The Families Who Built El Rito
Land, Water, Kinship and Community, 1808–1900
El Rito History Project — El Rito Library
El Rito was not built by a single founder. It was built by families.
Beginning around 1808, Hispano families moved into the valley of the Rito Colorado, established homes beside the stream, dug irrigation ditches, planted fields, raised livestock, created neighborhood plazas and built relationships that would endure for generations. The land was not an empty wilderness: the greater valley had a much older Indigenous history, including the ancestral Tewa world represented by nearby Sapawe. The permanent Hispano village that became modern El Rito emerged during the opening decades of the nineteenth century.
1808: A Community Begins
The surviving evidence does not describe a single ceremony in which El Rito was “founded.” Instead, it shows a process.
Land associated with Joaquín García and his family was being divided and sold to settlers by approximately June 1808. Later historical research found that purchasers came from established northern New Mexico communities including Abiquiú, Ojo Caliente, Taos, Las Casas de Riaño and Cañón del Río de Chama. That movement of families into the Rito Colorado valley provides the strongest documentary basis for using 1808 as the beginning of the permanent Hispano settlement of El Rito.
The original García title has not survived, and nineteenth-century residents later gave somewhat different accounts of when Joaquín García obtained the land. What is much clearer is that individual deeds dating from the early nineteenth century survived long enough to be examined during later federal investigations of the El Rito land claim.
The village therefore did not begin with a courthouse, town square or formally plotted streets.
It began with land, families and water.
Names Reappear in the Church Records
The earliest surviving parish records begin giving those families names.
By the 1820s, baptismal entries from the Abiquiú parish were identifying parents as residents of El Rito, La Casita and eventually San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito. These records are particularly valuable because they preserve not only male household heads but wives, mothers and children who are often absent from land and political records.
Among the earliest securely documented households were Hilario Atencio and María Paula Torres. Their family was identified with El Rito in 1822, La Casita in 1828 and San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito in 1832.
Hilario Atencio and María Paula Torres
One of El Rito’s earliest documented families
The surviving record is already considerably richer than a simple 1822 reference. Hilario Atencio and María Paula Torres can now be followed across several northern New Mexico communities for more than twenty years, and the evidence places them among the earliest families we can securely associate with the developing village of El Rito. Just as importantly, the records begin to reveal who they were before they came to El Rito.
The earliest firm record we found is dated November 1, 1806. A marriage-banns entry identifies him more fully as Hilario Antonio Atencio, of Abiquiú, and states that he was already a widower, his first wife having been María Valvanera Jirón. María Paula Torres was associated with the Santa Cruz parish and was identified as the daughter of Manuel Torres and Apolonia Aguilar, both already deceased. This is valuable because it moves both people well beyond the category of anonymous early El Rito settlers: we now have Hilario's previous marriage and María Paula's parents.
There is strong independent confirmation of Hilario's first marriage. In Taos on November 5, 1828, María Concepción Atencio married Antonio Domingo Córdova of Arroyo Hondo. Her parents were recorded as Ylario Atencio and the deceased María Balveneda Girón—the spelling variations Ylario/Hilario and Girón/Jirón are normal for the period. This is almost certainly the same Hilario whose 1806 banns describe him as the widower of María Valvanera Jirón. It means Hilario already had a family before marrying María Paula.
The trail toward El Rito
David H. Snow's compilation of the Abiquiú baptismal records gives us something particularly important: a sequence of residences for Hilario and María Paula. It associates their household with Tierra Azul in 1809, El Rito in 1822, La Casita in 1828, and San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito in 1832. Tierra Azul was an established settlement along the Chama below Abiquiú, so this suggests a very plausible movement from the older Chama Valley settlements into the newly developing Rito Colorado community.
The permanent Hispano settlement of El Rito appears to have begun around 1808, when land associated with Joaquín García was being divided and transferred to incoming families. At present we have not found a deed showing Hilario Atencio as one of those original 1808 purchasers. We therefore should not yet call him an "1808 founder." But by 1822, Hilario and María Paula are securely documented there, making them one of the earliest identifiable El Rito households in the surviving church record.
