John Bidwell (August 5, 1819 â€" April 4, 1900) was known throughout
California and nationally as a pioneer, farmer, soldier, statesman,
politician, prohibitionist, and philanthropist. He was active in the
Democratic and then Republican parties, and was elected to Congress as
a Republican in 1864, serving one term.He is noted for having led one
of the first emigrant parties, known as the Bartlesonâ€"Bidwell Party,
along the California Trail, and for founding Chico, California. He
received Mexican land grants after becoming a Mexican citizen before
the Mexicanâ€"American War, and became a wealthy rancher.Bidwell was
born in 1819 in Chautauqua County, New York. His Bidwell ancestors
immigrated to North America in the colonial era. His family moved to
Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1829, and then to Ashtabula County, Ohio, in
1831. At age 17, he attended and shortly thereafter became principal
of Kingsville Academy.In 1841, at the age of 22, Bidwell became one of
the first emigrants on the California Trail. John Sutter employed
Bidwell as his business manager shortly after the younger man reached
California. In October 1844, Bidwell went with Sutter to Monterey,
where the two learned of an insurrection by leader José Castro and
ex-governor Juan Bautista Alvarado. In 1845, Bidwell and Sutter joined
Governor Manuel Micheltorena and a group of Americans and Indians to
fight the insurrectionists, pursuing them to Cahuenga. Micheltorena,
Sutter, and Bidwell were imprisoned, and the latter two were shortly
thereafter released. John Bidwell Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter