The Frontier Spirit of Nancy Kelsey, California’s Betsy Ross

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Speaker 1: And we continue here with our American Stories. And our next story is about a remarkable woman who played a crucial role in the settlement of the American West, Nancy Kelcey. Roger McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier. A US marine and former history professor at UCLA, doctor McGrath has appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries and he’s a regular contributor here for us at our American Stories. Here’s Roger McGrath with the story of Nancy Kelcey.00:00:46
Speaker 2: Nancy Kelsey was the first woman to cross overland to California. She did so carrying her baby daughter and an otherwise all male party of pioneers that crossed the Great Basin and the Sierra Nevada Mountains with no maps or guide and walk barefoot into California in eighteen forty one, the first of a tide of immigrants that would sweep California into the United States.

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Speaker 3: She also became known as the Betsy.

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Speaker 2: Ross of California for making the flag raised by the American rebels at Sonoma in eighteen forty six. She would give birth to ten children and survive unimaginable hardships. She was a pioneer woman who was emblematic of the spirit, drive, and strength that animated Americans on the frontiers of the Old West. William and Sarah Roberts welcome the birth of their daughter, Nancy on August oneh eighteen twenty three. Sarah is only seventeen years old, but that is not unusual in the Scotch Irish frontier settlements. In Barron County, Kentucky. Nancy is born only thirty years after the first white settled in Barron County, but her parents pick up in eighteen twenty six and move west to Jackson County, Missouri. In the far western part of that state, they settle among fellow pioneers from Kentucky. Nancy is reared on the family farm in Jackson County, and in eighteen thirty eight, fifteen year old Nancy Mary’s twenty five year old Ben Kelsey, also a native of Barren County, Kentucky. Here’s Cecilia Holland sharing anecdotes from her scrupulously researched book about Nancy Kelsey, An Ordinary Woman, The Remarkable story of the first American woman in California.

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Speaker 4: On October twenty fifth, eighteen thirty eight, a girl of fifteen rode eagerly through the blazing Missouri autumn to her wedding. She was a tall, pretty girl with long, dark hair and dark eyes and a wide humorous mouth, her face shaped with the high cheekbones and strong jaw of her Scotch Irish heritage. Her hands on the reins were strong and capable, and she rode astride, no pampered, sheltered city flower. She had been working since her childhood. She could milk a cow, skin, a deer, plant a field, drive a team of oxen, load, and shoot a rifle. She had made the dress she was wearing, the child of pioneers, spread to courage and risk. She had grown up in the wilderness, only a few miles from the Great Missouri River that, in eighteen thirty eight was the border of the settled United States. Her name was Nancy Roberts, and westering was in her blood. In marrying so young, and marrying whom she did, she was choosing a westering life, one that would take her across the unmapped continent and change American history.

00:03:52
Speaker 2: Then did Nancy have a daughter, Martha Ann in eighteen thirty nine and in eighteen forty one a son who dies eight days after. During May eighteen forty one, the Kelsey’s joined some sixty other members of the Western Immigration Society to attempt the first pioneer crossing to California. The group will go down in history as the Bartleson Bidwell Party. Here’s Nancy Leake. Nancy’s a librarian who writes biographies of California pioneers for children. She’s the author of Nancy Kelsey Comes Over the Mountain, The True Story of the first American Woman in California.

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Speaker 5: This is eighteen forty one. People in Missouri, where they were living, were just beginning to hear about California. For a very few years, the Oregon Trail had been open, and some people were going to Oregon, but nobody had yet gone to California. That was part of Mexico. But there was an American there, doctor John Marsh. He wrote some letters that were published in the newspapers, Stolen the Wonders of California. And also they heard from fur trappers who had been been to California and they said, you know, it’s empty. There’s hardly anybody there of course, they weren’t counting the Native Americans. It was just empty land free for the taking, fertile soil, plenty of game, the hunting and fishing would be good, good weather, and above all, it had a healthy climate, and that was one of the problems people in Missouri had. Ben Kelce had gotten ill a lot, probably malaria, a lot of chills and fevers, and people were always looking for a healthier climate. And Ben Kelsey had what his wife said was an adventurous disposition. In other words, he couldn’t sit still, and he always wanted to be trying a new place.

00:05:57
Speaker 2: Although they are tough party at Lunry, the members of the party know nothing about the far West. Our ignorance of the route was complete, said John Bidwell. We knew that California lay west, and that was the extent of our knowledge. Another member of the party produces a map which shows two large rivers running westward from the Great Salt Lake to California.

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Speaker 3: He suggests they take long.

