Johnny-on-the-spot
For six years, I was a volunteer at the Bidwell Mansion. I was a tour guide for a while and later I served on the Bidwell Mansion Association Board.
My instant affinity for Chico motivated me to learn about its history. Before moving to Chico, I had little interest in the history of the cities I lived in. I thought of myself as just passing through. In time, I may leave Chico, but I will always view it as my adopted hometown. I will never regard it as a way station.
As a volunteer at the mansion, the most important thing I learned about John Bidwell was that he was a key figure in 19th century California. His influence extended far beyond Chico. In the 60 years he lived in the state, he managed to go everywhere and meet everyone. He was both an observer and a player in the Americanization of this part of the country.
He’s perhaps Chico’s only true celebrity. Other Chicoans became famous after they moved somewhere else. Bidwell’s fame spread far and wide, but once he created the American version of this community from scratch he never left it.
I’m reading American history professor and author Al Hurtado's biography of John Sutter, mainly to read the parts about Bidwell, who worked for Sutter in the 1840s. I especially enjoyed a chapter on the Californio revolt against Mexican rule.
Hurtado writes that in the course of a journey to Sutter’s Fort, Bidwell first ran into Manuel Micheltorena, the governor of California, then met up with Juan Alvarado and Jose Castro, the leaders of the revolt against Micheltorena. Hurtado writes: “According to Bidwell, the governor halted and talked with him for about half an hour. ‘He desired me to beg the Americans to be loyal to Mexico,’ Bidwell recalled, ‘and in due time would give them all the lands to which they were entitled. He sent particularly friendly word to Sutter.’”
Hurtado writes that when Bidwell later chanced to meet Alvarado and Castro, “they treated him ‘like a prince.’ They too ‘protested their friendship for Americans,’ said Bidwell, ‘and sent a request to Sutter to support them.’ Now Sutter had choices to make.”
This is a perfect example of how Bidwell somehow managed to be Johnny-on-the-spot each time a chapter of California’s history was unfolding. He was a real-life Forrest Gump.
The Bidwell Mansion seems to be a fitting symbol of Bidwell’s influence. Its grandiosity doesn’t strike me as overblown. Bidwell’s eminence was based on solid achievement, not empty posturing. He never let his words exceed his deeds. As a frontiersman, farmer, community builder, politician and husband, he was always toiling in the trenches. Even on the day he died, when he was 80 years old, he was out on his ranch, doing hard physical labor.