UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES
CALIFORNIA

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, ENGLAND

COPYRIGHT, 1932

COPYRIGHT, 1947, BY
THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF
WASHINGTON BARTLETT LEWIS
1884-1930
AND
CHARLES GOFF THOMSON
1883-1937

FOREWORD

The National Park Service is primarily a custodian of and trustee for lands—lands with unique and special qualities, so distinctive as to make their care a concern of the entire nation; lands, therefore, held under a distinctive pattern and policy, administered according to the national park concept.

Yosemite National Park comprises such lands. It is, so to speak, a type locality for the national park idea. While Yellowstone, established in 1872, was the first real national park, Yosemite Valley, in 1864, under an act signed by President Lincoln, was transferred to the State of California to be protected according to park principles, later to be re-ceded to the Federal Government. Here in Yosemite many of the national park policies and techniques of protection, administration, and interpretation have evolved and are still evolving, within the framework of the basic act of 1916, with its injunction to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

Dr. Russell’s One Hundred Years in Yosemite, appearing now in its new version, gives not only a chronology of events, and the persons taking part in them, related to this place of very special beauty and meaning. It also portrays, in terms of human experience, the growth of a distinct and unique conception of land management and chronicles the thoughts and effort of those who contributed to it. It tells of the obstacles overcome, and of the pressures, present even today, to break down the national park concept, and turn these lands to commercial and other ends that would deface their beauty and impair their significance.

This book, therefore, is more than a history of Yosemite. It traces the evolution of an idea.

In scholarly fashion, sources of information are cited. Many of the documents and other source materials upon which the book is based are preserved in the Yosemite Museum, thus giving special interest to visitors to Yosemite.

Belief in the worth of the national park program cannot but be strengthened by reading One Hundred Years in Yosemite.

February 13, 1947

PREFACE

It is the purpose of One Hundred Years in Yosemite to preserve and disseminate the true story of the discovery and preservation of America’s first public reservation to be set aside for its natural beauty and scientific interest.

When the original version of this book was written in 1930, I had recently completed the collation of manuscript diaries and correspondence, newspaper files, old journals, hotel registers, state and federal reports, photographs, and a variety of other pertinent historical source materials in the library of the Yosemite Museum. This was the material upon which the book was based. In the preface of the book I made a plea for the contribution of additional Yosemite memorabilia to be added to the Yosemite archives. Perhaps some of the fine response from donors during the past sixteen years is traceable to that plea; more likely, the increased interest in the Yosemite Museum results from the creditable work of the park’s staff members and the message carried by the monthly publication, Yosemite Nature Notes. The notable growth of the Yosemite Museum collections and the improvement of its exhibits and its general program of interpretive work are heartening to all who had a hand in the establishment of the work.

In the original version, and in bringing to the present work the benefit of new material, I have attempted to organize the published information which has been confirmed by the oral testimony of many Yosemite pioneers and enriched with authentic data from unpublished manuscripts prepared by other “old-timers” to whom I could not speak. In order that a convenient chronology of events might be available to the reader, an outline is appended to the book. This includes the episodes related in the text and in addition mentions many obscure events not treated in the narrative. It also provides ready reference to the sources drawn upon in writing. This method of citing sources has made it unnecessary to encumber the pages of the text with numerous footnotes. Most of the manuscripts referred to are the property of the Yosemite Museum. The whereabouts of other manuscripts is indicated in the bibliography.

To the donors of the expanding collection of source materials and to the Yosemite staff members, also, who have accomplished so much in organizing, interpreting, and publishing upon these materials, I am indebted. Their interest and their labors have facilitated my present writing, and their conscientious handling of file systems, accession records, stored collections, and publication programs will facilitate the work of future investigators of Yosemite history and natural history. At the same time, their good museum practices should inspire further public confidence in the integrity of the Yosemite program, and the collections will continue to grow.