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Speaker 2: Tools for constructing boats so they can float downstream to California on the second half of their journey. When Nancy Kelsey is asked why she is willing to undertake a journey across half the continent to California. She replies, where my husband goes, I go. I can better endure the hardships of the journey than the anxieties for an absent husband. The party are willing, but woefully ignorant Pioneers has the good fortune to fall in with a group of Jesuit missionaries led by the six foot eight ince Belgian born but American educated father Pierre Jean de Smet. The Black Robes are being guided and schooled in frontier survival by one of the greatest of all American mountain men, Irish born Tom Fitzpatrick, and several of his beaver trapping partners.

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Speaker 3: Here again is Cecilia Holland.

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Speaker 4: East. In the subtled United States, opinion was divided. Some people believed that hardy men could cross the continent, but mere women and children would never survive. It was tantamount to murder to take a woman on such a trip that some missionary women made. It was God’s providence. In any case, The West was worth nothing, a desert littered with rocks, infested with Indians. Other people claimed that the trip was a lark, a mere matter of following the sun no matter. They were leaving the United States and somewhere out there Fourny La and a new life.

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Speaker 2: On May eighteenth, eighteen forty one, the combined party leaves Sapling Grove, just south of present day Kansas City. On June one, the Pioneers, mountain Men, and missionaries across the Platte River in central Nebraska, and three weeks later they reach Fort Laramie in Wyoming. By now a twenty year veteran of the High Plains and the Rockies, Fitzpatrick smooths the way for them and the party is making excellent time.

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Speaker 3: Here again is Nancy Leak.

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Speaker 5: At first, I imagine this trip was kind of like a nice summer camping trip going along the Platte River. It’s not crowded yet when he had grass for their oxen and other animals. There is one incident where there’s a young man in the group named Nicholas Dawson, and he goes out hunting and he meets up with a band of Schien Indians who take everything he has, his rifle, his pistol, his knife, his clothing. They take everything and he comes running back into camp. And Nancy thought this was hilarious because She says, how you would have laughed if you had seen him come running back into camp. He was entirely naked. They had taken everything.

00:09:11
Speaker 4: Well.

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Speaker 5: Tom Fitzpatrick goes out and talks to the Indians, and he gets almost everything back. But ever after that, Nicholas Dawson was known as Cheyenne Dawson.

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Speaker 2: Fitzpatrick guides him through South past during the middle of Joy and by August tenth they reached Soda Springs in southeastern Idaho.

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Speaker 1: And when we come back, we’ll continue with the story of Nancy Kelsey, a remarkable woman who played a key role in the settlement of the West. Where my husband goes, I go, she said. And by the way, so many people thought it was tantamount to murder to take a woman, let alone her children. More at Nancy Kelsey’s story here on our American stories. And we continue here with our American stories and the story of Nancy Kelsey. Let’s pick up with Roger McGrath.

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Speaker 2: They’ve been on the trail less than three months, made relatively rapid progress, and have not suffered great hardship except for the hailstorms, frosty night temperatures, a tornado, and a run in with a herd of buffalo. Here again is Cecilia Holland, author of An Ordinary Woman, the remarkable story of the first American woman in California.

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Speaker 4: One evening, as the settlers were camping by the water, Fitzpaptrick came in among them in great excitement. A drove of buffalo was headed straight toward them. He got all the men out with their guns to build fires between the camp and the oncoming tide, and wrapped tight in her arms, Nancy and the other women bundled together, sleepless through the dim while all night long the men fed the fires and shut off their guns, splitting the on rushing buffalo into two streams that thundered by on either side of the camp in a continuous, hours long stampede. One cannot nowadays describe the rush and wildness of the thing. Bidwell said muchs later in the morning. The camp was an island and a great sea of wooly brown bodies. The sky was a milky shroud of dust. The buffalo trampling down into the river to drink, had fouled the water so that the people could not stomach it.

00:11:35
Speaker 2: Now a decision has to be made Fitzpatrick is taking the missionaries to the Pacific Northwest. Here again is Nancy Leek, author of Nancy Kelsey Comes Over the Mountain, The True story of the first American woman in California.

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Speaker 5: Tom Fitzpatrick, the trail guide, tells them you do not want to attempt this. That territory has bare been explored, its deserts, its mountains, it’s desolate. And so they say, all right, we’ll go to Oregon. It’s too dangerous to go to California. But Ben Kelsey is not the kind of man to change his mind.

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Speaker 3: He’s going to.

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Speaker 5: California, and wherever he goes, his wife is going to go with him. That’s the way she was. Wherever my husband goes, I go with him.

