Butte County
Biographies
JOHN BIDWELL
Archetypical
of these pioneers was John Bidwell who organized the Bidwell-Bartleson Company, first American immigrant outfit to reach
California.
Born in
Ripley, Chautauqua County, New York, August 5, 1819, Bidwell began to move
westward in leisurely stages at the age of ten, when he accompanied his parents
first to Pennsylvania, and from there to Ohio.
At the age of seventeen, he walked three hundred miles across Ohio
through slush and snow from Darke to Ashtabula County
to attend Kingsville Academy. He was
appointed principal of this academy only a year later, and might have continued
so indefinitely had it not been for his desire to see the West. By June, 1839, after a brief sojourn in Iowa,
he was teaching school not far from Weston, in Platte County, Missouri. Here he accumulated a little money and filed
claim to a piece of land, intending to settle upon it. But, on returning from a business trip to St.
Louis, in the summer of 1840, he found that a squatter had jumped his claim,
and there was little he could do about it.
Among other things, the law of Missouri specifically stated that a man
must be twenty-one years of age to claim land, and he was only twenty. As a matter of expediency, Bidwell continued
to teach school, but made up his mind to move elsewhere as soon as
practicable. That fall, not long after
his experience with the squatter, he happened to hear Louis Robidoux,
a Santa Fe trapper who had just returned from the far West with some wonderful
tales of a place called California, a land of perpetual spring. He questioned Robidoux
closely on California, particularly asking if it had any “fever and ague”, the
scourge of the Missourians. He was told
that there had been only one case of it in the whole history of the department
and its victim aroused so much curiosity that people came from eighteen miles
around to watch him shake. That
“clinched the deal” for Bidwell who soon set about organizing a “great westward
Emigration Society” to start for California the following spring.
The organization
of this company was just too easy.
Within a short time five hundred people had signed up to join it, and
Sapling Grove, a short distance from Westport, in what is now Kansas, was named
the place of rendezvous. Then the Weston
merchants, unable to go themselves and hardly appreciating the prospective loss
of patronage, started a counter movement.
Aided by newspapers of their own adjacent counties, they diligently dug
up everything they could find against California, real or imaginary. The five hundred signers melted away. When spring came, John Bidwell was the only
man in Weston ready to start for Sapling Grove.
At the last moment, however, Bidwell, who had a wagon but no oxen to pull it, was joined by a young Illinoisan named George Henshaw. Henshaw owned a fine saddle horse, which Bidwell talked him into trading for a yoke of oxen and a “sorry looking one-eyed mule.” With that, they were off to Sapling Grove, where, after a few days, they organized a company of sixty-nine men, women and children, and elected John Bartleson, of Jackson County, their captain.
Not a soul in their outfit had any clear idea of how to get to California. Bidwell said they knew that it lay west of them and that was the total extent of their knowledge. But, fortunately, just before starting, they were joined by an Idaho bound party of Roman Catholic missionaries, under Pierre Jean DeSmet, S.J., and guided by the celebrated mountain man, Thomas Fitzpatrick. This gave them the added security of greater numbers plus the experiences of the Celtic Moses who guided them halfway to their promised land.
On Bear River, not far from the present Alexander, Idaho, the party divided. More than half of those who had gathered at Sapling Grove, not caring to risk the unknown deserts of Utah and Nevada, went on by way of Fort Hall, to Oregon, traveling much of the distance in company with the missionaries. As a result, according to Bancroft, the Bidwell-Bartleson Company had only 34 members when it swung down Bear River toward the Great Salt Lake, 32 men, l woman, and a baby in arms. How they ever got to California is one of the mysteries of the overland migration.
From just a little north of where the Bear flows into Salt Lake, they cut across the deserts toward Nevada. They were plainly lost, with no chance of hiring a guide at Fort Hall, yet they kept going. At one of two miles an hour, they traversed vast waterless stretches that even today are disquieting to motorists on well-traveled highways. Sheer doggedness brought them somehow to the headwaters of Mary's River, now called the Humboldt, which they followed to its sink in the vicinity of the present Lovelock. From there, they veered southwest to the uplands of the West Walker River country, where they voted on whether they should push on through the Sierra Nevada or try to retrace their steps to the Oregon Trail. They voted to go ahead by a majority of one vote.
Again they were lost, worse than ever. They had long since abandoned their wagons on the desert and loaded their belongings onto the backs of their animals. They had eaten the last of their oxen and had started in on their horses and mules. Now and then they lost one of their faithful animals on some precipitous slope when it could least be spared. Worse, freezing nights and a blanket of snow on surrounding peaks made their experience nightmarish. Time and again, they got into blind canyons and had to double back on their trail. Still, they pushed upward till, at last, they camped 8500 feet above sea level.
At length, they came upon a tiny stream running westward. They knew they had reached the summit, but had no idea they were on the headwaters of the Stanislaus River and in California.
