Description
The collection consists of four leather-bound field books
used by Frederick Thomas Perris in the course of surveying lands in San Bernardino
County, California, in 1856 and 1857.
Background
Frederick Thomas Perris (1837-1916) was born in England, raised in Australia, trained
as a civil engineer, and moved to the Pacific Coast of the United States in 1853. He
served as Deputy United States Mineral Surveyor for the U.S. Government and for the
State of California. In 1858 he became a U.S. citizen and in 1863 became Territorial
Surveyor for Utah Territory’s northeastern portions. A businessman in Salt Lake
City, Utah, for many years, he relocated to San Bernardino in 1874 and later served
as City Engineer and County Surveyor. He later worked for the California Southern
Railway Company as Chief Engineer and Superintendent of Construction and drove the
first passenger train into San Bernardino in 1883. The city of Perris, California,
and its accompanying Perris Boulevard, were named in his honor.The Jurupa Rancho, located along the Santa Ana River in northwestern Riverside and
southwestern San Bernardino Counties, California, was owned by Juan Bandini, who
received the property as a land grant from Juan Bautista Alvarado in 1838. Bandini
sold a portion of his property to Benjamin Davis Wilson in 1843, and Wilson in turn
sold his land to Louis Robidoux in 1847. In 1859, Bandini’s remaining portion of the
rancho went to Abel Stearns, and this part of the property was renamed the Stearns
Rancho.
Restrictions
Property rights to the physical object belong to the Sherman Library. Literary
rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the
responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the
copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The Sherman
Library does not hold the copyright.