Jacob Primer Leese
Jacob Primer Leese was born on August 19th, 1809 in St. Clairsville, Ohio. He was in the lucrative business of trading necessities to trappers in exchange for valuable furs.
Lesse continued to move west until he found himself in Yerba Buena (now known as San Francisco). In 1836, he was the second permanent settler on the peninsula which would later become a major city.
An astute businessman, Leese and his partners were responsible for some of the earliest development in San Francisco. Leese owned the first substantially built house in San Francisco and was a major part of the region’s early polite social life.
In 1837, Jacob Primer Leese married Rosalia Vallejo, the sister of Mariano Vallejo. He moved to Sonoma soon thereafter. In 1852, Leese bought Rancho Sausal in Monterey County. This large property was over 10,000 acres. He filled a number of government posts in subsequent years. Jacob Leese passed away in 1892.
