José María Armenta, was born in Mexico in 1761 and was granted the half square league Rancho Punta de Pinos in 1833. In 1844 the land was regranted to
José Abrego by Governor
Manuel Micheltorena. José Abrego (1803–1878) came to California in 1834 with the Hijar-Padres Colony. In 1836, Abrego married Maria Josefa Estrada (1814–1897), daughter of José Raimundo Estrada (1784–) and half sister of
Juan B. Alvarado. José Abrego was administrator of
Mission San Antonio in 1833 and 1834, customs officer, member of the Assembly. In 1841 under somewhat mysterious circumstances his wife Maria Josefa Abrego bought
Rancho San Jose y Sur Chiquito. José Abrego bought
Rancho San Francisquito in 1853. José Abrego sold Rancho Punta de Pinos to
Thomas O Larkin and three other associates (
Jacob P. Leese, Milton Little, and James H. Gleason) in 1850. By the time of the patent,
county sheriff Henry DeGraw had acquired the share of Leese; and Charles Brown had acquired the share of Gleason. 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, a claim for Rancho Punta de Pinos was filed by Leese, Little, and Gleason with the
Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was
patented to Henry DeGraw and Charles Brown in 1880. A claim filed by L. E. Pogue and Pacificus Ord with the Land Commission in 1853 was rejected. The rancho was later acquired by
David Jacks. He sold part of the rancho to the
Pacific Grove Retreat Association in 1878 and later sold it to the
Pacific Improvement Company in 1880. In 1850, the United States Congress appropriated money to build lighthouses on the west coast. One of these was to be constructed at Point Pinos, because of the danger to mariners attempting to enter Monterey Bay from the south. The government bought of the Rancho Punta de Pinos. They later purchased another . Construction began in 1853, but difficulties with the delivery of the Fresnel lens from France delayed the opening of the lighthouse until 1855. == Historic sites of the Rancho ==