William Brainard Post - From Whaling Station to Empire

William Brainard Post came from Connecticut in 1850. His first job was at a whaling station near Lucia when there were no settlers along the coast. He then opened the first grain warehouse in California at Moss Landing and the first butcher shop in Castroville. He married Innocenti Anselmo, a dark-eyed Indian girl from the Carmel mission, and in 1860 they homesteaded 640 acres on the hills south of the Big Sur river. The Post family dynasty became so extensive that it was said “there was a Pfeiffer on every hill.”