The residence at La Casita in 1828 is especially interesting. Their daughter María Gertrudis Atencio appears in the Abiquiú baptismal compilation that year, with Hilario and María Paula identified as residents of La Casita. Snow's abstract also lists a María Bárbara Atencio under the same parents in 1828, apparently connected with a burial entry.
The household then appears in 1832 as residents of San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito. That date coincides remarkably closely with the completion of El Rito's church and the increasing use of the name San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito in parish records. It puts Hilario and María Paula in the village during the generation that transformed El Rito from a loose collection of agricultural settlements into a community with its own recognizable religious center.
A working chronology is:
- Before 1806: Hilario marries María Valvanera/Balveneda Jirón; they have at least one known daughter, María Concepción Atencio.
- November 1, 1806: Hilario Antonio Atencio, widower and resident of or associated with Abiquiú, enters marriage banns with María Paula Torres, daughter of Manuel Torres and Apolonia Aguilar.
- 1809: Snow's reconstruction places Hilario and María Paula at Tierra Azul.
- 1822: Their household is recorded at El Rito.
- 1828: They are residents of La Casita; María Gertrudis Atencio is documented there.
- 1832: The household is identified with San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito.
- By November 2, 1849: Hilario is dead. Their son Juan de Dios Atencio marries Juana García in the Taos area; his marriage record explicitly names his parents as the deceased Hilario Atencio and María Paula Torres. Juan de Dios was then living at Los Dolores and was described as a native of Abiquiú.
María Paula Torres may be particularly important
María Paula deserves more attention than she has received. The 1806 record gives us her parents, Manuel Torres and Apolonia Aguilar. There is also an intriguing earlier record listing a Manuel Torres, age 29, with Apolonia Aguilar, age 23, in eighteenth-century New Mexico material. Because the names correspond exactly and María Paula's 1806 record places her family within the Santa Cruz parish sphere, this may well be her parents.
If they are the same couple, it potentially pushes María Paula's family story another generation back into Spanish-colonial New Mexico. Her parents would have been adults by about 1780, meaning María Paula was born into a family already established in northern New Mexico before the development of El Rito.
There is also a subtle clue in the 1849 marriage of Juan de Dios. The record explicitly calls Hilario deceased but does not similarly describe María Paula as deceased. That is not proof that she was still living, but it raises the possibility that María Paula survived Hilario and was alive in 1849.
What this means for the history of El Rito
Hilario and María Paula are valuable because they represent exactly the sort of people the El Rito History Project is trying to recover. They were not territorial governors or wealthy merchants whose lives generated extensive correspondence. Their history survives instead through marriages, baptisms, deaths, children and changing place names.
Yet those scattered records tell an important story. A family rooted in the older Abiquiú–Santa Cruz–Chama world moved through Tierra Azul and eventually into the new agricultural community on the Rito Colorado. By 1822 they were in El Rito. By 1828 they were specifically at La Casita. By 1832 they were being described as residents of San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito. Their children subsequently connected the family to Arroyo Hondo, Taos and other northern New Mexico communities.
Juan del Carmen Lucero and María Rosa Martín were identified as El Rito residents in 1823. Their son José Benedicto Lucero was baptized in 1825 while the family was living at La Casita.
An Early Lucero–Martín Family of El Rito
The documentary trail for Juan del Carmen Lucero and María Rosa Martín is thinner than the one we found for Hilario Atencio and María Paula Torres, but what survives is important. They can be placed securely in El Rito by 1823, only about fifteen years after the beginning of permanent Hispano settlement in the Rito Colorado valley. Two years later, their household was specifically identified with La Casita, making them one of the earliest named families we can presently place within one of El Rito's individual neighborhood plazas.
What we can document with confidence
The strongest evidence comes from historian and archaeologist David H. Snow's compilation of the Abiquiú baptismal registers. Snow recorded José Benedicto Lucero, baptized in 1825, as the son of Juan del Carmen Lucero and María Rosa Martín. The parents were then residents of La Casita. Snow also found the same couple identified as residents of El Rito in 1823. Significantly, he noted that their marriage does not appear in the surviving Abiquiú marriage register.
