How did Eshom Valley get its name?

John Perry Eshom was a North Carolina man of scottish descent. He served in the Mexican War and served with one of the regiments which came to California. Later, he apparently crossed Mexico and came to San Francisco by ship, arriving there on Christmas Day, 1849. He was a charter member of the first Masonic lodge of San Francisco.

He mined in Mariposa County where he met and married Nancy Phillips, a spirited girl who had crossed the plains with her brother during the Gold Rush.

After the marriage, they homesteaded in Eshom Valley where Eshom raised sheep in preference to cattle. Encroachment of "sandlappers" on his range led him to sell out during the late 1870's and move to Big Bear in San Bernardino County, where he pioneered all over again. He later moved to San Diego, where he died.

John Eshom used to take dried fruit and other produce from his Eshom Valley ranch across the mountains to Virginia City.

Children of John and Nancy Eshom were O.A. (Dick) Will, Frank and John all of whom went to Mohave County in Arizona and became ranchers. The two daughters, Kate, married a man named Lyall and remained in California, and Mary Jane. Mary Jane went to Kingman, Arizona, prior to 1900 and ran the first hotel-boarding house, the Harrington House. A widow, she later married John Sweeney.