Before they escaped their mountainous prison, however, they were in the direst straits. Their descent was even more perilous than their ascent; the mountains were rougher and steeper on the wet side of the range. No game could be seen anywhere, and starvation was staring them in the face. A couple of their party had ridden ahead, hoping to obtain relief at the ranch of a Dr. John Marsh at the foot of Mt. Diablo, and had not been heard from since. On the morning before they got out of the mountains, Bidwell wrote in his diary that he had breakfasted on “the lights of a coyote.”
Finally, a short way below the present Knight's Ferry, they came out upon the broad San Joaquin Valley. As they looked over its scattered groves and tree-lined watercourses, they thought it was the most beautiful thing they had every seen. Game was plentiful, and they stopped in the shade of the oaks to refresh themselves.
A few days later, on November 4, they reached Marsh's Ranch. Here, the party broke up, some of its members going up to Sutter's Fort at New Helvetia, some to San Jose, and several on a general tour of the country. Bidwell was one of those going to Sutter's Fort. He immediately found employment there, for Sutter, needing a man of his caliber, sent him to Bodega as caretaker of the Fort Ross property, recently purchased from the Russians. Later he was placed in charge of other Sutter holdings, particularly Hock Farm on Feather River. He surveyed Sutter lands, handled Sutter correspondence, kept Sutter books, wrote a large part of the New Helvetia Diary, and, in time, knew more about Sutter affairs than Sutter himself.
By 1844, Bidwell was speaking Spanish like a native and, following the custom of other foreigners in the country, was naturalized a Mexican citizen in order to become a land baron the same as his employer. From Governor Manuel Micheltorena he received the four-league Rancho Ulpinos in Solano County in 1844 and the two-league Rancho Colus in Colusa County in 1845---some 26,000 acres. So it was no accident that he stood by the governor when the native Californians revolted against him. It is also said that he was none too enthusiastic at first over plans of American settlers to seize the country in 1846, though he was later identified as secretary of the Bear Flag Party, to say nothing of having charge of the Bear Flag prisoners sent to Sutter's Fort.
When war broke out between the United States and Mexico, Bidwell went south to San Luis Rey as a captain in Fremont's California Battalion, and later served as major under Stockton. On cessation of hostilities, however, he promptly returned to his duties at Sutter's Fort, which he continued till the gold discovery of 1848, when he, the same as everybody else, was overwhelmed with the desire to scratch for yellow metal in the beds of icy mountain streams. As a result, he was one of the first miners on Feather River, where Bidwell's Bar is named after him because he discovered gold there July 4, 1848.
Though Bidwell was easily a land baron with his ranchos Colus and Ulpinos, it was not till the late forties that he finally decided to settle down as a rancher on his own. Then he bought the five-league (22,190 acres) Rancho Chico, granted to William Dickey and Edward Augustus Farwell in 1844. With that, Colus and Ulpinos were things of the past but, under his ownership, Chico brought international fame to Butte County. Here he established his home, amassed much wealth, and became the state's greatest agriculturist.
In 1849, when the people of California got ready to organize a state government for themselves, Bidwell was chosen to represent his district in the Constitutional Convention at Monterey, but for some reason did not serve. Later, however, from December, 1849, to May, 1850, he represented the Sacramento District in the Senate of the First California Legislature. He was one of the Commissioners sent by Governor Burnett to Washington in 1850 with California's petition for statehood. Thereafter, he retained a lively, if not always successful, interest in politics.
In 1860, as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, he was one of the whole Pacific Coast Delegation to stand for the Union. Back home the following year, he sought nomination for governor on the Union Democratic ticket, but perhaps through his unwillingness to make a “deal” with the politicians, did not get it. By 1863, Bidwell, putting the welfare of his country above partisan politics, had drifted from the Democratic fold and was vice president of the Union Party. About this time, Governor Leland Stanford commissioned him Brigadier General of the Fifth Brigade California Militia. Thenceforward, to the end of his life, practically everybody who knew him referred to him as General Bidwell.
In 1864, Bidwell again went East to a national political convention, this time to Baltimore as a delegate to the Union Party which worked hard for the reelection of Lincoln. He next served two years in Congress, from 1865 to 1867, but for some reason declined a second term. 1875 found him in a new role, running for governor on the non-partisan Anti-Monopoly ticket and in 1890 he changed his party affiliation for the fourth and last time when he came out as the Prohibition Party's candidate for the same office. Two years later, he was the first Prohibitionist candidate for President of the United States.
With the passing years, Bidwell's energies overflowed into the field of higher education and a host of other things. He was appointed a regent of the University of California in 1880, and from 1889 to 1896 served as Trustee of the Chico State Normal School, now Chico State College. His understanding of the economic problems of the day was amazing. Almost two years before the Golden Spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, and three years before Frank Norris was born, he foresaw the railroad octopus that for decades held California in the ruthless grasp of its financial tentacles. Moreover, he understood and vigorously opposed all other sorts of trusts and monopolies that sought to loot state and national resources. In recognizing the need for transportational safety and regulation, he was far ahead of his time. He had formulated ideas on the subject long before Congress ever dreamed of an Interstate Commerce Commission. As candidate for president in 1892, he included in his platform reciprocity plank that present-day tariff experts might do well to study. Though he was nationally regarded as a man of great wealth, his views on income tax are still anathema to the mildest conservative. Also liberal were his views on female suffrage; he did not feel that any country where only half of the population could vote was a true democracy. Indeed, he was so in favor of equal rights for women that today he would unquestionably champion the cause of equal pay for equal work.
