Carne Humana
Rancho Carne Humana was a 17,962-acre (72.69 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Napa County, California, given in 1841 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Edward Turner Bale. The name means "human flesh" in Spanish. There is speculation as to why the name was chosen. The grant was originally known to the native residents as "Huilic Noma" and also "Colijolmanoc". One naming theory speculates that Bale, in a bit of black humor, twisted "Colijolmanoc" into the similar-sounding Spanish "Carne Humana". Rancho Carne Humana was at the northern end of the Napa Valley, stretching from present-day Rutherford northward to Calistoga, ending at Tubbs Lane and including present-day St. Helena.
Dr. Edward Turner Bale (1810-1849), an English physician, landed at Monterey in 1837, and practiced medicine there for five or six years. In 1840–43 he was surgeon of the California forces by General Mariano Vallejo's appointment. He married Maria Ygnacia Soberanes, the niece of both General Mariano Vallejo and Mariano's brother, Salvador Vallejo. Through General Vallejo's influence, Bale obtained a four league grant of Rancho Carne Humana in Napa Valley, north of George C. Yount's Rancho Caymus in 1841.
Bale and his family moved to the rancho in 1843. Bale established a grist mill to grind corn and wheat. In 1846 he built a saw-mill. In 1848, Bale joined the California Gold Rush, but became ill and died at the age of 38, leaving a widow, two sons and four daughters.
With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Carne Humana was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was patented to Maria Ygnacia Bale and the heirs of Edward T. Bale in 1879.
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