Bernardo Yorba

Bernardo Yorba (August 4, 1801-October 21, 1858), also known as Don Bernardo Yorba I, was the son of Jose Antonio Yorba, one of the great early settlers of Spanish California, and his wife Maria Josefa Grijalva. He was raised in San Diego by Franciscan friars while his father lived at his new seat in Santa Ana in present-day Orange County. In 1834, Don Bernardo acquired an enormous land grant of his own comprising some 13,328 acres of land, which included the contemporary city of Yorba Linda. Don Bernardo introduced irrigation agriculture into California near his home, the Rancho San Antonio, which was amongst the largest adobe dwellings in Alta California. It reportedly contained hundreds of rooms, including workshops and a chapel. He married three times (Maria Jesus de Alvarado, Felipa Dominquez, and Andrea Elizalde) and had no less than twenty children. When he died at the age of 57, he had served as juez de campo and auxiliary alcade several times (1833, 1836, 1840, and 1844).

Don Bernardo's son by his marriage to Donna Felipa, Don Prudencio, would marry Dolores Ontiveros and have several children. One of them, Angelina Yorba, would marry Samuel Kraemer in 1886.