In view of the facts and dates here given how absurd the statement that we did not go to the Yosemite “until about the 5th or 6th of May, 1851.” Our idleness in camp from Feb. 10th and the patient indulgence of the Commissioners, while waiting for the results of our first operations, surpass belief.
And now I reluctantly notice an error of statement by Mr. Julius N. Pratt in the Century Magazine for December, 1890.
Had the usual courtesy been extended of allowing me to see and answer Mr. Pratt’s erroneous impressions in the same number, I am convinced that he would have kindly withdrawn his article. I am led to this belief, not alone from letters received, but from the internal evidence of an upright character conveyed by Mr. Pratt’s graphic account of “A Trip to California by way of Panama in 1849,” in the Century for April 1891.
The Century Magazine is a most powerful disseminator of truth, or error, and though I cannot hope for a complete vindication through this volume, its readers shall have the facts of “The Date of Discovery” set before them, “for a truthful regard for history” and my own self-respect require it.
In the Century Magazine for September, 1890, page 795, is an article from my pen which gives the date of discovery of the Yosemite as March, 1851. Mr. Pratt, in the December number following, assumes, with “a truthful regard for history,” that I was in error, and gives about “January 10th, 1851, as the approximate, if not exact date of discovery.” Many of the men whom Mr. Pratt supposed to have been the discoverers, were, or became, my own comrades. When Mr. Pratt’s article appeared, I at once sent a reply, but it received no recognition.
Knowing that Mr. Theodore G. Palmer, of Newark, New Jersey, was in the only engagement occurring with Indians in Mariposa county at the time given by Mr. Pratt as the date of his supposed discovery of the Yosemite, I wrote, requesting Mr. Palmer to call on the editor of the Century in my behalf.
In a letter of January 9th, 1891, Mr. Palmer wrote: “It is the unexpected which always happens, and your communication to the Century in response to Pratt’s ‘California,’ was never received. Mr. Johnson, the associate editor, received me very pleasantly. He assured me that although he sent you an advance copy of Pratt’s article, nothing had been received in the office from you since in reply, and he presumed you had given up the case in default.
“I so completely satisfied him that Mr. Pratt is in error, that he requested me to express my reasons in the Century, and to assure you that any communication from you will always have respectful attention.”
On January 24th, 1891, Mr. R. W. Johnson, associate editor, wrote me, saying: “Since telling your friend, Mr. Palmer, that we had not received an article from you in reply to Mr. Pratt, we have discovered the manuscript. We have in type a short note from Mr. Palmer which will be acceptable to you.”
A few days after Mr. Johnson kindly sent me the proof. On March 12th, 1891, Mr. Johnson wrote me: “Mr. Pratt, after examination of the subject, has written us a short letter, withdrawing his contention of your claim to the discovery of the Yosemite, the publication of which we trust will be satisfactory to you and also to Mr. Palmer. Will you now tell us whether there is anything in this new claim that Walker was the discoverer of the Valley?”