Dona Juanita del Dios Machado de Alipaz de Wrightington on the back porch of her home. Circa 1890

The entry of the adobe as it looks today.

Rose & herb garden.

Old Town San Diego State Historic Park is where the original Pueblo of San Diego was founded. The Spanish Presidio and mission was built on the adjacent hillside in 1769 but it wasn't until Mexico won their independence from Spain in 1821 that the first permanent civilian structures were constructed on the river plain below. Retiring Spanish soldiers, seafaring adventurers and a handful of entrepreneurial settlers erected the first simple adobe structures and established the community surrounding a central plaza.

One of the very first North American settlers in San Diego was a young man by the name of Thomas Wrightington. Well educated and trained as a shoemaker, Thomas arrived in the early 1830s and quickly became an active member of the young Mexican community. Resourceful and ambitious, he thrived as a frontier merchant and eventually married Juana Machado de Alipaz the recently widowed daughter of a retired Spanish soldier. Thomas and Juana built their house on the plaza in the mid 1840's and lived together there until his death in 1853.

Juana Machado de Alipaz de Wrightington was a well-known and much loved member of the early San Diego community. She was born at the Presidio well before the civilian settlement of San Diego and grew up in close proximity to the indigenous Kumeyaay people of this area. Spanish was her native language and her early exposure to the Indian people taught her the local dialect. As San Diego grew she also learned English and became a valuable asset to the already mixed community that was emerging here. She used her language skills and an acquired knowledge of herbal remedies to help Dr. George McKinstry provide medical care to the surrounding native community for almost 30 years.

Bailey and McGuire Pottery currently resides in Thomas and Juana Wrightington's house on the plaza. The house was completely rebuilt in 1985 and remains pretty much as it originally was. Juana was known as an avid gardener and the surrounding yard has many fruit trees as well a large stand of Prickly Pear cactus, a grape arbor around the rear walkway and a rose garden with numerous varieties of roses common in the 1840s and 1850s. If you get a chance, please stop by and visit. We'd love to share more of our history with you.