The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 18, July 1914 - April, 1915 Page: 25
438 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Early Sentiment for Annexation of California
whose brother Joseph was a well-known western trader, having
recently returned from a trip to California, brought back such
marvelous reports of the productiveness of its soil and the genial
qualities of its climate, that a public meeting was held "to hear
more about this wonderful country on the Pacific Coast." When
Rubidoux had finished his address before this gathering, repeating
perhaps in a more formal way what he had already told many in
private conversation, he became the target of questions from the
audience. One easily imagines the form these took, regarding
some particular phase of California conditions in which individuals
were interested; or in respect to the length and hardships of the
overland journey.
One ague-racked member of the assembly even wanted to know
if chills and fever prevailed in that country which Rubidoux
had described as a "perfect paradise, a perpetual spring." "There
never was but one man in California who had the chills," replied
Rubidoux. "He was from Missouri and carried the disease in
his system. It was such a curiosity to see a man shake with the
chills that the people of Monterey went eighteen miles into the
country to see him."80 Unfortunately Bidwell neglects to state
how many of the forty-eight who eventually left Sapling Grove
were influenced by this answer to seek an escape from the malaria
of the Mississippi Valley and the mournful sufferings to which so
many of the early settlers were exposed.
The growing interest of the United States was not wholly con-
fined to the west during these years, however. Notice of the emi-
grant parties that were leaving Missouri was printed in the eastern
papers. In Rochester, New York, John J. Warner, while advocating
the building of a railroad across the continent to the Columbia,
devoted much of his public lectures to a description of California
and the advantages of San Francisco Bay.1 Harvey Baldwin,
from the same neighborhood, perhaps influenced by Warner, ad-
dressed a long letter to the president, contrasting the commercial
importance and resources of California with the comparative worth-
lessness of the Oregon territory and urging him to take immediate
8Bidwell, California, 5-6.
8Warner's lecture was printed in the New York Journal of Commerce
and in the Colonial Magazine, V, 229-236. Baneroft, XXI, 223.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 18, July 1914 - April, 1915, periodical, 1915; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101064/m1/31/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.