One Hundred Years in Yosemite: The Story of a Great Park and Its Friends

by Carl Parcher Russell

ILLUSTRATIONS

FOLLOWING PAGE [Frontispiece, by Ralph H. Anderson] ii [The Yosemite Museum] x [The First Drawing Made in Yosemite] xviii [Mariposa in the ’Fifties] 8 [Joseph R. Walker] 44 [Maria Lebrado] 44 [Captain John Boling] 44 [Lafayette H. Bunnell] 44 [A Freight Outfit] 44 [Early Tourists in the Saddle] 44 [First Yosemite Photograph—“Upper Hotel”] 60 [The Big Tree Room] 60 [The Big Oak Flat Route] 60 [The First Automobile—July, 1900] 60 [Early Yosemite Buses] 60 [Old Tioga Road] 60 [New Tioga Road] 60 [John Conway, a Pioneer Trail Builder] 76 [On the First Trail to the Top of Vernal Fall] 76 [Mount Conness and the Observatory Camp] 76 [James T. Gardiner and Clarence King, Early Mappers] 76 [Professor Davidson (right) and the Conness Observatory] 76 [Present-Day Trail Work—Oiling the Eleven-Mile Trail] 80 [Gabriel Sovulewski in 1897] 80 [Mount Maclure and Its Glacier] 80 [Measuring the Mount Lyell Glacier] 80 [Ski Mountaineering Party near Mount Starr King] 88 [Climbing on the Three Brothers] 88 [Descending Lower Cathedral Spire] 88 [The Cosmopolitan, 1870-1932] 92 [The Lower Hotel, 1856-1869] 92 [Mill Built by John Muir in 1869] 96 [Glacier Point Mountain House, 1878 to date] 96 [Sentinel Hotel (left background), 1876 to 1938] 96 [The Ahwahnee Hotel, 1927 to date] 96 [Saddle Trip on a High Sierra Trail] 96 [Merced Lake High Sierra Camp, 1916 to date] 96 [Badger Pass Ski House] 100 [Ski Patrol at Work] 100 [Winter in the Yosemite High Sierra: Clark Range] 100 [Snow Gaugers Entering Tuolumne Meadows] 100 [Sketch map of Yosemite Region, illustrating discovery, first entry, east-side mining excitement, and some present-day culture] 124 [John Muir] 148 [Galen Clark] 148 [Colonel H. C. Benson] 148 [James M. Hutchings] 148 [Sierra Club Headquarters in Yosemite, 1898] 148 [William E. Colby] 148 [W. B. Lewis and Stephen T. Mather] 164 [A Presidential Party at the Grizzly Giant] 164 [Hetch Hetchy Valley before Inundation] 164 [Devils Postpile, Excluded from Yosemite in 1905] 164

By Thomas A. Ayres, 1855 The First Drawing Made in Yosemite

CHAPTER I
DISCOVERY

That picturesque type known as the American trapper ushered in the opening event of Sierra Nevada history. True, the Spaniards of the previous century had viewed the “snowy range of mountains,” had applied the name Sierra Nevada, and even had visited its western base. But penetration of the wild and snowy fastness awaited the coming of Americans.

In the opening decades of the nineteenth century the entire American West was occupied by scattered bands of trappers. From the ranks of the “Fur Brigade” came Jedediah Strong Smith, a youthful fur trader, not yet thirty years old but experienced in his profession and well educated for his time. In the summer of 1826 he took his place at the head of a party of men organized to explore the unknown region lying between Great Salt Lake and the California coast. Smith’s leadership of this party gave him a first place in the history of the Sierra Nevada. His party left the Salt Lake rendezvous on August 22, 1826. A southwest course was followed across the deserts of Utah and Nevada, penetrating the Mojave country and the Cajon Pass. On November 27 they went into camp near Mission San Gabriel. Smith was thus the first American to make the transcontinental journey to California, the harbinger of a great overland human flood.

The Spanish governor of California refused to permit the party to travel north as Smith had planned. Instead, he instructed that they should quit California by the route used in entering. Reinforced with food, clothing, and horses supplied by the friendly Mission San Gabriel, Smith returned to the neighborhood of the Cajon Pass. It was not his intention, however, to be easily deterred in his plan to explore California. He followed the Sierra Madre to the junction of the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada and entered the San Joaquin Valley.

He found the great interior valley inhabited by large numbers of Indians, who were in no way hostile or dangerous. There were “few beaver and elk, deer and antelope in abundance.” Reaching one of the streams flowing from the mountains, he determined to cross the Sierra Nevada and return to Great Salt Lake. Smith called this stream the Wimmelche after a tribe of Indians by that name who inhabited the region thereabouts. C. Hart Merriam has established the fact that Smith’s “Wimmelche” is the Kings River, and the time of his arrival there as February of 1827. Since the passes of the Sierra in this region are never open before the advent of summer, it is not surprising that his party failed in this attempted crossing of the range. Authorities have differed in their interpretation of Smith’s writing regarding his ultimate success in traversing the Sierra, but there is little doubt that he crossed north of the Yosemite region, perhaps as far north as the American River.

Smith was, then, the first white man known to have crossed the Sierra Nevada. His pathfinding exploits did not take him into the limits of the present Yosemite National Park, but because his manuscript maps were made available to government officials who influenced later expeditions and because he was the first to explore the mountain region of which the Yosemite is an outstanding feature, his expedition provides the opening story in any account of Yosemite affairs.

Smith’s explorations paved the way for a notable influx of American trappers to the valleys west of the Sierra Nevada. Smith, in fact, returned to California that same summer. Pattie, Young, Ogden, Wolfskill, Jackson, and Walker all brought parties to the new fields during the first five years following the Smith venture. Fur traders informed the settlers in the western states of the easy life in California and enticed them with stories of the undeveloped resources of the Pacific slope. Pioneers were then occupying much of the country just west of the Missouri, and a gradual tide of westward emigration brought attention first to Oregon and then to California.

The presence of Americans in California greatly annoyed the Mexican officials of the country. The fears of these officials were justified, for the trappers scarcely concealed their desire to overthrow Mexican authority and assume control themselves. To add to the threatened confusion, revolt brewed among the Mexicans who held the land.

In 1832 Captain B. L. E. Bonneville secured leave of absence from the United States Army and launched a private venture in exploring and trapping. One Joseph Reddeford Walker, who had achieved fame as a frontiersman, was engaged by Bonneville to take charge of a portion of his command. Walker’s party of explorers was ordered to cross the desert west of Great Salt Lake and visit California. Reliable knowledge of the Sierra Nevada and the first inkling of the existence of Yosemite Valley resulted from this expedition, made in 1833.

Joseph Walker, born in 1798 on the Tennessee River near the present Knoxville, Tennessee, had moved westward with the advancing frontier in 1818 to the extreme western boundary of Missouri. There he and his brothers rented government land near the Indian Factory, Fort Osage. They put in a crop and during slack seasons mingled with the Osages and the Kanzas Indians. Here Walker formed his first ideas of trade with the Indians—ideas which bore fruit during his later experiences on the Santa Fe Trail and with the fur brigades in the Rocky Mountains.

Early in 1831, Walker, enroute southward from his home to buy horses, stopped at Fort Gibson in the heart of the Cherokee Nation in the eastern part of the present Oklahoma. Several companies of the 7th U. S. Infantry were stationed here. This circumstance brought about a sequence of events which left permanent marks upon Walker’s personal career and upon the history of the American West. Captain B. L. E. Bonneville was in command of B Company of the 7th Infantry. Bonneville confided in Walker that the government was about to place him on detached service in order that he might conduct a private expedition into the Rocky Mountains for furs and geographical data. He asked Walker to join him as guide and counselor. To this proposal Walker acceded enthusiastically and proceeded forthwith to organize the equipment and personnel needed for the venture.

On the first of May, 1832, Bonneville and Walker led westward a caravan of twenty wagons attended by one hundred and ten mounted trappers, hunters, and servants from the Missouri River landing where Fort Osage had once stood. Out upon the Kansas plains they went, up the Platte, to the Sweetwater, and through South Pass. In the valleys of the Green and the Snake they trapped and traded through the winter and spring of 1832-33. After the rendezvous on the Green in July, 1833, Walker was named by Bonneville to be the leader of the now famous Walker expedition to the Pacific.

The reports of Jedediah Smith on his trip of 1826 to California and the much talked about adventures of Smith, as discussed by the mountain men, seem to have been decisive factors which influenced Bonneville to authorize this ambitious undertaking. The fact that a scant 4,000 pounds of beaver was all he had to show for his campaign of the past year also may have contributed to his determination to take another fling at exploration, trapping, and the trade. Walker’s California party consisted of fifty men, with four horses each, a year’s supply of food, ammunition, and trade goods. Zenas Leonard and George Nidever, two free trappers who had joined the Bonneville crowd at the Green River rendezvous, were selected as members of the Walker party. Both were to become conspicuous in California history by virtue of their writings.

Because Walker was the first white man to lead a party of explorers to the brink of Yosemite’s cliffs, he is given a first place in Yosemite history. It is worthwhile to record here some of the appraisals of Walker, the man, made by his contemporaries and companions.

Zenas Leonard, clerk of the Walker party, wrote, “Mr. Walker was a man well calculated to undertake a business of this kind [the California expedition]. He was well hardened to the hardships of the wilderness—understood the character of the Indians very well ... was kind and affable to his men, but at the same time at liberty to command without giving offence ... and to explore unknown regions was his chief delight.”

Washington Irving said of Walker, “About six feet high, strong built, dark complexioned, brave in spirit, though mild in manners. He had resided for many years in Missouri, on the frontier; had been among the earliest adventurers to Santa Fe, where he went to trap beaver, and was taken by the Spaniards. Being liberated, he engaged with the Spaniards and Sioux Indians in a war against the Pawnees; then returned to Missouri, and had acted by turns as sheriff, trader, trapper, until he was enlisted as a leader by Captain Bonneville.”

Hubert Howe Bancroft, the historian, estimated, “Captain Joe Walker was one of the bravest and most skillful of the mountain men; none was better acquainted than he with the geography or the native tribes of the Great Basin; and he was withal less boastful and pretentious than most of his class.”

Walker’s biographer, Douglas S. Watson, referring to Bonneville’s effort to blame the financial failure of his western enterprises upon a scapegoat, stated, “Whatever may have been Bonneville’s purpose in besmirching Walker in which Irving so willingly lent himself, he has hardly succeeded, for where one person today knows the name Bonneville, thousands regard Captain Joseph Reddeford Walker as one of the foremost of western explorers, worthy to be grouped with Jedediah Strong Smith and Ewing Young as the trilogy responsible for the march of this nation to the shores of the Pacific; the true pathfinders.”

Walker’s perseverance in completing his California journey grew out of a solemn determination to make a personal contribution to the expansion of the United States westward to the Pacific. His cavalcade crossed the Great Basin west of Great Salt Lake via the valley of the Humboldt and, passing south by Carson Lake and the Bridgeport Valley, struck westward into the Sierra Nevada. The exact course they took across the Sierra has been a matter of conjecture; some students have attempted to identify it with the Truckee route, and others have maintained that no ascent was made until the party reached the stream now known as Walker River. It seems probable that they climbed the eastern flank of the Sierra by one of the southern tributaries of the East Walker River. Once over the crest of the range, they traveled west along the divide between the Tuolumne and the Merced rivers directly into the heart of the present Yosemite National Park.

In Leonard’s narrative is found the following very significant comment regarding the crossing:

We travelled a few miles every day, still on top of the mountain, and our course continually obstructed with snow hills and rocks. Here we began to encounter in our path many small streams which would shoot out from under these high snow-banks, and after running a short distance in deep chasms which they have through the ages cut in the rocks, precipitate themselves from one lofty precipice to another, until they are exhausted in rain below. Some of these precipices appeared to us to be more than a mile high. Some of the men thought that if we could succeed in descending one of these precipices to the bottom, we might thus work our way into the valley below—but on making several attempts we found it utterly impossible for a man to descend, to say nothing of our horses. We were then obliged to keep along the top of the dividing ridge between two of these chasms which seemed to lead pretty near in the direction we were going—which was west,—in passing over the mountain, supposing it to run north and south.

Walker’s tombstone, in Martinez, California, bears the inscription, “Camped at Yosemite Nov. 13, 1833.” Leonard’s description of their route belies the idea of his having camped in Yosemite Valley, and the date is obviously an error as there is reliable evidence that Walker had reached the San Joaquin plain before this date. L. H. Bunnell in his Discovery of the Yosemite records the following regarding Walker’s route and his Yosemite camp sites:

The topography of the country over which the Mono Trail ran, and which was followed by Capt. Walker, did not admit of his seeing the valley proper. The depression indicating the valley, and its magnificent surroundings, could alone have been discovered, and in Capt. Walker’s conversations with me at various times while encamped between Coulterville and the Yosemite, he was manly enough to say so. Upon one occasion I told Capt. Walker that Ten-ie-ya had said that, “A small party of white men once crossed the mountains on the north side, but were so guided as not to see the Valley proper.” With a smile the Captain said, “That was my party, but I was not deceived, for the lay of the land showed there was a valley below; but we had become nearly barefooted, our animals poor, and ourselves on the verge of starvation; so we followed down the ridge to Bull Creek, where, killing a deer, we went into camp.”

Francis Farquhar, in his article, “Walker’s Discovery of Yosemite,” analyzes the problem of Walker’s route through the Yosemite region and shows clearly that the Walker party was not guided by Indians. He concludes quite rightly that Bunnell was not justified in depriving Walker of the distinction of discovering Yosemite Valley. Douglas S. Watson, in his volume, West Wind: The Life of Joseph Reddeford Walker, offers further evidence to this end.

It requires no great stretch of the imagination to visualize scouts along the flanks of the Walker party coming out upon the brink of Yosemite Valley and looking down in wonder upon the plunging waters of Yosemite Falls and, perhaps, venturing to the edge of the Hetch Hetchy. In any case we have in the 1839 account by Leonard the first authentic printed reference to the Yosemite region. Another passage from this narrative must be quoted here:

In the last two days travelling we have found some trees of the Redwood species, incredibly large—some of which would measure from 16 to 18 fathom round the trunk at the height of a man’s head from the ground.

This is the first published mention of the Big Trees of the Sierra. If we accept Bunnell’s contention that the Walker party camped at Bull Creek (Hazel Green), we will also agree that the party followed the old Mono Trail of the Indians. This route would have taken them near the Merced Grove of Big Trees. There is probably no way of determining definitely whether the Merced Grove, the Tuolumne Grove, or both, were seen by Walker’s men, but this incident so casually mentioned is clearly the discovery of the famous Big Trees, and here for the first time is a scholarly record of observations made in the present Yosemite National Park. We may accept Leonard’s writings as the earliest document in Yosemite history and the Walker party as the discoverer of both the Yosemite Valley and the Sequoia gigantea.

