South Coast Farms

San Juan Capistranos' Organic Farm & Farmstand

The Joel Congdon House

Restored Congdon House

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The following article was first published in the Coastline Dispatch on March 20, 1958.

"Congdon Family Adds Much to Area History"

In a few--all too rare--instances, a small area, or a little town in the bustling United States will seem to have remained behind while time advanced all around it.  And far from seeming like an anachronism, it is a pleasure to the beholder, a reminder of earlier days, and an inspiration for reminiscing.  Much of the charm of San Juan Capistrano lies in its awareness of the past, and one of San Juan's perfect reminders of early small-ranch life is recalled by the original Joel Rathburn Congdon home place, built in 1877.  Constructed to last, of the best available materials, in a Victorian style of architecture, the one and a half story house stands as firm today as it did the day it was completed, and in much the same setting.

The story of how the house came to be built on the Congdon ranch on Alipaz Road, between Del Obispo and 101 Highway (El Camino Real), began in Connecticut over a century ago.  Walter Congdon, who lives on Acjachema street, San Juan Capistrano, the first child of the Joel Rathburn Congdon to be born in the house, recalled today the story of his father's settling in California.

Joel Rathburn Congdon came to the State of California when he was 16 years old, in a most unusual circumstance.  One of his older brothers had been in California, and had observed the scarcity of horses in the growing west.  He returned to Connecticut, and with his three brothers, spent all the money they could raise to buy horses.  They shipped the animals by railroad to St. Louis, Mo., which was the end of the railroad.  From there the four Congdon boys drove the herd of horses westward to Portland, Oregon, and sold them at a good profit.  The overland drive from St. Louis to Portland took seven months, and was undoubtedly a rare experience for a 16 year old youth.  Walter Congdon said his father, who was of Scotch descent, was not inclined to be talkative.  Although a kindly, friendly man, he was not apt to reminisce.   But he did tell the boy, who was as the elder son, accompanied him everywhere, of the incidents with the Indians they met as they crossed the country.  Joel Rathburn Congdon was possessed of a head of fiery red hair,a complete novelty to the Indians that the little band of brothers encountered. The Indians thought the hair must surely be red-hot and they would touch it gingerly in an attempt to explain to themselves, its fiery color.

When the brothers had sold their horses in Portland, each took his share and they separated.  One stayed in Oregon, one came to Eureka, one to Marysville, and Joel Rathburn Congdon settled in San Bernardino.  One of his jobs during this time was riding the last 25 miles of the Pony Express from Cucamonga to San Bernardino.

While in San Bernardino, Congdon and a man named J.P. Fuller married two sisters, eastern girls who had come with their families to San Bernardino about the same time the Congdon brothers had driven west.

In 1869, Congdon and Fuller brought their young families to San Juan Capistrano to settle and together took up a section of government land.  They bought 360 acres for which they paid $1.25 an acre and each built a small home.  They lived and prospered on the land.  In 1895 J.R. Congdon decided to build a larger home, to accommodate his growing family, and to serve as ranch headquarters.

With his brother-in-law, Fuller, to help him, Congdon took a wagon with a four-horse hitch, went to San Bernardino, selected and bought all the lumber for the house, and brought it back to San Juan by wagon.  In those days, roads were primitive, where there was a road, and in some places it was not much better than a wagon trail.  It was no little feat to cart lumber for a large house through the Santa Ana Canyon all the way to San Juan.

For the foundation of the house, the Old Mission of Capistrano supplied huge slabs of sandstone.  After the earthquake which leveled the Mission church and its great bell tower, the rubble lay where it fell, for years.  There was then no thought of the possibilities of reconstruction.

The tower had fallen toward the present site of the Mission Drug store and into what is now the intersection of Ortega and Highway 101.  Anyone who would help clear away the rubble was helping the town. So the sandstone slabs used by Congdon served as the double purpose of clearing the roadway and supplying the firmest of foundations.

Along with the big project of building, Walter remembers, the senior Congdon decided to experiment on his ranch, and he planted 15 acres to hard-shell walnuts, the first commercial walnut grove in the state of California.  The little trees throve in the climate and began to produce well.  After the harvest, the walnuts were taken by horse and wagon to 'Anaheim Landing', in the area of what is now Seal Beach. They were transferred to a 'lighter', a type of barge which took them to a freighter lying offshore, and they were then taken to San Francisco for marketing.   One year Joel Rathburn Congdons' walnut crop fetched a price of six cents a pound, much to his satisfaction.  And indeed with the daily wage of a strong man stabilized at $1.00 per day, six cents was a profitable price to get.

In 1887, California was at the height of a big 'boom' brought on by development of the railroad.  Whole families were moved by rail from anywhere in the east to California, at $6.00 per person.  Sometimes they moved in Santa Fe boxcars, belongings and all.  Santa Fe owned all of Capistrano beach at that time, much of the Palisades frontage, and up towards Dana Point, and to market this land the rail company ran excursions to the end of the line at Capistrano Beach, then called San-Juan-by-the-Sea.  The company had marked off the land into small building lots, indicating boundary lines with white stakes.  Walter Congdon, accompanying his father, recalled the area looked like a white forest of little stake markers, when Santa Fe was at the peak of its land promotion to develop customers for the new railroad.

In this boom year of 1887, Joel Rathburn Congdon sold for $55,000 cash, his ranch holdings and homestead and moved his family to Santa Ana.  But shortly before the sale of the ranch to a Los Angeles banker named Bonebreake, he had hired a young foreman named R.B. Cook, whose family were well known pioneers in the San Mateo area.  The young foreman married Hattie Congdon when she was 16 years old, and the two remained to manage the ranch, meanwhile buying up land adjacent to it, which became the R.B. Cook ranch.  Hattie Congdon, mother of San Juan Capistrano's C. Russell Cook and sister of Walter Congdon, lives in Santa Ana.  She is now 93.

Walter Congdon attended a year or so of school in San Juan Capistrano's original one-room grammar school, and completed his education in Santa Ana elementary and high school, after the family moved.

He grew up in Santa Ana, went into business, and married there, he and his wife returning to San Juan Capistrano to live in 1913, and raising their two children here, Dr. Jack Congdon, now of Lido Isle and Mildred Congdon Lindsay of Canoga Park.  Mrs. Congdon died in 1926.

So the story of a house is not just its building, but often of a whole lifetime of pioneering, and in this case, the story of life as it was in the valley of San Juan Capistrano almost a century ago. (end of article)

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