How the McKoys Came to California

Hubbard Wilson McKoy and Betsey Ann Newhall are listed in the index of early California pioneers -- those who moved to California prior to 1850. Descendants are eligible for membership in the Native Daughters of the Golden West and the Society of California Pioneers.

I ran across the following account in "White Family Quarterly," a genealogical magazine. It is not sourced. And I am not making up the name of the journal.

BETSEY Newhall 8 (50), b. in Kerby, Vt., Sept. 29, 1822; m.
July 25, 1841, Hubbard Wilson McKoy, b. in Lunenburg, Vt.,
Feb. 24, 1819. They lived for a time in Kirby, then moved to
Wisconsin, settling in Oconomowoc, Wis., where they remained
until April 4th, 1850, when Mr. McKoy, with five of his towns-
men, started with four horses and a wagon, on each side of which
was the name of their destination, "California".

They drove to Galena, went down the Mississippi river to Hannibal, Mo.,
then across the state to Council Bluffs. There fitted out for the
long trip over rivers, plains, mountains and deserts, arriving in
"Hangtown" (now Placerville), Cal., Aug. 4th. 1850, with two
horses, having left the wagon on the Humbolt Desert in Nevada.
The men reaching there in safety, having no trouble from Indians,
or wild animals, but we will leave the present and coming gene-
rations to imagine the hardships they had endured, and were still
to endure, being as they were among the very earliest arrivals in
that new, unbroken country.

Two years later, May 11, 1852, Mrs. McKoy, with her son ten years old
and a daughter less than four, left Milwaukee, Wis., going from there to Chicago,
where she took a steamer to St. Joseph, Mich., from there by the
Michigan Central Railroad to Detroit, Mich., thence by steamer
to Dunkirk, N. Y., taking train there for New York City, leaving
New York on the "America," May 1 5th, and arriving at Aspin-
wall (now Colon), on the 23d, where they took boats up the river
Chagres to Cruces, the natives as propellers, with poles pushing
the two boats, tied up one night at Cruces, then took mules for
Panama, her son riding one, and she on another carrying her lit-
tle girl.

Leaving Cruces at ten in the morning and reaching
Panama at nine in the evening, they left Panama on the evening
of May 29th on the steamer "Winfield Scott," stopping at Aca-
pulco, Mexico, for one day, reached San Francisco, Cal., on June
15th, she then went to Sacramento, where her husband met her
and they went on to their home in Georgetown, El Dorado County,
where they lived, or near there, for sixteen years. Mr. McKoy
was engaged in hotel and lumber business until late in life, then
a dealer in merchandise.

Having lived in Eldorado county until 1868, they moved to
Santa Cruz county, where he died in Felton, Aug. 22, 1895.
Mrs. McKoy is living with her children in San Jose, Cal. Children:

Gaudencio Hubbard McKoy

Lillian Betsey McKoy

Sierra Nevada McKoy

Annie Lettice McKoy (your gr-gr-grandmother)

Norma Cecilia McKoy