History San José Celebrates Founders Month with Special Sundays at San Pedro Square during this Thanksgiving Season

This month San Jose celebrates its 243rd Birthday! There are multiple events being thrown by History San Jose, three of which will be happening at the San Pedro Square Market. This is a great chance to learn more about the Peralta Adobe (oldest building in San Jose) and Fallon House (first Victorian), as well as check up on how the San Pedro Square Market is coming along.

 

Happy 243^rd Birthday to San Jose!

San Jose CA – November 1, 2011 ---

Sunday, November 6 from noon to 4 PM is the Adobe Days’ Childrens Fiesta: features activities for children and tours for adults.  Children can make corn husk action figures, adobe bricks, dip wax for candle-making, and practice roping. Visitors can see a horse whose ancestry can be traced back to the horses brought to the new world centuries ago by the Spanish settlers. Her name is Stone Shield, and she is a paint mare --- 18 years old with 2 blue eyes.

As early as 1492 Spain planned the expansion of their power, including into North America. It was the Spanish horses that carried the DeAnza party to settle Alta California and today provides the framework for thoroughbreds, standardbreds, and the Morgan and quarterhorse. Only 2,000 of the Colonial Spanish horses remain and is critically endangered.

A real vaquero, cowboy, will offer roping demonstrations. Tours of the Peralta Adobe and the Fallon House will be at 12:30 PM, 1:30 PM and 2:30 PM.

Sunday, November 13 from noon 4 PM is Adobe Days: Dig into San José’s Past - Kids Archaeology Day: Stanford Archaeology Center students will be at the Peralta site conducting a dig. Tours of the Peralta Adobe and the Fallon House will be offered at 12:30 PM, 1:30 PM and 2:30 PM.

Sunday, November 20 from noon to 4 PM is Happy 243^rd Birthday, San José!: the traditional birthday party for the founding of El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. There will be a candle-lighting ceremony and visitors can share birthday cake with San José’s founding family members. ‘Happy Birthday, San Jose!’-a –little-early-party---the real birthday is November 29. Music will be provided by Los Arrebeños de San Francisco, led by Lance Beeson, a member of the Californios.

Tours of the Peralta Adobe and the Fallon House will be offered at 12:30 PM, 1:30 PM and 2:30 PM.

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The Fallon House was built in 1855 by one of San José’s earliest mayors. The Victorian mansion showcases 15 fully-furnished rooms typical of the Victorian period. Thomas Fallon was a frontiersman in the John C. Fremont expedition, and Carmel Fallon was the daughter of one of the most prominent Mexican landowners in California.

The Peralta Adobe is San José’s oldest address. Built in 1797, the Peralta Adobe is the last remaining structure from El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. See the Adobe’s horno, an outside working oven or venture inside the home and see two rooms furnished as they might have been when they were occupied by the Gonzales and Peralta families. It is now surrounded by the new San Pedro Square Market.