The Calaveras Grove
receives its name from that of the county in which it stands. It is near the source of the south fork of the Calaveras river, while the upper tributaries of the Mokelumne and the Stanislaus rivers flow near it: the former on the north, the latter on the southeast. It is about sixteen miles from Murphy's Camp, and on or near the road crossing the Sierras by the Silver Mountain Pass. This grove has received more visitors and attained greater celebrity than any other, for four reasons:
1st. It was the first discovered.
2d. It was nearer the principal routes of travel, hence more easily accessible.
3d. One can visit it on wheels.
4th. Last, and best for the tired tourist, an excellent hotel at the very margin of the grove; Sperry & Perry, proprietors.
The grove extends northeast and southwest about five eighths of a mile. Its width is only about one fifth as great. It stands in a shallow valley between two gentle slopes. Its height above the sea is four thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine feet. In late spring or early winter a small brook winds and bubbles through the grove; but under the glare of summer suns and the gaze of thronging visitors, it modestly "dries up."
The grove contains about ninety trees which can be called really "big," besides a considerable number of smaller ones deferentially grouped around the outskirts. Several of the larger ones have fallen since the grove was discovered, in the spring of 1852; one has had the bark stripped off to the height of one hundred and sixteen feet, and one has been cut down, or, rather, bored and sawed down. The bark thus removed was exhibited in different cities in this country, and finally deposited in the Sydenham Crystal Palace, England, only to be burned in the fire which destroyed a part of that building some years since. The two trees thus destroyed were among the finest, if not the very finest in the grove. Among those now standing, the tallest is the "Keystone State;" the largest and finest, the "Empire State."
The following table gives the height of all the trees measured by the State Survey, and their girth six feet from the ground:
| Names of Trees. | Girth. | Height. |
| Keystone State | 45 | 325 |
| General Jackson | 40 | 319 |
| Mother of the Forest (without bark) | 61 | 315 |
| Daniel Webster | 47 | 307 |
| Richard Cobden | 41 | 284 |
| Starr King | 52 | 283 |
| Pride of the Forest | 48 | 282 |
| Henry Clay | 47 | 280 |
| Bay State | 46 | 275 |
| Jas. King of William | 51 | 274 |
| Sentinel | 49 | 272 |
| Dr. Kane | 50 | 271 |
| Arbor Vitae Queen | 30 | 269 |
| Abraham Lincoln | 44 | 268 |
| Maid of Honor | 27 | 266 |
| Old Vermont | 40 | 265 |
| Uncle Sam | 43 | 265 |
| Mother (and Son) | 51 | 261 |
| Three Graces (highest) | 30 | 262 |
| Wm. Cullen Bryant | 48 | 262 |
| U. S. Grant | 34 | 261 |
| Gen. Scott | 43 | 258 |
| Geo. Washington | 51 | 256 |
| Henry Ward Beecher | 34 | 252 |
| California | 33 | 250 |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin | 50 | 250 |
| Beauty of the Forest | 39 | 249 |
| J. B. McPherson | 31 | 246 |
| Florence Nightingale | 37 | 246 |
| James Wadsworth | 27 | 239 |
| Elihu Burritt | 31 | 231 |
The exact measurement of the diameter and the ascertaining of the age of one of the largest trees in this grove, was accomplished by cutting it down. This was done soon after the discovery of the grove. It occupied five men during twenty-two days. They did it by boring into the tree with pump augers. The tree stood so perfectly vertical that, even after they had bored it completely off, it would not fall. It took three days' labor driving huge wedges in upon one side until the monumental monster leaned, toppled and fell.
They hewed and smoothed off the stump six feet above the ground, and then made careful measurements as follows:
| Across its longest diameter, north of centre, | 10 feet | 4 inches. |
| Across its longest diameter, south of centre, | 13 feet | 9½ inches. |
| Total largest diameter, | 24 feet | 1½ inc's. |
The shorter diameter, from east to west, was twenty-three feet, divided exactly even, eleven and one half feet from the centre each way.
The thickness of the bark averaged eighteen inches. This would add three feet to the diameter, making the total diameter as the tree originally stood, a little over twenty-seven feet one way, and twenty-six feet the other. That is eighty-five feet in circumference, six feet from the ground.
The age was ascertained thus: After it had been felled, it was again cut through about thirty feet from the first cut. At the upper end of this section, which was, of course, nearly forty feet above the ground, as the tree originally stood, they carefully counted the rings of annual growth, at the same time exactly measuring the width of each set of one hundred rings, counting from the outside inwards.
These were the figures:
| First hundred rings | 3.0 | inches. |
| Second hundred rings | 3 | " |
| Third hundred rings | 4 | " |
| Fourth hundred rings | 3 | " |
| Fifth hundred rings | 4 | " |
| Sixth hundred rings | 4 | " |
| Seventh hundred rings | 4 | " |
| Eighth hundred rings | 5 | " |
| Ninth hundred rings | 7 | " |
| Tenth hundred rings | 7 | " |
| Eleventh hundred rings | 10 | " |
| Twelfth hundred rings | 13 | " |
| Fifty-five years | 9.4 | " |
| 1,255 years. | 80.8 | inches. |
A small hole in the middle of the tree prevented the exact determining of the number of rings which had rotted away, or were missing from the centre; but allowing for that, as well as for the time which the tree must have taken to grow to the height at which they made the count, it is probably speaking within bounds, to say that this tree was, in round numbers, thirteen hundred years old!
As the table shows, this grove contains four trees over three hundred feet high. The heights of these big trees, in both the great groves, are usually overstated. The above measurements were carefully and scientifically made—in several cases repeated and verified—and may be relied on as correct.
The "Keystone State" enjoys the proud honor of lifting its head higher than any other tree now known to be standing on the western continent. Australia has trees a hundred and fifty feet higher. The stories occasionally told of trees over four hundred feet high having once stood in this grove, have no reasonable foundation and are not entitled to belief. Neither is it true, as some have marvelously asserted, that it takes two men and a boy, working half a day each, to look to the top of the highest tree in this grove.
The Calaveras trees, as a rule, are taller and slimmer than those of Mariposa. This has probably resulted from their growing in a spot more sheltered from the high winds which sweep across the Sierra, to which other groves have been more exposed.