Bartleson, John (1786–1848)

In early 1840, in frontier Missouri, the Western Emigration Society formed to explore emigration to Mexican California. Glowing reports from Antoine Robidoux, a trader and trapperwhohad already traveled to California via a southerly route; the correspondence of a former Independence, Missouri, resident-turned-Californian, Dr. John Marsh; and regular publicity in the St. Louis and frontier presses combined to increase the desirability of emigration. The society quickly grew to more than 500 who agreed to head west to California.

However, the extensive interest in the expedition faltered when local newspapers printed the letters of Thomas J. Farnham. These letters excoriated the Mexican authorities in California, who meted out harsh punishments for the Englishmen and Americans whom they suspected of revolutionary activities in April of 1840. At the time, Farnham was heading east from the conclusion of his travels as a member of the Peoria party—who had traveled to Oregon in 1839—and was in California during the unrest. Interest in emigrating to California imploded and, when the May 9, 1841, deadline for the rendezvous at Sapling Grove, Missouri, arrived, only John Bidwell and his immediate companions kept the date. Eventually, approximately 60 people arrived, including Dr. Marsh's acquaintances William Baldridge, Elias Barnett, Michael C. Nye, and John Bartleson.

Marsh, who became acquainted with Bartleson while he was a storekeeper before immigrating to Santa Fe and eventually California, played a significant part in the path chosen by the party. His correspondences to several friends who remained in Missouri—including two eventual Bidwell-Bartleson party members, Baldridge and Nye—included details for a suggested overland route to California. The route relied upon the experiences of Jedediah S. Smith, an American fur trader; Peter S. Ogden, an explorer and trader for the Hudson Bay Company; and Joseph R. Walker, all of whom made similar journeys in the decades prior to the Bidwell-Bartleson trek.

The party officially formed on May 18, 1841, next to the Kansas River and elected “Colonel” John Bartleson as its leader. Bartleson strong-armed the election when he threatened to pull out of the party, along with seven or eight men in his contingent, if not voted captain. Bidwell claimed that Bartleson was not “the best man for the position,” and the accounts of his fellow travelers depicted a man not truly fit, or experienced enough, to lead this party. The party was fortunate to discover a missionary group whose path coincided with theirs as far as Soda Springs on the Bear River in what would become Idaho along what became known as the Oregon Trail. The Catholic missionaries had Captain Thomas Fitzpatrick, an experienced mountaineer, as their guide, which provided the inexperienced [Page 46]Bidwell-Bartleson party a chance to travel more securely, with a proven leader, than it could have otherwise. The mixed party of horses, mules, oxen, and wagons departed on the morning of May 19.

Bartleson was an ill-suited leader more concerned for his own well being than that of the party. Father Nicholas Point, one of the missionaries who illustrated much of the journey, described Bartleson as “calm in temperament but enterprising in character,” and he was likely speaking of an event before the separation of the parties at Soda Springs. Nicholas “Cheyenne” Dawson wrote in his narratives of a meeting that occurred on July 23, 1841, with some trappers and traders in which a barter trade was set up. While Dawson mentions a trade in garments and ammunition, his account is notably silent regarding the trade of secreted alcohol that Bidwell claimed was stored in some of the wagons, including Captain Bartleson's. In fact, Bidwell wrote that the meeting with the traders was sought after to benefit Bartleson and the other members who had secreted the alcohol, presumably members of his cohort. This was merely the first evidence of the selfish and inexperienced nature of Bartleson's leadership; confirmation became evident after the parties separated at Soda Springs.

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