Jose Serafin Ramirez was a lawyer from Bernalillo County, New Mexico. He served in the New Mexico Territorial Legislature from December 1853 to January 1857 and later in December 1863 to January 1865. He filed a private land claim for the San Pedro Grant, located in Bernalillo County. He gave the boundaries on the north as the Pueblo of San Felipe, on the south, the Cañon del Agua, on the east, the Ojo del Tuerto and on the west, banks of the Rio Norte. He also petitioned for the Cañon del Agua Grant, located in Santa Fe County, east of the San Pedro Grant, since it was "vacant and without owner." He received both grants. Thereafter this these two grants have also been called the "Ramirez Grant." There was alleged fraud concerning the boundaries established for the grants and subsequent litigation. In 1866, Ramirez and his wife, Maria Antonio Sandoval, sold the grants to a group of investors for $30,000. The group consisted of Asa B. Carey, Corydon E. Cooley, Hampton B. Denman, Charles S. Hinckley, Charles W. Kitchen, and John C. McFerran. In 1888 the grants were sold to the San Pedro and Cañon del Agua Company, who brought litigation for title to mining lands within the limits of the grants. It was ruled that Ramirez only had surface land rights since the Spanish and Mexican governments reserved the rights to the minerals.
From the guide to the Title Papers of San Pedro and Cañon del Agua Grants, 1844-1880, (University of New Mexico. Center for Southwest Research.)
