George Nidever
Encyclopedia
George Nidever (December 20, 1802 – March 24, 1883) was an American mountain man
, explorer
, fur trapper, memoir
ist and sailor
. In the 1830s he became one of the first wave of American settlers to move to Mexican California, where he made his living in fur trapping. In 1853 he led the expedition that rescued Juana Maria
, the last member of the Nicoleño
people, from San Nicolas Island
where she had been living alone for eighteen years. Toward the end of his life Nidever wrote a memoir
, Life and Adventures of George Nidever, which was popular at the end of the 19th century.
, and was of German
descent. At 28 he joined a hunting and trapping party in 1830 at Fort Smith, Arkansas
; after a year spent adventuring from Missouri
to Texas
the core of the party reached Taos
in 1831. That fall they set out for the headwaters of the Arkansas River
. Nidever took part in the battle of Pierre's Hole
and in July 1832 he accompanied Joseph Reddford Walker to California
in 1833, and remained there, joining George C. Yount
in a sea otter
hunt which had some success. From Santa Barbara
he renewed sea otter hunting, pursuing that profession, along with farming and Pacific piloting for the remainder of his life. He married California native Sinforosa Sánchez at Mission Santa Barbara
in 1841.
At the end of the Mexican-American War, Nidever joined John C. Frémont
at Santa Barbara in 1846 and accompanied him as interpreter to Campo de Cahuenga
, where the Treaty of Cahuenga
was signed, ending the war. Nidever tried the gold
fields briefly, but without much success, and ranched for a time on San Miguel Island
.
, the last member of the Nicoleño
people who had been inadvertently left behind when the rest of her tribe was evacuated from San Nicolas Island
in 1835. Jeffries was unsuccessful, but the tales he told upon returning to San Francisco
captured Nidever's imagination, and he launched several expeditions of his own. In 1853, after two unsuccessful attempts, one of Nidever's men, Carl Dittman, discovered human footprints on the beach and pieces of seal blubber which had been left out to dry. Further investigation lead to Juana Maria’s discovery; she was living in a crude hut partially constructed of whale bones, and wearing a dress made of greenish cormorant
feathers.
Afterward Juana Maria was taken to the Mission Santa Barbara
, but was unable to communicate with anyone, even the local Chumash Indians. She stayed with the Nidevers upon her return to civilization, but contracted dysentery and died only a few weeks later. Her life was chronicled with very heavy artistic liberty in the classic children's novel Island of the Blue Dolphins
.
. The ballad so impressed Ralph Waldo Emerson
that he supplemented his essay "Courage" from his Society and Solitude with a transcription of its lyrics. Nidever died in 1883 and was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery Santa Barbara.
Mountain man
Mountain men were trappers and explorers who roamed the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through the 1880s where they were instrumental in opening up the various Emigrant Trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains...
, explorer
Exploration
Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...
, fur trapper, memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
ist and sailor
Sailor
A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...
. In the 1830s he became one of the first wave of American settlers to move to Mexican California, where he made his living in fur trapping. In 1853 he led the expedition that rescued Juana Maria
Juana Maria
Juana Maria , better known to history as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island , was a Native American woman who was the last surviving member of her tribe, the Nicoleño. She lived alone on San Nicolas Island from 1835 until her discovery in 1853...
, the last member of the Nicoleño
Nicoleño
The Nicoleño were a Native American tribe living on San Nicolas Island in California. Juana Maria, the "Lone Woman of San Nicolas," was the last surviving Nicoleño when she died in 1853.-History:...
people, from San Nicolas Island
San Nicolas Island
San Nicolas Island is the most remote of California's Channel Islands. It is part of Ventura County. The 14,562 acre island is currently controlled by the United States Navy and is used as a weapons testing and training facility, served by Naval Outlying Field San Nicolas Island...
where she had been living alone for eighteen years. Toward the end of his life Nidever wrote a memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
, Life and Adventures of George Nidever, which was popular at the end of the 19th century.
Adventures
Nidever was born in TennesseeTennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, and was of German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
descent. At 28 he joined a hunting and trapping party in 1830 at Fort Smith, Arkansas
Fort Smith, Arkansas
Fort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. With a population of 86,209 in 2010, it is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 298,592 residents which encompasses the Arkansas...
; after a year spent adventuring from Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
to Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
the core of the party reached Taos
Taos Pueblo
Taos Pueblo is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos speaking Native American tribe of Pueblo people. It is approximately 1000 years old and lies about north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico, USA...
in 1831. That fall they set out for the headwaters of the Arkansas River
Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's initial basin starts in the Western United States in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas...
