The Switch

A thrilling dystopic story from Roland Smith about how far people will
go to survive -- perfect for fans of Dryand Distress [Link] the
morning of Henry Ludd's thirteen

Author:
ISBN:
Category: Action/adventure
File Fomat: PDF, EPUB, DOC...
File Details: 5.5 MB
Language: English
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Website: [Link]
Access the following link to download the entire book
[Link]
62891.3721710622505368698859958&type=15&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fsummer-heart-0930.chufeiyun1688.workers.dev%3A443%2Fhttps%2Fw
[Link]%2Fus%2Fen%2Febook%2Fthe-switch-50

Get promotional offers when downloading the document

Download Now
 The Switch

Available on [Link]
( 4.7/5.0 Evaluate | 500 Downloads )
-- Click the link to download --

[Link]
21710622505368698859958&type=15&murl=https%3A%2F%[Link]%2Fus
%2Fen%2Febook%2Fthe-switch-50
.
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 32
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 33

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 34
‘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 35
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.

36
 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 37
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 38
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 39
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 40

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 41

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 42
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 43
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 44
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 45

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 46

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 47
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,” 48
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 49
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.

50
 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 51
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 52

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 53
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 54
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 55
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 56
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 57
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 58
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.”