The Story of Clinton DeForest: Early Western Explorer and Homesteader

By the time the homesteading era began, exploration of the American West had all but ended, with much of the land seen by the earlier explorers later becoming available to settlers. While we do not think of the people who helped explore the American West in the early 19th century as homesteaders, at least one was. Clinton DeForest was a member of John C. Fremont’s Expedition of the early 1840s. DeForest later homesteaded in California in the 1870s. This column will tell his intriguing story.

Information used in this story can be found online using Find A Grave, U.S. census records, Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, and the Bureau of Land Management’s General Land Office records database. Images of Clinton DeForest, his wife, and family are on Find A Grave.

Clinton DeForest was born on August 14, 1821 at Pittstown in Rensselaer County, New York. He was a son of Jacob Peter DeForest (1791-1854) and Elizabeth Eliza (Eddy) DeForest (1793-1858). By the 1840s, the DeForest family had settled in Iowa, where Jacob P. DeForest served as the first mayor of Iowa City after its incorporation as a city in April of 1853.

By that time, young Clinton DeForest had already left home. In the early 1840s, he was living on his own in the frontier West - DeForest was part of General Fremont’s Expedition of Discovery during the years 1842-44. Much of the story that survives today of Clinton DeForest’s early life is from an article that appeared in a Lassen, California newspaper a few weeks after he died on December 3, 1908 at age 87. His death occurred at the residence of his son Alvin Eugene DeForest (1853-1936) near Richmond, California, with the historical significance of Clinton’s life mentioned in his obituary.

It was of such interest that it was reprinted in the December 31, 1908 issue of the Feather River Bulletin newspaper of Quincy, California (page 4), as follows:

“CAME TO CALIFORNIA WITH JOHN C. FREMONT – INTERESTING DATA CONCERNING LIFE OF A LASSEN COUNTY PIONEER. – The following is taken from the Lassen Mail of Dec. 28^th:

“There can now be no doubt, but the late Clinton DeForest, whose death occurred at the home of his son near this place a few weeks ago, was a member of General Fremont’s expedition... The Fremont expedition, of which Mr. DeForest was a member, was begun in 1842, 66 years ago, Mr. DeForest then being a young man of about 21 years of age. The Fremont party explored the Rocky mountains and proved the possibility of an overland route to the western coast of America. The highest peak of the Wind river mountains, 13,570 feet high, which he ascended, is named after him as Fremont’s Peak. He crossed the South pass, explored Great Salt Lake and went as far as Fort Vancouver at the mouth of the Columbia river. He forced a passage in the winter over the snow-covered mountains into California, reaching Sacramento in March with his men reduced to skeletons.”

The December 1908 story also explained how the information had been documented and a special purpose that Mr. DeForest had for it. He sought to join the Society of California Pioneers, which required that the applicant was in California prior to December 31, 1849. Sadly, the article noted, "final action was deferred, for some reason or other until too late. This is regrettable as the present and future generations of the DeForests cannot become members of the society, as would have been the case had the old gentleman become a member of that honored society.”

After being with Fremont’s Expedition in the first half of the 1840s, Clinton DeForest initially stayed in what would become California, but was then part of Mexico. The 1908 article stated that “Mr. DeForest was at San Juan Batista, California, in 1846; at the time of the raising of the American flag.”

Not long afterwards, Clinton returned East to see family in Iowa. On February 22, 1848, he married in Johnson County, Iowa to Mary Ellen Hart (1831-1884). She was a native of Ohio. Despite their marriage in early 1848, by the fall of 1850, Clinton DeForest and his wife Mary Ellen were not listed as living together when the federal census of 1850 was taken. Instead, Mary was living with Clinton’s parents in Johnson County, Iowa, with Clinton’s location unreported. One guess is that he had gone back to California due to the recent gold rush.
By 1860, Clinton DeForest had returned to his wife in Iowa, where he was reported as a relatively wealthy farmer when the federal census was taken of Johnson County, Iowa on June 18, 1860. He was listed with $3000 in real estate and the same amount in personal estate. ($3000 in 1860 is worth nearly $100,000 in 2021). Also, by that time, Clinton and his wife had added four children to their family that would eventually include a total of 12 children.

About 1863, Clinton DeForest and his family moved by covered wagon to Lassen County in northeastern California, an area that he may have become familiar with from his time with John C. Fremont decades earlier. Clinton and his wife would remain there for the rest of their lives. The 1870 federal census listed them as farming in Susanville Township in Lassen County, California, while in 1880, they were reported farming in Janesville Township in Lassen County, California. By that time, they were probably living on his homestead land.

In all, DeForest obtained a total of four tracts of federal land with his first tract being a 120-acre homestead located about two miles southeast of Susanville, California. It was patented to him on January 25, 1878. To get it, he would have entered a homestead claim on this tract in the earlier 1870s, with details to be found in his homestead casefile in the National Archives.

The next federal land Clinton acquired was a 160-acre tract about seven miles southeast of Susanville on the road to Janesville. This he purchased under terms of the 1820 Sale-Cash Act, with the land patented to him on April 10, 1882. DeForest and his wife Mary Ellen were farming it at the time of her death on February 1, 1884 at age 52. She was buried in the Susanville Cemetery in Susanville, California.

After her death, DeForest bought two more tracts of federal land in Lassen County, California under terms of the 1820 Sale-Cash Act in Lassen County. The first was 36.54 acres located nearly his 1882 land purchase. It was patented to him on July 20, 1887. General Land Office records show that he had filed a Desert Land Act claim on this tract, so Clinton would have developed an irrigation system on some part of it. The final federal land he bought was 63.65 acres located around 15 miles northwest of Susanville, California, near Eagle Lake. This he received from the General Land Office on June 5, 1889. The price for all the land that he bought from the federal government was likely $1.25 per acre. In all, after homesteading, the total amount of land DeForest received from the federal government by purchase was just over 260 acres.

In 1900, the federal census of “Township 1” in Lassen County, listed Clinton DeForest as living alone with no occupation. Being older, he may have ceased farming and ranching by that time, with some of his land perhaps rented out or used by his family. He subsequently died on December 3, 1908 and was buried near his wife in the Susanville, California cemetery.

After Clinton’s death, an article appeared in the May 26, 1910 issue of the Los Angeles Times and told the fate of some of his land. It stated that George Wingfield “the millionaire mine owner of Nevada” had just purchased “the Clinton DeForest ranch, on the Janesville-Susanville road, about seven miles from Susanville.” He was to “build an up-to-date hunting lodge on this property, which is splendidly located for the purpose.” Subsequent articles confirm that Wingfield and his wife Maude built a “beautiful hunting lodge” on the property. Today, the tract of federal land that DeForest bought northwest of Susanville near Eagle Lake and Lassen National Forest is part of an area popular with a growing number of recreationists.

In all, the story of Clinton DeForest is another example of a person with an interesting and unexpected background who became a homesteader in America.