Bishop''s Lodge - Retreat to Resort Page 7

Disappointed in their "New" Mexico, the Spanish did not return to colonize until 1598.
The name they gave the range of mountains above Tesuque was Sangre de Cristo ("blood of
Christ"), a reference perhaps to the reddish play of evening light upon snowy peaks. La
Villa de Santa Fe was settled as early as 1607. Three years later in 1610 Governor Pedro de
Peralta made it the capitol of the Kingdom of New Mexico. The Pueblo Indians rose against
the Spanish in a 1680 revolt, which was masterminded in Taos but began in Tesuque. The
Spanish returned 13 years later under the command of Don Diego de Vargas, who tried to
lead a bloodless reconquest, which is celebrated each year by Santa Fe's Fiesta.

It was customary for the Spanish Crown to give grants of land to soldiers and settlers. In
the case of the site for the eventual Bishop's Lodge, the earliest known records refer to a
certain grant of land in the Cañoncito de Tesuque given to Urbano Montano by Governor
Domingo de Mendoza on October 2, 1743. The actual title to the land can be traced back
to 1752, when the property was owned by Juan de Ledesma. His widow deeded the tract to
another widow, María Francisca de Sena, in 1759. Señora Sena died in 1763, and Santa Fe
Alcalde Mayor Manuel Gallegos, in probating her estate on June 8, divided the land
between her two minor children. Sometime between 1788 and 1837, the Sena heirs con-
veyed the property to Pedro Dominguez, but the conveyance is not of record. When the latter
sold it to Natividad Romero on July 17, 1837, he described it as una suerte de tierra de pan
llevar ("a piece of land for planting wheat"). The boundaries were given as follows: "on the
east, where the river joins the hill, following the river to where the little arroyo comes out of
it; on the west, the lands of Benito García; on the north, to the cañada of Benavides; on the
south, the hill which divides the cañoncito."

he colonial settlers engaged in subsistence farming and stock raising, most likely
sheep; one of the trails branching off the Big Tesuque is the Borrego ("sheep")
Trail, used for herding sheep through the mountains. Early documents refer to
"an irrigated plot for raising wheat" on the property. That the colonists brought

fruit trees to the area is verified by the lodge's old apricot tree; this gray gnarled skeleton
which graces the final curve of the lodge driveway, is a relic from the colonial era.