Majors, Joseph L.

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Joseph Ladd Majors was a frontiersman/trapper who came to the Santa Cruz area ~1840. Through marriage into the Castro family, he acquired the land grant that became Rancho San Agustin from his new brother-in-law Jose Bolcoff. Soon after, Majors acted as proxy allowing fellow frontiersman Isaac Graham to buy the adjacent Rancho Zayante. As a naturalized Mexican citizen, although Majors was initially arrested in the 1840 "Graham Affair", he was not imprisoned. He did later (1842), however, sign a grievance letter (Elliott, p.10) against the Alta California/Mexico government written by ten men - including Graham - who were imprisoned and/or otherwise involved in the 1840 arrest.