Bartleson-Bidwell Emigrant Party Enter Idaho, Headed for California [otd 08/08]

John Bidwell, 1840.
Meriam Library, Chico State University.On August 8, 1841, the group generally referred to as the Bartelson-Bidwell emigrant party entered what would one day become the state of Idaho. By most accounts, John Bidwell had been the driving force behind this first larger movement of settlers to the West.

John was born in 1819, in New York state. Later, the family moved west as far as Ohio. John himself continued further west, and 1840 found him teaching school in Missouri. Unhappy w...