Moses and Ernest Cerf, SLO County Land Purchases, Part 3

Moses and Ernest Cerf purchased land all over San Luis Obispo County, but there was something unusual about two of these properties, which are located in the wine country of Paso Robles in the northern part of the county.

Map of Paso Robles Wineries. Marked in pink, the land patent area is in the NE quarter of the map;
the Blochman Tract is in the SW quarter of the map.

Ernest Cerf Obtains a Land Patent

On July 23, 1884, Ernest Cerf received a land patent from the State of California for 320 acres. A land patent is granted for land to which no individual holds title. Today, the land is a vineyard northeast of the City of Paso Robles. Here is a copy of the land patent, though the small writing makes it difficult to read.

Land Patent to E. Cerf begins more than half way down the page.

Page two of land patent grant.

Even though I am curious about how much Ernest sold this property for, I didn’t want to take the time to slog through all of Ernest’s property sales and try to match up the land.

The Blochman Tract

On Sunday, February 12, 2012, my husband, our dog, and I enjoyed a sunny drive to the outskirts of Paso Robles, CA, to take a look at land called the Blochman Tract. Curiosity made us choose this particular property to investigate. What made the property special enough to have the parcels joined into a subdivision and named after A. Blochman and Co.?

The property is located about ten miles west of Paso Robles and about ten miles from the ocean. The bulk of the property was purchased in two transactions from Bryce Patrick and one transaction from John M. Wilkinson. The buyers were A. Blochman, Moses Cerf, Ernest Cerf, and L. M. Kaiser, all the individuals doing business as A. Blochman and Co. For $5,000 the buyers purchased 878.36 acres; for $3,000 they received 255.93 acres; and for $600 they received 160 acres, for a grand total of 1,294.29 acres altogether. There are a few other smaller transactions that might be for the same tract.

View of a small reservoir that is not part of the Blochman Tract.  Photo taken from the property.

I expected the property to be covered in grape vines as the Paso Robles wine country is booming with 170 wineries and 250 vineyards. While heading west out of Paso Robles, we passed several country lanes with winery estates just before reaching our turnoff at York Mountain Road. The only winery nearby was York Mountain Winery, just off the property boundaries. Within the property's boundaries, we didn't see any grape vines, but much of the property was secluded.

Some hills on the property.

We turned north off York Mountain Road onto Shadow Canyon Road, a narrow country lane following alongside a meandering creek shielded by heavy oak canopies. Shadow Canyon Road and Noble Lane are the primary roads through the property, with Dover Canyon Road weaving in and out of the property boundaries.

Shadow Canyon Road

An electronic gate at Noble Lane prevented us from exploring a lane probably containing several well-to-do country homes on large tracts. At the gate, we met a friendly and curious homeowner in the area, receiving permission to walk on her easement.

My dog, Sophie, and I walking along the easement.

A handwritten note on the Map of the Blochman Tract says, “Filed at request of Ernest Cerf, October 7^th A.D. 1891.” To me, that means that the buyers doing business as A. Blochman and Co. had the property surveyed and made into a subdivision.

I was able to view the deeds for a few sales transactions because the grantor-grantee index sometimes contained descriptive notations.  In these cases, the description included the words, “Blochman Tract,” making it easy to spot. In 1890, they sold 593.96 acres for $9,536 and 592 acres for $9,503.36 to James Cass of Cayucos. In 1889, they sold 7.74 acres for $200. And in 1891 they sold 122.21 acres and 150.84 acres to buyers in San Francisco and Alameda for $10. That’s right, $10, for all the acres. The total acreage sold from the Blochman Tract was 1,466.75 acres. Comparing the number of acres purchased with the number of acres sold means I missed the purchase of some piece of the property. All I can say is, it’s NOT EASY going through all those transactions and reading all those deeds. I did the best I could with the amount of time I was willing to spend on it.

There’s still more land records research to come.