The Hiram Morgan Hill house was built in 1886 for Morgan Hill and his wife, Diana.[2] The site also includes the Morgan Hill Museum is in a farmhouse built in 1911 by John Acton.[3]
Hill was from Missouri; his wife Diana was an heiress. The house was built on land inherited by Diana from her father, Daniel Murphy.[2] Her Irish-born grandfather had emigrated to Canada penniless and acquired land grants in California.[2]
With the Hill couple separated, Hiram became a cattle rancher in Nevada, and Diana became a socialite in Washington, D.C.[4] Their daughter, also named Diana, married Baron Hardouin Reinhach-Werth in 1911 and died by suicide in 1912.[4] The father died in 1913.[4] The mother emigrated to England and married Sir George Rhodes. She became known as Lady Diana Helen Murphy Hill Rhodes, and she died in Cannes in 1937.[4] She was buried in the Santa Clara Cemetery with the rest of her family.[5]
