Wilhelm Benitz

Wilhelm Benitz also William Böniz (born February 8, 1815 in Endingen ; † June 27, 1876 Estancia “La California”, Las Rosas , Santa Fe , Argentina) was a German-American pioneer in the colonization of California, rancher and merchant.

Come from and first years in America

The son of a cooper was hired as a seaman on a merchant ship around 1830 and, after landing in Mexico in 1832 as a result of a shipwreck, worked as a soldier in the army of the then still independent state of Texas from 1836 to 1837 . From 1843 to 1845 he worked in California for Johann August Sutter and from 1843 to 1844 also served as an officer in the Mexican army . In 1844 he was granted Mexican citizenship.

rancher

From 1844 to 1860 Benitz was a partner in two ranches in California, the Herman Ranch and the New Breisgau Ranch . The latter had a size of about 6,200 ha and was located in the area between today's districts of Tehama and Shasta on the eastern bank of the Sacramento River . In 1850 Benitz exchanged a share in the ranch with Ernst Rufus, who came from Württemberg, for a partnership in his Herman ranch, which was named after Hermann the Cheruscan and later became known as German ranch. The Herman Ranch was in the Sonoma district , bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and bordered on the north and east by the Gualala River and on the south by the Russian River .

His largest possession was the Rancho Muniz or Muñiz grant in California, which also included the former branch of the Russian-American trading company in California, Fort Ross . Benitz first leased the ranch in 1844 with his partners Ernst Rufus and Theodor Meyer. The former Russian trading office Fort Ross was owned by Johann August Sutter. It later passed to Manuel Torres. In 1851, Benitz and Theodor Meyer bought Rancho Muniz with Fort Ross for $ 5,000. Meyer's shares were bought by Benitz in 1855 for $ 22,500, making it the sole owner. The then Rancho Muniz was a strip-shaped land that stretched between the ridge of the Costal Mountains in the east and the Pacific in the west.

Benitz showed himself to be a prudent entrepreneur who built Fort Ross into a successful trading center. The freight books from that time record a large number of agricultural products that were handled in Fort Ross. Cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, hides, potatoes, apples, oats, barley, eggs, butter, ducks and pigeons were sold on behalf of Benitz in markets in Sonoma and Sacramento . In the production, Benitz used the indigenous Kashaya Indians, who belong to the Pomo group . The Kashaya people had been hired by the American government to work on the ranch for $ 8 a month. In 1848, 162 Kashaya still lived around Fort Ross.

Today Fort Ross State Historic Park forms the core of what was then Benitz's holdings.

Merchant in Oakland

In 1867 Benitz sold the properties in California and moved to Oakland , as there were better conditions for the education of his children than at Fort Ross. In Oakland, Benitz built several buildings, including a representative office block, and invested in real estate and mines.

Argentina

In 1874 Benitz sold his properties in Oakland and emigrated to Argentina, where his brother Franz Xaver Benitz (1816–1880) had emigrated in 1866 together with other settlers from California. They had built the Colonia California north of San Javier on the San Javier River . Wilhelm Benitz built his own ranch a few kilometers south of today's city of Las Rosas , the Estancia La California . Wilhelm Benitz died two years after his arrival in Argentina. He was buried at the Estancia La California .

family

In 1846 Benitz married Josefa Kolmerer, who was also born in Endingen. The family initially lived in Fort Ross, where his children were born and raised. He and his wife Josephine had a total of ten children, seven of whom reached adulthood. The three sons William Otto (1854–1811), Alfred Alexander (1859–1937) and John Edward (1861–1916) expanded their parents' estates in Argentina. Wilhelm Benitz's descendants still live on Estancia La California and in the surrounding area.

literature

• Dianne Spencer-Hancock: Fort Ross: Indians - Russians - Americans . Fort Ross Interpretative Association, Jenner CA 1978.
• Lyn Kalani, Lynn Rudy, John Sperry (Eds.): Fort Ross . Fort Ross Interpretive Association, Jenner CA 2001, ISBN 1-56540-355-X .
• Lyn Kalani, Sarah Sweedler: Fort Ross and the Sonoma Coast . Arcadia Publishing, Charleston SC 2004, ISBN 0-7385-2896-X .
• Susan, M. Clark: The Sea Ranch . Arcadia Publishing, Charleston SC 2009, ISBN 978-0-7385-5990-2 .
• Erwin Gustav Gudde: California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names . University of California Press, Berkeley 2010, ISBN 978-0-5202-6619-3 .

Web links

• William Benitz Brief Biography 1815-1876 on The Benitz Bull , Benitz Family website; accessed on March 1, 2020 ; with many more details and sources.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Page of the Benitz family
2. ↑ Kalani et al. (2001: 21-26)
3. ^ Otis Parrish: The First People , in: Kalani et al. (2001: 6 f.)
4. ↑ Kalani et al. (2001: 23)
5. ↑ Years in Oakland ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Franz Benitz