JAMES ABRAM KLEISER
1859
1846-1847
The recorded history of the land begins with the Mexican land grant Rancho de Rincon de Musalacon, awarded to Francisco Berryessa by California Governor Pio Pico in 1846. The following year after Mexican rule had ended, pioneer William Elliot was hunting bear in the mountains east of Cloverdale when he came upon the spectacular fumaroles of The Geysers.​​​​​​​​​​​
1850-1859
Settlement by non-native people starts in the 1850s. By 1858, a trading post with store and tavern stood on the former rancho land. Johnson Horrel acquired a Mexican Land Grant which included the area that would become Cloverdale. In 1858 he sold 759 acres to Richard B. Markle and W. J. Miller who established a trading post. In 1859, James Abram Kleiser, Cloverdale’s founder, purchased the land and had the first city plat laid out.
Americans from the east and European immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Germany, form the majority of Cloverdale’s earliest settlers. One early pioneer, Daniel Sink, founded the ranch and started the family with the longest continuous presence in Cloverdale. A Forty-Niner from New York, Sink arrived in Cloverdale in 1859, establishing his homestead in Oat Valley under the largest laurel tree in Sonoma County.​​​​
