goldfields

The obituary of John Scott, black pioneer of Tehama County, reads like an adventure novel. I wish I could find more information about him. So far the only two sources are his obituary in the Red Bluff Daily News (May 20, 1916) and an entry in Black Pioneers in Tehama County California History by Grace Alice Brambley Jackson.

John Scott was born into slavery in Virginia in 1815. When he was about 23 years old he escaped and joined a band of Cherokee Indians. He traveled with them on the Cherokee “Trail of Tears” to the Indian Territory in 1838. Using the Indian Territory as his base, he made forays into Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri to rescue his enslaved brother, sister-in-law and friends, conducting them on the “underground railroad” to Canada.

After about five years of freedom, he was captured. His old owner could not be located, so he was sold to a Lieutenant Hoskins of the U. S. Army. With Hoskins he joined Colonel John C. Fremont’s expedition to California in 1845, which gave him his first sight of Tehama County, where he would later settle. (I could not confirm the names Hoskins or Scott as members of Fremont’s expedition.)

He served with Lt. Hoskins in the Mexican War, in which the lieutenant was killed and Scott was wounded. After the war he was returned to Hoskins’ widow, but he soon ran away from her and from slavery, never to be enslaved again. He joined a wagon train headed for California sometime in the early 1850s.

At first he located at Copper City in Calaveras County. According to his obituary:

Scott discovered a rich gold mine but under the existing laws he could not file on it or claim ownership because of the fact that he was a Negro. Two Copper City gamblers found out about Scott’s discovery, and learning he could not hold the property decided to take it away from him. In the fight that followed the attempt, Scott killed one of the men. At that time and in that place a colored man was merely tolerated at best and when it became known he had killed a while man his life was to say the least, a poor insurance risk, and he immediately left for parts elsewhere. A reward of several thousand dollars was offered for his capture but he was never caught.

After his escape. he spent a few years in Oregon and Utah, then returned to California about 1869 and settled in Tehama County. He married Margaret Bell in 1865, but in the 1880 census of Red Bluff, he is listed as a widower. At that time he was living with his four children: Lillie (18), William (13), and twins Andrew and George (11). His race is given as “Mu” for mulatto. He farmed on property on Reed’s Creek just south of Red Bluff.

In his elder years he was known as “Uncle John” Scott. His obituary noted that “locally he was always prominent among the members of his race and has always been accorded a respect amounting almost to reverence by those who knew him best.” His 100th birthday was celebrated with a grand picnic in the oak grove on his property and attended by family and friends, both black and white.

Just imagine the stories the man could tell!

I thought I knew a lot about the 1841 Bidwell-Bartleson Party — the first group of emigrants to leave the United States on the overland trail. But I didn’t know about the letter carried by Elias Barnett to John Marsh, which is the earliest letter to be carried overland from Missouri to California. I have the Overland Journal of the Oregon-California Trails Association to thank for bringing this to my attention.

When the Bidwell-Bartleson Party left Missouri in May 1841, Elias Barnett was carrying a letter from William B. Barnett and William Hague, merchants of Independence, Missouri. The letter was addressed to John Marsh and began, “you will receive this by the hands of our friends Elias Barnett and Michael Nye whom together with a number of others visits California for the purpose of exploring the country and returning to the United States.” This implies that the men did not come to California with the intention of settling, but instead wanted to explore and scope out the country and report back whether or not it was suitable for American settlement.

They asked John Marsh to inform them about “the government, if they would willingly admit Americans to the rights of citizenship . . . and what would be the reception of an American population by the government of California.” They also desired a report on ” soil, climate, timber, water, productions of the country, etc. etc.” and the “commercial and mercantile and manufacturing advantages” of California.

But it wasn’t John Marsh who fulfilled their request. It was John Bidwell. During his first year in California, he polished up his overland journal and added an extensive report entitled “Observations about the Country.” He describes the trees, the grasses, and vegetables like potatoes and beans. He gives a day-by-day weather report from November 1841, when he arrived, to April 1842 (“2nd. Very fine, strawberries will be ripe in a few days”), and a general description of the summer (“heat is intense”) and fall.

He gives a lengthy report on the “Resources of the Country,” including information about fruit trees, livestock, the missions, the healthy climate (“the fever and ague are seldom known”), water, timber, fish, and birds. He describes houses made of unburnt bricks, and mills run on horse power. It is a country where a little bit of industry might make a man rich. “Wealth here principally consists in horses, cattle, and mules.”

He admired the horsemanship of the Spaniards.

