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Antonio F. Coronel (1817-1894) Papers
GC 1001  
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Description
Antonio Coronel was a public servant for most of his life during the Mexican period of California and continuing in the American statehood. Most notably he served as Mayor of Los Angeles and State Treasurer. Correspondence, speeches and documents relating to Coronel’s appointments to office; Los Angeles city ordinances, charters, political handbills, broadsides and related materials; deeds, papers connected with lawsuits and similar documents, such as for Indian affairs; maps, real estate ads, almanacs, lithographs, photos, memorabilia, invitations, notices, programs, publications, clippings and artwork. There is correspondence from and to Mrs. Coronel. There are items related to author Helen Hunt Jackson. 1770-1959, undated
Background
Antonio Franco Coronel was born October 21, 1817 in Mexico. He and his family were members of the Híjar-Padrés Colony reaching Alta California in 1834. Settling in Los Angeles, his father Ignacio Coronel, Antonio Coronel and his sister established a school. For the rest of his life, he served various public offices: Assistant Secretary of the Tribunals of the City of Los Angeles (1838); Judge of the First Instance (1843); Captain of the Auxiliary Companies and Visitor of the Southern Missions (1844); Representative to the General Congress of Towns (1846); Member of the Body of Magistrates in charge of regulation and order of Irrigation (1847-1848); County Assessor of Los Angeles (1850-1851-1852); Mayor of Los Angeles (1853); Member of the Common Council (ranging from 1854 to 1867); State Treasurer (1867-1871); Commissioner on the State Board of Horticulture. In 1873 Coronel married Mariana Williamson, and he died in 1894. Mariana Williamson de Coronel (born Mary Burton Williamson) in San Antonio Texas, in 1851, was the eldest daughter of Nelson Williamson, a native of Augusta, Maine and Gertrudes Romana de Williamson, of Mexican birth. She was raised fluent in both the English and Spanish languages. Her family came to California in 1859. She was educated in the public schools of Los Angeles and in the College of the Sisters of St. Vincent. She was only 22 years old when she married the much older Coronel. In 1895 she remarried, to Dr. C. Edgar Smith of Los Angeles, but they divorced by 1900. A separate collection (P-157) contains references in the most recent photographs (i.e. 1913) to “Mariana Coronel de Dominguez”, indicating perhaps she remarried a third time. Details of her life are nil after her divorce from Smith, and several genealogical web sources indicate that she died June 20, 1917. Sources used for biographical note: An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1889), 425-428. Kate Phillips, Helen Hunt Jackson, A Literary Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 242. National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: J. T. White, 1904), 566. Los Angeles Herald, December 23, 1900 (California Digital Newspaper Collection).
Extent
30 legal boxes; 2 8x10 boxes; 3 oversize boxes; map case folders.
Restrictions
Permission to publish, quote or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder
Availability
Research is by appointment only