April, 26, 1819 – November 16, 1893
Moses David Bush was born on a farm beside the Hudson River in Ulster County, New York. When but nine years of age he was orphaned and became self-supporting, working on a farm, where he grew up, and experiencing many hardships which fitted him for his subsequent career as a pioneer. While young he went to the shores of Lake Michigan where Chicago and conducted a boarding house, becoming the owner of a tract of a hundred and sixty acres upon which the house stood.
Bush was married to Emily E. Randall, March 7, 1843, in Boone county, Illinois. He went to Allamakee county, Iowa, where he engaged in farming and practiced surveying, assisting in running the boundary line between Minnesota and Iowa. In 1861 he brought his family to California by ox team on the overland route and, locating at San Jose, operated a small foundry there for about three years. He then sold it and later came to Kings county, around 1867, where he took up land that is now part of the site of Lemoore. This was a quarter-section, and when he settled here there was but one house between his and Visalia. He later sold the ranch to Dr. Lovern Lee Moore.
When Bush came to Kings county it was sparsely settled, there being only about twenty-five people living there, among them being Daniel Rhoads, Justin and Jonathan Esrey, who were following stock raising. Geese and ducks were plentiful, and at one time he and his son were able to take eighteen hundred to Gilroy, where they sold at $1.15 per pound. They also operated a ferry boat across the lake, a distance of seven miles. He and a few others originated the first ditch hereabouts, taking water from Kings river, and he was one of the promoters of the Lower Kings River Ditch Co. and helped to dig its ditch with his own hands, taking in payment for his labor with stock in that public utility.
In 1879 Bush moved to a tract of four hundred acres, four miles south of Hanford in the Lakeside District, thus becoming a pioneer farmer and dairyman in the Lakeside district. In 1884 he sold his farm and took up his residence in Hanford, where he died November 16, 1893, aged seventy-six. He is buried in the Hanford Cemetery.
Emily Bush died on July 11, 1913 and is buried in the Hanford Cemetery in the family plot.