Nancy Ann Allen was born November 14, 1832, in Gentry County, Missouri, the oldest of four children of Robert and Marian (Crawford) Ready, Kentucky natives who had married in 1826. By 1850, she and her sister Elenor had married brothers Joel R. Allen and William C. Allen and were living in the same Gentry County household. In 1857, the young couples joined the senior Allen family and related Martin and Parman families in an overland move to California, a company of 42 people traveling with twelve ox-drawn wagons, many saddle horses, and nearly 400 head of loose stock. Jesse Martin served as captain, with Will Allen as his close advisor. Along the way the company was plagued with sickness: Martha Ann Parman died on May 25, William C. Allen, Jr. died on September 5, and Nancy Ann Allen, wife of Joel, died of what was said to be mountain fever on September 29 and was buried here before reaching age twenty-five. The company continued to Shasta City, California, arriving on October 12. Afterward the families dispersed: the Martins settled in Thurston County, Washington, the Parmans in Modoc County, California, and Joel Allen eventually moved to Oregon, where he never remarried and raised alone his two children with Nancy Ann, Miriam and Cortes.