History

Main-Begg Farmhouse:
The History of a Goleta Valley Landmark

Postcard written by Jane Main to family in Scotland showing a photo of their newly built farmhouse in the Goleta Valley, CA, 
located at 5001 Hollister Ave.  Postcard is dated March 28, 1911.

By Ronald L. Nye, Historian
October 20, 2022

The first known occupants of the area encompassing the Goleta Valley were the Native Americans known as Chumash.  They are thought to have settled on the coast thousands of years before the navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, sailing under the Spanish flag, encountered them in 1542.  Members of a subsequent Spanish land expedition in 1769, led by Don Gaspar de Portolá, observed that over 1,000 Chumash lived on Mescalitán Island in the Goleta Slough.  De Portolá was in the vanguard of Spain’s effort to fortify and colonize its vast territory known as Alta California.  The pacification and conversion of its potentially hostile Indian tribes, a critical element of the plan, was to be accomplished through a system of missions.  Mission Santa Barbara, established in 1786, was granted five royal ranchos, one of which was Dos Pueblos, which included the Goleta Valley.  Missionaries forced most of the Chumash to move to the Mission where, as a result of cultural repression and disease, their numbers dwindled rapidly.  Cattle-raising for the hide and tallow trade, meanwhile, became the Mission fathers’ major agricultural pursuit on Dos Pueblos and their other far-flung rancho lands.¹

Daniel Hill
(Photo Source: GoletaHistory.com)

The history of the Dos Pueblos rancho took a major turn in 1821 when Mexico achieved its independence from Spain.  Mexico, which now governed Alta California, sought to stimulate economic development in its province.  In so doing it secularized the missions and stripped them of their lands in 1834, and began issuing numerous large land grants to well-connected individuals.  One such beneficiary was Daniel Hill, a naturalized Mexican citizen from Boston, who in 1846 was granted 4,426 acres by the governor of California.  Named La Goleta Rancho, Hill’s cattle ranch included the future Main-Begg Farmhouse property near its eastern boundary.   The same property was included in the 300 acres fronting the present-day Hollister Avenue that Abel C. Scull and Samuel Shoup purchased from Hill in 1863.  Scull assumed sole ownership of the property two years later.  Scull farmed his holdings, which included raising corn and barley, until his death in 1899.  His wife and children subsequently subdivided 100 acres of the ranch, which was designated the Scull Estate, into four lots and listed them for sale.²

Robert Main with his Shire Horse.

Robert Main (1862-1930) purchased Lot No. 1 of the Scull Estate in 1900 and soon began developing a walnut ranch. The lot consisted of 24.73 acres and included the present-day Main-Begg Farmhouse.  Main was born in Scotland in 1862, married Jane Sangster (1862-1949) in 1884, and in 1887 immigrated to Santa Barbara with his wife and two small children.  The Mains were part of a larger “Scottish Exodus” of old country natives who relocated to Goleta and Santa Barbara County during the late nineteenth century.  The family moved from Santa Barbara to Goleta when Main was hired by Frank E. Kellogg as his ranch foreman.  A short time later, in 1890, the Mains relocated to Thomas B. Bishop’s substantial Corona del Mar Ranch (a portion of W. W. Hollister’s former Glen Annie Ranch) in Goleta.  Main began as foreman of the ranch, but was quickly promoted to superintendent, a position he held until 1927.  Main initially erected two structures in the northeast corner of his Hollister Avenue ranch property: a water tank tower and a large barn.  The first was located a few feet to the southwest of his future residence and the second several yards to the south of his future home.  The two structures were demolished in the late 1950s.  In 1910 Main retained the noted building contractor, John Williamson, to build the existing Craftsman Style residence.  The home was completed in 1911.  The Mains added four more children to their family after moving to Goleta, for a total of six: Alexander, William, Jeannie, Carrie, Margaret, and James.  An original brick and concrete water cistern located near the southwest corner of the residence was built in c. 1912-1920, and is still in use.  A walnut orchard occupied the remainder of the ranch.  Following Main’s death in 1930 his wife, Jane, lived on the property until one or two years prior to her death, which occurred in 1949.³

Robert and Jane Main, 1921

Aerial view showing the boundaries of the original Robert Main Ranch in 1928.
(Source: FrameFinder, UCSB)

Aerial view showing the boundaries of the former Robert Main Ranch in 2010, after housing replaced most ranch lands.
(Source: FrameFinder, UCSB)

Main rose to prominence in the Goleta community during his tenure as overseer of the Corona del Mar, 1890-1927, which overlapped with his duties as operator of his own ranch, 1900-1930.  His elevated status was due, in part, to his business activities on behalf of the Bishop-owned agricultural enterprises, which included the 1,260-acre Corona del Mar and the Tecolote, La Laguna, and Sisquoc ranches.  The Bishop ranches were cumulatively one of the larger ranching operations in the county. Given his extensive involvement in farm and ranch management it was perhaps natural that Main went on to help organize and/or serve as a director of several local agricultural cooperative associations, including those representing producers of walnuts, lima beans, olives, and livestock. He urged the growers within these associations to implement scientific methods on their properties and hosted demonstrations of new techniques for disease eradication and irrigation on his walnut ranch.⁴  

