Captain Elisha Stephens led the Stephens-Murphy-Townsend party of 1844 in bringing the first wagons over the snow-covered Sierra Nevada Truckee Pass without casualties, reaching Sutter's Fort with 11 wagons, 51 people, and 2 infants born along the way. A blacksmith by trade, he later served under Commodore Stockton in ordnance during the Mexican war of 1846-48. In 1848 he became the first American resident to homestead 160 acres in Westside, now Cupertino, naming it Blackberry Farm, and in 1859 he added 155.57 acres from the Rancho San Antonio for a total of 315.57 acres. His favorite food was the ever-available rattlesnake, and in 1862 he sold all his properties to George McCauley and William McClellan because the area had become "Too Durn Civilized!"