The Yosemite eBook

Everybody who visits Yosemite wants to see the famous Big Trees.  Before the railroad was constructed, all three of the stage-roads that entered the Valley passed through a grove of these trees by the way; namely, the Tuolumne, Merced and Mariposa groves.  The Tuolumne grove was passed on the Big Oak Flat road, the Merced grove by the Coulterville road and the Mariposa grove by the Raymond and Wawona road.  Now, to see any one of these groves, a special trip has to be made.  Most visitors go to the Mariposa grove, the largest of the three.  On this Sequoia trip you see not only the giant Big Trees but magnificent forests of silver fir, sugar pine, yellow pine, libocedrus and Douglas spruce.  The trip need not require more than two days, spending a night in a good hotel at Wawona, a beautiful place on the south fork of the Merced River, and returning to the Valley or to El Portal, the terminus of the railroad.  This extra trip by stage costs fifteen dollars.  All the High Sierra excursions that I have sketched cost from a dollar a week to anything you like.  None of mine when I was exploring the Sierra cost over a dollar a week, most of them less.

Chapter 13

Early History Of The Valley

In the wild gold years of 1849 and ’50, the Indian tribes along thus western Sierra foothills became alarmed at the sudden invasion of their acorn orchard and game fields by miners, and soon began to make war upon them, in their usual murdering, plundering style.  This continued until the United States Indian Commissioners succeeded in gathering them into reservations, some peacefully, others by burning their villages and stores of food.  The Yosemite or Grizzly Bear tribe, fancying themselves secure in their deep mountain stronghold, were the most troublesome and defiant of all, and it was while the Mariposa battalion, under command of Major Savage, was trying to capture this warlike tribe and conduct them to the Fresno reservation that their deep mountain home, the Yosemite Valley, was discovered.  From a camp on the south fork of the Merced, Major Savage sent Indian runners to the bands who were supposed to be hiding in the mountains, instructing them to tell the Indians that if they would come in and make treaty with the Commissioners they would be furnished with food and clothing and be protected, but if they did not come in he would make war upon them and kill them all.  None of the Yosemite Indians responded to this general message, but when a special messenger was sent to the chief he appeared the next day.  He came entirely alone and stood in dignified silence before one of the guards until invited to enter the camp.  He was recognized by one of the friendly Indians as Tenaya, the old chief of the Grizzlies, and, after the had been supplied with food, Major Savage, with the aid of Indian interpreters, informed him of the wishes of the Commissioners.  But the old chief was very suspicious of Savage and feared