By Diane Euston
When thinking about the tenacious spirit that drove exploration and expansion of the United States west of Missouri, it cannot be denied that it took a lot of guts to be “the first” to do pretty much anything. The spirited pioneer certainly relied upon the tales told in newspapers of what awaited them west, but someone had to be the inaugural group to give the unknown a try.
The first trail that forged through what is now Jackson County was the Santa Fe Trail, a commercial highway first traversed in 1821. By the mid-1830s, the Oregon Trail was in use. First laid out by fur traders, the Oregon Trail was cleared all the way to Fort Hall, Idaho by 1836.
The California Trail, the final of the famous Three Trails, came later- and the first party of persevering pioneers to take this trip have roots right here in our area.
What is now known as the Bidwell-Bartleson Party left all caution to the wind and took the ultimate gamble well before the Gold Rush had emerged as a reason to reach California.
Its captain, John Bartleson, has a rich history that involves many firsts, and his final resting place resides near the Cass County line just south of Martin City.
Life in North Carolina and Kentucky
John B. Bartleson was born in 1786 in Rowan County, N.C. to parents Zachariah and Catharine. John was one of seven children. The Bartlesons were originally from New Jersey and were artisan chair makers; they left for North Carolina due to the scarcity of timber.
As lands opened up southwest, settlers quickly abandoned their native homes for cheaper land. Kentucky became the first state west of the Appalachians in 1792, and by 1800, 100,000 people opted to move to the BlueGrass State.
Bartleson’s oldest sister, Rebecca, landed in Madison County, Ky. by 1800 where she married, and his father chose Wayne County, Ky. as his final resting place. He died there in 1805.
There is no documentation to indicate what Bartleson’s upbringing was like, but he likely received a common education before moving to Kentucky. Likely moving to Madison County to join his sister, Bartleson met and married Frances “Fanny” Bogie (b. 1793) in 1819. Fanny’s father, Andrew, was one of three brothers from Scotland who settled in Madison County.
In addition to farming, her father and his brothers had two mills, a blacksmith shop and a distillery along Silver Creek. The stone home where Fanny Bogie Bartleson was raised, built about 1796, still stands.
Shortly after his marriage, Bartleson set his sights out west along with thousands of other Kentuckians. By 1818, land in what would be the state of Missouri was for sale, and by the Missouri Compromise in 1820, emigrants from predominantly Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee began to move.
Bartleson’s sister, Susanna Bartleson Dean (b. 1784) moved with her husband to this uncharted territory in 1820. Bartleson and his younger brother, Andrew (b. 1791) soon followed.
A Clay County Pioneer
Records indicate that Bartleson left his wife behind in Kentucky when he and his bachelor brother headed west, settling as early as 1820 in what is now Clay County, Mo. They were two of just a dozen men “whose fathers had gone to Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas, and whose sons were now seeking homes in western Missouri.”
Before land was even open to legal settlement, the Bartleson brothers worked to clear the land. At the time, there were no settlements in the county except for Fort Osage.
When Clay County, Mo. was organized in 1822, the population of the entire county was about 1,200 people. When the first court case was filed in Clay County a year later, John Bartleson served on the very first jury.
Even though he was setting up his life in Clay County, Bartleson’s wife remained in Kentucky. He must have traveled between the states, as his first son, Sidney, was born in Kentucky in September 1824.
Back in Clay County, Bartleson and his brother were able to purchase land between current-day towns of Claycomo and Liberty between 1823 and 1825, accumulating over 400 acres. By 1830, his wife, Fanny, and son, Sidney, and daughter, Diana had moved to Missouri to their new home. They welcomed a second daughter, Emeline in 1831 and another son, John T., in 1833.
Bartleson, then in his mid-30s, had quickly become a leading man of western Missouri. When the Missouri General Assembly sought to find a county seat for the newly formed Jackson County, Mo., Bartleson along with three other men were commissioned to select the townsite for Independence, Mo. in March 1827.
Setting His Sights on Southern Jackson County
Today’s southern Jackson County was once called Washington Township and includes Hickman Mills, New Santa Fe, Raytown, Martin City and Grandview. In order to buy land, the government had to plat it into sections and townships so it could be legally sold.
But this area was unique, because even though land was available in southern Jackson County, it wasn’t platted until 1843. Legend has it that the man hired to survey the land got a wee bit intoxicated on liquor given to him by Native Americans near the Blue River, and he passed out. When he woke up, he had lost all his field notes, so he returned to the Land Office and told the government the land was uninhabitable.
Thus, Washington Township became known as one of the “Lost Townships” and meant that legal settlement didn’t occur until after another survey was completed in 1843.
That certainly didn’t stop rambunctious, land-hungry settlers from squatting on the land. As early as 1833, local stories indicate that Bartleson erected a log cabin near the Santa Fe Trail “which acted as a tavern to service passing travelers.” This became known as Blue Camp 20, because it was 20 miles from Independence and was near the Little Blue River.
Those chosen for leadership of this new township says a lot about the very few residents living in southern Jackson County. In March 1836, the first election was held to select justices of the peace for the area. They selected Abraham Chrisman (living near current-day Longview Lake), John Fitzhugh (one of the men to build the original Watt’s Mill at 103rd and State Line) and John Bartleson.