By Schwartz Mariposa in the ’Fifties

CHAPTER II
MARIPOSA HILLS

Following the significant work of the early overland fur traders there came a decade of immigration of bona fide California settlers. The same forces that led the pioneer across the Alleghenies, thence to the Mississippi, and from the Mississippi into Texas, explain the coming of American settlers into California. Hard times in the East stimulated land hunger, and California publicity agents spread their propaganda at an opportune time. Long before railroads, commercial clubs, and real estate interests began to advertise the charms of California, its advantages were widely heralded by the venturesome Americans who had visited and sensed the possibilities of the province. The press of the nation took up the story, and the people of the United States were taught to look upon California as a land of infinite promise, abounding in agricultural and commercial possibilities, full of game, rich in timber, possessed of perfect climate, and feebly held by an effeminate people quite lacking in enterprise and disorganized among themselves.

The tide of emigration resulting from this painting of word pictures began its surge in 1841 with the organization of the Bidwell-Bartleson party. Other parties followed in quick succession, and many of the pioneer fur hunters of the preceding decade found themselves in demand as guides. The settlers came on horseback, in ox wagon, or on foot, and with the men came wives and children. They entered the state by way of the Gila and the Colorado, the Sacramento, the Walker, the Malheur and the Pit, and the Truckee. Some journeyed to the Mono region east of Yosemite and either struggled over difficult Sonora Pass just north of the present park or tediously made their way south to Owens River and then over Walker Pass. The Sierra Nevada experienced a new period of exploration, and California took a marked step toward the climax of interest in her offerings.

This pre-Mexican War, pre-gold-rush immigration takes a prominent place in the history of the state, and the tragedy and success of its participants provide a story of engrossing interest. They had forced their slow way across the continent to find a permanent home beside the western sea, and their arrival presaged the overthrow of Mexican rule in California. The Mexican, Castro, stated before an assembly in Monterey: “These Americans are so contriving that some day they will build ladders to touch the sky, and once in the heavens they will change the whole face of the universe and even the color of the stars.”

In one of the parties of settlers was a man of no signal traits, who, by a chance discovery, was to set the whole world agog. This was James W. Marshall, an employee of John A. Sutter of the Sacramento. On January 24, 1848, he found gold in a millrace belonging to Sutter. About a week later the inevitable took place. California became a part of the United States.

The news of the gold discovery spread like wildfire, and by the close of 1848 every settlement and city in America and many cities of foreign lands were affected by the California fever. Gold seekers swarmed into the newly acquired territory by land and by sea. The overland routes of the fur trader and the pioneer settler found such a use as the world had never seen. From the Missouri frontier to Fort Laramie the procession of Argonauts passed in an unbroken stream for months. Some 35,000 people traversed the Western wilderness and 230 American vessels reached California ports in 1849. The western slope of the Sierra from the San Joaquin on the south to the Trinity on the north was suddenly populous with the gold-mad horde. On May 29, the Californian of Yerba Buena issued a notice to the effect that its further publication, for the present, would cease because its employees and patrons were going to the mines. On July 15 its editor returned and published an account of his personal experiences as a gold seeker. He wrote: “The country from the Ajuba [Yuba] to the San Joaquin, a distance of about 120 miles, and from the base toward the summit of the mountains ... about seventy miles, has been explored and gold found on every part.”

By 1849 the Mariposa hills were occupied by the miners, and the claims to become famous as the “Southern Mines” were being located. Jamestown, Sonora, Columbia, Murphys, Chinese Camp, Big Oak Flat, Snelling, and Mariposa, all adjacent to the Yosemite region, came to life in a day. Stockton was the immediate base of supply for these camps.

The history of Mariposa is replete with fascinating episodes. May Stanislas Corcoran, a daughter of Mariposa, has supplied the Yosemite Museum with a manuscript entitled “Mariposa, the Land of Hidden Gold,” which comes from her own accomplished pen. From it the following brief account is abstracted as an introduction to the beginnings of human affairs in the Mariposa hills.

In 1850, Mariposa County occupied much of the state from Tuolumne County southward. A State Senate Committee on County Subdivision, headed by P. H. de la Guerra, determined its bounds, and a Select Committee on Names, M. G. Vallejo, Chairman, gave it its name—a name which was first applied by Moraga’s party in 1806 to Mariposa Creek.[1] Gradually through the years, the original expansive unit was reduced by the creation of other counties—Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kings, and Kern, and parts of Inyo and Mono counties.

Agua Fria was at first the county seat, but even in the beginning the town of Mariposa was the center of the scene of activity. Four mail routes of the Pony Express converged upon it. Prior to the arrival of Americans, the Spanish Californians had scarcely penetrated the Sierra in the county, but these uplands were well populated with Indians. One of the strongest tribes, the Ah-wah-nee-chees, lived in the Deep Grassy Valley (Yosemite) during the summer months and occupied villages along the Mariposa and Chowchilla rivers in the winter.

Mariposa proved to be the southernmost of the important southern mines. Of the people who were drawn to it during the days of the gold rush, many were from the Southern States. They brought “libraries ... horses from Kentucky ... silk hats, chivalry, colonels, and culture from Virginia; and from most of the states that later became Confederate, lawyers, doctors, writers, even painters—miners all.... Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, and Europe also sent representatives, and there were Mexican War veterans, such as Jarvis Streeter, Commodore Stockton, Colonel Fremont, and Capt. Wm. Howard.” By Christmas, 1849, more than three thousand inhabitants occupied the town of Mariposa, which extended from Chicken Gulch to Mormon Bar.

In February, 1851, a remarkable vein of gold was discovered in the Mariposa diggings, first designated as the “Johnson vein of Mariposa,” and extensive works were developed from Ridley’s Ferry (Bagby) to Mount Ophir. These properties were acquired by a company having headquarters in Paris, France, which became known as “The French Company.”

The Frémont Grant, also known as the Rancho Las Mariposas, was a vast estate of 44,386 acres of grazing land in the Mariposa hills, which Colonel J. C. Frémont acquired by virtue of a purchase made in 1847 from J. B. Alvarado. It was one of several so-called “floating grants.” After gold was discovered in the Mariposa region in 1848, Frémont “floated” his rancho far from the original claim to cover mineral lands including properties already in the possession of miners. The center of Frémont’s activities was Bear Valley, thirteen miles northwest of Mariposa. Lengthy litigations in the face of hostile public sentiment piled up court costs and lawyer fees. However, the United States courts confirmed Frémont’s claims, and other claimants, including the French Company, lost many valuable holdings. Tremendous investments were made in stamp mills, tunnels, shafts, and the other appurtenances related to the mining towns as well as to the mines which Frémont attempted to develop.

In spite of its phenomenal but spotty productiveness, the Frémont Grant brought bankruptcy to its owner and was finally sold at sheriff sale. The town of Mariposa, which was on Frémont’s Rancho, became the county seat in 1854, and the present court house was built that year. The seats and the bar in the courtroom continue in use today, and the documents and files of the mining days still claim their places in the ancient vault. They constitute some of the priceless reminders of a dramatic period in the early history of the Yosemite region. In these records may be traced the transfer of the ownership of the Mariposa Grant from Frémont to a group of Wall Street capitalists. These new owners employed Frederick Law Olmsted as superintendent of the estate. He arrived in the Sierra in the fall of 1863 to assume his duties at Bear Valley. The next year he was made chairman of the first board of Yosemite Valley commissioners, so actively linking the history of the Mariposa estate with the history of the Yosemite Grant. Olmsted continued his connection with the Mariposa Grant until Aug. 31, 1865, at which time he returned to New York and proceeded to distinguish himself as the “father” of the profession of landscape architecture.

His son, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., born July 24, 1870, has continued in the Olmsted tradition. As an authority on parks, municipal improvements, city planning and landscape architecture, and the preservation of the American scene he has exerted a leadership comparable to his father’s pioneering. He has entered the Yosemite picture as National Park Service collaborator in planning and as a member of the Yosemite Advisory Board, to which organization he was appointed in 1928.

One of the few members of the small army of early miners in the Mariposa region who left a personal record of his experiences was L. H. Bunnell. His writings provide most valuable references on the history of the beginning of things in the Yosemite region. He was present in the Mariposa hills in 1849, and from his book, Discovery of the Yosemite, we learn that Americans were scattered throughout the lower mountains in that year. Adventurous traders had established trading posts in the wilderness in order that they might reap a harvest from the miners and Indians.

James D. Savage, the most conspicuous figure in early Yosemite history, whose life story, if told in full, would constitute a valuable contribution to Californiana, was one of these traders. In 1849 he maintained a store at the mouth of the South Fork of the Merced, only a few miles from the gates of Yosemite Valley. Now half a million people each year hurry by this spot in automobiles; yet no monument, no marker, no sign, indicates that the site is one of the most significant, historically, of all localities in the region. It was here that the first episode in the drama of Yosemite Indian troubles took place. The story of the white man’s occupancy of the valley actually begins at the mouth of this canyon in the Mariposa hills.

CHAPTER III
WHITE CHIEF OF THE FOOTHILLS

The entire story of very early events in the Yosemite region is pervaded by the spirit of one individual. In spite of the fact that no historian has chronicled the events of his brief but exciting career, the name of James D. Savage is legendary throughout the region of the Southern Mines. It has been the ambition of more than one writer of California history to pin down the fables of this pioneer and to establish his true life story on stable supports of authentic source. Scattered through the literature of the gold days are sketchy accounts of his exploits, and rarely narratives of firsthand experiences with his affairs may be found. Before relating Savage definitely to Yosemite itself we shall do well to consider his personal history.

During the beginning years of the gold excitement, his fame spread throughout the camps and to the ports upon which the mines depended for supplies. Savage was the subject of continual gossip, conjecture, and acclaim. His career was short, but it was crowded with thrilling happenings and terminated with violence in a just cause. Throughout it, Savage was brave—a man born to lead.

Because he played a leading role in the discovery of Yosemite Valley, national park officials have been energetic in their attempt to complete his life story and give it adequate representation in the Yosemite Museum. For several years, as historical material had been accumulating there, and details of most events in the Yosemite drama unfolded and took their proper place in the exhibits, Savage still remained a mystery.

At last there came a Yosemite visitor who was descended from the grandfather of James D. Savage. This lady, Ida Savage Bolles, after learning of the local interest in her relative, communicated with yet another relative, who today resides in the same Middle Western state from which “Jim” Savage came. The result was that Mrs. Louise Savage Ireland took up the challenge and devoted many months to the determining of the California pioneer’s ancestry. To her we acknowledge indebtedness for her persevering search, which involved considerable travel and correspondence. Not only did she reveal the ancestry of Jim Savage, but she located a “delightful old lady” who, as a girl, knew Jim of California fame. This unexpected biographical material provides firsthand information about the youth of James D. Savage such as has not been obtained from any living Californian who knew him in his halcyon days.

The following story of the life of the first white man to enter Yosemite Valley, though incomplete, is much more comprehensive than anything that has previously appeared in print, and is, we believe, gathered from sources[2] wholly dependable.

James D. Savage was one of six children born to Peter Savage and Doritha Shaunce. Henry C. Pratt of Virginia, Illinois, a second cousin, writes, “My mother, Emily Savage, born in 1817, and her cousin, James Savage, were near the same age.” This is the best approximation of his age contained in the biographical material accumulated by Mrs. Ireland. The parent, Peter Savage, went by ox cart and raft from Cayuga County, New York, to Jacksonville, Morgan County, Illinois, in 1822. Sixteen years later Peter’s family removed to Princeton, Bureau County, Illinois.

Mrs. Ireland in her quest met Mrs. Sarah Seton Porter of Princeton, who at the time of the interview in 1928 was ninety-eight years old. Mrs. Porter knew James D. Savage as a youth. She recalls that

Jim Savage was grown when his father, Peter, brought the family to Princeton from Morgan County. Jim was smart as a whip, shrewd, apt in picking up languages, such as German and French—for both tongues were spoken here, the two races having settlements in and about Princeton. He was vigorous and strong, had blue eyes and a magnificent physique, loved all kinds of sports engaged in in his day, was tactful, likable, and interesting....

Sometimes Jim would come to church, but, oh, he was such a wag of a youth. More often than not, he would remain outside, and when he knew time had come for prayer, he’d flick the knees of his horse and make him kneel, too, and then wink at us inside. We couldn’t laugh of course, but we always watched for this trick of Jim’s. He got such a lot of fun out of doing it.

Savage took a wife, Eliza, and settled in Peru, Illinois. A daughter was born to this union. He and his brother, Morgan, were caught in the wave of California fever that affected many of the border settlements in the ’forties and they joined one of the overland parties in 1846. Lydia Savage Healy, another second cousin, expresses the opinion that the brothers joined Frémont’s third expedition. However, since it is known that Savage’s wife and child made the start, it is evident that they were with one of the parties of emigrants who, that year, made the journey. Mrs. Porter, then Sarah Seton, with two brothers and a sister drove from Princeton to Peru to bid them farewell.

On this journey, “suffering and discouragement went hand in hand.” The wife and child did not survive the trip. Only the physically fit endured the hardships, and among these were Savage and his brother. By what route they entered California is not known, but S. P. Elias reports that Savage

volunteered beneath the Bear flag and fought through the war against the Mexicans. A member of Frémont’s battalion, he was with Frémont both in Oregon and in California. After peace and before the discovery of gold, and shortly after the disbanding of Frémont’s battalion, he went to the south, settled among the Indians, and through José and Jésus, two of the most powerful chiefs in the valley of the San Joaquin, he established an intimacy with the principal tribes. By his indomitable energy, capability of endurance, and personal prowess he acquired a complete mastery over them to such an extent that he was elected chief of several of the tribes. He obtained great influence over the Indians of the lowlands and led them successfully against their mountain enemies, conquering a peace wherever he forayed.

In any event, when Frémont and Pico put their signatures to the Cahuenga peace treaty on January 13, 1847, the Mexican War, so far as California was concerned, was at an end. Frémont’s battalion was disbanded, and we may believe, with Elias, that James D. Savage then established his intimacy with the principal Indian tribes of the San Joaquin.

His aptitude for “picking up languages” apparently came to the fore, for he mastered the Indian dialect and extended his influence until it amounted to something of a barbaric despotism. The Indians acknowledged his authority, and he, no doubt, improved their condition. In the wars with the mountain tribes Savage’s tactics won them victories, and he brought about progress, generally.

Prior to the gold rush, his territory was seldom visited by whites, but early in 1848, hardly a year subsequent to his conquest of the Indians, there poured in that flood of miners which transformed the entire picture. Savage adapted himself to it forthwith, and soon his name was on the lips of everyone. When he let it be known among his Indian followers that he would like to acquire a lot of the yellow metal, the squaws set to work and turned the product of their labors into the lap of the white chief. W E. Wilde writes that Savage was associated with the Rev. James Woods in 1848 and that he and his Indians were working the gravel deposits at what became known as Big Oak Flat. It was here that a white Texan stabbed Luturio, one of the Indian leaders, and the Texan in turn was killed by the Indians. Savage, knowing the potentialities of enraged Indians, pacified them and withdrew with them to other localities.

