Nancy Gooch was an early African-American settler in California and one of the state's most successful 19th-century black female landowners. Gooch gained her freedom when her master moved her and her husband, Peter Gooch, to California from Missouri, where she began to save up money she eventually put into owning land.
Nancy Gooch was born a free person in Maryland in 1811. Later on, she became a slave when she moved to Missouri. After working in the fields for a few years in Missouri, Gooch, alongside her husband Peter, were moved to California by their master, William Gooch. However, left behind was Gooch's three-year-old son Andrew, who later on was purchased by a family in Missouri called the Monroe's. Once the Gooch's got to California and gained their freedom, Nancy began to do laundry and other domestic chores for the miners in California. She also lived in a small shack that barely cost her any money, this way, she could begin to gather up enough money to buy her son's freedom. Throughout their entire journey, both Nancy and Peter had one thing in mind, and that was to get their son to California. Peter died in 1861. But, Nancy kept working, and while by the time she had amassed the seven hundred dollars, slavery had been abolished, she was still able to pay for her sons' family to move to California in 1868, and continue to grow the land she had bought with her husband.
Nancy Gooch was one of the first African-American women to succeed in California. Gooch and her husband got to Coloma, California, in 1849, and by 1850 began working at the gold-mining location. While doing domestic chores for the miners, the couple earned enough money to buy 80 acres of land in 1858, a year after they were wed. Eventually, these 80 acres grew into 320 acres, including land at the gold discovery site at Sutter's Mill. The couple also had a good relationship with someone else who worked at Sutter's Mill, James Marshall. Marshall is credited with reporting the finding of gold in California in 1848. California took some of the Monroe's landholdings from Andrew Monroe's son, which included the original site of Sutter's Mill and the site of Marshall's gold discovery. That land is now the foundation of the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, and the entire Monroe/Gooch family is buried in the park's pioneer cemetery.
