The Biographical Dictionary of America/Bidwell, John

​BIDWELL, John, pioneer, was born in Chautauqua county. N. Y., Aug. 5, 1819. When he was ten years of age his father moved to Erie, Pa.; two years later to Ashtabula county, Ohio, and in 1834 to Darke county, Ohio. In 1836 the son returned to Ashtabula county, where, in the Kingsville Academy, he completed his scholastic education. After spending nearly two years in Missouri, in the spring of 1841. he helped to form the first party to cross the Rocky mountains direct to California. After a six months' journey full of romantic adventures, the expedition reached its destination, and young Bidwell was employed with General Sutter, who had begun a settlement and afterwards erected Fort Russ near the Sacramento river. He spent more than a year at Bodega in charge of Sutter's interests, enlisted in defence of California against the insurrection of the native chiefs, Castro and Alvarado, in the revolt of 1844 and 1845, and acted as aide-de-camp to General Sutter till the war ended by the expulsion of the Mexican governor, Micheltorena. In 1846 General Fremont began the war which gave California to the United States. One of Fremont's first acts after the war was thought to be closed, was to appoint young Bidwell, then only twenty-seven years of age, magistrate of San Luis Rey district, with principal headquarters at San Diego. In 1848 Mr. Bidwell was the first man to discover gold on Feather river, and the next year he was chosen a member of the first state constitutional convention of California. The same year he was elected to the first state senate. In 1850 he was appointed by Governor Burnett one of the commissioners to convey to Washington city the block of gold-bearing quartz, California's contribution to the Washington monument. In 1855 he was again a candidate for the state senate. He was a delegate to the national Democratic presidential convention at Charleston in 1860 as a Douglas Democrat. In 1863 he was appointed by Gov. Leland Stanford to command the fifth brigade California militia, and served in that capacity till the close of the civil war. In 1864 he was a delegate to the Baltimore national convention, which re-nominated President Lincoln for the presidency, and in the same year was nominated and elected a representative to the 39th United States Congress. In 1875 he was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of California on the Anti-monopoly or Non-partisan state ticket. He was a delegate to the Anti-Chinese convention, held in Sacramento in March 1886. April 4, 1888. he was chosen to preside at the state prohibition convention; in 1890 lie was the Prohibition candidate for governor, and in 1892 he was nominated for the presidency of the United States by the Prohibition party. He died at Chico, Cal., April 4, 1900.