Most political meetings of that period took place at the Plaza home of Don Ygnácio Del Valle, first County Recorder. From 1841, Don Ygnácio lived for some time on the San Francisco _rancho_ granted by the King of Spain to his father and confirmed by patent in 1875. He also owned the more famous Camulos _rancho_ on the Santa Clara River, consisting of several thousand acres north and west of Newhall, afterward selected by Helen Hunt Jackson as the setting for some of the scenes in her novel, _Ramona_; and these possessions made him a man of great importance. During his later life, when he had abandoned his town residence, Del Valle dwelt in genteel leisure at the _rancho_, dying there in 1880; and I will not miss this opportunity to attest his patrician bearing and genial qualities. At the time of my arrival, there was but one voting precinct and the polling place was located at the old municipal and County adobe already spoken of; although later a second polls was established at the Round House. Inside the room sat the election judges and clerks; outside a window stood the jam of voters. The window-sill corresponded to the thickness of the adobe wall, and was therefore about three feet deep. This sill served as a table, upon it being placed a soap- or candle-box, into which a hole had been cut for the deposit of the votes. There was also no register, either great or small, and anyone could vote. Each party printed its own tickets; and so could any candidate. This resulted in great confusion, since there were always many tickets in the field--as many, in fact, as there were candidates; yet the entire proceeding had become legalized by custom. The candidate of one party could thus use the ticket of the other, substituting his own name for his opponent's, and leaving all of the remainder of the ticket unchanged; in addition to which there was such a lack of uniformity in the size and color of the ballots as greatly to add to the confusion in counting.