Business Ledger of Don Tomás Yorba

Business Ledger of Don Tomás Yorba; 1841-1849
Santa Ana, California
Paper, cow hide, ink; 11 3/4 x 8 1/2 in.
5071 The most historically significant book in the Bowers Museum’s collection is this ledger or book of accounts used by Don Tomás Antonio Yorba and later, his brother Bernardo, to record the business affairs, transactions of goods, and the settlement of the estate, Rancho Santa Ana. Its first entries were made in 1841 and span through the end of that decade, giving specific insight into the daily life and conditions of early California, then under Mexican rule and on the brink of reaching statehood. Rancho Santa Ana, born of a Spanish land grant, reached from the sea to the mountains, and was made up of thousands of acres of crops and orchards, vineyards, roaming livestock, an 18 room adobe and other dwellings which housed landowners, traders, artisans, laborers and employees. Written in Spanish and bound in hide, this ledger documents in beautiful handwriting the Rancho employees’ wages (at 8 pesos a month) and several monetary loans to many well-known early Californians including Pio Pico, Don Juan Forester and Fernando Sepulveda. Perhaps most fascinating are the noted transactions of goods traded and sold by other landowners who bought at Rancho Santa Ana and the notations of goods obtained at the port at San Pedro that arrived from far-off places. These include items for sustenance like tallow, sugar, rice, grain and beans; items for work like wheels for carts, pack saddles and shoes; specialty and luxury goods like paper, printed cottons, silk kerchiefs and stockings; and tobacco and Spanish brandy, the latter which holds repeated entries in the ledger. All text and images under copyright. Please contact the Collection Department for permission to use.