The First American Woman to Cross the Sierra
Breaking up Camp at Sunrise, by Alfred Jacob Miller
by Mark McLaughlin
Much has been written of the Donner Party’s tragic entrapment in the deep Sierra snow during the winter of 1846-47. Those with a cursory knowledge of America’s 19th century westward migration are also familiar with the Stephen’s Party, which successfully crossed Truckee’s Pass with wagons in 1844 and opened the California Trail. But fewer are aware of the Bidwell-Bartleson Party, a group of 34 plucky pioneers who survived a trans-Sierra crossing in 1841. Among the group of young men was an 18-year-old farm girl, Nancy Kelsey, who carried her baby, Martha Ann nearly 2,000 miles across an unknown continent. By 1841, overland emigration to the Oregon Country in the Pacific Northwest was established, but the route to California was still untested. For most Americans at that time it was much easier and faster to reach Europe than the Pacific Coast. Little was known of the Great Basin except what trappers had reported. Lured by the tales of bountiful farming land in California, a region thought to be free of major disease and blessed by a wonderful climate, individuals and families in the frontier states along the Mississippi River formed emigration groups and geared up for a mass exodus in the spring of 1841. Merchants and business owners, however, started a negative media campaign that scared off all but the boldest pioneers. When it came time to leave in early May 1841, only John Bidwell, a 21-year-old school teacher, along with his companions, showed up for the arduous trek. Eventually another 50 people under the organization of a Jesuit missionary arrived. Father Pierre Jean DeSmet was bound for the Oregon Country to establish the first of his many Indian missions in the Far West.
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Nancy Kelsey Only miles into the journey, nine young men on horseback galloped up to the slow moving wagon train. Their leader, John Bartleson, brandished a letter he claimed to have received from John Marsh, an American who had settled near Mount Diablo, near the San Francisco Bay. Marsh was an advocate for westward expansion and encouraged his fellow countrymen to head to California, a Mexican province. In the letter, Marsh vaguely described a route overland to the Sacramento Valley. The news helped persuade Bidwell and about 30 others to decide that they would head for California. Bidwell was the leading spirit among his group, but Bartleson insisted on taking the captaincy for himself.
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CELEBRATING OVER
Among the emigrants heading to the Oregon Country was the large Kelsey family from Kentucky. Two Kelsey brothers, Andrew and continued on page 4
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