In 1739 the Catheys immigrated from Clones, Ireland to America, and Andrew D. Cathey, a native of North Carolina, his wife Mary Mariah Deaver, and their seven children became the first settlers of Cathey’s Valley, where their eighth son John was believed to be the first white baby born in the valley. In 1849, during the gold rush, Andrew, age 45, his son Daniel, and son-in-law Benjamin Wills made their first trek west to the mine fields. In 1851 Andrew returned to Arkansas, formed an oxen-drawn train of 30 wagons and 32 head of livestock, and in April 1852, chosen captain, led the party west from Benton, Arkansas. Along the southern route they ferried the Colorado River by disassembling their wagons and building rafts, witnessed the aftermath of the Oatman Massacre, and arrived in Indian Gulch in October 1852. The family lived in tents on Burns Creek near Indian Gulch, where they mined and sold milk to miners. About 1854 Andrew purchased the Evans and Hill Louisiana Ranch, known as Vallecita, meaning Little Valley, and his sons and son-in-law Wills became large landholders in the area; through farming and livestock raising, the place became known as Cathey’s Valley. The Catheys donated land for the Methodist Episcopal Church South, established in 1856, for the cemetery established in 1858, and for the schoolhouse in 1879. Beginning in 1875, annual two-week arbor camp meetings were held on the Wills Campground under oak trees near Owens Creek, drawing families in wagons from Plainsburg, Le Grand, and surrounding areas; Chinese cooks prepared meals, and the gatherings gave young people a chance to meet and court. When Daniel Wills and son Alex, two of the family’s former black slaves, were freed, they walked to California and said, “We have come to be with our people.” In earlier years the Miwuk Indians spent their winters in the valley, and different tribes journeyed to the Pacific Coast to trade; bedrock mortars, stone pestles, obsidian arrowheads, and colored beads have been found there. During the Mariposa Indian War of 1850-1851, a garrison of Mariposa Battalion soldiers awaiting orders was stationed at the stone fort on Mariposa Creek at the southern end of Bull Run Canyon. Twelve quartz veins lay in the valley, some miners used arrastras to crush ore, and in the early 1900s Artie and Virgil Givens operated a stamp mill on Owens Creek. Cathey’s Valley was known to miners for its fruits and grain, and miners enjoyed bull, bear, and cock fights. In the 1860s Chinese laborers earned twenty-five cents per rod, sixteen feet, to build native rock fence boundaries that still crisscross the hillsides. About 1870 other settlers came to farm from the Azores and mainland Europe. The Cathey’s Valley Post Office was established in 1879 with Emma Wills as first postmaster; before then, mail came around the Horn by boat to Stockton, California, then by stagecoach or freight wagons to the mines. By 1882 the post office name was erroneously changed to Cathay until 1964, when citizens petitioned to restore Cathey’s Valley. In 1880 an International Organization of Good Templars lodge was formed, in 1883 there was a Dickerson Store, and in the early 1900s a small group of citizens published the Cathey Cackler newspaper. Before the community hall was built, most social and political events took place in homes or the schoolhouse. Cathey Mountain lies 3 miles north, and Cathey Pond is near Indian Gulch.