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The Marstons: A California Family - Part 13
Sarah Gunn Utt - Homesteader, Rancher, World Traveler
By Robin Lakin
July/August 2024
 Sarah M. Gunn at age 20 in 1866; she married Lee Utt at age 29. From Records of a California Family, edited by Anna Lee (Gunn) Marston. |
 Photogravure of the view from “the glen” at Agua Tibia, from Douglas Gunn’s Picturesque San Diego, Herve Friend, photographer, published 1887. |
 Photogravure of the pond at Agua Tibia, from Douglas Gunn’s Picturesque San Diego, Herve Friend, photographer, 1887. All photos courtesy SOHO collection |
Anna Lee Marston’s eldest sister Sarah knew something about roughing it. Born February 24, 1846, the five-year-old Sarah boarded a ship on January 30, 1851, with her mother Elizabeth LeBreton Gunn and siblings Douglas, Chester, and Lizzie to join their father, Lewis Carstairs Gunn, in Sonora, California. (Anna Lee was born in Sonora in 1853.)
The six-month journey around Cape Horn, then life in a remote mining village prepared Sarah for her adult years. Having arrived in San Diego with their parents in the early 1870s, Sarah and Lizzie established and began operating the San Diego Academy in 1873.
While teaching, Sarah met Major Lee Hamilton Utt, a Kansas-raised farm boy who fought in the Civil War and came to San Diego in 1867. He bought 800 acres and an 1850 adobe house with outbuildings at Agua Tibia (Warm Water) from Luiseño leader Manuelito Cota. Lee raised sheep at the ranch, at the foot of Palomar Mountain, and he frequently employed Nate Harrison, San Diego’s first Black homesteader.
Lee and Sarah married in 1875, when she was 29, and they made their home in the 110-foot-long, wood-floored adobe, with a large center sala flanked by bedrooms on one side and a dining room and kitchen on the other. Outbuildings consisted of a dairy house and a bath house with a built-in wooden bathing tub supplied by 100-degree, underground mineral springs.
Sarah kept busy with their children, Lewis and Anita Lee, while Lee learned experimental irrigation techniques using the mineral springs. He created a delectable oasis where fig, olive, apricot, apple, cherry, lemon, lime, orange, pear, peach, pomegranate, English walnut, and almond trees thrived. And more: peas, corn, muscat grapes, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and watermelons.
Sarah produced award-winning “glassed” fruit preserves and her brother-in-law Charles Hamilton regularly advertised Hamilton & Co.’s fresh fruit from the Utt ranch in the San Diego Union. Milk and cheese stocked the dairy house shelves and 400 beehives provided honey.
The Utts sold the ranch for $50,000 in 1887 to Boston investors and the family began a new adventure in Mexico City, remaining for three years. During that time, their son studied at the Royal University of Guadalajara (he later graduated from Stanford University, as did his sister) before resettling in Redlands, California. There, they invested in the citrus industry and built a home where Lee died in 1895.
Sarah’s ranching days didn’t end with Lee’s passing. The Boston investors defaulted on their payments, and she returned to the ranch to manage it as the lone woman supervising many male laborers during her children’s college years. After son Lewis graduated, he maintained it for her until 1922.
Sarah moved to San Diego in 1905 to be close to her sisters Lizzie and Anna Lee, and their mother Elizabeth, who died the following year. Sarah was a member of many organizations, including the Wednesday Club, the Women’s Home Industry Organization, the San Diego Mills Club, and the Foreign Aid Society.
Sarah died on February 18, 1928, six days before her 82nd birthday. A true pioneer woman, she was aptly described by her sister Anna Lee as “a woman of strong character and rare gifts,” and known as a devoted and accomplished wife, mother, and community member.
Read the rest of the ongoing The Marstons: A California Story History Series.
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