John Reed, Rowland's son-in-law, was also a large land-proprietor. Reed had fallen in with Rowland in New Mexico, and while there married Rowland's daughter, Nieves; and when Rowland started for California, Reed came with him and together they entered into ranching at La Puente, finding artesian water there, in 1859. Thirteen years before, Reed was in the American army and took part in the battles fought on the march from San Diego to Los Angeles. After his death on the ranch in 1874, his old homestead came into possession of John Rowland's son, William, who often resided there; and Rowland, later discovering oil on his land, organized the Puente Oil Company. Juan Forster, an Englishman, possessed the Santa Margarita _rancho_, which he had taken up in 1864, some years after he married Doña Ysidora Pico. She was a sister of Pio and Andrés Pico, and there, as a result of that alliance, General Pico found a safe retreat while fleeing from Frémont into Lower California. Forster for a while was a seaman out of San Pedro. When he went to San Juan Capistrano, where he became a sort of local _Alcalde_ and was often called Don San Juan or even San Juan Capistrano, he experimented with raising stock and became so successful as a _ranchero_ that he remained there twenty years, during which time he acquired a couple of other ranches, in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, comprising quite sixty thousand acres. Forster, however, was comparatively land-poor, as may be inferred from the fact that even though the owner of such a princely territory, he was assessed in 1851 on but thirteen thousand dollars in personal property. Later Don Juan lorded it over twice as much land in the ranches of Santa Margarita and Las Flores. His fourth son, a namesake, married Señorita Josefa del Valle, daughter of Don Ygnácio del Valle.