Hubbard Wilson McKoy and Betsey Ann Newhall came to California in the Gold Rush era. Recently I uncovered the following description of that migration:
Hubbard Wilson McKoy and Betsey Ann Newhall are listed in the index of early California pioneers. Hubbard arrived in California in August of 1850. Betsey followed two years later. I make a practice of continually circling back around to lines that I've researched to see if anything new has surfaced, and this was an instance in which I was rewarded handsomely for my efforts.
When I started, I had no first hand anecdotal history for this family. I was able to unearth Hubbard's obituary, which helped explain their life in Gold Rush California and a subsequent move to the Santa Cruz Mountains. Recently, I found the following account in an old genealogy magazine, "White Family Quarterly," which absolutely thrilled me. The account is not sourced.
This "find" illustrates how important it is to circle back through lines of a tree that you've already thoroughly researched and search again. Google Books (books.google.com) is adding scanned books every minute, so it's worthwhile to do both a Google and a Google Books search periodically for everyone in your tree.
BETSEY Newhall , b. in Kerby(sic), 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 townsmen, 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 generations 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 Aspinwall (now Colon), on the 23d, where they took boats up the river hagres 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 little 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 Acapulco, Mexico, for one day, reached San Francisco, Cal., on June15th, 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
- Norma Cecilia McKoy