Hispanic women and child in walnut orchard, c. 1930s.
Source: Santa Barbara Public Library

His strong preference for collective problem-solving and inherent organizing abilities also helped lead to the formation of a number of other entities, such as: the County Farm Bureau (1920); the Goleta Threshing Company (1905), comprising local farmers who jointly purchased the first lima bean threshing machine to be owned on the coastal side of the Santa Ynez Range; and the Good Roads Committee (1908), a community organization which successfully established the locally-funded Goleta Road District and lobbied county and state governments for improved roads and a new Coast Highway.  Main was a leader in Goleta Valley social and civic affairs as well, which included: his role in organizing the Scottish Caledonian Club, the annual Scottish Picnic at Tucker’s Grove, and the revival of the Santa Barbara County Fair in 1921; his long-time service as a county precinct election officer and county grand juror; and his work as an official auditor for proposed county road and bridge projects.⁵

Gathering at the Annual Scottish Picnic held at Tucker’s Grove Park in the Goleta Valley (circa early 1900’s).
Read the chapter, “Glasgow to Goleta: The Scottish Exodus” from the book, Goleta the Good Land by Walker A. Tompkins.

Main-Begg Farmhouse, southeast elevation, and water tower,
c. 1930s.

Photos of David A. Begg and Carrie Main Begg as young adults. Carrie was the daughter of Robert and Jane Main.
David was the son of Peter J. and Jessie Begg. David and Carrie wed in 1911.

David A. Begg and Carrie Main at their wedding in 1911.

The next occupants of the Main-Begg House following Jane Main’s death in 1949 were David A. Begg (1889-1952) and his wife Carrie (1890-1972).  David was the son of the Goleta pioneers Peter J. and Jessie Begg who had emigrated from Scotland in 1885. Carrie was the daughter of Robert and Jane Main.  The younger Begg grew up working on his family’s Goleta farm and at the age of twenty leased his own parcel and became an independent farmer.  A Santa Barbara newspaper lauded him as a “well to do and highly respected farmer” in the announcement of his nuptials with Carrie in 1911.  In 1919 he purchased a twenty-three-acre property bordering the south side of Hollister Avenue in the present-day Old Town Goleta which is said to have once been a portion of his parents’ old farm.  During the following three decades the Beggs operated a general farm and raised eight children (three girls and five boys) on the property.  David’s business and civic activities included managing the local lima bean warehouse and serving as Goleta Constable for four years.  David died in 1952, only two years after moving into the Main-Begg House, but Carrie continued to occupy the property for many years prior to her death in 1972.⁶

George Begg, a son of David and Carrie, managed the Main Ranch for an unspecified number of years after Robert Main’s death in 1930, which may have included the periods when Jane Main and David and Carrie Begg occupied the house.  George and his family lived on the ranch in a cottage located approximately one-quarter of a mile south of the property headquarters.  The cottage is no longer extant.  Aerial photographs indicate that by the mid-1950s lemons had replaced walnuts as the ranch’s main orchard crop.  The Main Ranch fell victim to suburbanization in 1957 when Carrie Main Begg sold nearly all of it, with the exception of the present one-half acre Main-Begg Ranch property, to a developer, Ralph R. Masterson.  Official subdivision maps for the twenty-four-acre single-family housing project were filed in 1961 and 1962 and included the southward extension of San Marcos Lane and the creation of Via Jacinto, Via El Encantador and other streets within the boundaries of the former Main Ranch.  The original water tank tower, located near the southwest corner of the house, and the original barn, situated several yards south of it, were demolished soon after the sale of the ranch.  The existing two-car garage was built in 1959.⁷

Charles (Chuck) W. Begg (1919-2008) and his wife Margaret Yount Begg (1921-1994) owned and occupied the house from about 1970 until their respective deaths.  They shared the home with their three children, Jock, Janice, and Charles.  Chuck was the middle son of David and Carrie Begg’s five male children.  He grew up on the family farm and after high school clerked at Coffey’s Grocery, one of Goleta’s oldest food markets.  Following service in World War II, during which he married Margaret, Chuck engaged in three main professions over his long working career: ranch foreman; commercial fisherman, including crab and lobster trapping; and nurseryman, specializing in orchids.  Shorter work stints included service station operator, coffee shop proprietor, and boat rental manager at the Goleta Pier.  Chuck is best remembered for his many years of community service activities in the Goleta Valley in which he generously devoted time as a volunteer participant and leader of several local organizations, including: Goleta Boys and Girls Club; Goleta 4-H Club; Goleta Valley Historical Society; Goleta Amvets, Post 55; County Park Commission; Scottish Society; Girls, Inc., and Goleta Cemetery District.  He was renowned for his outdoor barbequing talents.  Chuck joyously presided for many years over numerous cookouts on behalf of countless nonprofit groups’ annual meetings, festivals and fund-raisers.  Chuck was named Man of the Year in 1963 by the Goleta Chamber of Commerce and in 1985 he and Margaret were selected Grand Marshalls of the Goleta Valley Days Parade.⁸

