Bernardo Fernandez

Born in Portugal, Fernandez joined a ship to Brazil when he was 13 years old, rose to be a ship's captain, and first settled in the United States in 1850, operating coastal shipping from New York.[1][2] In 1853 he arrived in Pinole, California,[1] as a gold prospector, but decided to settle,[3] operating a freight business between Contra Costa County and San Francisco[4] and starting in 1857 acquiring land.[2] He eventually became the area's wealthiest resident,[5] owning more than 20,000 acres in Pinole, Oakland, and San Francisco.[6] Among his holdings was a 9,000-acre ranch in western Contra Costa County on which he grew wheat and raised cattle; the remaining 700 acres of the Fernandez Ranch were acquired as an open space preserve in 2004[7] and expanded in 2010 with the addition of the adjacent Franklin Canyon property, also originally part of the ranch.[3][4]

In 1859 he married Carlotta Cuadra, a member of a Marin County pioneer family from Chile; they had six children.[1][2] Their third home, a 22-room mansion built in about 1894, is preserved as the Bernardo Fernandez House.[6] He died at home in Pinole in 1912.[1]