George H. Tinkham next throws a spotlight on Savage at Jamestown in May (?) 1849. Cornelius Sullivan related to Tinkham that

under a brushwood tent, supported by upright poles, sat James D. Savage, measuring and pouring gold dust into the candle boxes by his side. Five hundred or more naked Indians, with belts of cloth bound around their waists or suspended from their heads brought the dust to Savage, and in return for it received a bright piece of cloth or some beads.

Just how much gold dust Savage acquired was never reported, but that it was an enormous amount is not to be questioned. For some two years his army of Indian followers busied themselves in gleaning the creeks and ravines of the foothills, and considering the facility with which gold could be gathered it is small wonder that he was reputed to have barrels full of it.

We learn from L. H. Bunnell, one of Savage’s intimate acquaintances of long standing, that in 1849-1850 Savage had established his trading post at the mouth of the South Fork of the Merced, not more than fifteen miles below Yosemite Valley, and on the line of the present Merced-Yosemite highway.

At this point, engaged in gold mining, he had employed a party of native Indians. Early in the season of 1850 his trading-post and mining camp were attacked by a band of the Yosemite Indians. This tribe, or band, claimed the territory in that vicinity, and attempted to drive Savage off. Their real object, however, was plunder. They were considered treacherous and dangerous, and were very troublesome to the miners generally.

Savage and his Indian miners repulsed the attack and drove off the marauders, but from this occurrence he no longer deemed this location desirable. Being fully aware of the murderous propensities of his assailants, he removed to Mariposa Creek, not far from the junction of the Agua Fria, and near to the site of the old stone fort. Soon after, he established a branch post on the Fresno, where the mining prospects became most encouraging, as the high water subsided in that stream. This branch station was placed in charge of a man by the name of Greeley.

This event on the South Fork constitutes the initial step in the hostilities that were to result in Savage’s renown as the discoverer of Yosemite Valley. Since he had remained so close to the remarkable canyon for some months prior to the Indian attack, and because the threatening Indians frequently boasted of a “deep valley in which one Indian is more than ten white men,” Bunnell once asked Savage whether he had ever entered the mysterious place. Savage’s words were: “Last year while I was located at the mouth of the South Fork of the Merced, I was attacked by the Yosemites, but with the Indian miners I had in my employ, drove them off, and followed some of them up the Merced River into a canyon, which I supposed led to their stronghold, as the Indians then with me said it was not a safe place to go into. From the appearance of this rocky gorge I had no difficulty in believing them. Fearing an ambush, I did not follow them. It was on this account that I changed my location to Mariposa Creek. I would like to get into the den of the thieving murderers. If ever I have a chance I will smoke out the Grizzly Bears [the Yosemites] from their holes, where they are thought to be so secure.”

Savage built up an exceedingly prosperous business at his trading posts on the Fresno and on Mariposa Creek. He stocked his stores with merchandise from San Francisco Bay and exchanged the goods at enormous profits for the gold brought in by the Indians. An ounce of gold bought a can of oysters, five pounds of flour, or a pound of bacon; a shirt required five ounces, and a pair of boots or a hat brought a full pound of the precious metal. His customers included white prospectors as well as his subservient Indians, for the white men would agree to his exacting terms in preference to leaving their diggings to make a trip for supplies to the growing village of Mariposa.

The Indians never questioned the rate of exchange, for to them it seemed that their white chief was working miracles in providing quantities of desirable food and prized raiment in return for something that was to be had for the taking. To guarantee a continuance of cordial relations with his Indian friends, and to cement the alliance of several tribes, Savage had taken wives from among the young squaws of different tribes. Two of these were called Eekino and Homut. It is not known which tribes were represented in his household, but the wives are reported to have totaled five. If their bridal contract was recognized by all their tribesmen, it is not difficult to understand how Savage’s supporters numbered five hundred.

The Mariposa Creek store retinue of whites was thrown into a state of some agitation one fall day in 1850 when one of Savage’s wives confided the information that the mountain Indians were combining to wipe the whites from the hills. Confirmation of her rumor was obtained from some of the friendly bucks who had long followed Savage. These Indians declared that they had learned that the mountain tribe, the Yosemites, were ready to descend upon Savage again for the purpose of plunder and that they were maneuvering to secure the combined forces of other tribes.

Savage did not misunderstand the threat, as did some others of the white men. Hoping to impress the Indians with the wonders, numbers, and power of the whites, he conceived the idea of taking some of them to that milling base of supply, San Francisco. It is probable, too, that he planned to put some of his great store of accumulated gold in safekeeping on the same trip. Accordingly, he announced that he was going to “the Bay” for a new stock of goods and invited José Juarez, a chief of influence with the Chowchillas and Chukchansies, to accompany him. José accepted the invitation. With them went some of Savage’s dependable Indian friends, including a wife or two.

It was the occasion of this trip that provided the crowning touch for Savage’s reputation among the whites of all the gold camps. The story of the affair spread to as many localities as were represented in San Francisco’s picturesque population at the time of the visit, and legends of Jim Savage’s barrel of gold are handed down to this day. How large the barrel may have been it is now impossible to ascertain, but certainly a fabulous fortune traveled with the strange party.

They made their headquarters at the Revere House and became the sensation of the hour.[3] The Indians arrayed themselves in gaudy finery and gorged themselves with costly viands and considerable liquor. To the great distress of Savage, José maintained himself in a state of drunkenness throughout most of their stay. In order to prevent disturbances Savage locked him up on one occasion and when he was somewhat sobered remonstrated with him. José flew into an excited rage, became abusive with his tongue, and finally disclosed his secret of the war against the whites. Savage knocked him down.

The party remained to witness the celebration of the admission of California into the Union on October 29, 1850. Savage deposited his gold in exchange for goods to be delivered as needed, gilded his already colorful visit with enough gambling and reckless spending to stagger the residents, and gathered his retinue for the return journey.

José had maintained a silence and dignity ever after the violent quarrel with his chief.

No sooner had they reached the foothill territory from which they had traveled a fortnight before than they were greeted with news of Indian threats. As the Fresno station maintained by Savage seemed to be in immediate danger, the party went there at once. Numerous Indians were about, but all seemed quiet. However, the white agents employed by Savage revealed that the Indians were no longer trading.

Savage thereupon invited all Indians present to meet with him and proceeded at once to conduct a peaceful confab before his store. Addressing them he said:

“I know that some of the Indians do not wish to be friends with the white men and that they are trying to unite the different tribes for the purpose of a war. It is better for the Indians and white men to be friends. If the Indians make war on the white men, every tribe will be exterminated; not one will be left. I have just been where the white men are more numerous than the wasps and ants; and if war is made and the Americans are aroused to anger, every Indian engaged in the war will be killed before the whites will be satisfied.”

Having made himself clearly understood in the Indian language he turned to his fellow traveler, José, for confirmation of his statements regarding the power of the whites. José stepped forward and delivered himself of the following brief but energetic oration:

“Our brother has told his Indian relatives much that is truth; we have seen many people; the white men are very numerous; but the white men we saw on our visit are of many tribes; they are not like the tribe that dig gold in the mountains.” He then gave an absurd description of what he had seen while below, and continued: “Those white tribes will not come to the mountains. They will not help the gold diggers if the Indians make war against them. If the gold diggers go to the white tribes in the big village, they give their gold for strong water and games; when they have no more gold, the white tribes drive the gold diggers back to the mountains with clubs. They strike them down [referring to the police], as your white relative struck me while I was with him. The white tribes will not go to war with the Indians in the mountains. They cannot bring their big ships and big guns to us; we have no cause to fear them. They will not injure us.”

His climax came as a bold argument for the immediate declaration of war upon the whites.

Chief José Rey of the Chowchillas then contributed his plea for immediate hostilities, and Savage withdrew before the two hostile chiefs. Upon his return to the Mariposa Station, his appeals for immediate preparation for war were given small hearing by the whites. A few were inclined to scoff.

Close on the heels of the warnings, however, came news of an attack on the Fresno store. All the whites except the messenger who had brought the news were killed. The Mariposa Indian War was on.

Savage had gone to Horse Shoe Bend in the Merced Canyon to solicit aid. He had hoped to find a more attentive audience there than among the county officials at Agua Fria. In his absence his Mariposa store was burned, its three white attendants were killed, and his wives were carried off by the assailants.

Cassady, one of the rival traders who had scoffed at Savage’s first news of impending disaster, was surprised in his establishment and met quick death. Three other murderous attacks took place in the immediate vicinity, and the whites finally leaped to the defense of their holdings.

James Burney, the county sheriff, took a place at the head of a body of volunteers who had banded for mutual protection. On January 6, 1851, James D. Savage accompanied this party in an attack made upon an Indian encampment of several hundred squaws and bucks under the leadership of José Rey. This was the first organized movement of the whites against the Indians of the Mariposa Hills.

By this time Governor McDougal had issued a proclamation calling for volunteers, and the Mariposa Battalion came into existence. Savage was made major in full command. Three companies, under John J. Kuykendall, John Boling, and William Dill, were organized and drilled near Savage’s ruined Mariposa store.[4] The affairs of this punitive body of men are dealt with in another chapter. Let it here suffice to say that its activities were especially directed against the mountain tribe of “Grizzlies,” and that on March 25, 1851, Savage and his men entered the mysterious stronghold, Yosemite Valley.

In 1928 it was my privilege to interview Maria Lebrado, one of the last members of the Yosemite tribe who experienced subjection by the whites. I eagerly sought ethnological and historical data, which was forthcoming in gratifying abundance. Purposely I had avoided questioning the aged squaw about Major Savage; but presently she asked, in jumbled English and Spanish, if I knew about the “Captain” of the white soldiers. She called him “Chowwis,” and described him as a blond chief whose light hair fell upon his shoulders and whose beard hung halfway to his waist. She had been much impressed by his commanding blue eyes and declared that his shirts were always red. To this member of the mountain tribe of Yosemite the Major was recalled as something of a thorn in her flesh. That he was a beloved leader of the foothill tribes she agreed, but hastened to explain that those Indians, too, were enemies of her people. Maria is the only person I have met who had seen Savage.

For five months Savage commanded the movements of the Mariposa Battalion. Its various units were active in the Sierra Summit region above Yosemite, at the headwaters of the Chowchilla, and on the upper reaches of the San Joaquin. In every encounter the Indians were defeated and they finally sued for peace. The prowess of Savage as a mountaineer and military leader is borne out in a letter, published in Alta California on June 12, 1851, in which the battalion’s sergeant major describes at length for the adjutant a foray at the headwaters of the San Joaquin:

... I am aware that you have been high up and deep in the mountains and snow yourself, but I believe this trip ranks all others. The Major himself has seen cañons and snow peaks this trip which he never saw before. It is astonishing what this man can endure. Traveling on day and night, through snow and over the mountains, without food, is not considered fatigue to him, and as you are well aware the boys will follow him as long as he leaves a sign.

The same Alta carries a resolution, signed by men in Dill’s and Boling’s companies, affirming in great detail their high confidence in Savage.

In addition to his activities with the battalion in the field, Major Savage functioned conspicuously in aiding the United States Indian Commissioners in preparing a peace treaty. He maintained a friendly attitude toward the oppressed Indians and, had the government made good its promises, or had the appropriations not been absorbed elsewhere, the tribes of the Sierra would have been more adequately provided for. The treaty, signed April 29, 1851, does not carry the “signatures” of Tenaya of the Yosemites or of the leader of the Chowchillas.

On July 1, 1851, the Mariposa Battalion was mustered out. Major Savage resumed his trading operations in a store on the Fresno River near Coarse Gold. In compliance with the treaty, a reservation for the Indians was set aside on the Fresno, and another on the Kings River. In the fall of 1851 the Fresno store was the polling place for a large number of voters for county officers. That winter Savage built Fort Bishop, near the Fresno reservation, and prepared to carry on a prosperous trade. He spoke as follows on this subject to L. H. Bunnell:

If I can make good my losses by the Indians out of the Indians, I am going to do it. I was the best friend the Indians had, and they would have destroyed me. Now that they once more call me “Chief,” they shall build me up. I will be just to them, as I have been merciful, for, after all, they are but poor ignorant beings, but my losses must be made good.

During the first months of 1852, Major Savage conducted a substantial, if not a phenomenal, business with the miners of the Fresno and surrounding territory, and with the Indians at the agency. No Indian hostilities were in evidence, but a policy of excluding them from the store proper was adhered to. The goods which they bought with their gold dust were handed out to them through small openings left in the walls. These openings were securely fastened at night.

Not infrequently the Indians were subjected to abusive treatment at the hands of certain whites. The mistreatment was enough to provoke an uprising, but with a few exceptions they remained on the reservations. An important light on subsequent events in Savage’s life is brought out in this statement by L. H. Bunnell:

As far as I was able to learn at the time, a few persons envied them the possession of their Kings River reservation and determined to “squat” upon it, after they should have been driven off. This “border element” was made use of by an unprincipled schemer, who it was understood was willing to accept office, when a division of Mariposa County should have been made, or when a vacancy of any kind should occur. But population was required, and the best lands had been reserved for the savages. A few hangers-on, at the agencies, that had been discharged for want of employment and other reasons, made claims upon the Kings River reservation; the Indians came to warn them off, when they were at once fired upon, and it was reported that several were killed.

Further details of the deplorable act committed by the would-be “squatters” are provided by the following news item which appeared in the Alta California of July 7, 1852:

Anticipated Indian Difficulties on King’s River

By Mr. Stelle, who came express to Stockton on the 5th inst., we have received the annexed correspondence from

San Joaquin, (Evening,) July 2, 1852.

Editors Alta California:—A few days ago, the Indians on King’s River warned Campbell, Poole & Co., ferrymen, twenty miles from here, to leave, showing at the same time their papers from the Indian Commissioners. The Indians then left, and threatened to kill the ferrymen if on their reservation when they returned. Mr. Campbell has been collecting volunteers, many have joined him. Major Harvey left this evening with some eighteen or twenty men. A fine chance for the boys to have a frolic, locate some land, and be well paid by Uncle Sam.

These agitations and murders were denounced by Major Savage in unsparing terms. Although the citizens of Mariposa were at the time unable to learn the details of the affair at Kings River, which was a distant settlement, the great mass of the people were satisfied that wrong had been done to the Indians; however, there had been a decided opposition by citizens generally to the establishment of two agencies in the county, and the selection of the best agricultural lands for reservations. Mariposa then included nearly the whole San Joaquin Valley south of the Tuolumne.