Main-Begg Extended Family

Main and Begg Family Gathering at the Farmhouse, c. 1924
(Left to right from the back row):
Donovan William Main, Percy Alexander Main, William S. Main.
James Begg, Jane Sangster Main, Robert Main, David A. Begg (holding baby Thelma Begg), Carrie Main Begg, Evlyn Jane Main, Robert Francis Main, Robert Begg (standing in front of Robert Francis Main).
Margaret Main, James Byrce Main, Dorothy Vaughn Main (holding baby Dorothy Main), Alexander Main (holding shoulders of young Carden Begg), Lucy Doty Main, John Troup, Jeannie Main Troup.
Robert Troup, James Main, Dorothy Begg, Betty Troup, Lawrence Elwyn Main, Kenneth Herbert Main, Gordon Troup (sitting far right in photo).
Charles Begg, Carrie May Begg, and George Begg.

The Main-Begg Farmhouse, a not-for-profit organization, acquired ownership of the property in 2019.  The mission of the Main-Begg Farmhouse organization is to preserve and restore the Farmhouse property, to share its history with the Goleta Valley, and to provide a unique venue for community activities and educational programs.  The Farmhouse was designated a Santa Barbara County Historic Landmark in 2020.

____________________________

¹ Walker A. Tompkins, Goleta: The Good Land (Goleta, CA: Goleta Amvets Post No. 55, 1966), 1-14; R. B. Rice, W. A. Bullough, R. J. Orsi, The Elusive Eden: A New History of California (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 76-95.

² Tompkins, 38-40, 67; Rice, et al., 115-127; Frank F. Flournoy, “Map of the Subdivision of A. C. Scull’s Estate,” March 9, 1899, Book 1, Page 77, Santa Barbara County Surveyor’s Office; U.S., Population Census report, 1900, and Agriculture Census reports, 1870 and 1880, and other sources of historical information at Ancestry.com.

³ Deed, Charles and Clara Scull to Robert Main, September 25, 1900, Book 73, Page 182, Santa Barbara County Recorder’s Office; Owen H. O’Neill, ed., History of Santa Barbara County (Santa Barbara: Union Printing Co., 1939), 17-18, 20-21; Tompkins, 174-175; Santa Barbara Morning Press, July 29, 1910, California Digital Newspaper Collection; Santa Barbara city directories, 1888-1949, Gledhill Library; aerial photograph, December 31, 1927, Flight C-311, Frame A-3, FrameFinder website, UCSB Library; U.S., Population Census reports, 1900 and 1910; Jane Begg, interviewed by R. L. Nye, March 13, 2019; postcard showing nearly completed Main residence, March 28, 1911, provided by Jock Begg.

⁴ Letter, Lloyd W. Swift to Michael Redmon, January 2, 1990, Gledhill Library; Bishop Ranch HLAC nomination form for historic designation, no date, Gledhill Library; Santa Barbara Morning Press, September 6, 1908, September 26, 1913, March 1, 1914, October 7, 1915, January 3, 1919, August 31, 1922, December 7, 1922, California Digital Newspaper Collection.

⁵ Santa Barbara Morning Press, May 26, 1905, September 13, 1908, March 28, 1909, April 11, 1909, July 13, 1909, October 19, 1910, September 4, 1913, December 18, 1913, June 2, 1914, December 10, 1919, December 16, 1919, February 19, 1921, California Digital Newspaper Collection.

⁶ Santa Barbara Morning Press, June 24, 1911, November 19, 1919, November 23, 1922, California Digital Newspaper Collection; Tompkins, 174-175; O’Neill, 81-82; U.S., Population Census reports, 1920, 1930, 1940, Ancestry.com; city directories, 1951-1972, Gledhill Library; Ronald L. Nye, “Chuck Begg’s Boyhood in Goleta,” Goleta Valley History, Winter 1995, 3-7.

⁷ Jane Begg, interviewed by R. L. Nye, March 13, 2019; deed, Carrie Main Begg to Ralph R. and Ruth E. Masterson, September 5, 1957, Book 1470, Page 75, Santa Barbara County Recorder’s Office; U. S. Grant and Son, “Record of Survey of the Property of R. R. Masterson,” April 1958, Book 43, Page 18, Santa Barbara County Surveyor’s Office; subdivision maps, Tract 10172, January 1961, Book 65, Pages 92, 93, and Tract 10265, October 15, 1962, Book 70, Page 18, Santa Barbara County Surveyor’s Office; building permit, No. 6941, April 1, 1959, Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department; aerial photographs, July 30, 1948, Flight C-12790, Frame 12-186, and February 2,1956, Flight HA-AN, Frame 1-124, FrameFinder website, UCSB Library.

⁸ Nye, “Chuck Begg’s Boyhood in Goleta,”, 3-11; city directories, 1970-1991, Gledhill Library; various historical and biographical sources, Ancestry.com; Santa Barbara News-Press, August 22, 1985; Goleta Valley Voice, October 25, 2002 and April 30, 2004.