Susan C. Haile was born on December 20, 1817, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the youngest child of Joseph and Prudence (Bledsoe) Seawell of Sumner County, Tennessee. After Joseph died in 1819, Prudence returned with her seven children to Sumner County, where Susan grew up near Gallatin. On November 17, 1836, Susan married Richard C. Haile of Smith County, Tennessee. In 1840 the Hailes and their first two children moved to Lafayette County, Missouri, where Richard worked as a teacher, bookkeeper, and clerk. Richard joined the California gold rush in 1849 and returned to Missouri in 1851 for his wife and children. In the spring of 1852 the family set out across the plains to California with six children, Susan’s sister Martha, her brother John Seawell and his family, several wagons, and one hundred head of cattle. On June 2, 1852, Susan C. Haile died of cholera while the family was camped within sight of the Platte River. Family legend holds that Richard returned to the settlements on horseback and obtained a marble headstone for her grave, a story that may explain why the grave survived. Its existence was confirmed by traveler William Woodhams, who arrived on May 10, 1854, and recorded seeing a grave on a little sandhill marked by a nice marble headstone with a woman’s name on it. The wagon train continued without Richard, while Martha Seawell took charge of the Haile children, and Richard may have rejoined the slow-moving party before it reached California. Richard and the children settled in Napa County, where he farmed and worked in lumbering with John Seawell. In 1853 he married the widowed Susan (Clayton) Sears of Kentucky, and they had four children. The family later moved to Solano County after Richard bought a five hundred acre farm a few miles north of Fairfield, and he served three terms in the California legislature representing Napa and then Solano counties. Richard C. Haile died on January 13, 1890.