Mission grapevines

Benjamin Eaton is the brother in law of Don Benito "Benjamin" Wilson. They are acquainted through Wilson's business partner in real estate, Dr. John Griffin.

Griffin and Wilson come to own the entire San Pascual Rancho when the previous owner, Manuel Garfias cannot repay his loan to them.

In 1874, they are successful in selling the lower portion of the ranch to investors and settlers from the midwest, the Indiana Colony. This colony divides its land into parcels and build homes on them between the arroyo seco and Fair Oaks avenue. Eaton is good with water and convinces Wilson and Griffin he can bring water from the upper arroyo (by modern day JPL) down to the lands of the colonists and irrigate their small farms and orchards of oranges. The useless land above it was thrown in as part of the deal and from this acreage, Altadena would be born.

In 1880, there are fewer than 500 people in Pasadena and fewer than 50 in what would become Altadena. By 1890, when the Allens are running the Sphinx, Pasadena will grow to nearly 5000 in just one decade.

The land up here was gifted to the Albert Sydney Johnston family and named Fair Oaks in memory of matriarch Eliza's former Virginia ancestral home acres. Johnston is a west point educated southern man who leads the federal forces in California when the war breaks out. Fearful he will take the troops and encourage them to follow and fight for the confederacy, the governor questions him and moves the arsenal but Johnston does his best to reassure Downey he is a man of honor defending his country and trustworthy. When the confederacy secedes, he resigns his consignment and heads to Texas.

He is mortally wounded in the battle of Shiloh and leaves his wife Eliza, a widow. Her brother, Dr. John Griffin has Ben Eaton build her a home and be caretaker while Albert is away and while she stays for a while after his death, when she loses her son only several months later, she will leave the property forever. Eaton occupies it as they work to sell the lower portion of the San Pascual Rancho.

It is during this time that he experiments with dry farming grapes on this land you are covering. He takes hearty mission grape cuttings from the vines that had been growing for generations around the san gabriel mission - vitus vinifera or "common european grapevine" brought by spanish franciscan missionaries crossed with local wild grapes from southern california.