Joseph Yves Limantour

Joseph Yves Limantour (1812 – 1885) was a French-Mexican merchant who engaged in the California sea trade during the years preceding American occupation of that Mexican province in 1846. He was also known in California as José Limantour.

Life Limantour was born in 1812, in Ploemeur, France.

Limantour was a ship captain and Breton trader. He arrived in Veracruz in 1831, and was based after 1836 in Mexico City. He traded all along the Pacific coast from Valparaíso to California. Limantour Beach in Marin County, California bears his name because he wrecked his schooner, the Ayacucho, on Point Reyes in October 1841. Although much of the cargo was saved, Limantour was stranded in California with no means of transport. During his time in northern California, Limantour sold his cargo for cash and credit to the local elite, but the value of the Ayucucho’s cargo far exceeded the local capacity for purchase. General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Commander General of California, was a major exception and he owned Rancho Suscol in Sonoma with plenty of cattle.

Joseph Gale and his company from the Oregon Country wanted cattle to drive back up north, and Limantour wanted a schooner. In a three-way deal, Vallejo purchased the Gale's schooner Star of Oregon for 350 cows, and then transferred ownership to Limantour.

Limantour land claims Limantour supplied the Mexican government of Governor Manuel Micheltorena with goods and loans, Limantour said often in exchange for land grants. Mexican government records were often incomplete and not well documented. Limantour offered as proof a grant signed by Micheltorena in Los Angeles on February 27, 1843. A clerk named Vicente P. Gomez said he went to the Recorder's office in the former state capital of Monterey at the request of José Castro to find papers relevant to a property owned by Castro. There he accidentally found the original Mexican espediente, or packet of documents with official seals and signatures, in the Recorder of Monterey's office in 1853. He said José Abrego advised him to take a copy, which he did.

Vicente Gomez had previously claimed during 1853 four leagues of land in his name through his attorney, Pacificus Ord. When the board of land commissioners denied his claim, he appealed to the United States District Court in San Francisco. The US District Attorney, who happened to be Pacificus Ord, represented to the Appeals Court that Gomez claim was valid, and they sustained his appeal. The case made its way to the US Supreme Court in 1859, where evidence was introduced that Gomez had conveyed half of the land to Ord. The Supreme Court voided the claim.

Claims approved In 1853, Limantour filed claims at the Public Land Commission for 47 square leagues (200,000 acres) of Mexican land grants. The claims included eighty square leagues of Cape Mendocino; Tiburon peninsula, the Farallones, Alcatraz; In January, 1856, the three members of the United States Land Commission agreed with Limantour's claims to San Francisco, and the next week, granted him the claims north of San Francisco as well. Unsurprisingly, everyone who believed they owned land on which he now held legal title to were extremely upset. Limantour was arrested in December 1857, but posted bail and fled to Mexico.

Later life He was married to Adele Marquet, and their son, José Yves Limantour, was Secretary of Finance of Mexico from 1893-1911. Joseph Y. Limatour died in Mexico City in 1885.