Bartleson used “squatters rights” in Jackson County and simply erected the log cabin and moved his family and at least three enslaved people there. Early history books state that “most of the early settlers in this section went to Independence and Westport for supplies. They usually lived in the timber and ate hominy and potatoes, frequently having no bread.”
By 1840, Bartleson and his family were living in southern Jackson County on the land he would legally purchase years later. The original farm where he “squatted” can be seen on an official government survey filed October in 1844; the farm would have been on the east side of Holmes Rd. near current-day Kenneth Rd.
Four children under the age of 16 and a large, working farm in Jackson County, Mo. was not enough to stop Bartleson from tackling his next adventure. He looked west for his next endeavor that would mark another first in American history.
John Bidwell’s Enterprising Spirit
Despite being the ripe old age of 53 in 1840 (elderly in this era), Bartleson heard that an emigrant wagon train was heading west to California. The idea to travel just shy of 1,700 miles wasn’t originally his idea – it rested with a younger man named John Bidwell.
Born in 1819 in New York, Bidwell came to Missouri in 1839 and began teaching school in Platte County. There, he crossed paths with an old Santa Fe trader named Antoine Robideux (1794-1860). Antoine’s brother, Joseph, founded a trading post at the site of St. Joseph, Mo. in 1826.
Robideux’s travels led him to California via New Mexico, and his glowing descriptions of this land– then a part of Mexico- made it sound like a paradise. Bidwell later wrote, “His description of California was in the superlative degree favorable, so much so that I resolved if possible to see that wonderful land, and with others helped to get up a meeting at Weston and invited him to make a statement.”
Robideux recounted a tall tale that he knew of only one man who ever got sick with “a chill” while in California, “and it was a matter of so much wonderment to the people of Monterey that they went 18 miles into the country to see him shake.”
Robideux’s words in Weston inspired 500 people, including Bidwell, to form the Western Emigration Society.
At the same time, a man in Jackson County, Mo. received a letter from an old friend, Dr. James Marsh, who also lived in California. Dr. Marsh (1799-1856) was from Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard in 1823. He moved west, first to Minnesota and later to Wisconsin where he worked for a time as an Indian agent. He learned the Sioux language.
He met a beautiful half-Sioux woman named Marguerite Decouteaux, and without marrying her, the couple had a child together. When Dr. Marsh was relocated to Wisconsin, Marguerite followed him on foot despite his pleas for her to stay behind. She died in childbirth after trying to walk to Wisconsin.
After leaving his son with a trusted friend in the fall of 1833, Dr. Marsh landed in Independence, Mo. where he opened a general merchandise store that failed by 1835. There, he likely met John Bartleson. He opted next to travel to New Mexico and then joined a group traveling to California. After arriving at the “dirty, sprawling village of Los Angeles,” he traveled further to northern California where he purchased a large ranch in 1837 in current-day Contra Costa County.
Because it was Mexican land, Dr. Marsh had to be baptized Catholic to become a resident and purchase land.
But the tension in California was rising; there were several countries considering invading California, and Dr. Marsh resolved that the best way to protect his interests was to encourage immigration from the United States. Thus, “he began writing letters to his friends in the Midwest and elsewhere, praising the California climate, crops, commerce and other riches available on the West Coast.”
Some of those recipients were Jackson County residents.
But it wasn’t all California wine and roses. Just months before Bidwell and the 500 pledged members of the Western Emigrant Company were to embark on their journey, letters speaking unfavorably of California were published in the area’s only newspaper, the Liberty Tribune. The news spread like wildfire, and the original group backed out.
Bidwell needed to recruit more people, as he didn’t even have enough money to outfit his own wagon. In the winter of 1839, he made three trips to Jackson County to recruit more people. The plan was to leave in May 1840.
It’s not clear when John Bartleson decided that the climate of California, absent his wife and four children, was calling him. Regardless, the outfitting for his newest adventure began in Weston.
Bartleson headed to Westport for supplies along with six other people from Jackson County: Aaron Overton, Charles Hopper, Robert Rickman, Joseph B. Chiles, William Badridge and Grove Cook.
The recommendation was for people to bring their own supplies, including at least a barrel of flour with sugar. “We were told when we got into the mountains, we would probably be out of bread and have to live on meat alone, which I thought would kill me even if it did not others,” Bidwell later wrote.
He bought an additional 100 pounds of flour to avoid a bread disaster.
Bidwell waited at the agreed rendezvous place called Sapling Grove on the Kansas River for people to arrive, completely unaware of who would show up for this uncharted journey.
Sixty-nine people, including men, women and children showed up, a few wagons arriving each day. Seven of them were led by southern Jackson County leader and pioneer, John Bartleson.
They had no idea what to expect, and they certainly did not imagine the troubles that would arise.
Bidwell wrote, “Our ignorance of the route was complete. We knew that California lay west, and that was the extent of our knowledge.”
Regardless of their ignorance, the Bidwell-Bartleson Party left for the unknown on May 18, 1841.