Michael C. Nye was a 19th-century landowner in Marysville and the brother-in-law of Mary Murphy Covillaud, for whom Marysville was named. Nye Court in Plumas Lake is named for him.

Michael C. Nye came to California with the Bidwell-Bartleson Party of 1841 and worked as the majordomo on Theodor Cordua's ranch. In June 1847, he married Harriet Frances Murphy Pike Nye, a 19-year-old widow who had just arrived with the Donner Party that past winter, having lost her first husband and the younger of her two daughters during the trip. Harriet would later bear Michael at least one child, Harry, who died in 1854, shortly before what would have been his second birthday. The couple's only surviving child was Nye's stepchild, Naomi, from Harriet's first marriage.

In 1849, Nye and his brother-in-law William McFadden Foster bought half of Theodor Cordua's ranch, while their brother-in-law Charles Julian Covillaud bought the other half. Foster and Nye soon sold their half to Covillaud, who reunited it as a single ranch and later the same year sold most of it to José Manuel Ramirez, John Sampson, and Theodore Sicard. Nye also bought and sold various other properties throughout the area at around the same time, including land in the area of what is now Hammonton, which Nye sold to John Rose, who laid out the original town of Linda there in 1850.

During the Gold Rush, Nye also joined his brother-in-law William Foster in mining for gold east of Marysville. However, his main interests were raising and selling farm animals. He established a livery stable in Marysville.

The Nyes lived in Marysville until Naomi married and moved to Oregon; they then moved to Oregon also, in the 1860s. Harriet died in 1870 and was buried in Marysville. Nye spent the rest of his life in Oregon. He died in 1905.