here's a re-formatted obituary of Alberto Trescony.
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Alberto TRESCONY
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Obituary
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Thursday, 6 Oct 1892 Salinas Weekly Index
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Death of Alberto TRESCONY
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Alberto TRESCONY, an old pioneer of Monterey County, died suddenly at the Abbott House in this city, last Monday forenoon. He had been ailing for some time past, but not confined to his room. Monday morning he came down stairs from his room in the Abbott House and took a short walk on the street. A short time afterwards he started to go upstairs to his room again in company with his son Julius and sank down on the stairway, whence he immediately expired.
Mr. TRESCONY was a native of Turin, Italy, and about 77 years of age, so he told a friend a short time before his death. He came overland to Los Angeles in 1844, and arrived in Monterey shortly afterwards. He was a tinsmith at which trade he worked and also kept a store. He purchased large tracts of land in this county at cheap rates and the advance in price made him a very wealthy man, being probably worth at the time of his death in the neighborhood of a million dollars. He was the owner of the San Lucas rancho, upon which he founded the now thriving town of San Lucas 6 years ago.
He leaves a son, Julius TRESCONY of San Lucas, and a daughter, Mrs. R.F. JOHNSON of El Paso, Texas, both of whom were with him when he died. The deceased was a man of strict integrity, whose word was as good as his bond.
The remains were taken to the residence of W.S. JOHNSON and thence to the Catholic church yesterday morning, where solemn high mass was celebrated, after which a special funeral train conveyed the remains to San Lucas, where the burial took place in conformity to the wishes of the deceased. A large number of friends accompanied the old pioneer to his last earthly resting place.
[From a RootsWeb site found by at this link]
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The Monterey County Historical Society reprinted a "A Brief History of Southern Monterey County" written c1971 by Robert B. Johnston and included in a May 2002 publication. Here's a bit more excerpted from Mr. Johnston history.
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The Rancho San Lucas was purchased in 1862 for $3,000 by Alberto Trescony. Trescony, born in the Piedmont section of Itay, traveled to New York and New Orleans and came to Monterey from the west coast of Mesico in the early 1840s. He may have brought a small amount of capital with him, proceeds of a sheep drive from Texas to Central Mexico. He accumulated a sizeable amount of money from manufacturing gold pans for miners. Capitalizing on his experience in New Orleans, he built the Washington Hotel in Monterey during early 1849. In 1846, he had received his own cattle brand from California's last Mexican governor. Trescony patterned the brand after the design used by Mission San Antonio de Padua. It is the oldest brand of California in continuous use to the present day and much prized by Alberto's grandson, Julius G. Trescony.
The elder Trescony had his greatest success in agriculture. He began with cattle ranching and family records reveal the purchases of American cattle on the Salinas Plain in the 1850s. By purchase of 4,400 acres of San Bernardo and 6,70 from the San Benito, he consolidated his San Lucas holding into a ranch of about 20,000 acres. His ranch was stocked with sheep and his flocks numbered 25,000 by 1876. To care for his ship, Trescony brought in Basque sheepherders whose descendants have contributed to the mixed ethnic origins of southern Monterey County.
Two successive years of drought, in 1871-1872, killed large numbers of the livestock of Monterey County including many sheep from the flocks of Alberto Trescony. He managed to prevent the situation from becoming a complete financial disaster by slaughtering the sheep and storing the hides in the ruins of the Soledad Mission which he rented from the Soberances family. However, Trescony sold his remaining flock in 1876, moved to Santa Cruz, and turned over the management of his ranching operations to his son, Julius A. Although both cattle and sheep continued to be raised on the ranch, Alberto's son began to cultivate barley and wheat and and encouraged its production on portions of the property rented for cash or on shares" ...barley culture at San Lucas was so successful that "Trescony Barley' soon was selling at a premium on world malt markets, particularly that of Liverpool, England..." The Salinas Board of of Trade in 1889 in a publication boasting the "Resources, Advantages and Prospects of Monterey County" explained that "...here as elsewhere the railroad [arriving in 1886] has changed the conditions of things, and advanced the hand on the dial of civilization."
[Johnston's Brief History is available on-line.]
W 19 Jan Route: King City - Jolon - San Antonio Mission - Hunter Liggett - SR1
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