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.