Rancho Vega del Rio del Pajaro
Rancho Vega del Río del Pájaro was a Spanish land concession in present day Monterey County, California given in 1821 by Pablo Vicente de Solá to Antonio Maria Castro. The grant was confirmed by Mexican Governor José Figueroa in 1833. The name means "a meadow along the Pajaro River". The rancho lands bordered the Pajaro River and include the present day Vega and Watsonville.History
Antonio Maria Castro was a soldier who retired in 1809.
Maria Antonia Castro married Juan Miguel Anzar. Anzar died and his widow, Maria Antonia Castro de Anzar married Frederick A. McDougal, a doctor from Scotland.
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, Maria Antonia Castro filed a claim for Rancho Vega del Río del Pájaro with the Public Land Commission in 1852. Maria Antonia Castro de Anzar de McDougal died in 1855, leaving McDougal and her children as heirs when the grant was patented to Juan Miguel Anzar in 1864.
