José Noriega arrived in California in 1834 and received the between three and four square leagues Los Méganos grant in 1835. John Marsh bought the rancho from Jose Noriega in 1837.[3] From that time Los Méganos was also known as the Marsh Ranch. In 1851, Marsh married Abbie Tuck, and in 1854 started on a new house (the stone house).[4] But Abbie Marsh died in 1855, before the house was finished, leaving Marsh and their young daughter Alice. John Marsh was murdered in 1856 by disgruntled employees who felt that he had cheated them out of their wages.[5][6][7]
Alice Marsh married William Walker Camron in 1871. The couple later lived in Oakland in the Camron-Stanford House, originally erected by Dr. Samuel Merritt on the southwest shore of Lake Merritt.[11][12] In 1871 son, Charles P. Marsh, mortgaged the rancho and lost it to the Savings and Loan Society (of San Francisco), who sold the property to James T. Sanford of New York.[13] In 1878, the Savings and Loan Society foreclosed on Sanford and held the rancho until 1900, when the Balfour Guthrie Investment company purchased the rancho.[14]
^Ogden Hoffman, 1862, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Numa Hubert, San Francisco