Alameda County Biographies

JOSE NARCISO SUNOL

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

The subject of this sketch, whose portrait will be found in the pages of this 
history, was born in Pueblo de San Jose, Upper California, June 10, 1835.  His 
father, Don Antonio Sunol, was one of those grand noblemen cast in nature�s 
mold.  His birthplace was Barcelona, in Spain, but a love for the French people 
induced him to enter their naval service, and he was present when Napoleon I. 
surrendered as a prisoner before his exile to the island of St. Helena.  Coming 
to Monterey as long ago as the year 1818, he cast his lot in the country, 
married Senora Dolores Bernal, one if its beautiful daughters, in or about the 
year 1823, in San Jose, where they had long been settled.  In or about the year 
1839 the Rancho Valle de San Jose was granted to Don Antonio Sunol and others � 
a vast tract of fertile land, embracing eleven leagues, or four thousand eight 
hundred acres � while during his life in the country he held several high 
offices of responsibility and trust.  Don Antonio was born in the year 1797; he 
died at his residence in San Jose, March 19, 1865, having earned in his life by 
his generosity the respect of the entire community.  He left a family, five of 
whom are now living, viz.:  Paula (Sainsevain), Incarnacion (Elchebarne), Jose 
Narciso, Antoneta (Murphy), Jose Dolores.  Our subject, the eldest son, at the 
age of fourteen years was sent to Europe, and received his education at the 
Lycee de Bordeaux, where he took a commercial course, and after five years 
returned to California, when he settled in the Sunol Valley, where he has since 
been engaged in farming.  He married, January 6, 1858, Miss Maria Rosario 
Palomares, a native of San Jose, and daughter of Francisco and Margarita 
(Pacheco) Palomares, by which union thee are six surviving children, viz.:  
Margarita, Virginia, Frances, Eulalia, Josephine, and Juanita.
 
History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 983