Beltane Ranch recognized as a Black historical site by National Park Service

Cementing its place in history, the National Park Service awarded Beltane Ranch in Glen Ellen, the former home of Mary Ellen Pleasant, said to be the country’s first self-made female millionaire, third place in its Historic Black Landscapes.

Janet Gracyk, a Petaluma resident; Kara Brunzell, the owner of Brunzell Historical and Glen Ellen resident Arthur Dawson, a historical consultant with the Sonoma Land Trust, created the proposal to recognize the property and Pleasant’s “fascinating character.” The trio were awarded $100 for the competition.

The award honors building or spaces that are important to the Black community and history.

Pleasant was born between 1814 and 1817 somewhere on the East Coast — much of her early life was not well documented, as was unfortunately common with people of color in the era.

“There’s a lot of confusion about her history,” Gracyk said. “She may have been a free woman or she may not have been ... it’s not clear at all.”

Pleasant traveled to San Francisco in 1852 where she met her business partner, Thomas Bell, a white banker and investor. Pleasant began as a cook in San Francisco, but soon began running her own for gold miners who hoped to get rich. And while striking gold was like playing the lottery, Pleasant didn’t miss an opportunity to feed the hopeful miners, opening a restaurant called Case and Heiser, the African American history page Black Past wrote.

“In 1887, she was renowned as one of the wealthiest Black women in the nation,” Gracyk said. “She owned eight San Francisco houses, she had a ranch in San Mateo and its claimed that she had $2.5 million in government bonds.”

Pleasant’s investments included real estate, but also railroads and boarding houses, according to the ACLU. And a 1999 edition of the Black magazine The Crisis estimated that her and Bell’s wealth was $30 million at its peak in 1875, the equivalent of $707 million in 2020 dollars.

Pleasant is also hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union as the mother of California civil rights. After accruing wealth in San Francisco, Pleasant helped fund abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859. Brown’s goal was to seize the federal armory and begin a slave revolt in the South. Ultimately, he failed.

That was not the end of Pleasant’s actions for civil rights — because despite her wealth, she still faced racism and discrimination as a Black woman.

“In 1866, a street car conductor in San Francisco refused to let her board because she was Black. Outraged, Pleasant sued. The case went all the way to the California Supreme Court. In a historic decision, the court ruled that segregation on streetcars was illegal in California,” the ACLU says on its site.

By the 1890s, Pleasant acquired 2,000 acres of land in contiguous ranches in Glen Ellen and surrounding areas, Gracyk said, which included Beltane Ranch. For the past six generations, it has been under the ownership of the Benward family, which in addition to operating the land as a farm and vineyard, also offers weddings and special events on the storied site, in the original building where Pleasant made her home.

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been revised to note that Harpers Ferry was situated in the commonwealth of Virginia when John Brown’s raid occurred in 1859. A previous version erred in describing the town’s state affiliation at the time of the raid. West Virginia was granted statehood by the U.S. and admitted to the union in 1863.