Hardin Bigelow
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Hardin Bigelow (1809 in Michigan Territory – November 27, 1850 in San Francisco, California) was the first elected mayor of the city of
Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
, California, which was known then as "Sacramento City." Bigelow's efforts to construct Sacramento's first levees won him enough support to become mayor in Sacramento's first mayoral elections in February 1850. Bigelow served seven months, from April to November, before succumbing to cholera; while he was mayor, Sacramento averted disaster in a potentially devastating flood, but fell victim to a series of April fires, a riot, and a cholera epidemic.


1850 floods

Bigelow gained popularity when he advocated and carried out the construction of Sacramento City's first levees and dams in the aftermath of the destruction caused by the 1850 Sacramento flood in January, which devastated the commercial operations on Sacramento City's Embarcadero and washed away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of store merchandise. Bigelow's efforts prevented a second inundation event in March 1850 from enacting devastation similar to that of the flood that had destroyed the city two months earlier.Severson, p. 73


Mayoral office (1850)

Hardin Bigelow was the first mayor to be elected in Sacramento City, succeeding Major General Albert Maver Winn as city mayor in February 1850. Bigelow was chosen because of his foresight, which protected the city from a March 1850 flood event. Under Bigelow, the Sacramento dropped the "City" portion of its name and was chartered as a city by the newly formed California State Legislature in late February. Bigelow was mayor during the 1850 Sacramento fires in April, which destroyed a number of wooden structures on the Embarcadero apiece; he was mayor during the aftermath as well, when Sacramento City rebuilt with iron-shuttered structures and with brick and stone rather than wood to reduce the likelihood of fire damage.


Squatters' riot

Ever since 1848, land-seeking settlers had decided to disregard the right that
John Sutter John Augustus Sutter (February 23, 1803 – June 18, 1880), born Johann August Sutter and known in Spanish as Don Juan Sutter, was a Swiss immigrant of Mexican and American citizenship, known for establishing Sutter's Fort in the area th ...
had to the land in what he called his personal empire, "
New Helvetia New Helvetia (Spanish: Nueva Helvetia), meaning "New Switzerland", was a 19th-century Alta California settlement and rancho, centered in present-day Sacramento, California. Colony of Nueva Helvetia The Swiss pioneer John Sutter (1803–1880) a ...
;" settling on his land, the
squatters Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...
grew at odds with the government in Sacramento. After a squatter named John T. Madden was tried and found guilty of unlawful occupation in May 1850, the squatting settlers charged the government with "brute force" and worked to garner support from sympathetic settlers. Rallying around future
Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...
governor
Charles L. Robinson Charles Lawrence Robinson (July 21, 1818 – August 17, 1894) was an American politician who served in the California State Assembly from 1851-52, and later as the first Governor of Kansas from 1861 until 1863. He was also the first governor o ...
, settlers marched to free jailed prisoners James McClatchy and businessman Richard Moran from the city's prison brig in August 1850, from a ship called the ''La Grange''.Severson, p. 78 According to the local ''Placer Times'', Bigelow had feared a full uprising and decided to strike pre-emptively against Robinson's army while they marched through downtown Sacramento. In the following fight, Bigelow was wounded to an extent where Demas Strong replaced him as acting mayor of the city. City sheriff Joseph McKinney ended the conflict on Bigelow's behalf with a tactical strike on a squatter's retreat to the east of Sacramento while Bigelow traveled southwest to San Francisco to recover.


Death

Two months later in October 1850, a
cholera epidemic Seven cholera pandemics have occurred in the past 200 years, with the first pandemic originating in India in 1817. The seventh cholera pandemic is officially a current pandemic and has been ongoing since 1961, according to a World Health Organiz ...
struck the city of Sacramento, driving out eighty percent of the city populace and killing seventeen of the city's physicians. Bigelow became afflicted by the disease, and died in San Francisco that month.Severson, p. 79 He was buried at the
Sacramento Historic City Cemetery The Sacramento Historic City Cemetery (or Old City Cemetery), located at 1000 Broadway, at 10th Street, is the oldest existing cemetery in Sacramento, California, Sacramento, California. It was designed to resemble a Victorian garden and sect ...
in Sacramento, California.


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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bigelow, Hardin 1809 births 1850 deaths Mayors of Sacramento, California 19th-century American politicians