That gives us a simple but important sequence:
- By 1823: Juan del Carmen Lucero and María Rosa Martín were living at El Rito.
- 1825: Their son José Benedicto Lucero was baptized while the family was living at La Casita.
- Their marriage has not yet been located in the Abiquiú records, suggesting either that they married somewhere else or that their marriage occurred in a record that has not survived or has not yet been identified.
For the El Rito History Project, the change from the general designation El Rito to the more specific La Casita is useful. It tells us that by the middle of the 1820s the community was already developing recognizable internal neighborhoods rather than functioning as one undifferentiated settlement. La Casita appears repeatedly in the baptismal records with Atencio, Martín, Lucero, Gonzales, Madrid, Gallegos, Vigil, López, Padilla, Romero, Salazar and other families.
Ramón Martín and Romualda Atencio appear repeatedly. The family was recorded at El Rito in 1823, 1828 and 1832, while their son José María Martín was recorded at La Casita in 1826.
Those repeated appearances matter. They show that these were not travelers passing through the valley. They were families putting down roots.
Ramón Martín and Romualda Atencio
An Early Martín–Atencio Household at La Casita
Ramón Martín and Romualda Atencio are among the more securely documented early El Rito couples we have encountered so far. Unlike families that appear only once in the surviving record, Ramón and Romualda recur over nearly a decade. David H. Snow’s reconstruction from the Santo Tomás de Abiquiú baptismal registers places them at El Rito in 1823, La Casita in 1826, and again in records associated with El Rito in 1828 and 1832.
The clearest individual record concerns their son José María Martín, baptized in 1826. Snow identifies José María as the son of Ramón Martín and Romualda Atencio and gives the family’s residence as La Casita. That is particularly useful for the El Rito History Project because it places an identifiable Martín family not merely somewhere in the Rito Colorado valley, but within one of the village’s earliest named neighborhood settlements.
A household established by 1823
The chronology presently looks like this:
- 1823 — El Rito: Ramón Martín and Romualda Atencio are recorded as residents.
- 1826 — La Casita: their son José María Martín is baptized; the parents are specifically described as residents of La Casita.
- 1828 — El Rito: the couple appears again.
- 1832 — El Rito: another surviving baptismal reference again places them in the community.
That sequence is significant. It makes it difficult to regard Ramón and Romualda as temporary residents or people merely passing through. They appear repeatedly during a period in which El Rito was still developing from a collection of agricultural settlements into a recognizable village. The El Rito History Project’s broader reconstruction of the early community likewise identifies them among the families repeatedly present in the 1820s and early 1830s.
There is also an important point about the place names. “El Rito” and “La Casita” should not necessarily be interpreted as evidence that the family moved back and forth. Parish priests often recorded a household at different levels of geographic specificity. One entry might say El Rito, while another identified the particular plaza or neighborhood within the larger settlement. The 1826 record therefore gives us our most precise geographical location for the Martín–Atencio household.
EARLIEST AND LATEST KNOWN RESIDENTS OF LA CASITA (compiled from Abiquiu Bapts, by David H. Snow)
Jose Agapito Atencio (bapt. 1821), son of Franco Anto and Ma Dolores Martin, residents of La Casita; the same couple gave their residence as El Rito (1844); and of “Plaza de San Antonio”, possibly La Casita (1846); their marriage is not recorded in Abiquiu marr. records. Jose Benedicto Lucero (bapt 1825), son of Juan del Carmen and Ma Rosa Martin, residents of La Casita; El Rito in1823; their marriage is not recorded in Abiquiu marr. records. Jose Ma Martin (bapt.1826), son of Ramon and Romualda Atencio, residents of La Casita, and El Rito, 1823, 1828, and 1832; Romualda’s parents of Plasa San Rafael de Colorada. Ma Luz Gonzales (bapt. 1827), daughter of Jose Vicente and Ma Vicenta Madrid, residents of La Casita; parents not in Abiquiu marr. records. Ma Gertrudis Atencio (bapt. 1828), daughter of Hilario and Ma Paula Torres, residents of La Casita; Tierra Azul (1809), El Rito (1822), and San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito (1832); Maria Paula of Abiquiu; the couple marr. in San Juan Parish Church. Ma Barbara Atencio (bapt. 1828), daughter of Hilario and Ma Paula Torres, residents of La Casita, a burial entry (see previous entry). Juan Nepomuceno Gallegos (bapt. 1828), son of Juan and Juana Angela Vigil, residents of La Casita; couple not in Abiquiu marr. records. Maria Manuela Lara (bapt. 1830), daughter of Maria Manuela Lara, and unknown father, La Casita. Ma Rafael Lopez (bapt. 1828), daughter of Miguel and Ma Manla Mestas, residents of La Casita; San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito 1832, 1840; Miguel Lopez resident of San Miguel de la Puente, 1790. Antonio Jose Padilla (bapt. 1828), son of Alexandro and Ma Manla Lujan, residents of La Casita, in 1828; 1822, Los Salazares. Manl Lorenzo Romero (bapt. 1828), son of Franco Anto and Ma Dolores Lopez, residents of La Casita; 1822, Tierra Azul; 1832, San Juan Nepomuceno del Rito; couple marr in San Jose del Barranco,1791. Ma Salazar (bapt. 1828), daughter of Juan Jose and J ua Ma Trujillo, residents of La Casita; 1830; couple marr 1815, Juana Maria Trujillo of Vallecitos. Franco Anto Valdes (bapt. 1828), son of Jose Franco and Ma Ygna Chaves, residents of La Casita; El Rito 1822, 1823, and 1830; Jose Francisco Valdez, “coyote” of La Puente, 1790. German Vigil (bapt. 1828), son of Juan de la Cruz and Ana Ma Trujillo, residents of La Casita; couple not in Abiquiu marr. records. The last baptisms of children whose parents resided at “la plasa de La Casita” occurred in 1865, as follow: J u Bautista Martin, son of Jose Franco and Ma Felipa Lopez, of La Casita Jesus Ma Martin, son of Teodoro and Serafina Vigil, of La Casita Jose Manl Romero, son of Lorenzo and Ma Concepn Lopez, of La Casita Jose SalustrioTrujillo, son of Anto Abad and Ma Prcediana Martin, of La Casita Ma Agripina Trujillo, daughter of Pedro Anto and Ma Anta Martinez, of La Casita Anto Domingo Vigil, son of Ma Dolores Vigil and unknown father, of La Casita
The most intriguing clue: Romualda’s family
Snow added an unusually valuable note to the 1826 entry:
Romualda’s parents were of “Plasa San Rafael de Colorada.”
The abbreviated extract does not give their names, but it indicates that the underlying baptismal material preserved information about Romualda’s ancestry and that her parents were associated with Plaza San Rafael de Colorada.
Martín and Atencio families were becoming intertwined
Ramón and Romualda are also interesting because their marriage represents part of a pattern we are beginning to see repeatedly in early El Rito.
The Martín and Atencio families were closely interconnected. In the same early La Casita material we already have Francisco Antonio Atencio with María Dolores Martín, while Romualda Atencio married Ramón Martín. María Rosa Martín appears in the Lucero household. These repeated marriages created relationships between families that also lived beside one another, shared irrigation systems and participated in the same parish community.
That makes Ramón and Romualda useful for telling a larger story. Early El Rito was not simply populated by a list of surnames. It was developing into a web of kinship in which Martíns, Atencios, Luceros, Vigils, Trujillos, Valdezes and other families became connected through marriage, baptismal sponsorship and neighboring property.
A Village of Many Families
By the late 1820s the surviving baptismal records reveal a remarkably diverse network of surnames.
At La Casita alone, the records contain families named Atencio, Martín, Lucero, Gonzales, Madrid, Gallegos, Vigil, López, Mestas, Padilla, Luján, Romero, Salazar, Trujillo, Valdez and Chaves.
Marriage connected these households.
Romualda Atencio married into the Martín family. María Rosa Martín became part of the Lucero household. María Dolores Martín appears with Francisco Antonio Atencio. Juana Ángela Vigil appears with Juan Gallegos. María Manuela Mestas appears with Miguel López. Juana María Trujillo appears in the Salazar family.
The result was a village held together not only by geography but by kinship.
A neighbor might also be a cousin, brother-in-law, godparent or compadre. Baptisms created spiritual relationships. Marriages joined family lands. Inheritance divided and recombined property across generations.
El Rito became a web of relationships.
Water Made Settlement Possible
The families could own land, but without water they could not survive on it.
Settlers diverted water from the Rito Colorado into acequias that supplied fields, gardens, orchards and pasture. The acequia was more than an irrigation ditch. It required cooperation.
Landowners with water rights—parciantes—shared responsibility for maintaining the ditch. A mayordomo supervised water distribution and maintenance. Each year families contributed labor to the limpia, clearing sediment, brush and debris so water could again reach their fields.
The ditch therefore helped create the community almost as much as the land itself.
A family upstream could not simply take all the water. Neighbors depended upon one another. Ditches had to cross property boundaries. Headgates had to be maintained. Disputes had to be resolved.
Water turned individual settlers into a village.
The Plazas of El Rito
Early El Rito did not develop as one tightly packed town.
Families settled near their irrigated lands, creating a chain of small neighborhood communities or plazas along the valley. Parish records already identify La Casita as a distinct place by the 1820s. Later historical reconstruction identifies other neighborhood settlements including El Poblazón, Plaza del Medio, Plaza de los Espinozas and Plaza de los Atencios.
The names themselves tell part of the story.
Plaza de los Atencios reflected the concentration of an extended family. Plaza de los Espinozas did the same. La Casita became home to families bearing many different surnames but linked by marriage, religion, water and proximity.
Modern El Rito grew from these smaller family communities.
Faith Bound the Families Together
The growing settlement was some fourteen miles from the established parish at Abiquiú. Eventually the families of El Rito created a church of their own.
Construction of San Juan Nepomuceno began around 1830 and was completed approximately two years later. Its massive adobe walls and traditional northern New Mexican form were products of community labor and local materials.
The church became another place where the village's family networks met.
Children were baptized there.
Couples married there.
The dead were mourned and buried.
Feast days brought neighbors together.
Generation after generation passed through the same religious community.
The surviving baptismal records are now among our best windows into the people who built the village.
Families Who Stayed
The names recorded during El Rito's first decades did not simply disappear.
Throughout the nineteenth century, later records continue to show families named Atencio, Martín, Vigil, Trujillo, Valdez, Jaramillo, Herrera, Chávez, López, Romero and others living, farming, ranching, trading and raising children in and around the village.
Some became merchants.
Some became political leaders.
Some became teachers.
Some became santeros.
Others remained farmers, herders, homemakers and acequia workers whose names rarely appeared in newspapers.
All contributed to El Rito.
By the late nineteenth century, men such as Pedro Jaramillo, Sixto Chávez and Tomás Trujillo were participating in a growing commercial economy. The Herrera family developed traditions of farming, religious carving and craftsmanship. The Jaramillo family would later play an extraordinary role in territorial politics and in bringing the Spanish-American Normal School to El Rito.
Yet those prominent individuals stood on foundations established generations earlier.
More Than Famous Names
The history of a village cannot be told only through its most famous residents.
The people who truly built El Rito were often men and women whose names survive only in a baptismal entry, marriage record, deed, census sheet or handwritten family Bible.
They dug the acequias.
They built adobe houses.
They cleared fields.
They planted crops and orchards.
They tended sheep and cattle.
They raised children.
They cared for elderly parents.
They repaired the church.
They buried their dead.
They shared scarce water.
And when one generation passed, another inherited both the land and the responsibility of maintaining the community.