THE FIRST IMMIGRANT TRAIN
	November 2003

by Kathleen Mero

It is a difficult thing to drive to Disneyland with a six-month-old baby. Imagine setting out from Missouri with that same infant and walking to Brentwood, California. Furthermore, imagine doing this if there was not a single bridge, road, flush toilet, box of Kleenex, roll of toilet paper, wash basin, motel, convenience store, restaurant, or even a real town over the length of the entire trip.

We use the term “hardy pioneers,” about the first American settlers to reach the West coast, but the truth is that those people displayed a degree of endurance that surpasses anything we can imagine.

Setting the Bait to Lure People West
In 1837 John Marsh was the first person of European descent to establish a working rancho in the great central valley of Alta California. Before his arrival the 7,000 or so, Europeans settled only along the coast near the 21 missions that stretched from San Diego in the south to Sonoma in the north.

Marsh was quick to recognize the immense potential of the fertile sparsely populated Central Valley. He became an enthusiastic member of the clandestine group of Americans who saw California as a ripe cherry just waiting to be picked and included in the overflowing basket that was the Western expansion of the United States frontier.

Following the recommendation of Thomas Larkin, the American Consul for Alta California, Marsh began a campaign of letter-writing to papers in the Midwest, the frontier at that time.

East Contra Costa County can claim the bragging rights of being the birthplace of the very first “Come to California” public relations campaign. Dr. Marsh’s enthusiastic endorsements would be subsequently augmented by many others who saw a future for California. In this way, seeds were planted that ultimately would produce a financial, social, and political crop growing far beyond the imagination of the most radical visionary alive in the 1800s.

First Steps
In 1841, the first planned overland emigration party, including members of a group calling themselves the Western Emigration Society, began the long trek to California. The Bartleson-Bidwell Party, as this first immigrant train into California came to be known, chose as its final destination John Marsh’s Rancho Los Meganos, along present-day Marsh Creek Road. They selected Marsh’s ranch as their goal, because they were responding to invitations Marsh had published.

A survival of the fittest principle was at work among these initial East County European settlers. Members of this first immigrant party included only the most persistent, hardy souls from among the larger group who signed up for the trip, most of whom failed to actually get aboard the wagons when the time came to leave.

Of the 500 who signed with the Western Emigration Society, only about 50 actually made it to the rendezvous site on the banks of the Kansas River. Only 34 of that number actually arrived in California in November 1841.

Walking into the Wilderness
The trip across the country was difficult beyond belief for those first pioneers. Bidwell, himself, later admitted that the only direction they had for getting to California was that it lay to the west.

The party originally rode in a train of wagons. But when they reached the mountains they had to go through passes too narrow for anything more than a single mule. Leaving their wagons behind, of course, also meant leaving behind the supplies, furniture, and furnishings that were intended to provide small comforts to help ease the task of setting up homes in the wilderness. Eventually the party even left behind their horses and mules as well, and ended up limping into California.

The travelers departed Missouri in May of 1841 and arrived on foot, their clothes in rags, exhausted, and malnourished, at Marsh’s rancho in November that year. The members of that first party really were a hardy group and, despite the rigors of the trip, nobody died on the trail except for one man, with the ironic name of Shotwell, who shot himself to death while pulling a rifle out of the back of a wagon.

Of course, Brentwood wasn’t clearly marked on any map at that time so even when they arrived, the party spent a couple of days wandering around the Contra Costa wilderness until, by chance, they were discovered by an Indian who spoke English sufficiently to understand what they were looking for. They followed their Indian guide to Marsh’s rancho. They arrived desperately hungry and sore, but the terrible odyssey was behind them and the weary travelers could finally rest.

A few of the immigrants, who were gluttons for punishment, apparently, returned east to bring more settlers to the fertile, almost unpopulated valley of Alta California. One of these, a famous mountain man named Joseph B. Chiles, would ultimately lead many groups to California following his first successful trip with Captain Bartleson.

Through Doors into Wealth and Fame
For some members of the party, the bedraggled arrival in East County proved to be the inauspicious beginning of a wonderful new life. A number of them went on to attain dramatic importance in the emerging western civilization. In fact, an astonishingly high percentage of those who remained in California from that group of 34 were destined to become household names of the future State of California.

John Bidwell — Entrepreneur and Environmentalist
John Bidwell was the best example of a member of the party who later achieved fame and importance. John Sutter enlisted the young Bidwell to oversee the transfer of the buildings and goods Sutter had bought from the Russians at Bodega Bay, which included Fort Ross.

