Cave Johnson Couts Papers

The collection consists of approximately 16,000 pieces of the personal, family and business papers of Cave Johnson Couts (1821-1874) and his son Cave Johnson Couts, Jr. (1856-1943). There is personal and business correspondence, army papers of Cave J. Couts (1837-1855), accounts, land papers, legal papers, survey correspondence and field notes of Cave J. Couts, Jr., family papers, photographs, ephemera, and 250 maps.

In this collection, the father, son, and grandson are distinguished as "a", "b" and "c":

Of note in the collection is a journal kept by Cave Johnson Couts (1821-1874) which documents his company's six-month march from Monterrey, Mexico, to California in 1848. Other military papers in the collection include the army papers (1852-1861) of Aaron B. Hardcastle, and correspondence between Couts and his siblings in Tennessee about the U.S. Civil War. Couts's letters give an informative view of the rigors of war in that state; Couts was a strong Confederate supporter.

The collection also contains a significant amount of materials related to Native Americans in San Diego County. Of note are papers about the 1851 San Diego County Indian uprising known as the Garra Revolt (led by Antonio Garra), and the involvement of Cave Johnson Couts (1821-1874) with the Indians as a sub-agent for the county from 1853-1855.

There is also material concerning land in San Diego County and in greater Southern California. It includes information on various ranchos, including Buena Vista, Guajome, among others, and the growth and development of various cities, including San Diego, Los Angeles, and Oceanside. There is also information about the San Luis Rey Mission, the creation of the Palomar Observatory (1930-38) and the activities of the Ranchito Mine in the Julian District purchased by Cave J. Couts, Jr. in 1895 (1895-1941). The land papers also contain materials regarding different estates, including the estate of Arcadia Bandini Stearns Baker, which included vast holdings of Los Angeles County land. Family papers in the collection include baptismal records, wedding announcements, biographical materials, etc. related to the Couts and Bandini families.

Additional correspondents represented in the collection include: John Forster, John S. Griffin, Benjamin I. Hayes, Charles Robinson Johnson, Ephraim W. Morse, George Allan Pendleton, Alfred Robinson, Abel Stearns, and Jonathan Trumbull Warner.

Note: Cave J. Couts b kept many papers together in groups by subject matter. These original groups have been kept together to preserve their relationships. For this reason the papers are not strictly alphabetical.