John Nugent (journalist)

John Nugent, Irish journalist and U.S. government agent, c.1821–March 29, 1880),

Nugent was born in County Galway but travelled with his parents to the USA at an early age. He was educated at a Catholic college in New Jersey. In the 1840s, he worked as a journalist with the New York Herald. In 1848, Nugent was leaked a copy of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty would end the Mexican-American War after it was amended and approved by the Senate. Nugent was questioned by senators but did not reveal his source.

Subsequently, Nugent traveled with a party of Forty Niners from New York that traveled to California from Texas, led by John Coffee Hays. This party pioneered a shortcut on Cooke's Wagon Road that saved a long journey to the south. That route became known as the Tucson Cutoff. Later Nugent’s Pass and Nugent’s Springs, on that route, were named for Nugent, who gave his notes of the journey to aid Lt. John G. Parke in his expedition to find a railroad route from the Pima Villages to the Rio Grande.

In 1851, Nugent became owner-editor of the San Francisco Herald. An unpopular editorial decision caused the paper to collapse a few years later, an event from which his career never recovered although he continued in journalism and an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate.

The part of his career that is of most interest to historians began in 1858 when President James Buchanan appointed Nugent special agent to New Caledonia (British Columbia). Buchanan wanted to see how Americans and their interests were faring in the area in light of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Nugent quickly discovered that there was little tension and good relations between the Americans and the British.

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