Agoston Haraszthy (; Hungarian: Haraszthy Ágoston, Spanish: Agustín Haraszthy; August 30, 1812 – July 6, 1869) was a Hungarian American nobleman, adventurer, traveler, writer, town-builder, and pioneer winemaker in Wisconsin and California, often referred to as the "Father of California Wine", alongside Junípero Serra, as well as the "Father of California Viticulture," or the "Father of Modern Winemaking in California". One of the first men to plant vineyards in Wisconsin, he was the founder of the Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma, California, and an early writer on California wine and viticulture.
He was the first Hungarian to settle permanently in the United States and only the second to write a book about the country in his native language. He is remembered in Wisconsin as the founder of the oldest incorporated village in the state. In San Diego, he is remembered as the first town marshal and the first county sheriff. In California he introduced more than three hundred varieties of European grapes.
Haraszthy was born in 1812, in Pest, Hungary. He was the only child of Károly Haraszthy and his wife, Anna Mária (née Fischer). It had been previously claimed that he was born in Futak, Hungary, but that was disproved in 1995.
The Haraszthys were a Hungarian noble family who traced their roots to Ung county in northeastern Hungary, now part of Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine. Agoston Haraszthy belonged to the Mokcsai branch of the Haraszthy family, signifying that at one time or another his ancestors owned estates at places called Mokcsa and Haraszth (today villages in Slovakia: Krišovská Liesková, Chrasť nad Hornádom). In Hungary, he was formally known as Mokcsai Haraszthy Ágoston. (In Hungary, family names are written first and given names last. See Hungarian names.) The name has sometimes been written as Agoston Haraszthy de Mokcsa. This is the Latin form of the name, which was used in official government business and in Catholic Church records in Hungary. In the United States, Haraszthy was known as Agoston Haraszthy.
As a Hungarian nobleman, Haraszthy was entitled to be addressed as Spectabilis Dominus (in Latin) or Tekintetes Úr (in Hungarian). These titles were the equivalent of Honorable Sir or Noble Lord in English. When he lived in Wisconsin in the 1840s, the local settlers, mostly German-speaking immigrants, called him "Count" Haraszthy, although he was never addressed by that title in Hungary, California, or Nicaragua. In California, he was addressed as "Colonel" Haraszthy, an honorary designation commonly given to distinguished "gentlemen" and vaguely derived from his military service in Hungary.
Both Ágoston and Károly Haraszthy owned estates in a part of southern Hungary called the Bácska, now a part of Serbia. Ágoston's father-in-law was Ferenc Dedinszky, the superintendent of a large estate at Futak on the Danube River where, among other things, vines were cultivated and wine was produced. Both of the Haraszthys were engaged in the wine business in and around Futak.
On January 6, 1833, Ágoston Haraszthy married Eleonóra Dedinszky in Bács-Bodrog County, Hungary. The Dedinszkys were originally a Polish family, though they had lived in Hungary for many centuries and in 1272 were accepted into the Hungarian nobility. Ágoston and Eleonóra Haraszthy were the parents of six children: Géza, Attila, Árpád, Ida (later wife of lawyer Henry Hancock who owned Rancho La Brea), Béla, and Otélia.
Traveling with a maternal cousin named Károly Fischer, Haraszthy left Hungary for the United States in March 1840. Moving through Austria, Germany, and England, Haraszthy and his cousin crossed the Atlantic to New York, then proceeded by way of the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, and the Great Lakes to Wisconsin, eventually settling there. In Haraszthy's own words, he came to America "for one reason only–namely, to see this blessed country for myself."
Haraszthy was a writer in his native Hungarian, in German (which he spoke from birth as his mother descended from a German family of Old Buda/Altofen), and later in English. When he returned to Hungary in 1842, he made arrangements to write a Hungarian-language book about the United States. He traveled widely through the United States to gather material for the book, which praised American life and enterprise. The two-volume book was published at Pest in 1844 under the title of Utazás Éjszakamerikában (Travels in North America). A second edition was published in 1850. This was the second book about the United States to be published in Hungarian.
In Wisconsin, Haraszthy and his cousin attempted to settle on some land at Lake Koshkonong. This effort was unsuccessful, however, so they went on to the Sauk Prairie, on the Wisconsin River northwest of Madison. There Haraszthy purchased a large tract of property on the west bank of the river and laid out a town. First called Széptáj (Hungarian for "beautiful place"), later Haraszthy (or Haraszthyville or Haraszthopolis), the town was renamed Westfield and finally Sauk City after Haraszthy left for California in 1849. In 1842, Haraszthy returned to Hungary to bring his parents, wife and children to Wisconsin as permanent residents of the United States. The Haraszthys became United States citizens and never returned to Hungary.
Haraszthy formed a partnership with an Englishman named Robert Bryant and threw himself into a myriad of ambitious projects. Besides the town that he laid out, he built mills, raised corn and other grains, and kept sheep, pigs, and horses. He kept a store and opened a brickyard. Many of the oldest houses still standing in Sauk City were built with bricks from Haraszthy’s brickyard. He owned and operated a steamboat that carried passengers and freight on the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers. He donated land on which the first Roman Catholic church and school in Sauk City were built.
On the east side of the Wisconsin River, in what became the Town of Roxbury, Haraszthy planted grapes and dug wine cellars into hillside slopes above the river. The cellars and slopes are today home to the Lake Wisconsin AVA and the Wollersheim Winery, the second oldest winery in the United States, after the Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville, New York in one of Wisconsin's best-known wine producing regions. Haraszthy, a legendary hunter, built a hunting lodge opposite his home, on a bluff in Roxbury overlooking the river. He also donated 100 acres (40 ha) of land in the town for the founding of a church and for sale at cost to immigrants.
Haraszthy established a ferry that crossed the river, connecting Roxbury with Sauk City. Although he obtained the approval of the Wisconsin Legislature to build a bridge across the river, it was not built, for before he could get the project under way he left Wisconsin for California.
Like many others, Haraszthy was excited by news of the discovery of gold in California in 1848, and by the end of that year he completed plans to leave Wisconsin. Early in 1849, he was elected captain of a train of wagons destined for California via the Santa Fe Trail. Although most California-bound travelers were lured westward by dreams of gold, Haraszthy said that he was going to California "to settle, not for the gold", and that he intended to plant a vineyard near San Diego. Traveling with his entire family, he left Wisconsin in March 1849 and arrived in San Diego the following December.
In San Diego, he formed a partnership with Juan Bandini, a prominent Spanish-Californian, and launched a host of business and agricultural projects. He planted fruit orchards, operated a livery stable and stagecoach line, opened a butcher shop, and organized a syndicate to subdivide a large section of the San Diego Bay shore into streets, parks, and building lots. The land lay between Old Town and New San Diego and was called Middle San Diego, or Middletown. It was informally known in San Diego as “Haraszthyville”. While in San Diego, Haraszthy imported grape vines by mail. Some came from the eastern United States, others from Europe. He planted a vineyard on a tract of land near the San Diego River. On April 1, 1850, in the first election held under the new American administration of California, Haraszthy was elected sheriff of San Diego County. He also served as city marshal. In his capacity as a private contractor, he built a jail for the city of San Diego, which was completed in 1851.