The opponents to the recommendations of the commissioners claimed that “The government of the United States has no right to select the territory of a sovereign State to establish reservations for the Indians, nor for any other purpose, without the consent of the State!” The state legislature of 1851-1852 instructed the senators and representatives in congress to use their influence to have the Indians removed beyond the limits of the state.

W. W. Elliott, in his History of Fresno County (1881), reveals further details: “Sometime previous to August 16, 1852, one Major Harvey, the first county Judge of Tulare County, and Wm. J. Campbell, either hired or incited a lot of men, who rushed into one of the rancherias on Kings River and succeeded in killing a number of old squaws.”

Elliott’s assertions are supported by the following news item from the San Francisco Daily Herald, August 21, 1852:

Among other acts by white men calculated to excite the Indians, a ferry was established over the San Joaquin, within an Indian reservation, above Fort Miller, some miles above Savage’s. The Indians, no doubt, considered this an encroachment; and from an idea that the ferry stopped fish from ascending the river, some straggling Indian, acting without authority from chiefs or council, spoke of this notion about the fish at the ferry, and saying that the ferry was within their lands, added that it would have to be broken up. The proprietor of the ferry, assuming this as a threatened hostility, or making a pretence of it, assembled a few willing friends, who, armed with rifles, appeared suddenly among some Indian families while most of the men were many miles off, peaceably at work at Savage’s, without dreaming of danger, and without justifiable provocation the white men fired upon the families, killing two women, as it is stated, and some children, and wounding several others.

With such conditions prevailing on the Kings, it is small wonder that numerous Kings Agency Indians traveled to the Fresno in order to trade with Savage. Needless to say, this aroused the further ire of the traders on the Kings. The white malcontents continued their agitation, and the wronged Indians of the Kings wailed to Savage of their troubles. Consistently with his earlier acts, wherein the public good was involved, Major Savage attempted to pacify the Indians. He also denounced the “squatters” with all the emphasis of his personality and high standing. He asserted that they should be punished under the laws which they had violated and presented the case to the Indian Commissioners.

Harvey and the trader Campbell made common cause of denouncing Major Savage in return. Word was sent to the Major that they dared him to set foot in Kings River region. Upon its receipt, Savage mounted his horse and traveled to the Kings River Agency.

The events that occurred upon his arrival have been variously described by half a dozen writers. Elliott’s description, which agrees essentially with Bunnell’s, is as follows:

On the 16th day of August, 1852, Savage paid a visit to the Kings River Reservation, but previously to this Harvey declared that if Savage ever came there he would not return alive. Arriving at the reservation early in the forenoon, Savage found there Harvey and Judge Marvin, and a quarrel at once ensued between Savage and Harvey, the latter demanding of Savage a retraction of the language he had used regarding Harvey, whereupon Savage slapped Harvey across the face with his open hand, and while doing so, his pistol fell out of his shirt bosom and was picked up by Marvin. Harvey then stepped up to Marvin and said: “Marvin you have disarmed me; you have my pistol.” “No” said Marvin, “this is Major Savage’s pistol,” whereupon Harvey, finding Savage unarmed, commenced firing his own pistol, shooting five balls into Savage, who fell, and died almost instantly. Marvin was standing by all this time, with Savage’s pistol in his hands, too cowardly or scared to interfere and prevent the murder. At this time Harvey was County Judge of Tulare County, and one Joel H. Brooks, who had been in the employment of Savage for several years, and who had received at his hands nothing but kindness and favors, was appointed by Harvey, Justice of the Peace, for the sole purpose of investigating Harvey’s case for the killing of Savage. Of course Harvey was acquitted by Brooks—was not even held to answer before the Grand Jury. Harvey finally left, in mortal fear of the Indians, for he imagined that every Indian was seeking his life to avenge the murder of Savage. Afterwards, Harvey died of paralysis.

In 1926 the late Boutwell Dunlap unearthed 169 pages of depositions in manuscript form, taken in a law case of 1858 in which the death of Savage was made an issue. The incidents related by the witness under oath are redolent of the old wild days. This testimony comes from the same Brooks who as magistrate had acquitted Harvey. It is quoted as follows:

Twenty-four hours after the Indians had ordered Campbell to leave, Harvey and his company had a fight with the Indians, killing some and whipping the balance. Savage was then an Indian agent appointed by Wozencroft. Savage and Wozencroft made a great fuss about the American people abusing the Indians and succeeded in getting the Commanding General of the U.S. forces on the Pacific to send up a couple of companies of troops to Tulare County, to take up Major Harvey and the men that were under his command and that had assisted him in this horrible murder of “the poor innocent savages.”

The circumstances which led to Savage’s death grew out of this difficulty. The troops had crossed Kings River. This was some time in August 1852 in the morning. Major Savage and Judge John G. Marvin rode up to the door of Campbell’s trading-house. Savage called for Harvey. Harvey stepped to the door. Savage remarked, “I understand, Major Harvey, that you say I am no gentleman.” Harvey replies, “I have frequently made that statement.” Savage remarked, to Harvey, “There is a good horse, saddle, bridle, spurs and leggings which belong to me. I fetched them, for the purpose of letting you have them to leave this country with.” Harvey replied, “I have got a fine mule and I will leave the country on my own animal, when I want to leave it.” Savage called for breakfast. Savage and Marvin ate breakfast by themselves in a brush house outside the store. After they had got through their breakfast, Savage tied up his hair, rolled up his sleeves, took his six-shooter out of its scabbard and placed it in front of him under the waistband of his pantaloons. He then walked into Campbell’s store and asked Major Harvey if he could not induce him to call him a gentleman. Harvey told him that he had made up his mind and had expressed his opinion in regard to that, and did not think he would alter it. He knocked Harvey down and stamped upon him a little. They were separated by some gentlemen in the house, and Harvey got up. Savage says, “To what conclusion have you come in regard to my gentlemancy?” Harvey replies, “I think you are a damned scoundrel.” Savage knocked Harvey down again. They were again separated by gentlemen present. As Harvey straightened himself onto his feet, he presented a six-shooter and shot Major Savage through the heart. Savage fell without saying anything. It was supposed that Harvey shot him twice after he was dead, every ball taking effect in his heart. That is all I know about the fight. I gained this information by taking the testimony as magistrate of those who saw it.

What may have become of the court records of the so-called trial is unknown, but a scrap of testimony by the proprietor of the house in which the killing took place was preserved by the San Francisco Daily Herald, September 3, 1852, as follows:

The People of the State of California vs. Walter H. Harvey, for the killing of James D. Savage, on the 16th day of August, 1852, contrary to the laws of the State of California, &c.

Mr. Edmunds sworn, says—“Yesterday morning Major Savage came into my house and asked Major Harvey if he had said he was no gentleman. Major Harvey replied he had said it. Major Savage struck Major Harvey on the side of the head and knocked him down on some sacks of flour, and then proceeded to kick and beat him. Judge Marvin and some one else interfered, and Major Savage was taken off of Major Harvey. Major Savage still had hold of Major Harvey when Major Harvey kicked him. Major Savage then struck Major Harvey on the cheek, and knocked him down the second time, and used him, the same as before. By some means I cannot say, Major Savage was again taken off, and they separated. Major Savage was in the act of attacking him again, when Major Harvey draw his pistol and shot him.”

Question by the Court—Did Major Harvey shoot more than once?

Answer—I think he did; I found four holes in him.

Question—Did Major Savage knock Major Harvey down before he drew his pistol?

Answer—The prisoner had been knocked down by Major Savage twice before he drew his pistol, or made any attempt to shoot him.

Mr. Gonele sworn—corroborates the evidence of Mr. Edmunds. Mr. Knider sworn, also does the same.

This is all the testimony given in as to the fight, Major Fitzgerald, U.S.A., sworn, testified to some facts which induced him to think Major Savage not a gentleman.

The Court, upon this testimony, discharged Major Harvey without requiring bail.

So passed the leading figure in early Yosemite history. In this day of greater appreciation of individual heroism, sacrifice, and pioneer accomplishment in public service, how one covets unprejudiced narratives of such lives as was that of James D. Savage! Bunnell comments feelingly on “his many noble qualities, his manly courage, his generous hospitality, his unyielding devotion to friends, and his kindness to immigrant strangers.” A writer in the Daily Herald of September 4, 1852, contributes more details of events that followed the murder.

Effect of Major Savage’s Death upon the Indians

We have received a letter dated August 31st. on the Indian Reservation, Upper San Joaquin, giving some further particulars of the murder of Major James Savage and the effect produced thereby upon the Indians. The writer has resided among them upwards of two years, understood their language and their habits, and for a long time assisted Major Savage in managing them. His opinions therefore are entitled to weight. The following extracts will show the probable effect this murder will have on the prospects of the southern section of the State:

“You have doubtless ere this heard of the death, or rather murder, of Major Savage upon King’s River. It has produced considerable sensation throughout the country and is deeply regretted, for the country and the government have lost the services of a man whom it will not be easy to replace. He could do more to keep the Indians in subjection than all the forces that Uncle Sam could send here. The Indians were terribly excited at his death. Some of them reached the scene of the tragedy soon after it occurred. They threw themselves upon his body, uttering the most terrific cries, bathing their hands and faces in his blood, and even stooping and drinking it, as it gushed from his wounds. It was with difficulty his remains could be interred. The Chiefs clung to his body, and swore they would die with their father.

“The night he was buried the Indians built large fires, around which they danced, singing the while the mournful death chaunt, until the hills around rang with the sound. I have never seen such profound manifestations of grief. The young men, as they whirled wildly and distractedly around in the dance, shouted the name of their ‘father’ that was gone; while the squaws sat rocking their bodies to and fro, chaunting their mournful dirges, until the very blood within one curdled with horror at the scene.

“I have not the slightest doubt that there will be a general outbreak this winter. Just as soon as the rainy season sets in we shall have the beginning of one of the most protracted and expensive wars the people of California have ever been engaged in. The Indians are quiet now, but are evidently contemplating some hostile movement. They told me, a few days since, that their ‘father’ was gone and they would not live with the whites any longer.

“I have studied the character of these Indians, as you know, for more than two years, and have acquired my experience in managing them under Savage himself. I do not speak lightly nor unadvisedly, therefore, when I assert that no more disastrous event could have occurred to the interests of this State, than the murder of the gallant Major Savage.”

It is possible that more details of Savage’s biography may be brought to light, and it is with that hope, coupled with the desire to give his memory just due, that this material is presented for public perusal.

On the Fresno River, near the site of his old trading post, rest the bones of the “white chief.” In 1855, Dr. Leach, who had been associated with Savage in trading with the Indians, journeyed to the Kings River, disinterred the remains, and transferred them to their present resting place. A ten-foot shaft of Connecticut granite, bearing the simple inscription, “Maj. Jas. D. Savage,” marks the spot. On July 4, 1929, the little city of Madera, California, honored the memory of Savage by placing an inscribed plaque on a city gate. These memorials, presumably, are the only public reminders of the importance of James D. Savage in the history of the state.

The story of Major Savage may be concluded with a reference to his family ties. As has been related, Californians were, until 1928, wholly mystified about his origin. Through the researches of Louise Savage Ireland we are made to sense the human side of his saga and are brought to an understanding of his intimate family connections and his faithfulness to blood ties. L. H. Savage of El Paso, Texas, writes that his father, John W. Savage, first cousin of James D. Savage, made a vain attempt to join the Major in California. Returning miners in 1850 told the Illinois Savages that “Jim” invited them to come to California, where he would make them rich. John, then a boy of nineteen years, financed by older members of the family, shipped for the Golden State and sailed around the Horn. Almost a year elapsed before he reached San Francisco. There he learned that his noted relative had met death six months before.

What became of any wealth that the Major may have amassed remains a mystery. The Indians he struggled to protect and the lands he tried to save for them long ago passed out of the reckoning. By way of explanation we quote from Hutchings’ In the Heart of the Sierras:

The reservation on the Fresno gradually became unpopular on this account [because the Indians craved their mountain homes], but mainly from bad management; was afterwards abolished by the Government; and, finally, its lands and buildings were gobbled up by sharp-sighted, if not unprincipled men, who, like many others of that class, became rich out of the acquisition.

One cannot but wonder what counteracting influences James D. Savage would have exercised in the Fresno Agency business had he been permitted to live.

CHAPTER IV
PIONEERS IN THE VALLEY

By March of 1851 the Indian Commissioners McKee, Barbour, and Woozencraft were actively assembling representatives of the numerous Sierra Indian tribes and driving sharp bargains with them to quitclaim their lands. On March 19, 1851, the commissioners in their camp (Camp Frémont) in the Mariposa region reached an agreement with six tribes and proceeded to establish a reservation for them. Their report refers to one tribe, the “Yosemetos,” who were expected at this confab but failed to appear. The friendly Indians who signed the treaty reported that this mountain tribe had no intentions of coming in. It was, therefore, decided to send Major Savage and a part of his Mariposa Battalion after them.

On the evening of March 19, the day on which the Camp Frémont treaty was signed, Major Savage set out with the companies of Captains Boling and Dill. Captain Kuykendall’s company had traveled to the region of the San Joaquin and Kings rivers, in which locality the commissioners planned to negotiate another treaty. The force under the command of Major Savage followed a route very near that which is now known as the Wawona Road to Yosemite Valley.

On the South Fork of the Merced, at what is now called Wawona, a Nuchu camp was surprised and captured. Messengers sent ahead from this camp returned with the assurance that the Yosemite tribe would come in and give themselves up. Old Chief Tenaya of the Yosemites did come into camp, but, after waiting three days for the others, Major Savage became impatient and set out with the battalion to enter the much-talked-of Yosemite retreat. When they had covered about half the distance to the valley, seventy-two Indians were met plodding through the snow. Not convinced that this band constituted the entire tribe, Savage sent them to his camp on the South Fork while he pushed on to the valley. His route again was that followed by the present Wawona road.

On March 25, 1851, the party went into camp near Bridalveil Fall. That night around the campfire a suitable name for the remarkable valley was discussed. Lafayette H. Bunnell, a young man upon whom the surroundings and events had made a deeper impression than upon any of the others, urged that it be named Yosemite, after the natives who had been driven out. This name was agreed upon. Although the whites knew the name of the tribe, they were apparently unaware that the Indians had another name, Ahwahnee, for their Deep Grassy Valley.

The next morning the camp was moved to the mouth of Indian Canyon, and the day was spent in exploring the valley. Only one Indian was found, an ancient squaw, too feeble to escape. Parties penetrated Tenaya Canyon above Mirror Lake, ascended the Merced Canyon beyond Nevada Fall, and explored both to the north and to the south of the river on the valley floor. No more Indians were discovered, and on the third day the party withdrew from the valley. The Indians who had been gathered while the party was on the way to the valley escaped from their guard while en route to the Indian Commissioner’s camp on the Fresno; so this first expedition accomplished nothing in the way of subduing the Yosemites.

