Author Archives: nancyleek

About nancyleek

Nancy is a retired librarian who lives in Chico, California. She is the author of John Bidwell: The Adventurous Life of a California Pioneer.

Another Place to Buy the Books

Posted on February 2, 2016 by nancyleek

My two books, John and Annie Bidwell: The Long and the Short of It and John Bidwell: The Adventurous Life of a California Pioneer, are now available at My Girlfriend’s Closet in Paradise. You can get other titles from local … Continue reading →

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How Indians saved the life of Gen. Bidwell

Posted on February 1, 2016 by nancyleek

I was looking through a carton of Annie Bidwell’s papers at the Bancroft Library and came across the following story. It is a typewritten sheet, not dated. I assume it was dictated by Annie, since she always referred to her … Continue reading →

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Kanakas in California

Posted on January 26, 2016 by nancyleek

When John Sutter came to California it could hardly have been by a more roundabout route. Born in Switzerland, he migrated to America in 1834, leaving behind his considerable debts (thousands of francs) and his considerable family (wife and five … Continue reading →

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Diversity at New Helvetia

Posted on January 23, 2016 by nancyleek

The colony that John Sutter gathered around him in California was nothing if not diverse. When John Bidwell made his way to John Sutter’s settlement in November 1841, he found Sutter living amongst a motley crew gathered from the far … Continue reading →

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Early Photos of Bidwell Mansion

Posted on January 17, 2016 by nancyleek

The California State Library has several stereo views of Bidwell Mansion and Chico, designed to be viewed in a stereoscope. The photos depict right-eye and left-eye views of the same scene, and when viewed through the stereoscope appear three dimensional. … Continue reading →

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Bancroft’s “Literary Industries”

Posted on January 9, 2016 by nancyleek

When I was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, back in the late ’60s, I was lucky enough to get a job as a student assistant in the Bancroft Library. Other student assistants fetched books from the stacks, … Continue reading →

Posted in Bancroft Library, H.H. Bancroft | 2 Comments

More on the Chinese in Butte County

Posted on January 7, 2016 by nancyleek

Liz Stewart of Chico Heritage Association alerted me to the website Butte County California Chinese Immigrants. This project is the work of Bill Jones, former Special Collections librarian at CSUChico, and Paul Johnson. The focus is on a collection of … Continue reading →

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A Bachelor’s Hope for Leap Year

Posted on January 3, 2016 by nancyleek

You may wrangle and rave of your Marysville girls, Of the girls of the Capital City, Of the ‘Frisco girls, with their fads and their curls, But the Butte Creek girls are most pretty. Their smiles are far dearer to … Continue reading →

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Murder at Sutter’s Fort

Posted on December 30, 2015 by nancyleek

In the last post I published a letter from the Themis of December 21, 1889, in which John Bidwell writes “You ask if I can throw any light on the killing of “The White Horse?”” So, who or what was … Continue reading →

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Sutter’s Fort as John Bidwell Saw It

Posted on December 29, 2015 by nancyleek

The following letter appeared in the December 21, 1889 issue of Themis, a weekly compendium of political and cultural news published in Sacramento. The paper ran a series about early days at Sutter’s Fort, which drew this comment from General … Continue reading →

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