One of the most remarkable outgrowths of the California Gold Rush era (1848 – 1860s) was the number of future United States Senators who lived or worked in Nevada County.

Eight Senators were residents of Nevada County – some were short-term inhabitants, while others put down roots and established themselves as members of the community.

These senators are profiled in this exhibit.

 

Aaron Augustus Sargent – United States Senator from California – 1873 - 1879

Aaron Sargent arrived in the tiny gold camp then called Nevada in 1849 (today’s Nevada City), where he engaged in mining with limited success.  He was more successful in publishing and established the Nevada Journal newspaper.  Sargent soon gained a reputation as a strong advocate of Whig Party politics, a forerunner of today’s Republican Party.

Aaron Sargent studied law while editing the Nevada Journal.  He was admitted to the bar in 1854, and soon entered into a political career.  Sargent was elected District Attorney of Nevada County in 1856.  With the founding of the new Republican Party, Sargent became an important early leader in the party.  In 1860, Sargent was vice-president of the Republican National Convention – the convention that chose Abraham Lincoln as its presidential candidate. Also in 1860, Aaron Sargent was elected to Congress.  He would serve three terms – from 1861 – 1863 and 1869 – 1873.  As chairman of the House Railroad Committee in 1862, Sargent authored the Pacific Railroad Act, which authorized the construction of the transcontinental railroad, completed in May 1869.

In 1872, Aaron Augustus Sargent was elected to the United States Senate.  He would serve one term. 

In 1878, Senator Sargent introduced the 29 words that later became the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing voting rights for women. Sargent’s wife, Ellen Clark Sargent, was a leading voting rights advocate, and a friend of such suffrage leaders as Susan B. Anthony. The bill calling for the amendment would be introduced unsuccessfully each year for the next forty years. 

Following his Senate service, Sargent was the Minister to Germany from 1882 – 1884.  Aaron Augustus Sargent died in 1887 at the age of 59.  He was buried originally in San Francisco’s Laurel Hill Cemetery, but when construction took over the property, his ashes were scattered over his mining claims and his vault was moved to Nevada City’s Pioneer Cemetery on West Broad Street, just a few hundred yards from the Sargent House. The Sargent House is located at the top of Broad Street in Nevada City.

On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.  It used exactly the same wording that Senator Aaron Augustus Sargent had introduced forty years earlier.

 

William Morris Stewart – United States Senator from Nevada – 1864-1875; 1887-1893; 1893-1901; 1901-1905

Born in New York, William Morris Stewart (known as Bill to his friends and supporters) caught gold fever during the early days of the California Gold Rush.  He moved to San Francisco in 1850 and soon was on his way to the gold fields via Marysville. 

His arrival in Nevada City was anything but auspicious, however.  As he recounted in his 1908 memoirs, Bill was very sick with a fever but determined to travel to the land of riches.  “In the morning two men with a team consisting of twelve oxen were loading supplies for a mining camp known as Deer Creek, afterward Nevada City, about forty miles up in the mountains, “ Stewart recalled, “I asked them to take me on their wagon.  They objected at first, [but] finally consented to take me.  They loaded me on the wagon … and made me as comfortable as they could. It was a dreary ride, lasting three and a half days.  I was racked with pain, and part of the time I was delirious.”  Upon arrival, William Stewart endured eight days of high fever and intense discomfort, but survived.  Not a small accomplishment, as he was told that everyone else in the community who suffered the fever had died. 

With but ten dollars in his pocket, Stewart bought a pick and shovel and commenced mining.  Soon he discovered a rich claim and he was on his way. In his spare time, Bill studied law.  In 1852, he was admitted to the bar.  Also in that year, the young lawyer was elected District Attorney and wrote a nine-item list of mining rules for Nevada County.  Some years later, Stewart’s simple rules would form the basis of one of the most influential federal legislations of the period – the Mining Law of 1872.

Soon Stewart met and married Annie Foote, daughter of former Mississippi Governor and U.S. Senator Henry Foote.  But … Stewart was embarrassed to bring his Southern belle to a rude mining camp, and to lessen the sting, he constructed a replica of her Mississippi childhood home.  Still standing today and located at 416 Zion Street in Nevada City, the beautiful structure has been described as the “only true antebellum Southern Colonial house in California.” It was constructed in 1855. 

Stewart was elected California Attorney General in 1854.  In 1860, the Stewarts moved to Virginia City, where they quickly became early leaders in the development of Nevada Territory.  In 1864, Nevada was admitted as a state, and William Morris Stewart was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate. He was one of Nevada’s two original senators. Over the next forty years, Stewart would be elected senator from Nevada four times, serving a total of 29 years.  In one election, he ran as a member of the Silver Party, and came to be known as the “Silver Senator” as a result.  Stewart was one of the last people to see Abraham Lincoln alive, and he stood by Lincoln’s death bed following the assassination.

During his many years in the Senate, Stewart drafted or co-authored important legislation, including several mining acts and laws urging land reclamation by irrigation.  Most famously, Stewart is given credit for authoring in 1868 the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution protecting voting rights regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.  In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant offered Stewart a seat on the United States Supreme Court.  Stewart declined.

William Morris Stewart died in 1909.

 

George Hearst – United States Senator from California - 1886-1886; 1887-1891

Today George Hearst is best known as the father of the famous newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, but his family fortune began with a string of successful mining ventures in Nevada County.