In May, 1851, Major Savage sent Captain John Boling and his company back to Yosemite to surprise the elusive inhabitants and to whip them well. Boling followed the same route taken previously and arrived in Yosemite on May 9. He made his first camp near the site of the present Sentinel Bridge. Chief Tenaya and a few of his followers were captured, but the majority of the Yosemites eluded their pursuers. It was during this stay in Yosemite that the first letter from the valley was dispatched. On May 15, 1851, Captain Boling wrote to Major Savage of his affairs, and the letter was published in the Alta California, June 12, 1851. It follows:

On reaching this valley, which we did on the 9th inst., I selected for our encampment the most secluded place that I could find, lest our arrival might be discovered by the Indians. Spies were immediately despatched in different directions, some of which crossed the river to examine for signs on the opposite side. Trails were soon found, leading up and down the river, which had been made since the last rain. On the morning of the 10th we took up the line of march for the upper end of the valley, and having traveled about five miles we discovered five Indians running up the river on the north side. All of my command, except a sufficient number to take care of the pack animals, put spurs to their animals, swam the river and caught them before they could get into the mountains. One of them proved to be the son of the old Yosemety chief. I informed them if they would come down from the mountains and go with me to the U. S. Indian Commissioners, they would not be hurt; but if they would not, I would remain in their neighborhood as long as there was a fresh track to be found; informing him at the same time that all the Indians except his father’s people and the Chouchillas had treated.... He then informed me that ... if I would let him loose, with another Indian, he would bring in his father and all his people by twelve o’clock the next day. I then gave them plenty to eat and started him and his companion out. We watched the others close, intending to hold them as hostages until the despatch-bearers returned. They appeared well satisfied and we were not suspicious of them, in consequence of which one of them escaped. We commenced searching for him, which alarmed the other two still in custody, and they attempted to make their escape. The boys took after them and finding they could not catch them, fired and killed them both. This circumstance, connected with the fact of the two whom we had sent out not returning, satisfied me that they had no intention of coming in. My command then set out to search for the Rancheria. The party which went up the left toward Can-yarthia [?] found the rancheria at the head of a little valley, and from the signs it appeared that the Indians had left but a few minutes. The boys pursued them up the mountain on the north side of the river, and when they had got near the top, helping each other from rock to rock on account of the abruptness of the mountains; the first intimation they had of the Indians being near was a shower of huge rocks which came tumbling down the mountain, threatening instant destruction. Several of the men were knocked down, and some of them rolled and fell some distance before they could recover, wounding and bruising them generally. One man’s gun was knocked out of his hand and fell seventy feet before it stopped, whilst another man’s hat was knocked off his head without hurting him. The men immediately took shelter behind large rocks, from which they could get an occasional shot, which soon forced the Indians to retreat, and by pressing them close they caught the old Yo-semity chief, whom we yet hold as a prisoner. In this skirmish they killed one Indian and wounded several others.

You are aware that I know this old fellow well enough to look out well for him, lest by some stratagem he makes his escape. I shall aim to use him to the best advantage in pursuing his people. I send down a few of my command with the pack animals for provisions; and I am satisfied if you will send me ten or twelve of old Ponwatchez’ best men I could catch the women and children and thereby force the men to come in. The Indians I have with me have acted in good faith and agree with me in this opinion.

On May 21, some members of the invading party discovered the fresh trail of a small party of Indians traveling in the direction of the Mono country. Immediate pursuit was made, and on May 22 the Yosemites were discovered encamped on the shores of Tenaya Lake in a spot much of which was snow-covered. They were completely surprised and surrendered without a struggle. This was the first expedition made into the Yosemite high country from the west, and it was on this occasion that the name Lake Tenaya was applied by Bunnell. The old Indian chief, on being told of how his name was to be perpetuated, sullenly remonstrated that the lake already had a name, “Py-we-ack”—Lake of the Shining Rocks.

The Indians were on this second occasion successfully escorted to the Fresno reservation. Tenaya and his band, however, refused to adapt themselves to the conditions under which they were forced to live. They begged repeatedly to be permitted to return to the mountains and to the acorn food of their ancestors. At last, on his solemn promise to behave, Tenaya was permitted to go back to Yosemite with members of his family. In a short time his old followers quietly slipped away from the reservation and joined him. No attempt was made to bring them back.

During the winter of 1851-52, no complaints against the Yosemites were registered, but in May of 1852 a party of eight prospectors made their way into the valley, where two of them were killed by the Indians. A remarkable manuscript, prepared by Stephen F. Grover, a member of this party, was obtained by Mrs. A. E. Chandler, of Santa Cruz, who in 1901 mailed it to Galen Clark. Upon Clark’s death it was turned over to the pioneer Yosemite photographer, George Fiske. When Mr. Fiske died, the papers were given to National Park Service officials for safekeeping in the Yosemite Museum. Grover’s reminiscences are apparently authentically presented and divulge much that was not recorded elsewhere. Those familiar with Yosemite history as it has been accepted since the appearance of Bunnell’s Discovery of Yosemite will recognize a number of incidents that are at variance with previous records.

Grover’s Narrative—A Reminiscence

On the 27th of April, 1852, a party of miners, consisting of Messrs. Grover, Babcock, Peabody, Tudor, Sherburn, Rose, Aich, and an Englishman whose name I cannot now recall, left Coarse Gold Gulch in Mariposa County, on an expedition prospecting for gold in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We followed up Coarse Gold Gulch into the Sierras, traveling five days, and took the Indian trail through the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, and were the first white men to enter there. Then we followed the South Fork of the Merced River, traveling on Indian trails the entire time.

On reaching the hills above Yosemite Valley, our party camped for the night, and questioned the expediency of descending into the Valley at all. Our party were all opposed to the project except Sherburn, Tudor, and Rose. They over-persuaded the rest and fairly forced us against our will, and we finally followed the old Mariposa Indian trail on the morning of the 2nd of May, and entering the Valley on the East side of the Merced River, camped on a little opening, near a bend in the River free from any brush whatever, and staked out our pack mules by the river. I, being the youngest of the party, a mere boy of twenty-two years, and not feeling usually well that morning, remained in camp with Aich and the Englishman to prepare dinner, while the others went up the Valley, some prospecting, and others hunting for game. We had no fear of the Indians, as they had been peaceable, and no outbreaks having occurred, the whites traveled fearlessly wherever they wished to go. Thus, we had no apprehension of trouble. To my astonishment and horror I heard our men attacked, and amid firing, screams, and confusion, here came Peabody, who reached camp first, wounded by an arrow in his arm and another in the back of his neck, and one through his clothes, just grazing the skin of his stomach, wetting his rifle and ammunition in crossing the river as he ran to reach camp. Babcock soon followed, and as both men had plunged through the stream that flows from the Bridal Veil Falls in making their escape, they were drenched to the skin.

On reaching us, Aich immediately began picking the wet powder from Babcock’s rifle, while I with my rifle stood guard and kept the savages at bay the best I could. (The other men, with the exception of Sherburn, Tudor, and Rose, came rushing into camp in wild excitement.) Rose, a Frenchman, was the first to fall, and from the opposite side of the stream where he fell, apparently with his death wound, he screamed to us, “’T is no use to try to save ourselves, we have all got to die.” He was the only one of our company that could speak Indian and we depended upon him for an interpreter. Sherburn and Tudor were killed in their first encounter, Tudor being killed with an ax in the hands of a savage, which was taken along with the party for cutting wood. The Indians gathered around as near as they dared to come, whooping and yelling, and constantly firing arrows at us. We feared they would pick up the rifles dropped by our companions in their flight and turn them against us, but they did not know how to use them. As we were very hard pressed, and as the number of Indians steadily increased, we tried to escape by the old Mariposa trail, the one by which we entered the Valley, one of our number catching up a sack of a few pounds of flour and another a tin cup and some of our outer clothing and fled as best we could with the savages in hot pursuit. We had proceeded but a short distance when we were attacked in front by the savages who had cut off our retreat. Death staring at us on almost every hand, and seeing no means of escape, we fled to the bluff, I losing my pistol as I ran. We were in a shower of arrows all the while, and the Indians were closing in upon us very fast; the valley seemed alive with them—on rocks, and behind trees, bristling like Demons, shrieking their war whoops, and exulting in our apparently easy capture. We fired back at them to keep them off while we tried to make our way forward hugging the bluff as closely as possible. Our way was soon blocked by the Indians who headed us off with a shower of arrows (two going through my clothing, one through my hat which I lost), when from above the rocks began to fall on us and in our despair we clung to the face of the bluff, and scrambling up we found a little place in the turn of the wall, a shelf-like projection, where, after infinite labor, we succeeded in gathering ourselves, secure from the falling rocks, at least, which were being thrown by Indians under the orders from their Chief. The arrows still whistled among us thick and fast, and I fully believe—could I visit that spot even now after the lapse of all these years—I could still pick up some of those flint arrow points in the shelf of the rock and in the face of the bluff where we were huddled together.

We could see the old Chief Tenieya way up in the Valley in an open space with fully one hundred and fifty Indians around him, to whom he gave his orders, which were passed to another Chief just below us, and these two directed those around them and shouted orders to those on the top of the bluff who were rolling the rocks over on us. Fully believing ourselves doomed men, we never relaxed our vigilance, but with the two rifles we still kept them at bay, determined to sell our lives as dearly as possible. I recall, with wonder, how every event of my life up to that time passed through my mind, incident after incident, with lightning rapidity, and with wonderful precision.

We were crowded together beneath this little projecting rock (two rifles were fortunately retained in our little party, one in the hands of Aich and one in my own), every nerve strung to its highest tension, and being wounded myself with an arrow through my sleeve that cut my arm and another through my hat, when all of a sudden the Chief just below us, about fifty yards distant, suddenly threw up his hands and with a terrible yell fell over backwards with a bullet through his body. Immediately, the firing of arrows ceased and the savages were thrown into confusion, while notes of alarm were sounded and answered far up the Valley and from the high bluffs above us. They began to withdraw and we could hear the twigs crackle as they crept away.

It was now getting dusk and we had been since early morning without food or rest. Not knowing what to expect we remained where we were, suffering from our wounds and tortured with fear till the moon went down about midnight; then trembling in every limb, we ventured to creep forth, not daring to attempt the old trail again; we crept along and around the course of the bluff and worked our way up through the snow, from point to point, often feeling the utter impossibility of climbing farther, but with an energy born of despair, we would try again, helping the wounded more helpless than ourselves, and by daylight we reached the top of the bluff. A wonderful hope of escape animated us though surrounded as we were, and we could but realize how small our chances were for evading the savages who were sure to be sent on our trail. Having had nothing to eat since the morning before, we breakfasted by stirring some of our flour in the tip cup, with snow, and passing it around among us, in full sight of the smoke of the Indian camps and signal fires all over the Valley.

Our feelings toward the “Noble Red Man” at this time can better be imagined than described.

Starting out warily and carefully, expecting at every step to feel the stings of the whizzing arrows of our deadly foes, we kept near and in the most dense underbrush, creeping slowly and painfully along as best we could, those who were best able carrying the extra garments of the wounded and helping them along; fully realizing the probability of the arrow tips with which we were wounded having been dipped in poison before being sent on their message of death. In this manner we toiled on, a suffering and saddened band of once hopeful prospectors.

Suddenly a deer bounded in sight. Some objected to our shooting as the report of our rifle might betray us—but said I, as well die by our foes as by starvation, and dropping on one knee with never a steadier nerve or truer aim, the first crack of my rifle brought him down. Hope revived in our hearts, and quickly skinning our prize we roasted pieces of venison on long sticks thrust in the flame and smoke, and with no seasoning whatever it was the sweetest morsel I ever tasted. Hastily stripping the flesh from the hind quarters of the deer, Aich and myself, being the only ones able to carry the extra burden, shouldered the meat and we again took up our line of travel. In this manner we toiled on and crossed the Mariposa Trail, and passed down the south fork of the Merced River, constantly fearing pursuit. As night came on we prepared camp by cutting crotched stakes which we drove in the ground and putting a pole across enclosed it with brush, making a pretty secure hiding place for the night; we crept under and lay close together. Although expecting an attack we were so exhausted and tired that we soon slept.

An incident of the night occurs to me: One of the men on reaching out his foot quickly, struck one of the poles, and down came the whole structure upon us. Thinking that our foes were upon us, our frightened crowd sprang out and made for the more dense brush, but as quiet followed we realized our mistake and gathering together again we passed the remainder of the night in sleepless apprehension.

When morning came we started again, following up the river, and passed one of our camping places. We traveled as far as we could in that direction, and prepared for our next night to camp and slept in a big hollow tree, still fearing pursuit. We passed the night undisturbed and in the morning started again on our journey, keeping in the shelter of the brush, and crossed the foot of the Falls, a little above Crane Flat—so named by us, as one of our party shot a large crane there while going over, but it is now known as Wawona. We still traveled in the back ground, passing through Big Tree Grove again, but not until we gained the ridge above Chowchilla did we feel any surety of ever seeing our friends again.

Traveling on thus for five days, we at last reached Coarse Gold Gulch once more, barefooted and ragged but more glad than I can express. An excited crowd soon gathered around us and while listening to our hair-breadth escapes, our sufferings and perils, and while vowing vengeance on the treacherous savages, an Indian was seen quickly coming down the mountain trail, gaily dressed in war paint and feathers, evidently a spy on our track, and not three hours behind us. A party of miners watched him as he passed by the settlement. E. Whitney Grover, my brother, and a German cautiously followed him. The haughty Red Man was made to bite the dust before many minutes had passed.

Joseph R. Walker

By Joseph Dixon Maria Lebrado

Captain John Boling

Lafayette H. Bunnell

By J. T. Boysen A Freight Outfit

By Gustav Fagersteen Early Tourists in the Saddle

My brother Whitney Grover quickly formed a company of twenty-five men, who were piloted by Aich, and started for the Valley to bury our unfortunate companions. They found only Sherburn and Tudor, after a five days march, and met with no hostility from the Indians. They buried them where they lay, with such land marks as were at hand at that time. I have often called to mind the fact that the two men, Sherburn and Tudor, the only ones of our party who were killed on that eventful morning, were seen reading their Bibles while in camp the morning before starting into the Valley. They were both good men and we mourned their loss sincerely.

After we had been home six days, Rose, who was a partner of Sherburn and Tudor in a mine about five miles west of Coarse Gold Gulch, where there was a small mining camp, appeared in the neighborhood and reported the attack and said the whole party was killed, and that he alone escaped. On being questioned, he said he hid behind the Waterfall and lived by chewing the leather strap which held his rifle across his shoulders. This sounded strange to us as he had his rifle and plenty of ammunition and game was abundant. Afterward hearing of our return to Coarse Gold Gulch camp, he never came to see us as would have been natural, but shortly disappeared. We thought his actions and words very strange and we remembered how he urged us to enter the Valley, and at the time of the attack was the first one to fall, right amongst the savages, apparently with his death wound, and now he appears without a scratch, telling his version of the affair and disappearing without seeing any of us. We all believed he was not the honest man and friend we took him to be. He took possession of the gold mine in which he held a one-third interest with Sherburn and Tudor, and sold it.

