Rancho Punta de los Reyes (Phelps)
Rancho Punta de los Reyes was a 13,645-acre (55.22 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Marin County, California, given in 1836 by Governor Nicolás Gutiérrez to James Richard Berry. The grant was east of Rancho Las Baulines and south of Rancho Tomales y Baulines.
James Richard Berry (–1847), an Irishman and a colonel in the Mexican army, came to California from Mexico. In 1836, Governor Gutierriez, granted Berry the eight square league Rancho Punta de los Reyes. In 1838, Berry sold the two square league portion along the western shore of Tomales Bay (known as the "Inverness Pocket") of the Rancho Punta de los Reyes grant, to Joseph Snook (1798–1848), grantee of Rancho San Bernardo. When, in 1843, Rafael Garcia, the owner of adjacent Rancho Tomales y Baulines, moved his cattle onto Berry’s remaining land, Berry moved west, squatting on Antonio Osio’s Rancho Punta de los Reyes Sobrante. In 1844, Berry sold Rancho Punta de los Reyes to Stephen Smith of Rancho Bodega, to whom he owed money. Berry moved to John Martin’s Rancho Corte Madera de Novato and died there in 1847. In 1848, Smith sold Rancho Punta de los Reyes to Bethuel Phelps.
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 Punta de los Reyes was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1853, and the grant was patented to Bethuel Phelps in 1866.
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