A host of friends and associates have contributed to the production of the book. Great thanks are due my wife for her generous help and continuous encouragement. Mrs. H. J. Taylor lent important assistance and advice. Among the Yosemite staff members who gave valuable help, former Park Naturalists C. A. Harwell and C. Frank Brockman and former museum-secretary, Mrs. William Godfrey, made especially important contributions; however, the extraordinary interest of every member of the park naturalist staff has placed me in the debt of the entire organization. The American Association of Museums, in addition to coöperating with the National Park Service in founding the Yosemite Museum, has contributed directly to the production of this book by assisting me in the collecting of rare publications and helping, generally, in assembling Yosemite data. The Yosemite Park and Curry Company has made available many publications and photographs. Mrs. Don Tresidder of that organization, particularly, has given material assistance in establishing dates and historical facts. The Sierra Club has permitted the use of my article, “Mining Excitements East of Yosemite,” which was first published in the Sierra Club Bulletin. To David R. Brower, Editor of the Sierra Club Bulletin and at the University of California Press, I acknowledge particular indebtedness, not only for editorial guidance in producing the book but, also, for his historian’s sense and his basic knowledge of the Yosemite terrain and its story. Some of his contributions to the content of the text are acknowledged elsewhere, but his friendly help has extended to every part of the book. Francis P. Farquhar and Ansel F. Hall, during a quarter of a century of our friendships, have given assistance and encouragement. Mr. Farquhar has read parts of the manuscript and made helpful suggestions. His library has been drawn upon in the course of my work. The more recent photographs reproduced upon the following pages are credited to their makers, to each of whom I am deeply beholden. For use of the very old pictures used herein, I am indebted to the Yosemite Museum, and to Superintendent Frank Kittredge I express thanks for this and many other helpful acts performed by him and his staff members in furthering my efforts.

In the sixteen years that have elapsed since One Hundred Years in Yosemite first appeared, notable changes have taken place in the geographical boundaries of the national park, physical developments within the reservation have, so far as possible, kept pace with progressing modes of vacationing, and some eight million visitors have journeyed to its wonders. A number of the historic caravansaries that served so conspicuously during stagecoach days have been removed from the scene, and the one-time dusty, tortuous routes of access have been converted to safe, surfaced roads of beautiful alignment. A world-shaking conflict has been waged, and the superlative values of the park have emerged from that war unaffected by the demands of “production” interests.

Many earnest men have applied themselves in guarding the precious values of the great reservation. Some of these conservationists have virtually died in the harness. A growing appreciation of the work of these men is evident, and there is notable acclaim also of the far-sightedness of unnamed leaders who in 1864 obtained the epoch-making legislation that gave America her first public reservation of national park caliber.

It has been gratifying to me to observe some practical usefulness of my original compilation of Yosemite history, and this new version of the work is offered with the hope that it may continue to guide public attention to the significance of the action of pioneers who led the world along the paths of scenic conservation. Upon the executives who now plan and administer programs of protection and management in Yosemite rests a responsibility that gains in magnitude in proportion to the growing pressure exerted by the hordes of people who seek the offerings of the park. The nation is yet in a pioneering stage in defining Yosemite values and regulating their use. In the light of experience of the past, it should be possible to discern some of the path that lies ahead.

The ability to discern even the more subtle influences affecting the security of Yosemite and other great national parks has become a “must” for National Park Service executives. This sensitivity has not developed overnight, but now it approaches maturity. Director Newton B. Drury has exercised a leadership in this regard which marks his period of service as the apex of clear thinking on national park problems.

Carl P. Russell

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I Discovery 1

II Mariposa Hills 9

III White Chief of the Foothills 15

IV Pioneers in the Valley 36

V Tourists in the Saddle 50

VI Stagecoach Days 61

VII Explorers 71

VIII Hotels and Their Keepers 92

IX East-side Mining Excitement 117

X The Interpreters 129

XI Guardians of the Scene 146

Chronology 176

Bibliography 195

Index 217

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

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.

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.”