Years afterward, in traveling at a distance and amongst strangers, I heard this story of our adventures repeated, as told by Aich, and he represented himself as the only man of the party who was not in the least frightened. I told them that “I was most thoroughly frightened, and Aich looked just as I felt.”

Stephen F. Grover

Santa Cruz, California

The commander of the regular army garrison at Fort Miller was notified of these events, and a detachment of the 2d Infantry under Lieutenant Tredwell Moore was dispatched in June, 1852. Five Indians were captured in the Yosemite Valley, all of whom were found to possess articles of clothing belonging to the murdered men. These Indians were summarily shot. Tenaya’s scouts undoubtedly witnessed this prompt pronouncement of judgment, and the members of the tribe fled with all speed to their Piute allies at Mono Lake.

The soldiers pursued the fleeing Indians by way of Tenaya Lake and Bloody Canyon. They found no trace of the Yosemites and could elicit no information from the Piutes. The party explored the region north and south of Bloody Canyon and found some promising mineral deposits. In August they returned to Tuolumne Soda Springs and then made their way back to Mariposa by way of the old Mono Trail that passed south of Yosemite Valley.

Upon arrival at Mariposa they exhibited samples of their ore discoveries. This created the usual excitement, and Lee Vining with a party of companions hastened to visit the region to prospect for gold. Leevining Canyon, through which the Tioga Road now passes, was named for the leader of this party.

Tenaya and his refugee band remained with the Mono Indians until late in the summer of 1853, when they again ventured into their old haunts in the Yosemite Valley. Shortly after they had reëstablished themselves in their old home, a party of young Yosemites made a raid on the camp of their former hosts and stole a band of horses which the Monos had recently driven up from southern California. The thieves brought the animals to Yosemite by a very roundabout route through a pass at the head of the San Joaquin, hoping by this means to escape detection. However, the Monos at once discovered the ruse and organized a war party to wreak vengeance upon their ungrateful guests. Surprising the Yosemites while they were feasting gluttonously upon the stolen horses, they almost annihilated Tenaya’s band with stones before a rally could be effected. Eight of the Yosemite braves escaped the slaughter and fled down the Merced Canyon. The old men and women who escaped death were given their liberty, but the young women and children were made captive and taken to Mono Lake.

The story of this last act in the elimination of the troublesome Yosemites was made known to Bunnell by surviving members of the tribe.

In 1928, when I talked with Maria, a member of the original Yosemite tribe, her version of the massacre differed widely from the story told by Bunnell. Through her daughter she stoutly assured me that no Indians died in Yosemite Valley except those killed by whites and those who were ill. I asked her how Tenaya died and where. She explained that while the Yosemites were at Mono Lake they engaged in hand games with the Monos. These games are stirring affairs among the Indians. A. L. Kroeber states, “It is impossible to have seen a California Indian warmed to his work in this game when played for stakes—provided its aim and method are understood—and any longer justly to designate him mentally sluggish and emotionally apathetic, as is the wont. It is a game in which not sticks and luck, but the tensest of wills, the keenest perceptions and the supplest of muscular responses are matched.... Seen in this light, the contortions, gesticulations, noises, and excitement of the native are not the mere uncontrolledness of an overgrown child, but the outward reflexes of a powerfully surcharged intensity.”

According to Maria, it was in the heat of such a game that a quarrel developed between Tenaya and his Mono allies. In the fight that followed, Tenaya and five of his Yosemite braves were stoned to death. At least, this stoning feature agrees with former accounts of the killing. Horse stealing and a gluttonous feast in Yosemite Valley do not figure in Maria’s story. She insists that Tom “Hutchings,” the Yosemite Indian befriended by J. M. Hutchings, attended to the burning of the bodies and packed the charred remains upon his own back from Mono Lake to Hites Cove. There a great “cry” was held for two weeks; the remaining Yosemite Indians and all their friends bewailed the loss of Chief Tenaya and the four tribesmen.

A number of parties of miners, emboldened by the news of the disbanding of the Yosemites, visited the valley in the fall of 1853. During 1854 no white men are known to have entered Yosemite Valley.

By 1855 several accounts written by members of the three punitive expeditions that had entered Yosemite had been published in San Francisco papers. The difficulties of overcoming hostile Indians in the search for gold were far more prominent in the minds of these writers than the scenic wonders of the new-found valley. Nevertheless, the mention of a thousand-foot waterfall in one of these published letters awakened James M. Hutchings, then publishing the California Magazine, to the possibilities that Yosemite presented. Hutchings organized the first tourist party in June, 1855, and with two of the original Yosemites as guides proceeded from Mariposa over the old Indian trail via Wawona and Inspiration Point to the valley. Thomas Ayres, an artist, was a member of the party and during this visit he made the first sketches ever made in Yosemite. Ten of these original pencil drawings are now preserved in the Yosemite Museum.

In 1853, James Alden, then a commander in the United States Navy, came to California on a commission to settle the boundary between Mexico and California. He remained until 1860. Some time between 1856 and 1860 he visited Yosemite Valley. Probably on his return to San Francisco he came upon Ayres’s work, which appealed to him as the best mementos of his Yosemite experience, and he procured ten originals and one lithograph. Mrs. Ernest W. Bowditch, Mrs. C. W. Hubbard, and Mrs. A. H. Eustis, descendants of Admiral Alden and heirs to these priceless drawings, have presented them to the Yosemite Museum, which stands near the spot where some of them were made.

In the years that have elapsed since these drawings were created, they have journeyed on pack mules, sailed the seas in old United States men-of-war, jolted about in covered wagons, and at last made a transcontinental journey to come again to the valley that gave them birth.

CHAPTER V
TOURISTS IN THE SADDLE

Hutchings and his first sight-seers “spent five glorious days in luxurious scenic banqueting” in the newly discovered valley and then followed their Indian guides over the return trail to Mariposa. Upon their arrival in that mountain city, they were besieged with eager questioners, among whom was L. A. Holmes, the editor of the Mariposa Gazette, which had recently been established. Mr. Holmes begged that his paper be given opportunity to publish the first account from the pen of Mr. Hutchings. His request was complied with, and in the Gazette of July 12, 1855, appears the first printed description of Yosemite Valley, prepared by one uninfluenced by Indian troubles or gold fever.

Journalists the country over copied the description, and so started the Hutchings Yosemite publicity, which was to continue through a period of forty-seven years. Parties from Mariposa and other mining camps, and from San Francisco, interested by Hutchings’ oral and printed accounts, organized, secured the same Indian guides, and inaugurated tourist travel to the Yosemite wonder spot.

Milton and Houston Mann, who had accompanied one of these sight-seeing expeditions, were so imbued with the possibilities of serving the hordes of visitors soon to come that they set to work immediately to construct a horse toll trail from the South Fork of the Merced to the Yosemite Valley. Galen Clark, who also had been a member of one of the 1855 parties, was prompted to establish a camp on the South Fork where travelers could be accommodated. This camp was situated on the Mann Brothers’ Trail and later became known as Clark’s Station. It is known as Wawona now. The Mann brothers finished their trail in 1856.

Old Indian trails were followed by much of the Mariposa-Yosemite Valley route. The toll was collected at White and Hatch’s, approximately twelve miles from Mariposa. At Clark’s Station (Wawona), the trail detached itself from the Indian route and ascended Alder Creek to its headwaters. Here it crossed to the Bridalveil Creek drainage and passed through several fine meadows, gradually ascending to the highest point on the route above Old Inspiration Point on the south rim of Yosemite Valley. From this point it dropped sharply to the floor of the valley near the foot of Bridalveil Fall. The present-day Alder Creek and Pohono trails traverse much of the old route.

Several years after the pioneer trail was built, sheep camps were established on two of the lush meadows through which it passed. They were known as Westfall’s and Ostrander’s. The rough shelters existing here were frequently used by tired travelers who preferred to make an overnight stop on the trail rather than exhaust themselves in completing the saddle trip to the valley in one day. Usually, however, Westfall’s or Ostrander’s were convenient lunch stops for the saddle parties.

In 1869, Charles Peregoy built a hotel, “The Mountain View House,” at what had been known as Westfall Meadow and with the help of his wife operated a much-praised hospice every summer until 1875, when the coming of the stage road between Wawona and Yosemite Valley did away with the greater part of the travel on the trail.

The Mann Brothers’ Trail, which was some fifty miles in length, was purchased by Mariposa County and made available to public use without charge before construction of the stage road from Mariposa had been completed.

In 1856, the year that witnessed the completion of the Mariposa-Yosemite Valley Trail, L. H. Bunnell, George W. Coulter, and others united in the construction of the “Coulterville Free Trail.” Very little, if any, of this route followed existing Indian trails. The Coulterville Trail started at Bull Creek, to which point a wagon road already had been constructed, and passed through Deer Flat, Hazel Green, Crane Flat, and Tamarack Flat to the point now known as Gentry, and thence to the valley. Its total length was forty-eight miles, of which seventeen miles could be traveled in a carriage.

A second pioneer horse trail on the north side of the Merced began at the village of Big Oak Flat, six miles north of Coulterville, and followed a route north of the Coulterville Free Trail through Garrote to Harden’s Ranch on the South Fork of the Tuolumne River, thence to its junction with the Coulterville Trail between Crane Flat and Tamarack Flat.

Sections of all of these early routes passed over high terrain where deep snow persisted well into the spring. Early fall snow storms in these vicinities sometimes contributed to the hazards of travel. The trails found use during a relatively short season. The Merced Canyon offered opportunity to establish a route at lower elevation, but the difficulties of construction in the narrow gorge deterred all would-be builders until a short time prior to the wagon-road era. The Hite’s Cove route, which came into use in the early ’seventies, partly answered the need for a snow-free canyon trail. Hite’s Cove, where the John Hite Mine was located in 1861, is on the South Fork of the Merced some distance above its confluence with the Merced River. A wagon road eighteen miles in length made it accessible from Mariposa. Tourists using this route stopped overnight in Hite’s Cove and then traveled twenty miles in the saddle up the Merced Canyon to the valley.

Another means of reaching the valley on horseback via the Merced Canyon was developed soon after wagon roads had been built. Some Yosemite visitors, perhaps because of the poor condition of the roads at certain seasons, elected to leave the Coulterville stage route at Dudley’s, from where they went to Jenkins Hill on the rim of the steep walls of the Merced gorge. Here a horse trail enabled them to descend to the bottom of the canyon, thence up the Merced to the valley. This thirty-mile saddle trip involved an overnight stop at Hennesey’s, situated a short distance below the present El Portal.

Travel in the saddle, of course, was regarded by the California pioneer with few qualms. Likewise, the conveyance of freight on the backs of mules was looked upon as commonplace, and the success attained by those early packers is, in this day and age, wonderful to contemplate. In Hutchings’ California Magazine for December, 1859, appears a most interesting essay on the business of packing as then practiced among the mountaineers of the gold camps.

Pack animals and packers have not yet passed from the Yosemite scene, for much of the back country is, and always will be, we hope, accessible by trail only. Government trail gangs are dependent for weeks at a time upon the supplies brought to them upon the backs of mules. Likewise, those who avail themselves of High Sierra Camp facilities are served by pack trains. Present-day packing differs in no essential way from the mode of the ’fifties, except that it is often done by Indians instead of the old-time Mexican mulatero.

What one visitor of the pre-wagon days thought of the saddle trip into Yosemite Valley may be gathered from J. H. Beadle in his Undeveloped West. Beadle visited the Sierra in 1871 and approached the valley from the north.

Thirty-seven miles from Garrote bring us to Tamarack Flat, the highest point on the road, the end of staging, and no wonder. The remaining five miles down into the valley must be made on horseback.

While transferring baggage—very little is allowed—to pack mules, the guide and driver amuse us with accounts of former tourists, particularly of Anna Dickinson, who rode astride into the valley, and thereby demonstrated her right to vote, drink “cocktails,” bear arms, and work the roads, without regard to age, sex, or previous condition of servitude. They tell us with great glee of Olive Logan, who, when told she must ride thus into the valley, tried practising on the back of the coach seats, and when laughed at for her pains, took her revenge by savagely abusing everything on the road. When Mrs. Cady Stanton was here a few weeks since, she found it impossible to fit herself to the saddle, averring she had not been in one for thirty years. Our accomplished guide, Mr. F. A. Brightman, saddled seven different mules for her (she admits the fact in her report), and still she would not risk it, and “while the guides laughed behind their horses, and even the mules winked knowingly and shook their long ears comically, still she stood a spectacle for men and donkeys.” In vain the skillful Brightman assured her he had piloted five thousand persons down that fearful incline, and not an accident. She would not be persuaded, and walked the entire distance, equal to twenty miles on level ground. And shall this much-enduring woman still be denied a voice in the government of the country? Perish the thought. With all these anecdotes I began to feel nervous myself, for I am but an indifferent rider, and when I observed the careful strapping and saw that my horse was enveloped in a perfect network of girths, cruppers and circingles, I inquired diffidently, “Is there no danger that this horse will turn a somerset with me over some steep point?” “Oh, no, sir,” rejoined the cheerful Brightman, “he is bitterly opposed to it.”

We turn again to the left into a sort of stairway in the mountain side, and cautiously tread the stony defile downward; at places over loose boulders, at others around or over the points of shelving rock, where one false step would send horse and rider a mangled mass two thousand feet below, and more rarely over ground covered with bushes and grade moderate enough to afford a brief rest. It is impossible to repress fear. Every nerve is tense; the muscles involuntarily make ready for a spring, and even the bravest lean timorously toward the mountain side and away from the cliff, with foot loose in stirrup and eye alert, ready for a spring in case of peril. The thought is vain; should the horse go, the rider would infallibly go with him. And the poor brutes seem to fully realize their danger and ours, as with wary steps and tremulous ears, emitting almost human signs, with more than brute caution they deliberately place one foot before the other, calculating seemingly at each step the desperate chances and intensely conscious of our mutual peril. Mutual danger creates mutual sympathy—everything animal, everything that can feel pain, is naturally cowardly—and while we feel a strange animal kinship with our horses, they seem to express a half-human earnestness to assure us that their interest is our interest, and their self-preservative instinct in full accord with our intellectual dread. We learn with wonder that of all the five thousand who have made this perilous passage not one has been injured—if injured be the word, for the only injury here would be certain death. One false step and we are gone bounding over rocks, ricocheting from cliffs, till all semblance of humanity is lost upon the flat rock below. Such a route would be impossible to any but those mountain-trained mustangs, to whom a broken stone staircase seems as safe as an ordinary macadamized road.

