Francisco de Haro

Francisco de Haro (1792 – November 28, 1849) was the first Alcalde (mayor) of Yerba Buena (later named San Francisco) in Mexican Alta California.

De Haro was born in Compostela (in present-day Nayarit state), in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (colonial México).

San Francisco

He came to the Presidio of San Francisco as a soldier in 1819.

De Haro became the first Alcalde (mayor) of the pueblo of Yerba Buena in 1834.

He was instrumental in planning the street grid of the town along with Englishman William A. Richardson in 1835. In 1837, de Haro bought the Rancho Laguna de la Merced, which included Lake Merced and portions of northern San Mateo County, from the grantee José Antonio Galindo. And in strange turn of events, in 1838, Alcalde de Haro issued an arrest warrant for Jose Antonio Galindo for the murder of José Doroteo Peralta (1810–1838). De Haro served again as the fifth Alcalde from 1838-1839. He commissioned the first survey of the settlement by Jean Jacques Vioget in 1839.

Family

De Haro married Emiliana (Miliana) Sánchez, who was the granddaughter of José Antonio Sanchez, one of the soldiers of the 1775 de Anza expedition. She was the sister of Alcalde Francisco Sanchez and Alcalde José de la Cruz Sánchez. The marriage produced twelve children, including a pair of twin sons and a pair of twin daughters. Miliana Sánchez died in 1842.

The couple's twin sons, Francisco and Ramon de Haro, the 1844 grantees of Rancho Potrero de San Francisco on Potrero Hill, were murdered by Kit Carson at the age of 19 on June 28, 1846 near San Rafael, California, along with their distant cousin José de los Reyes Berreyesa. Kit Carson (and potentially other men) shot the 3 men at the direction of General John C. Frémont.

De Haro died on 28 November, 1849 and is buried at the Mission Dolores cemetery in San Francisco.

De Haro Street, in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, is named after him.