I don't have the whole story yet, but will soon, from a 1984 issue of Shasta Hist Soc "Covered Wagon". I have remarked often that either Shasta, the 49ers, or something in Northern waters produced several generations of women prepared to go "nose to nose" with business, men, and the world in general, gender be darned! But I was wrong: it was 1852, the "Sole trader Legislative act" allowing wives to own property as "sole owners", contrary to "community property" laws. Up until 1852 there was the requirement that "sole trader status" be published in the paper, and many wives of Shasta did. Elizabeth Moody was one, who then died in 1855, and her estate was the first womans probate on record. Her husband had no right to dispose of her "interests" prior to the probate, after which he was able to sell an "undivided half interest" in a mine to my GG-uncle William Parker. Did California lead the nation into equal rights? I think maybe so. (news at 11) --JD