Q: Who was the first U.S. citizen to settle in the South
Valley?
Q: Who was the first U.S. citizen to settle in the South Valley?
A: Philip Doak was the first American to come to this region to make his home. According to Eugene Sawyer in his book “History of Santa Clara County,” Doak worked on a whaling vessel as a block and tackle maker and arrived in Monterey in 1822.
The carpenter must have had an adventurous streak in him because he left the ship and made his way over the Gabilan Range to a small rancho owned by Mariano Castro near what’s now Gilroy. Later, Doak married one of Castro’s daughters and the American was granted permission by Spain’s royal government to remain in the area. But soon after his arrival, Mexico declared independence from Spain, and so he had to obtain permission from the new government of Mexico to stay in California.
Doak certainly made acquaintance with a Scotsman who arrived in this region earlier in either 1814 or 1815. The man’s birth name was John Cameron, but he changed the last name to Gilroy (his mother’s maiden name). Later the village of Gilroy was named after him. Much later the community became the famous Garlic Capitol of the World.
Q: In Morgan Hill, I notice a sign on Hwy 101 when I’m driving to San Jose that reads “Sig Sanchez Freeway.” Who is Sig Sanchez?
A: It’s quite an honor to have a 10-mile piece of asphalt named after you, and I’m sure Sig Sanchez sure feels proud whenever he passes that sign inscribed with his name. Sanchez is a long-time Gilroy resident who ran a melon-packing shed business and farms in Los Banos. He was the second of 11 kids of Spanish immigrants who farmed the land.
He and his wife Jane have five children and 12 grandchildren.
The more interesting question is: “Why they heck did someone name a freeway after Mr. Sanchez?”
Well, much of that honor comes from his giving 50 years to serving the public good in various government and administrative positions. He served as the mayor of Gilroy, as a Santa Clara County supervisor, on the board of HOPE Rehabilitation, on the Wheeler Hospital Foundation Board, and the Gilroy Elks Club. He was also inducted into the Gilroy Hall of Fame in 1991, and currently serves as a director of the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
Ah, but you say, what did he do to get that stretch of highway between Cochrane Road in Morgan Hill and Bernal Road in San Jose designated after him?
The answer, gentle reader, is that Sanchez worked hard for 12 long years lobbying the various government agencies to lay down the road. He saw the great need for this thoroughfare because so many commuters were losing their lives on the old U.S. 101 – now the stretch of Monterey Road between the South County and San Jose. That old road was once called “Blood Alley.”
In 1992, California State Senator Dan McCorquodale came up with the idea of naming the new freeway “Sig Sanchez” to honor the gentleman’s labors. McCorquodale met with former Santa Clara County Supervisor Susie Wilson about the idea.
She liked it, made a resolution to the other supervisors, and the proposal passed.
Sanchez still serves on the water district board. He’s quoted as saying once, “Politics is the art of compromise just as long as you don’t compromise your principles.”
Q: Recently, some Native American bones were discovered by workers digging a trench for a new housing division on Cochrane Road in Morgan Hill. Are there any significant Indian burial sites in the South Valley?
A: The Native Americans lived in this region for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. No doubt many more bones of these original inhabitants still remain in South Valley’s soil.
As for a “significant Indian burial site,” I would suggest that in our region the San Juan Bautista mission cemetery would easily fit that description. An exact count is not known, but some historians have suggested that more than 4,000 Native Americans were buried in the small plot of land adjoining the mission church. European and American pioneers were also buried at the location.
This cemetery is a very tranquil place that’s worth visiting. Olive trees grow over the graves, and an adobe brick wall surrounds the confines of this small plot of land. Many of the dead were members of the Ohlone tribe, which once lived near what’s now the Morgan Hill area.
Also interred are the Yokuts Indians from the Central Valley. Many natives died from diseases brought by the Spanish missionaries, soldiers and settlers.
In his book “Early Days at the Mission San Juan Bautista,” author Isaac L. Mylar tells how the mission cemetery was originally consecrated by a bishop from Mexico. Mylar explains: “As the little space filled it was found impossible to get another bishop to come from Mexico and it was against the rules of the church to be buried outside of consecrated ground.
Consequently, the little enclosure today is packed with the bones of a multitude of Indian adherents of the Catholic Church.
“I remember seeing them bury some of those Indians. They would dig the grave and in digging the grave they found it was necessary to remove the bones of some former Indian who was buried close by the grave or possibly interred in the grave. These bones were tenderly and reverently resurrected and placed alongside the new grave and then, when the coffin or body was laid in its earthen receptacle, the bones were carefully replaced alongside the person buried.”
