Francisco de Haro

Francisco de Haro
Born 1792
Died November 28, 1849
Yerba Buena (San Francisco, California)
Resting place Mission Dolores
Known for Alcalde of San Francisco
Religion Catholic
Grave of Francisco de Haro at Mission Dolores Cemetery, San Francisco, California

Francisco de Haro (1792 November 28, 1849) was the first Alcalde (mayor) of Yerba Buena (later named San Francisco) in Mexican Alta California.

Life

De Haro was born in Compostela (in present day Nayarit state), in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (colonial México).

San Francisco

He came to the Presidio of San Francisco as a soldier in 1819.

De Haro became the first Alcalde (mayor) of the pueblo of Yerba Buena in 1834.

He was instrumental in planning the street grid of the town along with Englishman William A. Richardson in 1835. In 1837, de Haro bought the Rancho Laguna de la Merced, which included Lake Merced and portions of northern San Mateo County, from the grantee José Antonio Galindo. And in strange turn of events, in 1838, Alcalde de Haro issued an arrest warrant for Jose Antonio Galindo for the murder of José Doroteo Peralta (1810–1838). De Haro served again as the fifth Alcalde from 1838-1839. He commissioned the first survey of the settlement by Jean Jacques Vioget in 1839.[1]

Family

De Haro married Emiliana (Miliana) Sánchez, who was the sister of Alcaldes Francisco Sanchez and José de la Cruz Sánchez.[2][3] The marriage produced twelve children, including a pair of twin sons and a pair of twin daughters. Miliana Sánchez died in 1842.

The couple's twin sons, Francisco and Ramon de Haro, the 1844 grantees of Rancho Potrero de San Francisco on Potrero Hill, were murdered by Kit Carson at the age of 19 on June 28, 1846 near San Rafael, California, along with their distant cousin José de los Reyes Berreyesa. Kit Carson (and potentially other men) shot the 3 men at the direction of General John C. Frémont.[4][5]

De Haro died in 1849 and is buried at the Mission Dolores cemetery in San Francisco.[6]

Legacy

De Haro Street, in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, is named after him.[7]

References

  1. Selected text from "The Beginnings of San Francisco" by Z.S. Skinner. 1912: San Francisco
  2. San Francisco History Alcaldes & Mayors
  3. San Francisco History. Seventy-five Years in San Francisco. Appendix H. The First San Francisco Directory. Mission Dolores. Retrieved on April 20, 2009.
  4. Eldredge, Zoeth Skinner, 1912, The Beginnings of San Francisco, Appendix D, page 753.
  5. Dunlay, Thomas W., 2005, Kit Carson and the Indians, University of Nebraska Press, pages 120-121.
  6. "Francisco de Haro". Find a Grave. Retrieved December 6, 2016.
  7. The Making and Naming of the Streets of San Francisco.
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