Juan Bautista Silva, one of the founders of La Loma de San José, chronicled the 30 day journey from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the hillside above the Rio Grande just east of modern Del Norte, Colorado.  His diary specifically names those families who joined the pioneering expedition.

    The Silva diary is a small, thin book of coarse paper with an even coarser plain cardboard cover.  Entries are logged with pencil.  The fibrous nature of the paper makes reading the diary fairly difficult as does the color of the paper .  Using his native Spanish, Silva describes the departure from Galisteo on May 6, 1859.  Apprehension yet excitement at the prospects for their new homes fills their departure.

    Their journey northward followed an ancient trail used by Pueblo people, the Vargas and Anza expeditions, and earlier New Mexican settlers who colonized the Guadalupe land grant along the Conejos River.  Silva describes traveling through rugged countryside which is still known as "a land of no agua."

    Only a few decades earlier, Comanche raiding parties  had traversed the same route to attack frontier villages like Ojo Caliente.  Kiowa bands coming  to the San Luis Hills at the south end of the San Luis Valley to collect willows for baskets and to hunt buffalo sometimes attacked Guadalupe land grant colonists. The Moache Utes considered this region their homeland and often clashed with intruders who penetrated too far or threatened resources.

    Noting past hostile  encounters,  Silva commented on special precautions taken by the 14 families to avoid confrontations. (The earliest attempts to settle along the Conejos River had been thwarted by  hostile confrontations.  José Pablo Martinez, at age 15, had survived a battle with a roving band of Kiowas.  When the Kiowas attacked San Margarita in 1842, José Pablo and eight other men stood alone. Chagrined by their husbands' cowardice, the village women beat the other men with reed brooms until they left their hiding spots to join the battle.  Though successful in driving off the Indians, the settlers abandoned San Margarita, their second attempt at settling the Guadalupe land grant.)

    June 6, 1859, the weary settlers, having reached their destination gave thanks to their patron San José and La Conquistadora for bring them safely to a place of vegas pastures con silvestre ganado de ciervo y alce y agua pura. (Click here to view La Conquistadora retablo brought by the settlers to their La Loma de San Jose chaper.)

    Immediately the pioneers set to dividing their labors.  Some would design and build the homes; others the jacal (chapel).  Men cut and hauled timber.  Women took charge of kitchen chores and tending the children.  Jesus Maria Alarid received goats, peas, and corn as payment for teaching the children.  The Silva brothers were responsible for a ditch to carry water to the fields. (The Silva ditch, which carries the second adjudicated water right in Colorado, was constructed farther downstream on the Rio Grande by Juan Bautista Silva's descendants.)

    After a month of hard work, the settlers honored La Conquistadora with a celebration of thanksgiving for their days of good luck and happiness.

      Juan BautistaSilva, 20 de Julio, 1859
                                                            Grácias de Díos

La Conquistadora, the tin and glass encased bulto carried by the 14 families from their former home in Gallisteo, New Mexico, to the chapel at La Loma de San José.