. Nidever took part in the battle of Pierre's Hole
Pierre's Hole
Pierre's Hole, a shallow valley west of the Teton Range that collects the headwaters of the Teton River in what is today the state of Idaho, was a strategic center of the fur trade of the northern Rocky Mountains...
and in July 1832 he accompanied Joseph Reddford Walker to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
in 1833, and remained there, joining George C. Yount
George C. Yount
George Calvert Yount was a trapper in William Wolfskill's party from New Mexico and came to California in 1831. He was the first Euro-American permanent settler in the Napa Valley, where he was the grantee of two Mexican land grants. Yountville, California is named for him.-Biography:George C...
in a sea otter
Sea Otter
The sea otter is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between 14 and 45 kg , making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smallest marine mammals...
hunt which had some success. From Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
he renewed sea otter hunting, pursuing that profession, along with farming and Pacific piloting for the remainder of his life. He married California native Sinforosa Sánchez at Mission Santa Barbara
Mission Santa Barbara
In 1840, Alta California and Baja California were removed from the Diocese of Sonora to form the Diocese of Both Californias. Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, OFM, established his cathedra at Mission Santa Barbara, making the chapel the pro-cathedral of the diocese until 1849...
in 1841.
At the end of the Mexican-American War, Nidever joined John C. Frémont
John C. Frémont
John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...
at Santa Barbara in 1846 and accompanied him as interpreter to Campo de Cahuenga
Campo de Cahuenga
The Campo de Cahuenga, near the historic Cahuenga Pass in present day Studio City, Los Angeles, California, was an adobe ranch-house on the Rancho Cahuenga where the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed between Lieutenant Colonel John C. Frémont and General Andrés Pico in 1847, ending hostilities in...
, where the Treaty of Cahuenga
Treaty of Cahuenga
The Treaty of Cahuenga, also called the "Capitulation of Cahuenga," ended the fighting of the Mexican-American War in Alta California in 1847. It was not a formal treaty between nations but an informal agreement between rival military forces in which the Californios gave up fighting...
was signed, ending the war. Nidever tried the gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
fields briefly, but without much success, and ranched for a time on San Miguel Island
San Miguel Island
San Miguel Island is the westernmost of California's Channel Islands, located across the Santa Barbara Channel in the Pacific Ocean, within Santa Barbara County, California. San Miguel is the sixth-largest of the eight Channel Islands at , including offshore islands and rocks. Prince Island, off...
.
Juana Maria
In 1850, Father Gonzáles of the Mission Santa Barbara paid one Thomas Jeffries $200 to find Juana MariaJuana Maria
Juana Maria , better known to history as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island , was a Native American woman who was the last surviving member of her tribe, the Nicoleño. She lived alone on San Nicolas Island from 1835 until her discovery in 1853...
, the last member of the Nicoleño
Nicoleño
The Nicoleño were a Native American tribe living on San Nicolas Island in California. Juana Maria, the "Lone Woman of San Nicolas," was the last surviving Nicoleño when she died in 1853.-History:...
people who had been inadvertently left behind when the rest of her tribe was evacuated from San Nicolas Island
San Nicolas Island
San Nicolas Island is the most remote of California's Channel Islands. It is part of Ventura County. The 14,562 acre island is currently controlled by the United States Navy and is used as a weapons testing and training facility, served by Naval Outlying Field San Nicolas Island...
in 1835. Jeffries was unsuccessful, but the tales he told upon returning to San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
captured Nidever's imagination, and he launched several expeditions of his own. In 1853, after two unsuccessful attempts, one of Nidever's men, Carl Dittman, discovered human footprints on the beach and pieces of seal blubber which had been left out to dry. Further investigation lead to Juana Maria’s discovery; she was living in a crude hut partially constructed of whale bones, and wearing a dress made of greenish cormorant
Cormorant
The bird family Phalacrocoracidae is represented by some 40 species of cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed recently, and the number of genera is disputed.- Names :...
feathers.
Afterward Juana Maria was taken to the Mission Santa Barbara
Mission Santa Barbara
In 1840, Alta California and Baja California were removed from the Diocese of Sonora to form the Diocese of Both Californias. Bishop Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, OFM, established his cathedra at Mission Santa Barbara, making the chapel the pro-cathedral of the diocese until 1849...
, but was unable to communicate with anyone, even the local Chumash Indians. She stayed with the Nidevers upon her return to civilization, but contracted dysentery and died only a few weeks later. Her life was chronicled with very heavy artistic liberty in the classic children's novel Island of the Blue Dolphins
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Island of the Blue Dolphins is a 1960 American children's novel written by Scott O'Dell. The story of a young girl stranded for years on an island off the California coast, it is based on the true story of Juana Maria, a Nicoleño Indian left alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island in the 19th...
.
Later life
Nidever dictated his memoir to Edward F. Murray in 1878, The Life and Adventures of George Nidever, towards the end of his life. His story was popular; an episode in which he killed one grizzly bear with a single shot and then stared down another became the subject of a balladBallad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
. The ballad so impressed Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
that he supplemented his essay "Courage" from his Society and Solitude with a transcription of its lyrics. Nidever died in 1883 and was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery Santa Barbara.
External links
- http://www.jstor.org/pss/1496408 Link to portion of the "Ballad of George Nidever."
- http://www.militarymuseum.org/YosemiteBonneville.html Detailed description of a military expedition of which Nidever was briefly a part.