Yolo County Pioneers

Mary Ann Grayson, Moore’s Ditch, and Domestic Laundry

Five Generations of Pioneers

Our Grayson patriarchs were Virginia pioneers, leaving the relative safety of the established British settlements on the Northern Neck to establish the port towns of Dumfries and Colchester by the mid-1700s. Their children were revolutionary patriots, awarded western bounty land for their service. Their grandchildren claimed this land across the Appalachians, and are numbered among Kentucky’s early pioneers. Their great-grandchildren included George W. Grayson (family reference #322, 1803-1887), born in a log cabin along the Ohio River, abandoned by his father, and scratching out a living for himself and his bride Sally Ellington (1802-1888) in the Kentucky wilderness. With four children in tow and a fifth in utero, the family headed west in 1837 to become pioneer landowners in Platte County, Missouri, located about 30 miles east of the recently established Fort Leavenworth. Some of those children, eventually even Sally herself, continued the westward migration.

California Settlement

Fray Junipero Serra founded a number of Franciscan missions among the native peoples of Alta California in the late 1700s. Ranchos were established around and beyond these missions on land grants from Spain and then Mexico beginning in 1784, settlement by Mexican and intermarried families soon following. California was ceded to the United States in 1848, with publicity from the discovery of gold in the Sacramento River Valley that very year resulting in a flood of American prospectors.

Yolo County Pioneers

Mary Ann Grayson (3221, 1825-1897) was born in Lawrence County, Kentucky, the oldest child of George and Sally Grayson. In 1841 Mary wed Missouri farmer James Moore, a Pennsylvania native. The October 1850 census shows Mary, James, and their five children living in a dwelling adjacent to George, Sally, and eight of Mary’s siblings in Preston Township, Missouri.

James Moore left his young family to lead a party of men to California by way of Santa Fe and Tuscon, presumably in the spring of 1851, though one source claims 1849. He worked the gold mines in Mariposa for a few months, then settled into the stock business in Sacramento. Encouraged by his prospects, James returned to Missouri in 1852 to bring Mary, the children, and thousands of sheep to Sacramento.¹

Moore’s Ditch

The family farmed in Brighton (now East Sacramento) before purchasing property in nearby Yolo County along Cache Creek in 1854. James acquired land and, most importantly, water rights to Cache Creek from William Gordon, the Ranchero who held the larger Mexican land grant. James dammed and redirected the creek to power flour mills and to irrigate adjacent farmland, the shunted channels considered among the earliest irrigation diversions in California. Known as Woodland Ditch or Moore’s Ditch, the family grew wealthy through control of these water rights and from stock raising.²

Wills and Probate

The Moore estate was worth $200,000 when James died in 1884. His will is detailed, his property equitably distributed to his wife and children. Three years later his 62-year-old widow Mary wed 28-year-old James Black. Mary’s 1895 last will and testament is succinct, naming four living children and three grandchildren from a deceased daughter. All were effectively disinherited, a 26-year-old grandson being named executor and primary heir. The will was front page news in the local paper, reproduced in full with neutral commentary which indicated the estate was relatively small, Mary having previously deeded her homestead to her second husband and assigned some stock to a granddaughter. Moore Ditch and its proceeds were not part of the estate, being held in trust for two grandsons, one incidentally Mary’s executor.³

Mary’s Yolo County superior court probate records have been preserved, nearly 500 pages of court filings, instructions, and testimony rife with allegations of fraud, force, undue influence, greed, ill will, neglect, and arguments of incompetency. Within we read about family grudges, rifts, and intrigues – a public airing of domestic laundry.⁴

An Eventful Life

No such drama is found in Mary’s obituary. It gives the circumstances of her illness and death, outlining her Kentucky and Platte County roots while naming her parents, children, and their spouses. The article honors her first husband while crediting Mary’s character. It concludes:

“[In 1854] the family removed to Yolo county locating on what afterwards was known as the Moore Garden, near Cache creek. ln 1861 they removed to the old Moore homestead, six miles south-west of Woodland, where Moore died on the 15th of April, 1884.
Mrs. Moore continued to manage successfully the extensive business of her husband… James Moore was a history-maker in Yolo county. He was a man of great energy and indefatigable industry…, and in all things he had the active support and influence of his wife. Perhaps no woman had more influence in shaping events in Yolo county from 1855 to 1884 than the deceased. Certainly no woman was better known. Her life was an eventful one and would make an interesting volume. In many respects she shared the characteristics of her first husband, whose rugged honesty and firmness of character made him one of the most conspicuous characters in the county. She was a public-spirited woman and a good neighbor, and a kindhearted friend. Her death will be deeply regretted by a wide circle of friends.^“5

¹ “Death of a Pioneer of Sacramento and Yolo,” Sacramento Daily Union, April 18, 1884, pg. 4

² Cache Creek Streamway Study, Yolo County Community Development Agency, October 1995. Section 3.4

³ “Mrs. Black’s Will,” Woodland Daily Democrat, October 15, 1897 pg. 1

⁴ “Estate of Mary A. Moore, Deceased,” California, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1850-1953, Case Files, No 740-752, 1897-1899 via Ancestry.com

⁵ “An Old Resident,” Woodland (CA) Daily Democrat, October 12, 1897 pg. 1