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Speaker 2: Thirty four, the Bartisan Buildwell Party are determined to push on to California. Among them is an eighteen year old Nancy Kelsey, and are now two babies. Martha Anne is in front of her and another one inside of her. Fitzpatrick draws the pioneers a map in the dirt, warning that if they miss Mary’s River known as the Humboldt River today, they will die. Long before reaching California in mid August, without guide or compass, they turn their horses and wagons south and follow the Bear River into Utah. They reached the Great Salt Lake on August thirty. They skirt the northern shore of the lake, and in the blazing desert to the west, were forced to abandon their wagons and pack everything on horses and mules.

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Speaker 4: Desperate now, they turned east and cut as straight across country as they could to find the Bare River again before they all died of thirst. The weaker animals straggled behind, and they had to let them lag. The Oxen drawing. The two Kelsey wagons were trudging along so slow even Anne.

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Speaker 3: Could outwalk them.

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Speaker 4: The ground was white with salt, and the wagon wheels crouched out trails as if in snow. Salts spangled the blades of grass that straggled up from the crusted ground and cried for water, and Nancy gave her the last in the canteen. She looked at Ben driving the Oxen, wondering when he had drunk last. Her own mouth was so dry it hurt, and her lips cracked, and she tasted wisps of blood.

00:14:03
Speaker 2: Carrying her baby in front of her, Nancy Kelsey rides horseback. California is hundreds of miles away. The party stumbles upon the headwaters the Humboldt River and follows its course southwestward across Nevada Bayouts occasionally block their path, and when they do, Nancy holds her baby tightly in her arms. Everyone knew how Indians stole children. At one place, the Indians surrounded us armed with bows and arrows, said Nancy. But my husband leveled his gun at the chief and made him order his Indians out of raw range. The pioneers reached the sink of the Humboldt near present day Lovelock early in October and then begin a grueling trek across forty mile desert to the Carson River.

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Speaker 5: Along the way, they have to abandon their wagons. Their oxen are exhausted, and they’re starting to eat their oxen. They’ve eaten most of the food they’d packed in the wagons, so there’s not much point in pulling these wagons through the sand anymore. So they abandoned the wagons, pack everything on their animals, continue along the Humboldt River, and then eventually the river sinks into the sand and they are facing the Sierra Nevada Mountains and that is just a wall of rock, and they’re exhausted, they’re starving. The whole party had considered turning around and going back to Fort Hall in Idaho, but that wasn’t really an option. They knew they didn’t have the food, they didn’t have the supplies to make the trip back. They were going to have to go over the Sierra Nevada.

00:15:45
Speaker 2: As it begin their climb, John Bidwell looks up the eastern face of the Sierra Nevada and describes what he sees as naked mountains whose summits still retain the snows, perhaps a thousand years. Climb is slow and arduous, and breathing becomes difficult. There’s no established trail to follow. Boulders and fallen trees block their path. Streams must be crossed and recrossed. On October eighteenth, they reached Sonora Pass and an elevation of nearly ten thousand feet. Peaks on either side of the pass are another two thousand feet higher. Fortunately, a heavy snowfall has not yet blanketed the Sierras. Now they have to buy an arrow route down the steep and deep canyons on the western side of the Sierras into the San Joaquin Valley.

00:16:38
Speaker 3: They have little or no food.

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Speaker 2: Their clothes, blankets, and diapers are in tatters, and their shoes have long worn away.

00:16:46
Speaker 3: She says.

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Speaker 5: Of course, we did not know where we were. The party scattered here to find the best way to descend the mountains. I was left with my babe alone, and as I sat there on my horse and listened to the side and moaning of the winds through the pines, it seemed the loneliest spot in the world. The descent was so abrupt that an Indian who had come to us on the mountain was allowed to leave my horse for part of the way. At one place, an old man of the party, his name was George Henshaw, became so exhausted that they had to threaten to shoot him before he would proceed. At another place, four pack animals fell over a bluff, and we never tried to recover them. They had gone so far it was no use to think of it. We were then out of provisions, as we had eaten all our cattle at this point, Nicholas Dawson says, once I remember when I was struggling along trying to keep Monty, that’s the name of his mule, trying to keep Monty from going over. I looked back and saw missus Kelsey a little way behind me, with her child in her arms, barefooted and leading her horse, a sight I shall never forget. And he thought, well, if she can do it, I guess I can do it. And they kept going.

