The Evening News. October 22, 1916

21. Fremont and Don Bruno Bernal's Horses, Part I

In the late 30's and early 40's of the last century, Don Bruno Bernal of the Santa Teresa ranch, grandfather of the generation of Bernals in business in this city, had the finest horses about San Jose. Don Bruno used to go to La Purissima Mission near Santa Barbara, where the best horses in California were raised, to select wild horses and drive them up through the San Joaquin valley to his ranch near where Edenvale now is. At a long distance one could hear the sound of Don Bruno's bell-mare who led all the rest. Today this quaint bell with its golden clapper a century old is in the possession of Mrs. Ygnacio Bernal, who owns Santa Teresa.

Don Bruno and his nine brothers who lived at Santa Teresa were expert horsemen. It took them three years to break a horse properly. Once a horse was broken by the Bernals, he responded to the touch of the little finger. Anyone but a Spanish Californian found it difficult to mount the Bernal horses, so trained that they dipped to the rider. But in a flash the rider had to take advantage of the dip, for the next second the horse was off.

When Captain Fremont in 1846 came up through the valley from Monterey his post was at Laguna Seca, the old Fisher ranch near Coyote. From there, according to the account given by the Spanish families in the valley, the officers of Captain Fremont foraged for supplies and horses for the army they were raising. Bernard Shaw defined a gentleman as a man who robs only the rich, and Captain Fremont's men in this particular qualified.

Don Bruno Bernal had three hundred high-bred, perfectly trained horses when Captain Fremont came into the valley. They were used in parades on saint days at San Juan and other Mission towns. Don Bruno's handsome son, Guadalupe, always wore a black sombrero and rode Don Bruno's black pride in the parade at San Juan. The ladies seeing Guadalupe cheered him and called "Viva Bernal, el prieto galland." In this way Guadalupe became known as the black gallant. Don Bruno's pride, even at the age of twenty-one, still pranced like a colt and was sold for three hundred dollars.

The Bernals were informed that Fremont and his men had marked their three hundred horses at Santa Teresa for capture, and so, the Bernal boys moved the horses about from one part of the ranch to the other, never keeping them long in one place.

Once Don Antonio Bernal, the best horseman among the boys, took the horses into the mountains 15 miles from the ranch house. That very night Captain Charles Weber, Fremont's lieutenant, came to the mountains for the horses. Don Antonio called three times to the bell-mare to go back to the ranch. In a second she was off and the entire three hundred horses thundered down the mountains to the hacienda at the Santa Teresa. Greatly disconcerted, Weber and his men stood looking after them while Don Antonio passed the American party and jeered at them in Spanish.

Weber went back to the Laguna Seca, but he did not give up the horses. An opportunity soon came to Fremont's men. The Bernals were branding cattle on their Salinas ranch, The Alisal, and they needed all their men. Shortly after the Bernals were gone Weber and his soldiers came to the Santa Teresa.

Only the youngest children were at home with their mother. The boys wanted to fight, but Mrs. Bernal bade them not to resist. One of the vaqueros threw Don Bruno's finest silver trimmed saddle into the top of the old fig tree at Santa Teresa, but down again it fell at Weber's feet. Luck was with Weber. Fremont's men took saddles and blankets. They even robbed the Indians of their blankets. Not satisfied with three hundred horses, they carried off the mule that turned the flour mill-stone at the Santa Teresa.

This brought a protest from the cook, who said to Captain Weber, "Please leave the mule. He grinds the flour."

"Oh, you have plenty of men. Hitch them up, let them grind flour," was the humorous reply.

The old vaquero was eager to save Don Bruno's best horse, but Don Bruno's pride was precisely the animal chosen by Weber to ride back to Laguna Seca. While Weber was a good horseman he had not been born in the saddle, and he had not been trained to the Spanish mount. He couldn't mount Don Bruno's horse.

Weber spoke Spanish. He called to the vaquero, "Indian, get on this horse, ride him back and forth a little, so he won't be nervous."

It was the vaquero's chance. For a second he rode the horse back and forth. Then he called "A Dios, Amigos," spurred his horse to the left, and in a second was lost like a quail in the poison oak underbrush. Up the mountain back of the Santa Teresa he went. He never stopped till he drew rein at the Almaden mine.

Fremont's men were obliged to leave without Don Bruno's pride. The Bernals arrived from Salinas that day. They found that all their horses were at Laguna Seca in the camp of Captain John C. Fremont, who was trying to introduce American civilization to California.

Young Antonio Bernal said, "I'll kill Weber."

Transcribed by Kitty LaFavor, for the Santa Clara Co. CAGenWeb Project. 2008

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