Yet, with all these activities, he still found time to be a scientific agriculturist. No matter what else he did, his love for the soil was the warp and woof of his life fabric. His experiments in diversified farming attracted to Rancho Chico distinguished visitors from all over the world. He introduced any number of new plants, trees and shrubs into California and strove to improve the varieties of those already here. A partial list of the things grown and raised on Rancho Chico includes fruits, grapes, grains, alfalfa, cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, chickens, turkeys, and bees. He had his own flour mill to convert his grain into flour, and a cannery and packing house to handle his fruits. To these he added a winery and a vinegar works and butcher shop. He employed an average of a hundred and fifty men the year around, and during harvest season from 700 to 800. His Rancho Chico was indeed the wonder of the state.
But that was not all. He was civic-minded in the most admirable sense of the term. In between farming activities, he selected a beautiful townsite, and laid out the town of Chico, which seemed to have been growing for sometime previously by itself. He donated the plaza and the sites for the city hall, five churches of different denominations, the State Normal School, and the United States Forestry Station.
He provided for the town's growth by making sure its streets were wide and beautiful, lining them with trees from his own nurseries. Thus he won for himself the title of “father of Chico.” Then, over and above his beneficences to the town, he spent large sums of money on building and improving public roads, something that benefited everybody in the county and took a large load off the small taxpayer.
Peculiarly, however, Bidwell was a little slow in entering fraternal activities, particularly Masonry. But he had good reason for it. He was not yet of legal age when he left Missouri in 1841, so he could join no Lodge there. Nor could he present a petition for degrees in California for a full eight years after his arrival here because the first Lodge in this state did not open its doors till 1849, and it was many miles from his home. The several that came between it and the organization of Grand Lodge the following spring were also far removed and of uncertain existence. But, finally he presented his petition to San Jose Lodge No. 10, January 4, 1851, and on February 13 was initiated an Entered Apprentice. He was passed and raised sometime later under what, to quote him, must have been hazy conditions. In a letter dated August 11, 1897, he wrote: “You ask me to send the name of the Lodge where I took the degrees. In the winter of 1850-51 a friend persuaded me to take the first degree in San Jose – the name I do not remember. A few years later, at Hamilton, which was then county seat of Butte County, the two following degrees. There was no lodge there---no lodge room---but the man who acted as master had authority, as I understood, to confer such degrees. Think his name was Morse or Moss. It might have been Butte Lodge. The exact years I do not recall.”
The Master Bidwell referred to was Brother Nelson D. Morse, Past Grant Master of Illinois, and the Lodge was Pacific Lodge, a “traveling lodge” from Long's Bar on Feather River, a short distance north of the present Oroville.
Pacific Lodge, under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Illinois, was one of those ephemeral gold rush organizations that had no legal standing in California. It was unwittingly established several months after organization of the Grand Lodge of California, and soon passed out of existence.
Bidwell affiliated with Butte Lodge No. 36 at Bidwell's Bar in 1855, and with Chico Lodge No. 111, in 1857. He filled several offices in Chico Lodge, including those of Master, Secretary and Treasurer. He was twice Master, in 1862 and 1864, and Treasurer for many years.
In 1888, after thirty-seven years in the Craft, Bidwell ceased all Masonic activities, though he at the time owned the building in which Chico Lodge met. There is some question around Chico as to why he did this, with several old-timers offering widely different explanations. The most plausible explanation seems to be that of Brother John Rodney Gleason, who was bookkeeper, cashier, and confidential secretary at Rancho Chico from 1890 to 1898, and who was in a position to discuss the matter with the two people most concerned. According to him, Mrs. Bidwell, whom Bidwell married in 1868, was unalterably opposed to secret societies. She resented her husband's unwillingness to tell her what happened in Lodge meetings and, harping on it for twenty years, finally made things so uncomfortable for him that he gave up the Lodge in order to have peace and harmony in his own household.
Bidwell died April 4, 1900. Today, as people study his life, they see a man who was eminently just and honest in dealing with his fellow creatures, particularly with the Indians of Rancho Chico. He looked after them like a father for years, even to the point of providing them with church facilities in form of a small chapel, located on the ranch not far from his house. His youthful courage in coming to California in the first place, his services to his country, his many public benefactions, and his untiring efforts to make his home state a better place in which to live are known wherever Western American history is studied. He has well earned the title of Prince of pioneers.
Transcribed
6-01-17 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
Source: “One Hundred Years of Freemasonry in
California Vol. 1” by Leon O. Whitsell, Pages
16-22. Publ. by The Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted
Masons of California, 1950.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies