This corner of the Coronado land map shows amazing detail and history.
CORONADO LIBRARY MAKES FINAL APPEAL
TO ACQUIRE ISLAND’S FOUNDING PAPERS
Price Tag To Own This Rare Piece of Coronado History? $100,000
The Coronado Public Library currently has a box of the most rare documents in Coronado’s storied history the original Deed of Gift; The Holy Grail of Coronado. Included in the package is a multi-page abstract document that includes Articles of Incorporation for the Coronado Beach Company, the earliest known Coronado map, and various, hand-written letters and drafts from which the final Deed’s language was created.
The original map of Coronado, as drawn up by Babcock and Story to help sell lots in the 1880s.
The documents are on temporary loan, but they are for sale, and it is the library’s hope that someone will buy the expensive ephemera and donate it to the Coronado Public Library. The asking price? $100,000.
Ironically, Babcock and Story only paid $110,000 for Coronado and North Island in the 1880s. The rare documents involved show that Coronado didn’t start with Babcock and Story; it ended with them.
History inside of history. That’s what Library Director Christian Esquevin has discovered while researching the original Coronado Land Grants and Deed of Gift. Every signature and every descriptive element leads to more information that had not previously been available to historians and researchers, leading to stories within stories or, history inside of history. Filming this effort is Natasha Zouves of TV 10 News. If the Library cannot find a buyer for this information, it will, in all likelihood, disappear into private collections far from Coronado. The asking price is $100,000. Photo by Joe Ditler.
Others who had owned Coronado include names like Bezer Simmons, Archibald Peachy and Henry Chauncey names that sound like they came from a Dickens novel. And all of this wheeling and dealing of land took place under a backdrop of nomadic Kumeyaay Indians hunting on Coronado.
In the rest of the territory the Mexican-American War was being fought; Mexico ceded Alta California to the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo; and gold was discovered at Sutter’s Creek.
TV 10’s Natasha Zouves interviews Coronado Public Library Director, Christian Esquevin, about the original Coronado Deed of Gift. Photo by Joe Ditler.
Hide hunters and whalers operated out of Coronado, and Richard Henry Dana was making notes in his journal for what would soon become the first written description of California “Two Years Before The Mast.”
Esquevin has possessed the historic documents for nearly a year, while the owner, a rare documents collector, continues to search for a buyer. During this time, Esquevin has spent considerable time researching the data in his possession. He has documented multiple histories within the history that shed new light on Coronado’s early days.
This abstract of the original Mexican Land Grant is part of a package of ownership papers concerning the island of Coronado.
Everyone is doing what he or she can to get the word out to try and keep this material on the island. Last week, TV 10 news anchor Natasha Zouves spent the morning interviewing Esquevin and photographing the rare papers for an upcoming story. Her piece, to be released soon, will carry the situation to a much larger audience off the island.
The worse possible scenario is that the current owner could grow impatient and break the documents into pieces that would sell for less and go into private collections, never again to be available to Coronado researchers and historians.
This sketch is part of the Coronado map, currently part of the original founding Deed of Gift for Coronado.
The best situation would be that someone would recognize the sheer value of this material and buy it with the intention of giving it to the Coronado Public Library.
For more information on the Coronado founding documents, contact Christian Esquevin at (619) 522-7395.
This post created by Part-Time PR, helping Coronado businesses to be heard. For information on how you can turn up the volume for your business, contact Joe Ditler at (619) 435-0767 or [email protected].
