By Anna Kathryn
Lanier
I learned about
Nancy Kelsey in With Great Hope, a
book by Joann Chartier and Chris Enss. If you have not heard of or read any of
Chris Enss’ books, I highly recommend you look her up. Her website is www.chrisenss.com. She has multiple books
out about Women of the West and other Western themes.
Nancy Kelsey
Nancy was born in
Kentucky in 1823. She married Benjamin Kelsey when she was only 15 years old
and by the time she was 17, she was a mother.
Benjamin heard of the land in the west where a ‘poor man could prosper’
and Nancy agreed to go with him, saying “Where my husband goes, I go. I can better endure the hardships of the
journey than the anxieties for an absent husband.” The young family arrived in Spalding Grove,
Kansas just in time to join up with the first organized group of Americans
traveling to California. The train was
led by John Bidwell and John Barlteson. “We numbered thirty-three all told and
I was the only woman. I had a baby to take care of, too,” Nancy told the San Francisco Examiner in 1893.
Fear of the
unknown and worry over the health of her daughter filled Nancy as the group
started out on their arduous journey May 12, 1841. By July they had arrived at
Fort Laramie in Wyoming. Without guide or compass, the group did well on their
first thousand or so miles of the trip. Unfortunately, this good luck didn't
last. Nancy relayed in her interview:
“Our first mishap
was on the Platte River, where a young man named Dawson was capture by Indians
and stripped of his clothing. They let him go then and then followed him so
that, without his knowing it, he acted as guide to our camp. The redskins surrounded our camp and remained
all night, but when daylight showed them our strength they went away.”
By August, the
group was searching for the Humboldt River, near which was the road to the
Truckee River. The draft animals were
weakened from thirst and hunger and the group began to dump the heaviest
wagons. Eventually, all wagons were abandoned. As they searched for the way to
California, they were forced to eat the oxen, often after the animals had collapsed
from exhaustion.
On September 7,
they finally located the Humboldt, but the road continued to elude them. Nancy, who often carried her daughter on her
hip as they walked, held her tightly, praying for food, water and shelter for
Ann from the relentless sun. By October,
the last of their animals had been eaten…the entire group was on foot. Nancy often went shoeless to relieve her
blisters.
At last, they
reached the escarpment of the Sierra Nevada.
Nancy relayed the struggle to cross the mountains, “We crossed the
Sierra Nevada at the head waters of San Joaquin River. We camped on the summit.
It was my eighteenth birthday. We had a difficult time to find a way down the
mountains. At one time I was left alone for nearly half a day, and as I was
afraid of the Indians, I sat all the while with my baby on my lap. It seemed to
me while I was there alone that the moaning of the winds through the pines was
the loneliest sound I had ever heard.”
Bidwell’s diary
tells the story, too. “Having come about
12 miles, a horrid precipice bid us stop—we obeyed and encamped. Men went in
different directions to see if there was any possibility of extricating
ourselves from this place without going back but could see no prospect of a
termination of mts., mts., mountains.”
Finally a place
was found to descend. It was steep and
rocky and at one point, four pack animals fell over the edge, taking with them
what was left of the provisions.
Benjamin (Nancy’s husband), too, nearly died from ‘the cramps.’ It was
suggested that he be left behind, but Nancy refused. They slaughtered a horse to eat and her
beloved husband recovered enough to continue onward.
With great
fortitude, the group finally reached the San Joaquin Valley around November 1. There, they found an abundance of food: fowl,
deer, and antelope. After going hungry for
so long, to the point of starvation at times, the party rejoiced. Within a few days, they had reached John
Marsh’s house and feasted again on fat pork and flour tortillas.
Nancy was sorely
disappointed that her husband didn't settle down and make a home for her and
Ann. After just five months in
California, he moved the family to Oregon.
This trip was just as harrowing as their first journey. They drove their cattle up the east side of
the Sacramento River for some forty miles before crossing it. “The men were all trying to drive the stock
into the river and I was left alone in the camp,” she wrote, “when several nude
Indians came in and I as I thought they intended to steal I stepped to a tree
where the guns were. As they approached me I warned them away. My husband saw from where he was that the
Indians were in the camp and sent one of the men…to protect me. He was a reckless young man, and as he rode
up he ordered the Indians to go, but they drew their bows on him and reversed
the order. Then he drew his pistol and
killed one of them and the rest fled.
The Indian fell within six feet of me.”
From Oregon Benjamin moved his family to the Napa Valley, San Joaquin plains and Mendocino. In 1848, he went to investigate the gold claim. After a ten day trip, he returned with over one thousand dollars. On his next trip, he took sheep to sell off for mutton and came back with sixteen thousand dollars. He bought a ranch for Nancy and his two daughters in Kelseyville, a town the couple helped build.
Nancy thought
they were finally settled and she was happy with her home, but it was
short-lived. In just a few months,
Benjamin sold the ranch and moved the family to Eureka and Arcata, where they
were among the first settlers. After
once again settling in, Benjamin came down with tuberculosis and the family
moved to Texas for his health. It was
here that she encountered her worst fear, as she told the San Francisco Examiner:
“In 1861 we were
attacked by Comanche Indians. The men were out hunting turkeys, and a
neighboring woman and her children and I and mine were alone. I discovered the Indians approaching our
camp, which was situated in a brushy place. I loaded the guns we had and
suggested that all hide themselves. The
two oldest girls ran and hid and a sixteen-year-old boy went along to a
hiding-place. The women and the smaller
children secreted ourselves in a small cave.
“They succeeded
in catching my girl because her dress got tangled in the brush. She was twelve years old. We found her the next day, but oh the anxiety
I felt during that long night. Yes, we
found her, and my anguish was horrible when I discovered that she had been
scalped and was partially deranged. My
husband and seventeen men followed the Indians three hundred miles, but never
caught up with them.”
In 1884, the
family returned to California and Benjamin built Nancy a cabin near San
Diego. He died in 1888 in Los
Angles. The daughter that was scalped
died when she was 18 of complications from her earlier injuries. Nancy died when she was 73, in 1896 of
cancer. She was not only the first
American woman to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but she “enjoyed riches
and suffered the pangs of poverty. I
have seen U.S. Grant when he was little known; I have baked bread for General
Fremont and talked to Kit Carson. I have run from bear and killed most all
other kinds of smaller game.”
Of her trip in
1841, one
of the fellow travelers wrote of Nancy, “Her cheerful nature and kind heart
brought many a ray of sunshine through clouds that gathered round a company of
so many weary travelers. She bore the fatigue of the journey with so much
heroism, patience, and kindness that there still exists a warmth in every heart
for the mother and child, that were always forming silvery linings for every
dark cloud that assailed them.”
Nancy is buried
in Santa Barbara, California. There is a small stone marking the grave, simply
inscribed with KELSEY.
References:
WITH GREAT HOPE:
WOMEN OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH by JoAnn Chartier and Chris Enss
THE OLD WEST: THE
PIONEERS, Time-Life Book
Copyright
©2011-12 Anna Kathryn Lanier
Anna Kathryn
Lanier
