Murrieta, Juan

Juan Murrieta was born in Santurce, Spain, on October 1, 1844. At the age of seventeen he sailed via Cape Horn to California, where, with his brother Iziquel, he became a succesful sheep herder near Merced. A drought forced the brothers to drive their herd to Long Valley, and they eventually purchased the Temecula and Pauba Ranchos, a total of 52,000 acres in the Temecula Valley. Murrieta later sold this land and moved to Los Angeles, where the city of Murrieta was named for him. In 1887 he became Los Angeles' first deputy sheriff, a position which he filled until his retirement in 1927. He was married to Adele M. Golsh, a native of Austria, and had three children, A.J., Lita (Houghton), and Henry. Murrieta died on August 25, 1936.

Sherman Otis Houghton was born in New York City on April 10, 1928. He arrived in San Francisco with the First Regiment of New York Volunteers during the Mexican-American War. Following his military service, Houghton mined for gold near San Jose and was appointed deputy clerk of the Supreme Court of California in 1854. He served as mayor of San Jose from 1855-1856, was admitted to the bar in 1857, and, after serving in the Civil War, was elected to Congress in 1871. Houghton married Mary Martha Donna, a survivor of the Donner Party, in 1859. Following her death he married her cousin Eliza Poor Donner, the daughter of George and Tamsen Donner. Their son Sherman Otis Houghton, Jr., married Lita Murrieta, the daughter of Juan Murrieta. Sherman Houghton, Sr., died on August 31, 1914.