Lawson McKern
Homesteaded 160 acres on the bank of the Nacimiento River, 12 miles west of Jolon, in the early 1890s, and built a cabin there. He was killed when a runaway team dragged a sharp-toothed harrow over him. The place kept his name long after him: it passed to Reil Dani and then to Ed Sans, was sold to Hearst, and lies today within Fort Hunter Liggett. Byron and Martha Plaskett named a son Lawson McKern Plaskett in 1883, which places the two families in contact before the homestead was ever filed. His name survives on the land: a sign reading “McKerns Road, Locked Gate 2” still stands at the top of South Coast Ridge Road, where Nacimiento-Fergusson Road crosses the summit.
mabel article
Nacimiento Homesteaders Picked Real “Beauty Spot”
Up the Nacimiento from the old McKern place, the homesteaders of the 1890s picked the prettiest valley in the Lucias.
- residence 1890 · McKern place — Homesteaded 160 acres and built a cabin on the Nacimiento River
- death · McKern place — Killed by a runaway team dragging a sharp-toothed harrow over him