The First American Woman to Cross the Sierra

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.

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.

Among the emigrants heading to the Oregon Country was the large Kelsey family from Kentucky. Two Kelsey brothers, Andrew and Benjamin decided to join Bidwell in the attempt to reach California. (Ben and Nancy had married when she was 15.) The rest of the Kelsey kin continued with their journey to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. When members in the Kelsey clan asked Nancy why she would risk her baby’s life on the untested California trail, she replied, “Where my husband goes, I go. I can better endure the hardships of the journey, than the anxieties for an absent husband.” (Nancy was also pregnant with another child.) Excluding Nancy, Ben and Martha Ann, the Bartleson-Bidwell Party consisted of 31 unmarried young men seeking adventure. One thing that they all had in common was their ignorance of frontier skills and Indian lore. Only half had some knowledge of firearms, and fewer still were accomplished hunters. The little experience they had with wagons and livestock came from farming. Their vehicles varied from two-wheeled carts to small farm wagons. They brought a bit of cured meat, but expected to hunt game for fresh meat on the way.

For the next few months, both Oregon and California-bound parties traveled together following a virtual highway of rivers. After successfully traversing the treacherous South Fork of the Platte River, they reached the temporary safety of Fort Laramie on June 22. They had traveled 625 miles in 42 days, a steady pace of 15 miles per day. (Interstate motorists today travel 15 miles in less than 15 minutes.) Before reaching Fort Hall on the Snake River, the Bartleson-Bidwell Party split off and headed south for the Humboldt River. They didn’t realize it, but they were more than 200 miles from the river’s headwaters.

The experienced frontiersman Thomas “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick had been hired by Fr. DeSmet to lead the way to Oregon. Fitzpatrick pleaded with the greenhorns to forget California, warning that they would never make it. Twelve of the California-bound pioneers took his sober advice, but Bidwell and the others were determined to proceed with their reckless plan.

Despite Marsh’s letter, no one in the party possessed accurate information about California or how to get there. Joseph Chiles, a member of the party and future leader of other emigrant wagon trains, later stated that they traveled seven months with no guide, no compass, and nothing but the sun to direct them. They wandered around the north end of the Great Salt Lake and then plodded through a waterless, salt-encrusted desert where they were forced to abandon their wagons and transfer what they could carry to their pack animals. For two more weeks, the party survived miles of desert until after crossing the snow-capped Ruby Mountains they finally stumbled upon the lifesaving Humboldt River. As the group struggled west, they killed their oxen for food. They were a pitiful sight, especially Nancy Kelsey, who stumbled along barefoot, carrying her child in her arms and leading a horse.

Frustrated with the company’s slow pace, in early October Captain Bartleson and his men killed a remaining ox, took a double share of the meat, and rode off on horseback. Bartleson called back to say that he would see them in California. The party was split on what to do, return to Fort Hall or continue on, but a ballot was held and the majority voted for California. Once the group reached the terminus of the Humboldt River they headed south. The best route was actually due west toward the Truckee and Carson rivers, but the desperate group had no idea where they were. John Bartleson’s abandonment of the party left the leadership position to John Bidwell and his new acquaintance, Benjamin Kelsey. They crossed the lower reaches of the Carson River but decided against following it upstream to the mountains and kept walking south along the eastern Sierra. When they reached the Walker River, they mistook it for the San Joaquin in California’s central valley. The faltering emigrants soon realized their mistake as they struggled up the challenging river canyon toward Sonora Pass. Looking up at the rugged peaks, Bidwell remarked, “If California lies beyond those mountains we shall never be able to reach it.” But they continued to push up the steep, eastern Sierra slope. At one point Bartleson and his men rode up, all of them weak with dysentery that they had contracted from drinking bad water. Chastened by their reckless behavior, they were welcomed back to the group. By the time the party reached the Sierra crest, they had eaten the last of their beef and were now killing the horses and mules for food. Following a precipitous Indian trail along granite cliffs, four of their pack animals lost their footing and plummeted to their deaths. On October 17 they finally began their descent down the Stanislaus River Canyon.

The Bidwell-Bartleson Party failed to bring wagons into the Mexican province of California, but they proved that an overland crossing was possible. Their successful journey inspired other immigrants to roll their wagons west, leading to the 1844 crossing at Donner Pass by the Stephens Party, which opened the California Trail. No lives were lost in the 1841 effort, and Nancy Kelsey and her daughter Martha Ann became the first Euro-American females to cross the Sierra and settle in California.

Benjamin Kelsey

On November 4, the pioneers reached fellow American John Marsh’s ranch at the foot of Mount Diablo (Bay Area), but they were quickly arrested and detained as illegal foreigners by Mexican authorities. They were freed only after General Mariano Vallejo issued them Mexican passports. Several weeks later the Kelseys reached Sutter’s Fort on Christmas Day. Shortly after their arrival Nancy gave birth to a baby boy. Pregnant during their epic 2,000 mile journey, Nancy had trudged over the rugged Sierra Range while in her third trimester!

Nancy and Ben were safe in California, but their western adventures were just beginning. Described as footloose, Benjamin was forever pursuing dreams and schemes and although the couple never stayed in one place very long, they produced another nine children. In April 1842, the Kelseys visited Napa Valley, where they settled and built a cabin near Calistoga. Ben, and his brother, Andrew, who had also made the trip to California with the Bidwell group, were expert hunters and they made a living hunting deer and elk, which they rendered for tallow and hides.

Ben, Nancy, Andrew, and Martha Ann had immigrated to California, but the rest of the Kelsey clan had journeyed to Oregon in 1841. In 1843, the California Kelseys had accumulated 100 head of cattle and they decided to take the herd north to Fort Vancouver to sell for a high price. On the way, they were raided by hostile Indians. Despite the attacks, they managed to get most of the cattle through and sold the livestock for a tidy profit. Before returning to California the following spring, they visited members of the Kelsey family living in Oregon where Nancy gave birth to another daughter. They moved back to their cabin in Napa in 1844, and two more Kelsey brothers joined them. In June 1846, the Kelsey men participated in the Bear Flag Rebellion at Sonoma, at the outset of the Mexican- American War. At the time, Nancy worked as a seamstress and cook for Captain John C. Frémont’s volunteer forces. She was also one of several women who furnished the cloth and sewed together the original Bear Flag that California still flies today. (Nancy is touted as the “Betsy Ross of California” on her gravesite in the Cuyama Valley.) Shortly after the Mexican War ended, Nancy’s brother-in-law, Andrew settled on a ranch near Clear Lake, where he founded Kelseyville, the first town in Lake County. In early 1848, James Marshall discovered gold at John Sutter’s wood mill, at Coloma on the American River. Ben Kelsey joined the rush to the Sierra foothills where he made a gold strike in what became Kelsey’s Diggings, now known as Kelsey in El Dorado County. In 1856 they traveled to Kern County, where Ben built a toll bridge across the Kern River. A few years later Ben wasn’t feeling well, so they headed for Mexico and the desert Southwest to improve his health. It must have worked because Nancy gave birth to their last two children during their stay. In the mid-1860s, the Kelseys were living in Southern California where Ben died in 1889 at age 75. Nancy died of cancer in 1896, shortly after her seventy-third birthday.

The Bidwell-Bartleson wagon train, with Nancy Kelsey, was the first organized group of American emigrants to reach California via the untried overland trail through the Great Basin, along the Humboldt River. Their epic journey proved that a direct crossing was indeed feasible and paved the way for the 1844 Stephens Party.

John Bidwell

All Photos Courtesy of the California State Library