Rancho Johnson
Rancho Johnson (or Johnson's Rancho) was a 22,197-acre (89.83 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Yuba County, California, given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Pablo Gutiérrez. The grant was located along the north side of Bear River, and encompassed present-day Wheatland.
In 1844, Pablo Gutiérrez (died 1845), a Mexican who had worked for John Sutter since Sante Fe, was awarded the five square league land grant. As required, Gutiérrez built an adobe house (at the place afterwards called Johnson's Crossing). Gutiérrez was killed in 1845, and his property sold at auction by Sutter, as magistrate of the region, to William Johnson and his partner Sebastian Keyser (Kayser). Johnson took the east half of the grant, and Keyser the west. In 1846, they built an adobe house a short distance below Johnson's Crossing. Johnson’s Rancho, as it came to be called, was the last stop on the California Trail to Sutter's Fort. Seven members of the ill-fated Donner Party staggered into this ranch in 1847, seeking help for those left in the snowbound Sierra Nevada Mountains.
William Johnson (d.1863) was an English sailor out of Boston who for several years previous to this purchase, had traded between Hawaii and San Francisco. In 1847, Johnson married Mary Murphy (1831–1867), a survivor of the Donner Party, but they were soon divorced. In 1848 Mary married Charles Covillaud, owner of nearby Rancho Honcut, who named Marysville for her. In 1849 Johnson sold his share in the ranch to James Kyle, Jonathan B. Truesdale, James Emory, and William Cleveland, and went to Hawaii. Truesdale sold his interest to Cleveland, Kyle, and James Imbrie, who then sold to Eugene Gillespie and Henry E. Robinson.
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