George Nidever
George Nidever | |
---|---|
Born | fur trapper, memoirist and sailor | December 20, 1802
George Nidever (also spelled Nidiver; December 20, 1802 – March 24, 1883) was an American
Adventures
Nidever was born in
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.
Juana Maria
In 1850, Father Gonzales of the Mission Santa Barbara paid one Thomas Jeffries $200 to find Juana Maria, 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
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.[1] 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 ballad. 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.
Notes
- ^ Ellison, p. 3 of introduction
References
- Nidever, George; Ellison, William Henry (Ed.) (August 1984). The Life and Adventures of George Nidever, 1802–1883. Santa Barbara, California: Mcnally & Loftin Publishers. ISBN 0-87461-058-3.
External links
- Anderson, John Q. (1956). "Emerson and the Ballad of George Nidever: "Staring down" a Grizzly Bear". Western Folklore. 15 (1): 40–45. JSTOR 1496408.
- http://www.militarymuseum.org/YosemiteBonneville.html Detailed description of a military expedition of which Nidever was briefly a part.
- http://www.islapedia.com/index.php?title=NIDEVER,_George NIDEVER, George, biography with photos.