The Vallejo Papers are organized into three series: Vallejo Family Documents (Box 1), Suisun Documents (Box 2) and Vallejo Family Photographs (Boxes 4 and 5). The Vallejo Family Documents are then organized into four sub-series: California Mission Papers, Legal and Financial Papers, Personal Papers, and Publications. The collection also contains a Vallejo family bible, given to Lily Wiley Vallejo upon her marriage to Platon. Vallejo in 1867 (Box 3). Although the collection was under the stewardship of Francesca Vallejo McGettigan, great granddaughter of General Vallejo, it best represents the life and interests of General Vallejo's seventh child, Platon. Much of the legal and financial papers, the correspondence, and personal papers located in the Vallejo Family Documents reflect Platon's legal and financial dealings, his interest in California history and the history of his own family in California, Vallejo genealogy, and the Suisun Indians. The correspondence (located in the Personal Papers), for example, is mostly comprised of letters written to or from Platon Vallejo. The Personal Papers are, in fact, almost entirely comprised of materials that he generated or collected including his own hand-written accounts of dramatic past events (the elopement of Josefa Carrillo and Captain Henry Fitch or narrative of the life of Ramona Carrillo Pacheco, Platon's aunt) and Vallejo genealogies. The Legal and Financial Papers contain receipts for purchases he made and for taxes he paid, as well as one version of his will written on the back of an envelope. Also included in the Legal and Financial Papers are land titles to property within the city of Vallejo - including several copies of the original grant of land made to General Vallejo by the Mexican government in 1844. General Vallejo founded the city of Vallejo in 1850, but soon gave his son-in-law John B. Frisbie power of attorney over the land. Frisbie was the person responsible for encouraging development of the town and is considered its true founder. The land grant papers reflect Frisbie's considerable involvement in the development of the city of Vallejo (see www.visitvallejo.com). The California Mission Documents, which were clearly collected by General Vallejo, were eventually Platon's. Several of the documents, such as the account of Junipero Serra's burial or the Alta California patentes, have letters attached to them indicating that the General had passed them on to Platon. Also included is a set of Edward Vischer photographs of California missions, which Vischer presented to General Vallejo as a gift. While at least four generations of the Vallejo family are represented in the Vallejo Family Photographs, Platon, his wife Lily Wiley, and their four children are among the most substantially represented (along with M.G. Vallejo and several of Platon's brothers and sisters). The photograph collection is comprised mainly of cabinet cards and carte de visites from the late nineteenth century; but also included is a rare salt print of Leo Cornell Frisbie (grandson of the General) as well as several tintypes (Box 4, Files 12, 55 and 63). Finally, the Suisun Documents are a collection of English-Suisun or Suisun-English vocabularies that Platon Vallejo created for the most part in the nineteenth century. Chief Solano, head of the Suisuns, was a strong ally of General Vallejo's and assisted him in putting down several Indian uprisings in northern California in the mid-nineteenth century. Solano spoke Spanish fluently, and converted to Christianity. Platon Vallejo was able to develop close friendships with Suisun individuals during his childhood and early adolescence as a result of the General's close collaboration with Chief Solano. Platon, in fact, learned to speak the Suisun language fluently. The collection contains several of Platon's hand-written personal recollections of the daily life of the Suisun. The vocabularies themselves reflect Platon's interest in teaching the Suisun about Christianity, since they contain translation of bible verse and prayers into Suisun. There are few, if any, extant Suisun vocabularies, catechisms or descriptions of Suisun life. As such, the Suisun Documents represent a rare and important set of materials for the history and linguistics of northern California Indians. Despite the fact that a good portion of the material appears to have been collected by Platon Vallejo, the papers as a whole provide an intimate look at the Vallejo family during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Letters between General Vallejo and Platon Vallejo reveal the close bonds that linked the family. The California mission materials reflect the deep interest that the General and Platon Vallejo had in documenting the religious life of the time period. The production of genealogies, personal recollections and the meticulous collection of photographs of over 60 family members from four generations shows a deep commitment to keeping track of the life and growth of the Vallejo family itself. And the legal and financial papers illustrate the daily financial management of Vallejo households in the nineteenth century as well as the running of some of the business interests of the Vallejo family.