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Speaker 2: Nancy recalled. We lived on roasted acorns for two days. My husband came very near dying with cramps, and I was suggested to leave him, but I said I would never do that. At one place, I was so weak I could hardly stand. Oh, Nancy Kelsey had a right to be exhausted. She was not only carrying her daughter, but she was also five months pregnant.

00:18:27
Speaker 1: And you’ve been listening to the story of Nancy Kelsey, and you’ve been listening to Roger McGrath tell it. And again, there’s no finer storyteller in the country when it comes to stories about the American West and the American Frontier. And there’s no more important story to tell than Nancy Kelsey’s the first woman to move to California. And this is back before an interstate, back before anything. This is just well not long after the Lewis and Clark expedition, one of the great great stories in American history. Steve Ambrose, of course chronicled it in undaunted courage, and I believe it was Ambrose’s finest work. When we come back, this remarkable story of a woman pioneer, a woman adventurer, her name Nancy Kelsey. Her story continues here on our American stories, And we continue here on our American stories with the story of Nancy Kelcey. And once again here’s McGrath.

00:19:46
Speaker 2: After treacherous descents, they reached the middle fork of the Stanislaus River and follow it down into the San Joaquin Valley. Seeing the coast ranges off to the west, they at first wreckon California is still hundreds of miles farther away. They soon realized their mistaken notion, and on November fourth, eighteen forty one, after a half year on the trail, the pioneers arrived at the Mount Diablo ranch of an American settler, doctor John Marsh. He regularly sent letters to the East urging Americans to settle in California, hoping a growing number of Americans would cause California to go the way of Texas.

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Speaker 3: A six month.

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Speaker 2: Journey to Marsh’s Ranch makes Nancy Kelsey the first woman to cross overland to California from the United States. Throughout the journey, she was an inspiration to the men. Her cheerful nature and kind heart brought many a ray of sunshine through the clouds that gathered around the company of so many weary travelers, said Philip pioneer Joseph Chiles.

00:21:00
Speaker 3: Here again is Nancy Leak.

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Speaker 5: In many ways, she was just an ordinary pioneer woman. But those pioneer women were remarkable women. They could handle any situation and do it with good humor and a lot of grit. Joseph Chiles, who was also a member of the Bidwell Bartleson Party, said she bore the fatigues of the journey with so much heroism, patience, and kindness that there still exists a warmth in every heart for the mother and her child. They were always forming silver linings with every dark cloud that assailed them.

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Speaker 2: The Kelsey’s built a log cabin in the Napa Valley, a mile south of today’s Callistuga. In February eighteen forty two, Nancy gives birth to Sarah Jane.

00:21:50
Speaker 3: Who lives only one week before dying.

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Speaker 2: Nancy has two little graves now bookmarking each end of the journey. But as she he has done before, Nancy Kelsey stokely endures. Meanwhile, Ben is making money hunting and trapping, and with the proceeds buying cattle. During the spring of eighteen forty three, Ben decides to drive one hundred hit a cattle north to American settlements in Oregon’s Willamat Valley. Is joined by his brother Andy and three other men. Although pregnant Nancy goes along, five year old Martha Ann goes as well. At a crossing of the Sacramento River, while the men were busy driving the cattle, Indians raid the Kelsey’s camp. Nancy yells for help, and Nicholas Dawson is the first to arrive. Because of his enormous size, Dawson is known as Bear. Bear came and shot one of the Indians within a few feet of me, said Nancy. Then he compelled the rest of them to help with the cattle crossing. Several weeks later, while camp near Mount Shasta, the Kelseys have.

00:23:05
Speaker 3: Indian trouble again. During the night, Indians shoot.

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Speaker 2: Several of the party’s horses, and the next day, after a mile on the trail, there is a pitch battle. Nancy is in the midst of it, sitting on her horse and holding her daughter. There are several more Indian attacks before they reach the safety of the American settlements in the northern portion of the Willamette Valley. After selling their cattle and purchasing supplies at Fort Vancouver, they begin their return trip. En route, Nancy gives birth to another daughter, Margaret. Near Mount Shasta, they have another pitch battle with a large group of Indian warriors while the arrows were flying into camp, said Nancy, I took one baby and hit my child in the brush. I returned and took the other child and hit that child also. The moon was shining brightly. Each time the men fired their guns. I heard an Indian fall into the river as I hit the little ones. I wondered if I’d ever see daylight again.

00:24:13
Speaker 3: Think of it.