Sutter and Bidwell worked well together. After the moving job was complete Sutter put Bidwell in charge of his ranch, known as Hock Farm. In time, Bidwell received land grants of his own, trading them one by one until he acquired what he really wanted, which was a tract of beautiful land sprawled along the banks of Chico Creek in present day Butte County.

Bidwell went on to found the town of Chico. He left his mark as university benefactor and agricultural innovator. For example, he was the first person to import Bermuda grass into the state as a way of preventing erosion and thereby changed the face of central California forever.

Bidwell displayed a concern for the environment that seemed to postdate the concerns of his own day by over 100 years. Like modern-day environmentalists he lamented the inefficiency of ranching which, due to overgrazing, was unable to support 100 head of cattle on pastureland located on an ancient range that once supported thousands of elk.

Bidwell also fought against the hydraulic mining techniques that destroyed complex ecosystems, sometimes forever, and threw his support behind the court case that ended that kind of mining.

Nancy Kelsey — Betsy Ross of California
Nancy Kelsey was the 18-year-old wife and mother of a six-month-old daughter, named Ann. She was the first woman of European descent ever to ride the trail into California. Nancy bravely struck out into the wilderness following her husband, Ben, because, as she wrote,

“Where my husband goes I can go. I can better stand the hardships of the journey than the anxieties for an absent husband.”

Nancy ended up living a long life in California and witnessed many of the events which led to statehood. She provided a very physical addition to the movement towards statehood by contributing the material for the very first banner bearing the California Bear, an act which inspired a recent play about her life titled, “Betsy Ross of the Bears.”

The flag, which Nancy made in part from one of her petticoats, became the rallying symbol for the Bear Flag revolt of Alta California against the Mexican government. She died in 1886, at age 73, having established one of the important pioneer families of California.

Talbot Green — Charming Fraud
Talbot Green was President of the immigrant band. Because he was an educated man with business and accounting skills, Thomas Larkin quickly hired him to act as agent for Larkin’s growing business. By 1846, Green had established himself as a solid businessman, and had been appointed collector of the port of Monterey by the US military authorities.

Imagine the surprise of Californians in 1851, when Talbot Green was revealed to be a fugitive from justice whose real name was Paul Geddes.

A bank embezzler with a heart of gold, Geddes had left behind his wife and children in Pennsylvania. This disclosure did not sit well with his new bride, a widow named Sarah Montgomery. Sarah had already produced a son for Green before she discovered the details about her husband’s philandering.

Women were rare in post gold rush California and after Sarah obtained a divorce from Green/Geddes in 1854 she was happily remarried within a year.

Leading the Way into Civilization
Other members of the Bartleson-Bidwell Party spread themselves across the northern California map like seeds in the wind.

John L. Schwartz established a rancho and a fishing station in the future Yolo County.

Michael C. Nye founded a family in Marysville, Yuba County by marrying a widow, Harriet Pike, a survivor of the Donner Party.

Samuel Green McMahan went to work for John R. Wolfskill and eventually journeyed to Oregon where he recruited some 39 men, women, and children to leave Oregon and move to California.

In July of 1845, Sam became famous for surviving a mauling by a cranky female grizzly bear. Despite this close encounter, he served in Fremont’s California Battalion but saw little action, no doubt due to the unhealed bear wounds.

He finally settled in Solano County and married Levinia Yount, widow of John Yount. The widow Yount came equipped with four children, and Sam was their step-father until his death in 1884.

James Peter Springer became a solid booster for California, making several round trips to bring new settlers into the country, finally settling himself in Santa Clara County. He served a term in the state legislature and left his permanent mark on his adopted home.

Charles Weber founded the City of Stockton and became a strong booster for statehood.

The men and the one young woman of the Bidwell-Bartleson Party had little more than the threadbare, tattered clothes on their backs when they arrived at present day Brentwood. They entered their new homeland with nothing in their hands or pockets; but these people, nevertheless, brought a treasure to California of greater value than gold or goods; they brought a tough determination to make homes and names for themselves in a strange land.

Perhaps their astonishing trek had developed in their souls such a fierce spit-in-your-eye determination to see any project through to successful conclusion, that nothing could be withheld from them. Along with a home in the wilderness, these people developed the foundation of one of history’s most amazing economic and social miracles.

Kathleen Mero is a member of the Contra Costa Historical Society and a resident expert on East County history.