At length we reach a point where the most hardy generally dismount and walk—two hundred feet descent in five hundred feet progress. Indeed half the route will average the descent of an ordinary staircase. Then comes a passage of only moderate descent and terror, then another and more terrible stairway—a descent of four hundred feet in a thousand. I will not walk before and lead my horse, as does our guide, but trail my long rope halter and keep him before,—always careful to keep on the upper side of him, springing from rock to rock, and hugging the cliff with all the ardor of a young lover. For now I am scared. All pretense of pride is gone, and just the last thing I intend to risk is for that horse to stumble, and in falling strike me over that fearful cliff. At last comes a gentler slope, then a crystal spring, dense grove and grass-covered plat, and we are down into the valley. Gladly we take the stage, and are whirled along in the gathering twilight.

The vehicle that whirled Beadle over the flat of the valley floor was brought to Yosemite before roads were constructed and is now exhibited at the Yosemite Museum as “the first wagon in Yosemite Valley.”

The arrival of visitors prompted the building of shelters. The first habitation to be constructed by white men in Yosemite was a rough shack put up in 1855 by a party of surveyors, of which Bunnell was a member. A company had been organized to bring water from the foot of the valley into the dry diggings of the Mariposa estate. It was supposed that a claim in the valley would doubly secure the water privileges.

The first permanent structure was built in 1856 by Walworth and Hite. It was constructed of pine boards that were rived out by hand, and occupied the site of the 1851 camp of Boling’s party (near the foot of the present Four-Mile Trail to Glacier Point). It was known as the Lower Hotel until 1869, when it was pulled down, and Black’s Hotel was constructed on the spot.

In the spring of 1857, Beardsley and Hite put up a canvas-covered house in the old village. The next year this was replaced by a wooden structure, the planks for which had been whipsawed by hand. J. M. Hutchings was again in the valley in 1859, and his California Magazine for December of that year tells of the first photographs to be made in Yosemite. C. L. Weed, a pioneer photographer apparently working for R. H. Vance, packed a great instrument and its bulky equipment through the mountains to the Yosemite scenes. Photography was just then taking its place in American life. Mr. Weed’s first Yosemite subject was this Upper Hotel of Beardsley and Hite. Hutchings and Weed decided on this occasion that they must visit the fall now called Illilouette, and Hutchings wrote:

The reader would have laughed could he have seen us ready for the start. Mr. Beardsley, who had volunteered to carry the camera, had it inverted and strapped at his back, when it looked more like an Italian “hurdy gurdy” than a photographic instrument, and he like the “grinder.” Another carried the stereoscopic instrument and the lunch; another, the plate-holders and gun, etcetera; and as the bushes had previously somewhat damaged our broadcloth unmentionables, we presented a very queer and picturesque appearance truly.

Hutchings published a woodcut made from the first photograph of the Yosemite hostelry in November of 1859; his book, In the Heart of the Sierras, again alludes to his presence in the valley when this first photograph was taken. Naturally, students of California history have been interested in learning more about the work of Weed, but in spite of serious attempts to procure more information on this photographer of 1859, nothing was brought to light. It was then something of a thrill to me to find myself in possession of an original print from the earliest Yosemite negative. That the print is genuine seems to be a fact, and the incidents relative to its discovery are worth the telling here.

Its donor, Arthur Rosenblatt, resided as a small boy within a few blocks of the Hutchings San Francisco home on Pine Street. Mr. Rosenblatt and his brothers played with the Hutchings children. In 1880 the Hutchings home was destroyed by fire. The small boys of the neighborhood searched the debris for objects worth saving, and Irving and Wallace Rosenblatt salvaged a pack of large water-stained photographs. Arthur Rosenblatt with forethought mounted these pictures in an old scrapbook. He has cherished them through the years that have passed. In June, 1929, he visited the Yosemite Museum and was interested in the historical exhibits. In his study of the displayed materials, he came upon a photographic copy of the old drawing of the “Hutchings House,” which has been taken from In the Heart of the Sierras. He recognized its subject as identical with one of the old photographs which he had preserved since 1880. He made his find known to the park naturalist, and immediately phoned to his San Francisco home and requested that the scrapbook be mailed at once to the Yosemite Museum. Upon its receipt, the old hotel photograph was segregated from the others, and comparisons were made with the drawing in the old Hutchings book and with the building itself. The print is obviously from the original Weed negative.

Hutchings’ visit of 1859 apparently convinced him of the desirability of residing in Yosemite Valley. During the next few years he spared no effort in making its wonders known to the world through his California Magazine. The spirited etchings of Yosemite wonders that were reproduced in the magazine from Weed’s photos and from Ayres’s drawings did much to convince travelers of the magnificence of Yosemite scenery. The stream of tourists who entered the valley grew apace in spite of the hardships to be endured on the long journey in the saddle. Horace Greeley was one of those who braved the discomforts in 1859 and gave his description of the place to hundreds of thousands in the East. Greeley, foolishly, determined to make the 57-mile saddle trip via the Mariposa route in one day. He arrived at the Upper Hotel in Yosemite Valley at 1:00 A.M., more dead than alive, yet shortly afterward he wrote, “I know no single wonder of Nature on earth which can claim a superiority over the Yosemite.” His visit was made at a season when Yosemite Falls contained but little water, and he dubbed them a “humbug,” but his hearty praise of the general wonders played a significant part in turning the interest of Easterners upon the new mecca of scenic beauty.

In 1864 J. M. Hutchings came to the Upper Hotel (Cedar Cottage) in the role of proprietor. The mirth and discomfiture engendered among Hutchings’ guests by the cheesecloth partitions between bedrooms prompted him to build a sawmill near the foot of Yosemite Falls in order to produce sufficient lumber to “hard finish” his hostelry. It was in this mill that John Muir found employment for a time. The hotel was embellished with lean-tos and porches, and an addition was constructed at the rear in which was completely enclosed the trunk of a large growing cedar tree. Hutchings built a great fireplace in this sitting room and proceeded to make the novel gathering place famous as the “Big Tree Room.”

A winter spent in the frigid shade of the south wall of Yosemite Valley convinced the Hutchings family that their “Big Tree Room” was not a pleasant winter habitation. They built anew and moved into the warm sunshine of the north side of the valley. With their own hands members of the family constructed a snug cabin among giant black oaks near the foot of Yosemite Falls and there spent the remainder of their Yosemite days.

Papers, letters, and photographs relating to the Yosemite experiences of the Hutchings family have been preserved by J. M. Hutchings’ daughter, Mrs. Gertrude Hutchings Mills, and by the family of his wife, the Walkingtons of England. Materials generously donated from these sources take important places in the collections of the Yosemite Museum and have greatly aided in the preparation of this volume.

J. M. Hutchings invested heavily in the construction of the Sentinel group of buildings and continued to be identified with the Yosemite as publicity agent, hotel proprietor, resident, official guardian, and unofficial champion until 1902. In that year, he met his death on the zigzags of the Big Oak Flat Road. In the 1902 register of the hotel, which was once the Hutchings House, is the following entry made by Mrs. Hutchings, the second wife of J. M. Hutchings:

November 8, 1902

Today leaving Yo Semite and all I love best.

Emily A. Hutchings

Thinking that some who come here may wish to know a little about the sad tragedy of Mr. J. Hutchings’ death, I would like to write a few words.

Because I had never seen Yo Semite in the autumn, my dear husband brought me here for a short holiday, on our way to San Francisco. We started from the Calaveras Big Trees and came via Parrots Ferry, and its beautiful gorge—the wonderful old mining center of Columbia, and its hitherto only surface-skimmed Gold Fields—Sonora and its good approaches, in its oiled and well graded roads—and thence to Chaffee and Chamberlains and to Crockers and their hearty hospitality. It has been a very pleasant experience, to see many friends on the way—most of them honored “Old Timers,” who have been the thews and sinews of the State, and who still hold their own in the rugged strength, which has brought them through to 1902.

From Crockers, we started on the last day of our journey [Oct. 31, 1902], continuing through the glorious Forests of the Sierras, the autumnal tints of which this year, have been of unusual grandeur—these beauties all being intensified in Yo Semite.

Coming down the Grade we were impressed beyond expression, and, when we reached the point where El Capitan first presents itself, my Husband said, “It is like Heaven.”

There was no apparent danger near but one of the horses took fright (probably a wild animal was at hand) and dashed away. When the Angel of Death reached Mr. Hutchings a few moments later—under the massive towering heights of that sun-illumined Cliff—“He” found him in the full vigour of life and high energetic purpose—but his grief-stricken wife prayed in vain that the ebbing tide would stay.

From the moment the sad accident was known, the greatest sympathy and kindness were shown, loving hands gave reverent aid—and on Sunday, Nov. 2, 1902, my dear husband was borne from the Big Tree Room and its time honored memories. The residents of the Valley and many of the Indians, who had long known him, followed. We laid him to rest, surrounded by nature in Her most glorious garb, and under the peaks and domes he had loved so well and had explored so fearlessly.

Emily A. Hutchings

Nov. 8, 1902

In 1941 and for several years thereafter, Yosemite Valley was visited by Cosie Hutchings Mills, daughter of J. M. Hutchings, born October 5, 1867, the second white child born in the valley. Elizabeth H. Godfrey, of the Yosemite Museum, obtained from Mrs. Mills both written and oral statements regarding the pioneer experiences of the Hutchings family in Yosemite. The interviews with Mrs. Mills were recorded by Mrs. Godfrey. Her manuscript, “Chronicles of Cosie Hutchings Mills,” and Mrs. Mills’ written reminiscences are preserved in the Yosemite Museum.

By C. L. Weed, 1859 First Yosemite Photograph—“Upper Hotel”

The Big Tree Room

By J. T. Boysen The Big Oak Flat Route

By J. T. Boysen The First Automobile—July, 1900

Early Yosemite Buses

Old Tioga Road

New Tioga Road

CHAPTER VI
STAGECOACH DAYS

For twenty-three years after the coming of the first sightseers, Yosemite Valley was accessible only by horse trail. The twelve thousand tourists, who frantically clung to their Yosemite-bound steeds during this period, included many Easterners and Europeans not accustomed to mountain trails. They had departed surcharged with enthusiasm but sometimes were caustic in their expressions regarding their mode of conveyance and the crudity of the facilities found at their disposal both en route and in the valley. Not a few of the comments made by visitors found their way into print. Yosemite bibliography is not limited to items printed in English. The entire world sent representatives to the valley during that first period of travel, and foreign literature carried the story of Yosemite wonders quite as did American publications. The reader may form some opinion of what the printed word has done for Yosemite, if he will scan the titles which are given in the bibliography appended to this volume. In addition to these, of course, are hundreds of books and articles to which no reference has been made in the present work.

The merchants of the towns along the routes of approach, as well as the businessmen within the valley itself, felt the need of providing more adequately for the greater numbers that might be brought to their attractions. Foremost among the provisions, naturally, was the construction of wagon roads.

To Dr. John T. McLean, the president of the Coulterville and Yosemite Turnpike Company, belongs the honor of first making the Yosemite Valley accessible to wheeled vehicles. The Coulterville Company was formed in 1859. It had extended its road to Crane Flat, and, at the insistence of Dr. McLean, arranged with the Yosemite commissioners to build and maintain a toll road to the floor of Yosemite Valley. The commissioners had agreed that this company should have exclusive rights on the north side of Yosemite Valley; that is, no other company was to build a road into the valley from the north for a period of ten years. Under this agreement, the Coulterville Road was projected in 1870 and completed to the Merced River in 1874. The following paragraph from a letter sent by Dr. McLean to the president of the Yosemite National Park Commission, 1899, gives interesting information on the discovery[5] of the Merced Grove of Big Trees, as well as a statement regarding the opening of the Coulterville Road:

While making a survey for this road a grove of big trees was discovered, its existence not having been previously known except to Indians before these explorations for the building of this road were prosecuted. It was determined to carry the road directly through this grove, which was named the Merced Grove by me because of its nearness to the Merced River. In order to carry the proposed road through this new-found grove of Sequoia gigantea it was necessary, in order to secure the best grades and shortest distances to Yosemite, to leave the road already built at Hazel Green instead of at Crane Flat six miles farther east. It was thought the greater length of road required to start from Hazel Green and build through the Merced Grove would be compensated by the advantage the road would have of passing through this grove of over 50 Sequoias on the way to Yosemite. The additional cost in construction of the road by reason of this new departure from Hazel Green instead of from Crane Flat was about $10,000. The work of construction was vigorously prosecuted, and on June 17, 1874, the Yosemite was first opened to travel by wheeled vehicles over this road, on that day a number of stage coaches and passenger and freight teams passing over it to the level of the valley.

The Big Oak Flat and Yosemite Turnpike Company applied to extend their road to Yosemite Valley after the commissioners had conveyed exclusive rights to the Coulterville Road. The commissioners refused to violate their agreement with McLean’s company, but the Big Oak Flat Company secured the passage of an act by the state legislature, which granted the privilege asked. In July, 1874, the Big Oak Flat Road was completed to the floor of Yosemite. Needless to say, this second road functioned to the everlasting detriment of the Coulterville route.

In the fall of 1874, Washburn, Chapman, Coffman and Company of Mariposa sought the right to extend their Mariposa Road to Yosemite Valley. The commissioners granted their request on the same terms as given to the Coulterville Company. On July 22, 1875, amid much celebrating, the Mariposa Road was completed to the valley floor.

The easier mode of travel introduced by this road construction, coupled with the increased publicity from the pen and brush of enthusiasts, made for a substantial increase in the number of Yosemite visitors. In keeping with this wagon-road building was the steady extension of the Central Pacific Railroad. Stockton, Modesto, Copperopolis, Berenda, Merced, and Madera were, in turn, the terminals. Seven routes to Yosemite made bids for the tourist travel. The Milton and Calaveras route permitted of railroad conveyance to Milton. Those who were induced to take the Berenda-Grants Springs route took the train to Raymond. The Madera-Fresno Flats route afforded railroad-coach transportation to Madera. The Modesto-Coulterville route meant leaving the rails at Modesto. The Merced-Coulterville route involved staging from Merced. The Mariposa route also required detraining at Merced, but the stage route followed took travelers through Hornitos and Mariposa. Those tourists who chose the Milton-Big Oak Flat route left the train at Copperopolis and traveled in the stage to Chinese Camp, Priests, and into the valley on the Big Oak Flat Road. Dodgers, pamphlets, and guidebooks furnished by the competing towns and stage companies produced a confusion to say the least.

The conveyances were of two types. At the height of the season, when travel was heavy and roads dry, the Standard Concord Coach was employed. At other times, a vehicle commonly termed a “mud wagon” was put to use. During this era of horse-drawn vehicles, the trains of pack mules were, of course, replaced by great freight wagons. Today, in driving over the old wagon roads, one is led to wonder how passenger vehicles succeeded in passing the great freight outfits.