Hearst was born in Missouri in1820.  He graduated from the Franklin County Mining School in 1838. When news of the discovery of gold in California reached him, Hearst moved to the gold fields in 1850. He was a highly successful prospector and worked in the Gold Flat and Willow Valley Mines in Nevada County.  He was also engaged in livestock raising, and farming and grew very wealthy.  Hearst moved to San Francisco in 1862 and was a member of the California State Assembly in 1865-1866.  During this period, he bought the San Francisco Examiner, which launched the career of his famous son. An unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor of California in 1882;  George Hearst was appointed as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John F. Miller and served from March 23, 1886, to August 4, 1886, when a successor was elected.  Hearst elected in 1887 to the United States Senate as a Democrat and served from March 4, 1887, until his death in Washington, D.C., February 28, 1891.

 

Charles Norton Felton – United States Senator from California - 1891-1893

Charles Norton Felton was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1832.  He attended Syracuse Academy.  He studied law and was admitted to the bar but never practiced.

With the Gold Rush, Felton moved to Nevada County in 1849 where he worked as a bank cashier and in other mercantile jobs. Felton was elected sheriff of Yuba County in 1853 and subsequently served as tax collector.  Felton was appointed treasurer of the United States Mint at San Francisco and Assistant Treasurer of the United States and remained in that position from1868-1877.

Charles Norton Felton was a member of the California State Assembly from 1878-1882.  Felton served two terms in the House of Representatives from 1885 -1889. In 1890, he was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of George Hearst and served from 1891 to 1893.  Felton was not a candidate for reelection.

Felton was the California State Prison Director from1903-1907.

Charles Norton Felton died in 1914.

 

John Sharpenstein Hager – United States Senator from California, 1873-1875

John Sharpenstein Hager was born in New Jersey in 1818.  He completed preparatory studies and graduated from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) in 1836.  Hager studied law was admitted to the bar in 1840.

Cathcing Gold Fever, Hager moved to California in 1849 and engaged in mining in Nevada County for two years at the Gold Run and Deer Creek Mines.

Hager  practiced law in San Francisco and was  member of the State constitutional convention in 1849.  He was elected to the California State senate from 1852-1854 and 1865-1871.  Hager was elected State district judge for the district of San Francisco in 1855 and served until l86l in 1871, he was elected a regent of the University of California.

John Sharpenstein Hager elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Eugene Casserly and served from 1873 – 1875. He was not a candidate for renomination to the Senate.

Hager was a member of the California State constitutional convention in 1879.  He also served as collector of customs of the port of San Francisco from1885-1889.

John Sharpenstein Hager died in 1890.

 

Samuel Morgan Shortridge – United States Senator from California, 1921-1933

Samuel Morgan Shortridge came to Nevada County at the end of the Gold Rush era, but hewas heavily influenced by its allure.

Shortidge was born in Iowa in1861. 

He moved to California with his parents, who settled in San Jose in 1875.  Shortridge worked as a miner in Nevada County’s Cold Springs Mine and worked as a porter at Nevada City’s National Hotel.

Shortridge attended the public schools and the Hastings College of Law at San Francisco.  Shortridge was admitted to the bar in 1884 and commenced the practice of law in San Francisco.  He was a presidential elector on the Republican ticket in 1888, 1900 and 1908.

He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1920; reelected in 1926 and served from 1921 to 1933.  Shortridge was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1932.

Following his Senate career, Shortridge was a  special attorney in the Justice Department, Washington, D.C., from 1939-1943;

Samuel Morgan Shortridge died in 1952.

 

Edmund Winston Pettus – United States Senator from Alabama, 1897-1907

Edmund Winston Pettus was born in Alabama in 1821.

He attended the common schools of Alabama and Clinton College in Tennessee. Pettus studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1842.  He elected solicitor for the seventh circuit in 1844 and served as a lieutenant in the Mexican War. Edmund Pettus then spent a short period as a miner at Nevada County’s Coyote Diggins.

Pettus was again elected solicitor from1853-1855 and later as judge of the seventh circuit in 1855.  He resigned in 1858 to resume the practice of law.

Edmund Pettus served as envoy from Alabama to Mississippi during the formation of the Southern Confederacy and entered the Confederate Army as major in 1861.  Pettus was made a brigadier general of Infantry in 1863 and served until the close of the Civil War.

Following the war, he returned to Selma, Alabama, and practiced law.  Pettus elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1897; reelected in 1903 and served from 1897 until his death in 1907.

A bridge in Selma, Alabama, was named in his honor.  The Edmund Pettus Bridge was the site of one of the most violent confrontations of the modern Civil Rights Movement.  The incident occurred on March 7, 1865, and was known as “Bloody Sunday.” 

 

Richard James Oglesby – United States Senator from Illinois, 1873-1879

Richard James Oglesby was born in Kentucky in 1824.  He was orphaned and raised by an uncle in  Illinois and received limited schooling. Oglesby worked as a farmer, rope-maker, and carpenter.  Eventually he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1845.

During the Mexican War he served as first lieutenant of Company C, Fourth Illinois Regiment.  With the commencement of the Gold Rush, Oglesby spent two years mining in Nevada County.  He also was a merchant and owned Oglesby’s Store on Nevada City’s Main Street.  Richard James Oglesby returned to Illinois, and resumed the practice of law.

Oglesby was elected to the Illinois State senate in 1860 and served during one session. He resigned to enter the Union Army during the Civil War; and served as colonel, brigadier general, and major general of the Eighth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry.  On April 14, 1865, Oglesby was among the last White House appointments that Abraham Lincoln conducted on the day of his assassination.

Ogelsby was elected Governor of Illinois from 1865-1869;  and was again elected Governor in 1872, but served only ten days from January 13, 1873, until his resignation on January 23, 1873.  He had also been elected United States Senator in that election. Elected as a Republican to the United States Senate, Oglesby served from 1873 to 1879.  He declined to be a candidate for reelection.

Oglesby was again elected Governor of Illinois from 1885-1889.

Richard James Oglesby died in 1899.