The Evening News. October 14, 1916

17. The First House. Part I.

The first frame house in San Jose was built in 1817 by Don Pedro Regelado Chaboya on the Rancho de la Posa de San Juan Bautista.

Today the house stands on the Tully road not far back from Oak Hill Cemetery only a few rods from the car track. It is some distance from the road on the right and is surrounded by cypress and pepper trees set out by Don Pedro in 1947. Unless you look hard you are likely to miss the half hidden house. The state highway used to pass directly before Don Pedro's residence, but the highway moved farther to the south and left the house standing facing the railway track, its side to the Tully road.

The old house is now owned and occupied by Mrs. Louisa Long, daughter of Don Pedro Chaboya. Mrs. Long's mother was Miss Gertrude Ortega, daughter of Ignacio Ortega of Gilroy, who had a Spanish grant 33 miles square. John Gilroy, for whom Gilroy was named, was uncle to Mrs. Long. Gilroy's name was really Cameron. He changed it when he left his ship and came to California. Although Mrs. Long's grandfather, Ortega, had one of the largest ranches ever known in California, her father's own grant was six miles square all that remains to her are two and a half acres of land on which now stands the first frame house of San Jose.

Mrs. Long is seventy years of age, but she hasn't a gray hair and her dark eyes are still brilliant.

She has a trim, neat figure and energy that keeps her house and garden in delightful order.

She received me on the steps of the old green shuttered house which is still good for thirty or forty years. It is the usual residence of the well-to-do New Englander, but doubtless in 1817 to the Chaboyas it had the same exotic charm which Spanish houses today possess for Californians.

"My father had a very hard time to build this house," said Mrs. Long, who speaks English fluently, but with an intonation betraying Spanish as her mother tongue. "Lumber all came around the Horn. My father brought it bit by bit from San Francisco. The house was built by a Spanish carpenter named Sunil, no relative of Don Antonio Sunol. It took a long time."

Mrs. Long then pointed out where the old adobe Chaboya ranch buildings had stood in the field opposite where now is an orchard. Nothing remains of the house, the log corral, the lime kiln, the soap factory, the saddler, the blacksmith shop which made up the buildings of the Rancho de la Posa de San Juan Bautista. The new frame house was placed on ground several feet higher than the original site of the ranch buildings.

Mrs. Long has been more fortunate than most Spanish people in retaining mementoes of the old days. She has lacquered trunks and boxes, a plain silk dress, and one of the first pianos that ever came to San Jose. It arrived in the 50's but its tone is still sweet. Its case is mahogany, and it cost a thousand dollars. It bears the name of its manufacturer, "Collard & Collard, late Clementl, Collard & Collard, London."

Mrs. Long's old photograph album contains pictures of persons famous in the Gold Age of the Dons. There is Josefa Pico, one of the belles of long ago. She was the daughter of Don Marlano Pico. The Picos lived where the Post Office now stands. Josefa Pico had a piquant, coquettish face. The carefully waved hair, the angle at which the toque is worn, the elaborately trimmed gown, the jewels, the bow, all show her to have been the woman of fashion of her time. Then there is Mercedes Ortega, aunt of Mrs. Long, who married a Castro of Monterey. Mrs. Ortega de Castro was a severe commanding Roman matron, born more than a hundred years ago at the Ranch San Ysidro near Gilroy. She was the mother of twenty -five children. Four of them were twins. Two of the twins, a spinster and a bachelor, still live at Monterey. There is a photograph of Mrs. Arguello, a strong capable woman, grandmother of Concepione Arguello of Santa Clara, and mother of Don Luis.

Among the interesting documents passed by Mrs. Long is a copy of the baptismal certificate of her father, Don Pedro Chaboya. He was the son of Marcos Chaboya who came to San Jose in the latter part of the eighteenth century and married Teresa Bernal. At one time he was the juez or judge of the Pueblo, and he was one of the founders of St. Joseph's church. Marcos Chaboya's house stood on the site of the Auzerais building today. Don Pedro was baptized May 23, 1790, at the Mission Dolores, San Francisco. The baptismal certificate read as follows:

"Dia 23 de Mayo de 1790, en la Iglesla de estra Mision de N. S. P. San Francisco, bautize solemnemente a un nino de dos dias de nacido, a quien puse por nombre Pedro Regelado, higo legitmo del cabo de escaudra de la escoita del Real Presidio, Marcos Chaboya y de Teresa Bernal; fuaron sus padrinos el alferez Don Ramon Lazo de la Vega y Gertrudis Higuera, muger de soldado Manual Boronda, a quienes avise lo acostumbrado; y para que consta lo firme.

FRAY DIEGO GARCIA."

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

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