Some years ago, in searching through the objects left in a deserted house in the ghost town, Bodie, I came upon a manuscript describing staging as it was practiced in that famous mining camp. What the unknown author has to say about the business there applies to neighboring mountain regions, and is a reminder of a phase of life of the ’eighties.

The stage coach is to California what the modern express train is to Indiana, and people unaccustomed to mountain life can form but little conception of the vast amount of transportation carried on by means of coaches and freight wagons.

Even though California may truly be termed the “Eden” of America, yet there is not a county in the state but has more or less traffic for the stage coach, and in the northern and eastern part of the state, especially, there is an entire network of well-graded roads, resembling Eastern pikes. These roads are mostly owned by corporations and, consequently, are toll roads.

Over these are run the fast stages drawn by from two to ten large horses, and the great freight wagons drawn by from fourteen to twenty mules.

The stage lines have divisions, as do railroads, and at the end of each division there is a change of horses, thus giving the greatest possible means for quick conveyance. Over each line there are generally two stages per day, one each way. These carry passengers, mail, and all express traffic. At each town is a Wells Fargo office, and business is carried on in a similar manner to that of railroad express offices. Telegraph lines are in use along the most important roads.

The stage lines have time cards similar to railroads, and in case a stage is a few minutes late, it causes as much anxiety as does the delay of an O. & M. express. A crowd is always waiting at the express office; some are there for business, others through some curiosity and to size up the passengers.

A stage from a mining town usually contains a bar of gold bullion worth $25,000, which is being shipped to the mint. Bullion is shipped from each mine once a month, but people always know when this precious metal is aboard by the appearance of a fat, burly officer perched beside the stage-driver, with two or three double-barreled shotguns. He, of course, is serving as a kind of scarecrow to the would-be stage robbers.

The average fare for riding on a stage is 15 cents per mile.

The manner in which freight is transported is quite odd, especially to a “Hoosier.” Wagons of the largest size are used. Some of these measure twelve feet from the ground to the top of the wagon bed; then bows and canvas are placed over this, making a total height of fifteen feet, at least. Usually three or four of these wagons are coupled together, like so many cars, and then drawn by from fourteen to twenty large mules. All these are handled by a single driver. A team of this kind travels, when heavily loaded, about fifteen miles per day, the same being spoken of always as the slow freight. In some mining districts, however, where business is flush, extra stages are put on for freight alone. These are termed the fast freights. This business involves a large capital, and persons engaged in it are known as forwarding companies. Even the freight or express on goods from New York is sometimes collected a hundred miles from any railroad, and so even to those living in the remote mountain regions, this is about as convenient, and they seem to enjoy life as well as if living in a railroad town.

The city of Bodie has its entire freight and passenger traffic carried as mentioned above. A short time ago its population was 10,000; there were three daily papers and free mail delivery, and all the improvements necessary to any modern town or city.

The prospect of a holdup always added to the thrill of staging. Yosemite literature is not replete with road agent episodes, but highwaymen did occasionally appear along the routes to the valley. “Black Bart,” whose fame as a gentleman stage robber was world-wide during the early ’eighties, met his downfall in the Yosemite region on his twenty-eighth robbery.

Black Bart was a very unusual bandit. He took no human lives. In fact, he never fired a weapon in any of his exploits. He carried an unloaded shotgun and bluffed, successfully, twenty-seven times. His forays began in 1877, and his returns were such that he was enabled to reside in San Francisco as a respected and rather dapper citizen. His absence from the city on the occasions of his robberies was accounted for through his story of visiting mines in which he held interests. His desire to be well dressed and his penchant for clean linen proved his undoing. It was a laundry mark on a handkerchief which brought about his capture after his twenty-eighth robbery.

Not all the holdups along Yosemite roads took place in the distant past. D. J. Foley’s Yosemite Tourist for July 10, 1906, carries the following account of a robbery that brings the melodramatic influence of highwaymen into the very end of the period of stage coach days. It was entitled “Five Stages Held Up by the Lone Highwayman of the Chowchilla, An Event Full of Excitement and Interest,” and reads:

This is the story of a plain, ordinary “hold-up” of the Raymond-Wawona-Yosemite stages; and the time was Saturday afternoon at ten minutes of four. The place was about six miles this side of Ahwahnee, upon the side of the Chowchilla Mountain, about a mile and a half this side of where a similar, but less important, event took place last August.

The point, carefully selected by the bold robber was an ideal one. The road here is in the form of the letter S, flattened out, and he selected the upper part of the letter, about all of the other parts being visible.

The first stage was in charge of Will Palmer, one of the new drivers. Puffing and sweating, the team of four were rounding the turn in the road, when Walter Brode, who, with Mrs. F. J. House, occupied the front seat, yelled: “Hold up!” For up the road a hundred or more feet away he saw the fellow jump out from behind some brush and, with his old 44 Winchester up to his shoulder, he was advancing toward them. And in tones, musical and soft but determined, he said:

“Throw out that box!”

The driver was not aware of the presence of the express box, but it was there and Mr. Seth Hart threw it out like a gentleman.

“Get out of that stage,” came the cool, determined command, supplemented with that ugly-looking 44.

And out they got.

Then he requested one of the ladies, Miss Bowen, to “pass the hat around,” which she did under protest.

The other stage was then about due and so he moved down the road a bit to a point where he could keep them well “covered,” and yet not be seen by the approaching stage. In the meantime all their hands were up, for that big “44” was pointed their way.

Around the turn came the second stage with “Josh” Wrenn as driver. No especial importance was attributed to the unusual sight, believing it to be a joke. But the illusion was quickly dispelled when out rang that soft and musical command: “Get out of the stage,” and out they got, the vicious-looking “44” being much in evidence. He lined them up with the others and then ordered a boy of about fifteen to “pass the hat around.” The boy was badly scared, and justly, too, and was about to comply with the request, when up spoke C. E. McStay, a well-known business man of Los Angeles, who very kindly offered to take the boy’s place. To this the robber consented, not suspecting the “job” that was so quickly put up on him. For “job” it was, and one, too, that saved the passengers many dollars and valuables. “I quickly thought of and settled this proposition,” said Mr. McStay. “If that boy passes the hat and searches us, for this is what he was ordered to do, he will not use any discretion, and we will all be heavy losers; whereas, if I can do that honor I shall take but little, unless I have to.” All this and more, too, was thought out by Mr. McStay in less time than it takes to write this, and so he acted at once, and to him is due the credit of the “buncoing” that followed; for this mild-mannered, soft-voiced Lone Highwayman of the Chowchilla was most thoroughly “buncoed” in this change of “hat passers,” and he suspected it even before the first stage was ordered to “move on.” But that’s another story.

And so in the fullness of his nerve—it’s the real California-Los Angeles kind, too, Mr. McStay became the apparent Chief Assistant of the Lone Highwayman of the Chowchilla.

The third stage drove up in due time with the experience of the second stage duplicated. The fourth wagon had a load of ladies, and he did not order them to get out. Tho thus honored it was from this wagon that he secured most of his coin. The passengers of the fifth wagon “lined up” with the others. On this stage, in charge of the driver, Ed Gordon, was a sack, for the Sugar Pine Mills, with over $500 in it. From the zig-zag below they saw the crowd “lined up” and they, suspecting the cause, helped the driver to hide the sack under the cushion of the seat.

During the forty-year period which rightly may be considered as the stagecoach era, a combination of influences were at work. Politics sadly affected the management of the state grant (brought into existence in 1864), and sheep threatened the upper country not under the jurisdiction of the Yosemite commissioners. A national park came into existence which physically encompassed the state park and figuratively engulfed the state management.

Improvements grew apace. New hotels and public camp grounds were created; trails were built; the road system was improved and enlarged; electricity developed; and a climax reached with the construction of a railroad almost to the very gates of the valley. In 1907 the Yosemite Valley Railroad changed the entire aspect of stagecoach days by bringing its coaches to El Portal.

With the advent of this new transportation, the long stage ride was no longer necessary, but great fleets of horsedrawn vehicles were still employed to convey visitors from the railhead to Yosemite Valley. The various stage companies continued to operate, but except for the Big Tree routes, their traffic was greatly reduced. The Yosemite Valley Railroad menaced the business of staging, but a far more ominous threat had already appeared on the scene. Motor-driven vehicles were proving to be a success. The automobile was introduced to Yosemite more than a decade prior to the time when its official entry was permitted by park regulations. The first car to climb the Yosemite grades was a Stanley Steamer, and its driver was A. E. Holmes of San Jose. In a letter to J. V. Lloyd, Mr. Holmes testifies as follows:

This trip was made in the month of July [1900] by way of Madera and Raymond in a Stanley Steamer car that was manufactured just outside of the city of Boston. I was accompanied on this trip by my brother, F. H. Holmes.

At that time Boysen took our photographs in the Valley; one at the foot of Yosemite Falls, and another near Mirror Lake.

The body that is shown in the photograph is not the original body that came with the car, but one that was made just for the trip into the Yosemite.

To what extent noisy automobiles were regarded as a menace may be sensed upon considering the following “Instruction” posted about the park and published with Rules and Regulations during the later years of the stagecoach era:

(4) Bicycles.—The greatest care must be exercised by persons using bicycles. On meeting a team the rider must stop and stand at side of road between the bicycle and the team—the outer side of the road if on a grade or curve. In passing a team from the rear, the rider should learn from the driver if his horses are liable to frighten, in which case the driver should halt, and the rider dismount and walk past, keeping between the bicycle and the team....

(9) Miscellaneous.—Automobiles and motor cycles are not permitted in the park.

What the railroad did to the stagecoach, the automobile, aided by storm, did to the railroad. On December 11, 1937, as a result of prolonged and heavy warm rains which melted the early snow cover at elevations as high as 10,000 feet, a flood developed in the basins of Yosemite and Tenaya creeks, and to a lesser degree in the other Yosemite watersheds. The notch at the top of Yosemite Falls was filled almost to the brim with muddy water that was estimated to leap 150 feet away from the cliff at the top. In the valley itself Yosemite Creek was half a mile wide, and the Merced River overflowed its banks on a similar rampage. Flood scars were clearly visible in the chutes of the valley walls nine years later. In the Merced Canyon far below the valley several miles of both the All-Year Highway and the Yosemite Valley Railway were destroyed.

The expense of replacing miles of twisted rails and missing roadbed, the loss of passenger traffic to automobile travel, and finally the loss of freight revenue when the Yosemite Sugar Pine Lumber Company sold its major holdings, combined to put the railway out of business. In 1945, wrecking crews took up the track, and another pioneer railroad disappeared.

CHAPTER VII
EXPLORERS

The influx of travelers even in the days of horse trails and the stagecoach brought a demand to know more of the valley and the region as a whole. Maps were needed, and the desires of travelers for dependable information brought survey parties into the park. The first of these, the Geological Survey of California, was in Yosemite in the years 1863-1867. Josiah Dwight Whitney was director of the survey, and William H. Brewer, his principal assistant. A guidebook based upon their investigations was published in 1868. Most of the mapping was done by Clarence King, Charles F. Hoffmann, and James T. Gardiner. King was later to become the first director of the United States Geological Survey and to write a dramatized account of his adventures in Yosemite and the Sierra as one of the important contributions to the literature of the range, Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada. Later mountaineers have not always been able to find terrain hazards he described but they have enjoyed his story, admittedly written for an armchair audience, and have made due allowance for an aspect of greater severity that existed in the Sierra of his day.

A party of the Wheeler Survey, under George Montague Wheeler, in general charge of the Geographical Surveys west of the 100th Meridian, was in Yosemite in the late ’seventies and early ’eighties and in 1883 produced a large-scale topographic map of Yosemite Valley and vicinity. Lieut. M. M. Macomb was responsible for the Yosemite work.

During July and August, of 1890, Professor George Davidson of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, together with his assistants, occupied the summit of Mount Conness for the purpose of closing a link in the main triangulation which connected with the transcontinental surveys.

Large instruments and much equipment had to be transported to the summit of the mountain by pack animals and upon the shoulders of men.

Astronomical observations were made at night, and during the daylight hours horizontal angles were measured on distant peaks in the Coast Ranges from which heliotropes were constantly showing toward Mount Conness. A small square wooden observatory, 8 by 8 feet, housed the 20-inch theodolite mounted upon a concrete pier. Sixteen twisted-wire cables fastened the observatory to the granite mountain top and kept it from being blown away.

The officers of the Coast and Geodetic Survey party under Professor Davidson were J. J. Gilbert, Isaac Winston, Fremont Morse, and Frank W. Edmonds.

As a result of his own travels and surveys in the region, J. N. LeConte prepared a map of the Sierra adjacent to Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy valleys, which was published by the Sierra Club in 1893, and army officers in charge of park administration did much important map making in the 1890’s. The United States Geological Survey began its mapping of the region embraced within the present park in 1891 and completed the surveys in 1909. R. B. Marshall and H. E. L. Feusier surveyed the Yosemite, Dardanelles, and Mount Lyell sheets; A. H. Sylvester and George R. Davis, the Bridgeport Quadrangle. Operating as they did with limited funds, their efforts spread over a vast territory, and confronted with a short season, they inevitably made some errors on their maps. In correct editions of these maps some ridges, lakes, and canyons have been moved, but today’s travelers may still find lakes and glaciers which are not on the map, and may find a few of these features on the map but not on the ground. It is not the errors of Sierra mapmakers, however, but the measure of success they achieved, which is remarkable. In the higher reaches of the Sierra today it is extremely difficult to discover, after a particularly heavy winter, which snow field conceals a lake and which covers merely a meadow or an expanse of ice. Nor is the Sierra itself utterly static. At least two small lakes which formed behind dams of glacial moraine have disappeared recently when the dams were undermined.

Perhaps the ultimate in Yosemite mapping, from the geomorphologist’s point of view, is the Yosemite Valley Sheet, prepared by the United States Geological Survey in coöperation with the State of California. The map is of large scale, and the topography, the work of François E. Matthes, is extremely accurate, giving it something of the quality of a relief map on a plane surface. Even the overhangs of the cliffs are depicted. The 1946 edition of this sheet falls short in that detail has been lost through the overprinting of topographical shading.

Considered for their practical guidance to the user of Yosemite trails, the U. S. Geological Survey maps of the back country are most important. The 700-odd miles of maintained trails which make much of the park accessible to the hiker and rider appear upon these topographical maps in true relationship to the physical features through which they pass. A useful guidebook covering the routes in and around Yosemite Valley, as well as many of the park trails south of the Tuolumne River, is the Illustrated Guide to Yosemite Valley, by Virginia and Ansel Adams. In this volume road and trail diagrams are stylized to impart, simply and directly, information on distances, altitudes, and relative positions. Walter A. Starr, Jr.’s Guide to the John Muir Trail and the High Sierra Region includes a section (Part I) on the trails of the Yosemite National Park region, and the map which accompanies it relates the high country trails to the road systems of both the east and west slopes. This guide, published by the Sierra Club, is kept up-to-date through the production of frequent editions.