Josiah Belden

The party was detained at Mission San Jose by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo for illegally entering Mexico without valid passports; Vallejo violated his orders to force all American immigrants to leave California, allowing the group to remain after becoming Mexican citizens.[2] Belden was living in Branciforte (now Santa Cruz), when the USS United States, under the command of Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones, captured the nearby Presidio of Monterey on October 20, 1842.Jones appointed Belden alcalde, a political position that combines the functions of a mayor, a judge, and a sheriff.On October 21, Jones discovered that the U.S. and Mexico were not at war, and returned the Presidio back to the Mexican forces; Belden's short term as alcalde also ended.Belden received the Rancho Barranca Colorado Mexican land grant near Red Bluff in current Tehama County in 1844.