John Bidwell - WikiHQ

John Bidwell (August 5, 1819 – April 4, 1900), known in Spanish as Don Juan Bidwell, was an American pioneer, politician, and soldier. Bidwell is known as the founder of the city of Chico, California. He served in the California Senate and then in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Early life

Bidwell was born in 1819 in Chautauqua County, New York. His Bidwell ancestors immigrated to North America in the colonial era. His family moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1829, and then to Ashtabula County, Ohio, in 1831. At age 17, he attended and shortly thereafter became principal of Kingsville Academy.

Life in California

thumb|left|Bidwell in 1850

In 1841, at the age of 22, Bidwell became one of the first emigrants on the California Trail. John Sutter employed Bidwell as his business manager shortly after the younger man reached California. In October 1844, Bidwell went with Sutter to Monterey, where the two learned of an insurrection by leader José Castro and ex-governor Juan Bautista Alvarado. In 1845, Bidwell and Sutter joined Governor Manuel Micheltorena and a group of Americans and Indians to fight the insurrectionists, pursuing them to Cahuenga. Shortly after Marshall's discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, Bidwell also discovered gold on the Feather River, establishing a productive claim at Bidwell Bar in advance of the California Gold Rush. Bidwell obtained the four square-league Rancho Los Ulpinos land grant after being naturalized as a Mexican citizen in 1844, and the two square-league Rancho Colus grant on the Sacramento River in 1845. He later sold the latter grant and bought Rancho Arroyo Chico on Chico Creek to establish a ranch and farm.

Mexican-American War and military service

thumb|left|upright=1.2|[[Fort Bidwell in 1877]]

Soon after the outbreak of the Mexican–American War, Bidwell met with the leaders of the Bear Flag Revolt and drafted their constitution. He was appointed brigadier general of the California Militia in 1863. Around this time, in 1865, General Bidwell backed a petition from settlers at Red Bluff, California to protect Red Bluff's trail to the Owyhee Mines of Idaho. The United States Army commissioned seven forts for this purpose. One site was near Fandango Pass at the base of the Warner Mountains, in the north end of Surprise Valley. On June 10, 1865, a fort (eventually named Fort Bidwell) was ordered to be built there. The fort was built amid escalating fighting with the Snake Indians of eastern Oregon and southern Idaho. It was a base for U.S. Army operations in the Snake War, that lasted until 1868, and the later Modoc War. Although traffic dwindled on the Red Bluff route once the Central Pacific Railroad extended into Nevada in 1868, the Army staffed Fort Bidwell until 1890 to quell various uprisings and disturbances. Bidwell was sitting by the stove reading a newspaper when the explosion sent a piece of shrapnel the size of a quarter directly into his skull. Bidwell survived, but spent the rest of his life with a visible hole in his head.

Political career

Bidwell was selected as a delegate to the 1849 California Constitutional Convention, but did not attend because of mining business. Later that year, he was elected to the California State Senate, serving a single one-year term. He ran for State Senate again in 1855, but lost to incumbent Know Nothing John B. McGee by just 187 votes. He supervised conducting the federal census of California in 1850 and 1860, under national direction by Joseph C. G. Kennedy. Bidwell was a delegate to the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston. He was the only West Coast delegate opposed to secession. He left the party soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, and in 1864 was a delegate to the National Union National Convention.

Congress

That year, he was also elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican, serving from 1865 to 1867.

Rather than seek re-election, he chose to run for Governor of California in 1867, George Congdon Gorham by a vote of 167 to 132.

thumb|upright=1.2|An early political caricature poster mocking [[California Republican Party|California Republicans' support of a local option for alcohol, 1870s]]

Later campaigns

In 1875, Bidwell ran for Governor of California on the Anti-Monopoly Party ticket.

Fraternal allegiance

Bidwell was a Freemason for a time but left the group. He said that allegiance to the fraternity "was pointless" in an October 17, 1867, letter to Annie Kennedy, whom he had been courting. His signature appears in the Book of By-Laws of the Chico-Leland Stanford Lodge No. 111 in Chico, California.

Gallery

File:John Bidwell 1866.jpg|Bidwell in 1866

File:John Bidwell circa 1875.jpg|Bidwell 1875

File:John Bidwell circa 1880.jpg|Bidwell 1880

File:John Bidwell circa 1890.jpg|Bidwell 1890

File:Seal of Chico, California.png|Seal of Chico, California

File:Now you have done it! Wasp Caricature of McDonald, Bidwell, Pixley, Boruck and Waterman, 1890.jpg|"Now you have done it!"

File:The Barrier of Land Monopoly, Wasp Caricature of California Landowners, 1892.jpg|"The Barrier of Land Monopoly"

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Electoral history

Citations

External links

Bigler Family collection, 1852–1918. Collection guide, California State Library, California History Room.
"The First Emigrant Train to California" by John Bidwell
"Bidwell-Bartleson Trail Guide" by Roy D. Tea
Autobiography and Reminiscence of John Bidwell, San Francisco, 1904 [Transcription]. The Society of California Pioneers, via Calisphere.
Guide to the Bidwell Family Papers at The Bancroft Library