Cathcart, Robert

Robert Cathcart (1806-1856) came to Santa Cruz in 1850, and was an early resident of downtown Santa Cruz. Cathcart's widow Hannah died in 1865 (1816-1865), so 1866 property owner listings name his children John (age 21) and Sophia (age 17) as owners of the estate, over nine acres between Pacific Avenue and the river, whose northern border has been marked since the 1880s by today's Cathcart Street. Riptide asserts that the residence was abandoned as early as 1868 after his widow and three resident children died of tuberculosis, and that the empty house was claimed by Lyman Swan. Other surviving children had moved out and were apparently unaware that the Swan family had moved in. John died in 1869 and Sophia in 1875, but the land title apparently remained in the name of the deceased Hannah until it was sold by court order in the early 1890s. Lyman Swan apparently acquired at least the part of the land containing the residence, and Mrs. Swan lived there until her death in 1905.