He first heard Yosemite spoken of as a very beautiful
mountain valley and after making two excursions in
the summers of 1857 and 1858 to see the wonderful
place, he made up his mind to quit roving and make
a permanent home in it. In April, 1859, he moved
into it, located a garden opposite the Half Dome,
set out a lot of apple, pear and peach trees, planted
potatoes, etc., that he had packed in on a “contrary
old mule,” and worked for his board in building
a hotel which was afterwards purchased by Mr. Hutchings.
His neighbors thought he was very foolish in attempting
to raise crops in so high and cold a valley, and warned
him that he could raise nothing and sell nothing,
and would surely starve.
For the first year or two lack of provisions compelled
him to move out on the approach of winter, but in
1862 after he had succeeded in raising some fruit
and vegetables he began to winter in the Valley.
The first winter he had no companions, not even a
dog or cat, and one evening was greatly surprised
to see two men coming up the Valley. They were
very glad to see him, for they had come from Mariposa
in search of him, a report having been spread that
he had been killed by Indians. He assured his
visitors that he felt safer in his Yosemite home, lying
snug and squirrel-like in his 10 x 12 cabin, than in
Mariposa. When the avalanches began to slip,
he wondered where all the wild roaring and booming
came from, the flying snow preventing them from being
seen. But, upon the whole, he wondered most at
the brightness, gentleness, and sunniness of the weather,
and hopefully employed the calm days in tearing ground
for an orchard and vegetable garden.
In the second winter he built a winter cabin under
the Royal Arches, where he enjoyed more sunshine.
But no matter how he praised the weather he could
not induce any one to winter with him until 1864.
He liked to describe the great flood of 1867, the
year before I reached California, when all the walls
were striped with thundering waterfalls.
He was a fine, erect, whole-souled man, between six
and seven feet high, with a broad, open face, bland
and guileless as his pet oxen. No stranger to
hunger and weariness, he knew well how to appreciate
suffering of a like kind in others, and many there
be, myself among the number, who can testify to his
simple, unostentatious kindness that found expression
in a thousand small deeds.
After gaining sufficient means to enjoy a long afternoon
of life in comparative affluence and ease, he died
in the autumn of 1876. He sleeps in a beautiful
spot near Galen Clark and a monument hewn from a block
of Yosemite granite marks his grave.
Galen Clark