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Speaker 2: We had only five men and there were possibly one hundred Indians. What’s Back in the Napa Valley, the keys prosper again, hunting, trapping, and grazing cattle and horses. In April eighteen forty six, Nancy gives birth to a son, Andrew. Two months later, on June fourteenth, American settlers at northern California revolt against Mexican rule by taking control of Sonoma and declaring establishment of the Bear Flag Republic in Sonoma. On that fateful day is Nancy Kelcey, holding Andrew in her arms. She watches as the American rebels raise the bear flag with its humped back, grizzly and lone star.

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Speaker 3: Reason to be.

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Speaker 2: Proud of the new flag. She made it using a three x five piece of cloth and a strip of red flannel from her petticoat. She will soon be called the Betsy Ross of California. Her husband Ben is a prominent bear flagger. He later gets into a dispute with John C. Fremont and gives him a tongue lashing when Fremont assumes command.

00:25:23
Speaker 3: Of the rebels.

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Speaker 2: That Kelseys were known for their use of wicked and blasphemous language, said Nancy made a mule skinner blush.

00:25:34
Speaker 3: Here again is Cecilia Holland.

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Speaker 4: On July eighth, the US Navy seized Monterey without firing or shot. The Mexican dons fled. A day later, the Bear flag came down that flagpole in Sonoma, and the stars and stripes went up on the whole. The bear showed more skill and foresight than one might expect. After all, the bears were ordinary people, not government sanctioned. Here. Thanks for Ben and Nancy Kelsey, they founded California and it became American.

00:26:07
Speaker 2: When Ben later falls sick with malaria, Nancy rides held bent for Sonoma in medicine. En root In, an Indian known locally as Chief Augustine, tries to last so her and drag her off the horse. Although Nancy was without her pistol, she manages to escape and continue her wild ride to town. She returns with the medicine and tells Ben of the attempted horse theft in her nero escape. Ben explodes with rage and bolts out of his sick bed. Now he is the one on the back of a galloping horse. He tracks down Chief Augustine and kills him with a pistol shot.

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Speaker 4: Nancy continues to have children, Mary Ellen in eighteen forty eight, Nancy Rose in eighteen fifty one, William in eighteen fifty four, Georgia Anne in eighteen fifty nine, and Samuel in eighteen sixty one, when Samuel was born, she was thirty eight. She had been pregnant or nursing for more than twenty years, and for a good deal of it she had been on the trail.

00:27:15
Speaker 2: Here Samuel was born, and the family travels across the southwest. We drifted into Texas, said Nancy, and were attacked by the Comanche. The men went hunting turkey, and a neighbor woman and myself were alone with our children. When I discovered the Indians approaching her camp. I loaded the guns and suggested we hide. The oldest two girls ran and hid in the brush, and the sixteen year old looked out for himself by hiding alone. We and the smaller children hid in the cave. I heard the Indians above, but they did not discover us. After they pillaged the camp, they found the girls and succeeded in catching mary Ellen.

00:27:54
Speaker 3: Poor girl.

00:27:56
Speaker 2: She was only thirteen, and even now I can hear her screams when they scalped her. The Canancys leave mary Ellen for dead, but Nancy finds her still clean to life. Nancy staunches the bleeding and stitches mary Ellen’s head wounds. The girl survives, but said Nancy. She was demented after that and died in Fresno five years later from the injuries she had received. In eighteen seventy nine, Nancy’s son Samuel dies in an accident during the harvest, and in eighteen eighty nine her husband Ben dies, but his legacy survives to this very day.

00:28:38
Speaker 4: His name is everywhere in California, Kelseyville, on Klearlik, the forgotten hamlet of Kelsey and Eldorado County, the Kelsey Trail, the River, Kelsey Canyon, Kelsey Creek.

00:28:51
Speaker 2: After Ben’s death, Nancy settles on a ranch in the Quiama Valley northeast of Santa Barbara. She raises cattle and chickens, administers herbal remedies to sick neighbors, delivers babies, and once rides one hundred miles in one twenty four hour period on a.

00:29:10
Speaker 3: Mission of mercy.

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Speaker 2: Nancy dies of skin cancer at the age of seventy three in eighteen ninety six and is buried on a ranch in oaks studded Cottonwood Canyon. The Native Daughters of the Golden West marked her grave with a plaque. Each year, an equestrian group conducts a three day one hundred and fifty mile ride through the Quiama Valley, perhaps not up to Nancy Kelsey’s one day effort, but a feet of endurance nonetheless. On the third day, the riders stop at the Pioneer’s grave site and pay tribute to the Betsy ross Off California and the first woman to cross the continent to what would become the Golden State.

00:29:59
Speaker 1: And to Roger McGrath as always and he’s the author of Gunfighters, Highwimen and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier. Nancy Kelsey’s story a fundamental part of American history. Here on our American Stories