Echoes of the Past about California

📖 The Scoop

John Bidwell (1819-1900) was born in Chautaugua County, New York, and was living in Ohio when he decided to seek his fortune in California in 1841. He journeyed west as part of the first emigrant train going overland from Missouri to California, where he found work at Fort Sutter. He sided with governor Micheltorena in the 1844 revolt but aided the Bear Flag rebels in 1846. After serving with Frémont, he returned to Fort Sutter. Among the first to find gold on Feather River, Bidwell used his earnings to secure a grant north of Sacramento in 1849, and he spent the rest of his life as a farmer at "Rancho Chico," becoming a leader of the State's agricultural interests. A Democrat and Unionist during the Civil War, Bidwell served in the U.S. House, 1864-66, and was the Prohibition Party's candidate for governor (1890) and President (1892). Throughout his life in California, he was a friend to Native American tribes. John Steele (1832-1915) traveled overland from Wisconsin to California in 1850 and remained for three years. Returning east, he taught school, served in the Union Army, and became an Episcopal minister after the Civil War. Echoes of the past about California and ... In camp and cabin (1928) reprints works by Bidwell and Steele published earlier. Bidwell's narrative was composed in 1889 and first published in 1890 in the Century Magazine. The version published here as "Echoes of the past," however, was based on a somewhat different version published in pamphlet form by the Chico, California Advertiser after Bidwell's death in 1900. This version does not include Bidwell's "Journey to California," the journal that he kept in 1841 and which was published in Missouri in 1843 or 1844 (and appears as part of his Addresses, reminiscences ..., 1906). The memoir focuses on Bidwell's overland journey to California, with some attention to his early years in the West: acquaintance with Johann Sutter, and early gold discoveries. Steele's In camp and cabin, first published in 1901, recounts Steele's experiences mining in camps near Nevada City and the American River, with tales of trips to Feather River, Los Angeles, and an expedition to San Andres and camps on the Mokelumne, Calaveras, and Stanislaus Rivers. He provides numerous anecdotes of the people of the camps and their varied national and ethnic backgrounds with many tales of crime and lawlessness. He also discusses contrasting mining methods and gives special attention to Hispanic and Native American Californians whom he met.

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