Online Herstory in Almaden Valley, San Jose: The Ranchera of Rancho San Vicente

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Join Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) along with Santa Clara County Parks in welcoming Jenny Clendenen, a long-time Almaden Valley resident and POST supporter, to hear about her new book “MINE: El Despojo de María Zacarías Bernal de Berreyesa”.

Learn the amazing local history of this Spanish matriarch, whose Californio family helped settle the whole Bay Area, and whose husband and father held vast parts of south San José. These lands included Rancho San Vicente located in Almaden Valley, a portion of which was protected by POST and is now the newest addition to Calero County Park.

After two American “heroes” showed up in the late 1840s, followed by the Gold Rush invasion, Zacarías’s fortunes changed. She lost ten of eleven beloved men, her longhorn cattle ranch, and the Almaden quicksilver mines–but not before taking her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The landscape of Zacarías’s Rancho San Vicente had been Clendenen’s refuge for decades. When she discovered what had happened to María Zacarías, Jenny knew her story had to be told.

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