Ranch and Orchard History
The Silva Ranch was founded in about 1883 by Manual Joaquin Silva and his wife, Caroline Augusta Alm. Manual was born on 27 March 1845 on Fiale in the Azores, Portugal. He volunteered to crew on a whaling ship plying the Atlantic and Pacific. He apparently jumped ship near Monterey or San Francisco, California around 1864. He stays briefly at Rio Vista, California and then settled in the Jolon area of Monterey County. He married Caroline Alm, one of twelve children born to Peter Gustave and Anna Alm, originally from Sweden. Caroline was born 24 February 1856 in Boston, Massachusetts and her family traveled across the plains to Monterey County around 1864. She married Manual Silva 30 September 1871 at fifteen years old. The first of their twelve children were born near Mission San Antonio in Monterey County.
The family moved from Monterey County around 1883 carrying all their household goods and possessions in a small spring wagon that has been preserved by the family. The family is living on the Silva Ranch in 1900 and was farming in Pajaro and Pleasant Valley. There are a few farming families in Pleasant Valley when they settled there. Pleasant Valley is known as Hungry Hollow during this early time, possibly because of its remote location from Watsonville and Santa Cruz and the tendency of new immigrants to try to get a stake in the area. The Silva Ranch had been part of the Rancho Corralitos owned by Don Jose and Prudenciana Amesti.
Manual Joaquin was a successful farmer and orchardist, noted for his fine teams of Belgian work horses. He planted apple trees and farmed a number of crops including watermelons and hay. After 1918, upon his death, the Silva Ranch was divided up and all but the headquarters was sold. The home and headquarters was passed down through generations, eventually inherited in 2013 by the present owners, Phil and Karell Reader.
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