Future Placerita Canyon homesteader Jean Joseph Reynier set foot on American soil on this day in 1864.

Jean Joseph Reynier was born in the Southern Alps of France in 1849 to a large farming family.

On July 24, 1864, he arrived in New York with his brother Mattieu and sister-in-law Marie, and would eventually make his way west to settle down in the Santa Clarita Valley.

According to SCV History, “Soon after arriving in New York and hearing all the talk of California they booked passages around the cape of San Francisco. They remained in San Francisco for several years and, after purchasing a herd of sheep, supplies and a wagon in 1867 they headed out taking a route across the state, over the Sierras at Donner Pass.”

They eventually made it to the developing community of Los Angeles after a slow year spent driving the sheep towards their destination.

Originally intending to stay in Los Angeles, SCV History states, “after hearing of available land for homesteading in the Placerita Canyon area, Joseph set out through the San Fernando Valley and up over the old Spanish trail to the mouth of the Placeritos.”

“On his journey eastward he passed a dugout against the hillside covered with wild grapevines where the Cuneo family lived,” continues SCV History.

Joseph arrived at his land located near the head of the Placerita in 1868, just a mile east of where the Cuneo family resided.

The land he homesteaded amounted to 600 acres, where he “built a Victorian style ranch house, barns and corals…planted wine grapes, olive and fruit trees… and laid over two miles of iron pipe down through the canyons to feed a reservoir. This spring still provides water for Rancho Maria in Sand Canyon,” according to SCV History.

To read yesterday’s  Today in SCV History, click here.

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