California History
"The First Yankee Don"
The Spanish word "Don" denotes a nobleman or gentleman and is used as a title prefix to a Christian name. So this is the story of how the first Anglo of research record in Southern California became a "Yankee Don."
Romantic legend has it that the Buenos Aires raiders, Bouchard's Insurgents, lost one of its swashbuckling crew in an attack upon the Ortega Rancho near Santa Barbara in 1818. Don Ortega, aided by Don Lugo and their vaqueros, caught the pirate as he leaped from a boat, cutlass in hand, bent upon obtaining loot. But the real story is very different. The prisoner proved to be JOSEPH CHAPMAN, a Yankee shipbuilder who had been shanghaied in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and was not a pirate at all.
He was taken down the coast to Los Angeles and placed on probation. Because men of skill were badly needed he was put to work in charge of a squad of men taking lumber out of Church Canyon in back of Mount Wilson. This period of impressment and probation were attested to by JOSEPH CHAPMAN and early records.
In 1820 we find him employed in Santa Ynez where he built the first grist mill in California. That year he also obtained from Governor Sola the King's amnesty to Anglo-American prisoners.
In 1822 he was baptized at San Buenaventura Mission as Jose Juan. He was married that same year on November fifth to MARIA DE GUADALUPE ORTEGA, daughter of VICENTE and MARIE AUBONEA SANCHEZ ORTEGA at the lovely old mission of Santa Ynez that later attracted the Danish settlement of Solvang.
After his marriage to GUADALUPE ORTEGA he became known as DON'JOSE CHAPMAN. An 1834 census indicates these figures: DON JOSE age 40 born in Boston; wife GUADALUPE age 35 born in Santa Barbara; children, JOSE DOLORES CHAPMAN 10, JOSE JUAN 9, MARIA RITA 7, MARIA IGNACIUS 6, MARIA GUADALUPE 3. All the children were born in Santa Barbara.
In 1824 he moved his family to Los Angeles where he bought a house and some land near San Gabriel and planted a vineyard of 4,000 vines. He still continued to work as a jack-of-all-trades
at the mission and was a great favorite of the friars. In fact, Father Sanchez marveled that one so long in Baptist heresy could be such a good example of Catholic piety to older Christians.
In 1829 he obtained certificates from leading men of all classes and asked for and received Mexican naturalization in 1831. In the meanwhile he built a schooner for the mission fathers for use in otter hunting off Santa Catalina Island, and served on occasion as surgeon.
DON JOSE CHAPMAN'S most notable and last achievement, however, was the building of the old Plaza Church in Los Angeles. It is still standing today and is called Church of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels.
In 1836 he moved to Santa Barbara and in 1838 was the grantee of the Rancho San Pedro. In either 1848 or 1849 our "Yankee Don" died and his widow became claimant for the Rancho. Some of his descendants still live in Ventura County. Among early pioneers none was more popular or colorful.
Excepted from "The Searcher", SCGS, February 1983
Pages 34 & 35
Donated by: San Luis Obispo County Genealogical Society
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