San Mateo, 1853-02-23

The California Private Land Claims Collection is made up of photocopies of a selection of twenty-six California private land claims presented to the Public Land Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican land grants within California. The contents include handwritten transcripts of proceedings and maps.

The collection is a small subset of the original 813 claims considered by the Commission, likely gathered during a researcher's targeted study. The common research thread of the selection is yet to be determined as the claims are from several California counties spread out across the state.