The dexterity with which the Spaniards use the lasso is surprising; in fact, I doubt if their horsemanship is surpassed by the Cossacks of Tartary. It is a common thing for them to take up things from the ground going upon a full run with their horses; they will pick up a dollar this way.They frequently encounter the bear on the plain in this way with their lassos and two holding him in opposite directions with ropes fastened to the pommels of their saddles.

It is not known how Bidwell’s journal was carried back East; possibly it was taken by a returning emigrant like Joseph Chiles, who made a trip back to the States in the summer of 1842. Bidwell said later that he did not intend for it to be published, but published it was, although where or when or by whom is unknown. The only extant copy belonged to George McKinstry, who used it as a guidebook for his 1846 journey to California. That copy is now in the Bancroft Library.

Bidwell’s descriptions of California influenced other would-be emigrants. Zach Montgomery, a friend of John Bidwell’s younger brother Thomas, recalled:

It was by reading this journal of young John Bidwell that the mind and heart of this narrator first became fascinated with California.

in Quest for Flight, by Craig S. Harwood, p. 5

That first overland letter taken to California by Elias Barnett caused John Bidwell to write a description of California, both factual and glowing, that inspired many an emigrant to set out on the trail, even before the news of gold in California reached the States.

When Mrs. B.M. Evoy asked John Bidwell to supply her with fresh vegetables for her boarding house (See “Send a Basket by the Stage”), she wasn’t the only one. As she said in her letter, she heard about this source of produce from Mrs. Myers of Red Bluff — (“please send me such vegetables as you furnish Mrs. Myres.”)

The John Bidwell Papers at the California State Library have several letters from Mr. William Myers. Bidwell was a great saver of letters, which is a boon for historians. Here is one letter requesting vegetables:

Red Bluffs  June 20th / 53

Mr John Bidwell

Dr Sir I Rec’d your note of this morning Requesting me to state wheather the vegetables you send me are the kind that I want or not. I have only to say that the peas & lettice are getting prity hard [?] the cukes particularly I would be glad to get a few more. Turnips the carrots & Beats is very nice tho. Kinds are such as I want and I will leave it with you to judge when thear are Eatable and if a cucumber or two should make its appearance why I should not Refuse. I would be glad if you would send me my Bill by the 25th Instan.

Very respectfully yours Wm. Myers

William Myers was a farmer, but he was concentrating on livestock and wheat. He must not have been growing a big kitchen garden.

The Myers vegetable letters start May 17, 1853 and end on July 5, when Mr. Myers writes that “I Rec’d your note this morning stating that I could not Rec’d any more vegetables on account of the unwillingness of the drivers to take them aboard.” The stage driver didn’t want to be bothered with baskets of vegetables, so that may have been the end of Bidwell’s delivery of produce by stagecoach.

Maybe it’s because I enjoy growing a vegetable garden, but I love these letters about peas and lettuce and turnips and “beats.”

I had to sympathize with the writer of this item on SFGate about the argument over whether to say “the Sierra” or “the Sierras” when referring to the mountain range between California and Nevada. (SFGate is the online media outlet of the San Francisco Chronicle.) The author, Freda Moon, is a travel journalist who wrote “a breezy little story” about traveling from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe in which she referred to the mountains as “the Sierras.”

Like you do. But a number of readers took her to task, and not all of them were polite about it.

It’s a question I have wondered about myself. When writing a book or a blog post about pioneers coming over the mountains into California, I have puzzled over how to refer to the mountains. Is it simply Sierra Nevada? Is calling them the Sierras okay? Since I often write for children, should I clarify by writing “the Sierra Nevada range” or “the Sierra Nevada mountains”? Even though that is redundant? Do kids know what a “range” is in this context? ‘Tis a puzzlement.

The word “sierra” in Spanish is already plural and means a range or chain of mountains. No need to add an “s”. Ms. Moon goes deep into the pros and cons. She consulted historians and grammarians. She asked Paul Brians, retired Professor of English at Washington State University and the author of “Common Errors in English Usage.” He concluded that “Some object to the familiar abbreviation ‘Sierras,’ but this form, like ‘Rockies’ and ‘Smokies’ is too well-established to be considered erroneous.”

My own conclusion is that if you are just chatting with your friend about going hiking in the Sierras, that’s fine. But if you are writing formally, and don’t want snarky comments from language purists, go with Sierra Nevada. But not just Sierra, because that might be mistaken for the Sierra Madre in Mexico or the Sierra de Cordoba in Argentina.