Elizabeth "Lizzie" Murphy Taaffe (née Elizabeth Yuba Murphy; 1844–1875) was an American rancher and early settler in Santa Clara County, California. She is the first child born of English-speaking parents in the State of California.
Family, and life
Elizabeth Yuba Murphy was born on December 1, 1844, in Placer County, California. She was a middle child born to Martin Murphy Jr. and his wife Mary Bulger Murphy, and was from the Irish Murphy family. She was born during the Stephens–Townsend–Murphy Party migration, and was the first child born of English-speaking parents in California.
When Murphy married San Francisco merchant William Post Taaffe in 1863, her father gave them 2,800 acres (1,100 ha) of his own ranch land, in what is now Los Altos Hills, California. They named the land Taaffe Ranch (it was located where Foothill College is now). The Taffee family had four children, and seven generations of the family have remained in Los Altos Hills.