It was while growing up in the small town of St. Helena, in the middle of California’s Napa Valley, that I first heard the name, George C. Yount. In our local history classes, we were told Young was the first non-Native American to settle in the valley and, later, the town of Yountville was named after him.
Later, I discovered he was a famous mountain man, guide and fur trapper who had joined an expedition led by William Wolfskill that, in 1830, had traveled from Santa Fe, New Mexico to the Mission San Gabriel in Southern California—a route that became part of the Old Spanish Trail and later, the Santa Fe Trail.
During its travels, the group decided to follow the Virgin and Colorado rivers, then continuing west along the Mojave River. This route, however, had them only touch parts of the territory that would eventually become the state of Nevada.
After the group arrived in California, it splintered, with Yount heading north. Along the way, he trapped sea otters on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, and traveled up the California coast to Sonoma.
It was there, in 1834, that he encountered General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the governor of Northern California. He offered his services as a carpenter to the general and in return Vallejo gave him the first land grant in the Napa Valley. He established a homestead, which he named Ranch Caymus.
In the years after receiving the grant, Yount built a blockhouse in which to live and a grist mill. A few years later, in 1843, he received a second land grant, Rancho La Jota, on Howell Mountain north of Rancho Caymus, where he built a sawmill. With that grant, Yount owned a total of 16,341 acres in the Napa Valley.
In 1855, Yount, who was famous for his hospitality to new settlers to the area, set aside land on which to establish a townsite, which was named Sebastopol, until it was discovered that another community in Sonoma County was already using that name. The town was later renamed Yountville in his honor.
Yount was born in Burke County, North Carolina in 1794, but grew up in Missouri. He fought in the War of 1812 and in the Indian Wars, before embarking on the life of a mountain man. In 1818, Yount married Elizabeth (Eliza) Wilds, with whom he would have three children.
The union was short-lived, however, with Yount more-or-less abandoning his family after deciding to pursue the life of a mountain man. She divorced him and later remarried.
In 1855, Yount married a second time, to another woman named Elizabeth, and also called Eliza. By all accounts, Eliza was a shrewd businesswoman who helped her husband with legal matters, including fighting the many squatters who sought to homestead on his land.
In October 1865, George Yount died in his home at the age of 71.
It was with such knowledge in mind that I recently sought to find Yount’s final resting place. For years, I had driven around Yountville, seeing the signs for his grave, but never bothered to visit it.
So, I followed the signs this time, which led me to the aptly-named George C. Yount Pioneer Cemetery and Ancient Indian Burial Grounds. Established in 1848 as a native burial-grounds, the cemetery at Jackson Street and Washington Street in Yountville is a peaceful cluster of new and old headstones monuments commemorating many of the area’s pioneer citizens. Adjacent is a large vineyard that spreads over a small hill.
Yount’s grave is easy to find—again just follow the signs. It’s an impressive white marble obelisk on a carved base, surrounded by an elegant short, wrought-iron fence. Additionally, as you walk through the cemetery, which has some 949 graves, including members of the Wappo tribe, which predates Yount’s arrival, and Civil War veterans.
For more information, go to the Napa County Historical Society’s page on Yount, https://napahistory.org/george-yount/.
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