Edward Bale sailed from England to California in the 1830s and settled in Monterey, where General Mariano Vallejo named him surgeon-in-chief of the Mexican Army. In 1839 he married Vallejo’s niece, Maria Soberanes, and in 1841 received a large rancho in the upper Napa Valley. There, cattle were raised for hides and tallow, wheat was planted along the river, and Bale built a gristmill to process locally grown grain. He also built a sawmill on his rancho, where logs were cut for the area’s early frame buildings. He died in 1849 at the age of 38, leaving his wife and six young children.