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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 3, 2014 - 09:29pm PT
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Galen Clark was born on March 28, 1814, two hundred years ago.
John Muir’s birthday is remembered on ST. but not this pioneer Yosemite settler.
We have missed his big anniversary by one month and a few days.
I happened to be in the library on the twenty-eighth, however, and on a whim picked up a biography of Galen Clark. I got it home and son-of-a gun if the author isn’t Shirley Sargent, the late Yosemite resident historian. I just kind of grabbed the book when I was seeking a bio of Churchill. It must be that fickle finger finding me again.
Having thus been informed of Galen Clark’s two hundredth birthday, I figured we should all share that event.
I haven’t any recollections of the gent, myself, but Donini might.
The last I saw of Galen was his gravestone in the Yosemite Graveyard. I visited it in 1990 with my new wife, Liz, during our honeymoon. I had first viewed it in the early sixties, the lax days when it was permitted to walk in the old Yosemite Village boneyard. It is thoroughly discouraged these days.
Also, I happen to live just four blocks from what was once Galen Clark Elementary School, now a county schools administrative center. It used to be that any kid from the city of Merced attended either John Muir, John C. Fremont, or Galen Clark, the three city schools.
Galen’s daughter, Elvira, a teacher, married Dr. John Lee of Merced and they settled here.
Not that I went to city schools—no, I was parochialized at Our Lady of Mercy beginning in eighth grade, wherein one day our teacher, Sister Justine, romanticized reading for us by saying her perfect day would consist of sitting next to the Merced River with a good book to read and an apple to munch on. Well, pilgrim, that’s how I got into reading. But as for the others, the apple is obvious, guys are suckers for apples for one thing, and my vision of the Merced River at that time was of its lowland version, the Merced County version, and not of the Yosemite or the Mariposa County versions, which came soon enough, for the other thing.
Galen is a noble name, a healer’s name, as Shirley Sargent points out. I have only known one other Galen, another mountaineer, as fate has it. St. Galen, or St. Galen Rowell, Mr. Batso’s KA. He was well-named, for his work was blessed with magic and spirit akin to that of “Our Hero.”
And I think that last name is just super, man. Clark. WOW! Guardian of truth, justice, the American Way, and Yosemite! How is his fame not equal to that of Johnny-Come-Lately, the Tenderfoot, MisterIce, John Manoor? How come?
That is my take. The other is that Galen’s spirit is living somewhere near Dublin, California and is working on a guidebook to the Valley. But that is just a vague rumor, not documented, and strictly hearsay. [But you first heard it here.]
In recalling this event, I remembered that John Muir gave credit to Galen Clark as being the better mountaineer of the two. I also was thinking that Clark’s residency in Yosemite is among the longest of which I know. That’s a lot of savvy.
Some historic photos, all scanned from Shirley Sargent’s book, Galen Clark: Yosemite Guardian/Sierra Club/1964.
Galen is on the log on the left.
Hutchings estimated that seven hundred tourists visited Yosemite between 1855 and 1864, less than one hundred a year, of which half or more traveled by the Mann brothers’ trail [along the South Fork of the Merced] and stopped at Clark’s station. An 1862 traveler reported that two small tents, Galen’s log cabin, and nearby bark lodges belonging to the Indians made up a tiny, somewhat ramshackle settlement. An 1863 visitor raved about the speckled trout and wild strawberries provided, and fretted about Galen’s charges of “4 bits a meal,. I don’t see how he lives, for a dollar a meal would be little enough...but perhaps he has other customers as generous as we were. We took three meals a day and gave him $15.00,” for a party of five.--p. 63, Sargent
That was one hundred fifty years ago, give or take, as we celebrate the Yosemite sesquicentennial...
The exciting life of Wawona in the sixties, with floods and civil wars and FEW TOURISTS (but welcome anyway) is worthwhile fodder for dreams of what we have left behind forever. Thank you, Miss Shirley. Thank you, Galen.
In answer to the questions about Galen’s sobriety, the Sarge hath said that he hid spirits in the Grizzly Giant.
Since there is no definitive list of Galen Clark’s first ascents of which I am aware, is there help for this? Any savvy out there?
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mooser
Trad climber
seattle
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Having a little trouble tracking with your prose, but this is cool stuff! Thanks for the historical interest post!
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ron gomez
Trad climber
fallbrook,ca
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My daughter is named Galen, after Clark, Rowell and the Father of Sports Medicine.
Peace
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Thanks mouse, good stuff connecting dots.
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rmuir
Social climber
From the Time Before the Rocks Cooled.
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Muir said, of Galen Clark, that he was the best mountaineer Muir had ever met.
(We named our youngest son after Galen.)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 4, 2014 - 12:57am PT
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Elvira was married to Dr. George Lee of Merced, not John Lee.
--She's the real deal, Ron. Thanks!
All Clark's life he was dogged by misfortune. His sons all died early. Isabella eventually left him. He lost his guardian's post but then he discovered spiritualism. He got his post returned to him in 1890, the year the National Park came into "being." His newly-widowed daughter, Elvira, joined papa in 1891 in Summerland, Santa Barbara Co.
In short, he dug his own grave.
"However, death was often in Galen's mind, and with leisure time he decided to prepare himself a suitable gravesite. In June, 1885, the commissioners granted him the right to occupy his home, act as a guide, use and hire one carriage and one saddle horse, and to select a burial site. Galen chase an oak-shaded spot next to Lamon's grave and transplanted small sequoias to the site. then he dug a well and equipped it with a hand pump so he could water the trees. Next he dug a six-foot-deep trench around the grave that was wide enough for a man to stand in, which he filled partially with broken glass to keep gophers and squirrels from burrowing in.
These jobs were accomplished over a period of years."--S. Sargent
"I'm digging this for myself for then I will be sure of being buried here."--G.C.
And lived to ninety-six.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
extraordinaire
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When exposure of mining injured his health and hemorrhages became serious ... Clark recalled the beautiful mountain meadows he had seen on his trip into Yosemite ... Not sure which text I'm remembering (if any), but he got the prognosis from doctor, and just flew in the face of it -- embracing the dicipline of rocks and mountains instead. Death then couldn't kill him.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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This is a good.
I too am a big a fan of the man who came to Yosemite to die but wound up living long and prospering in this blessed place that gives us so many reasons to live.
I am generally not into honoring remains or dwelling on the dead but one of my top ten tourist activities in the valley is to visit the Galen Clark grave. I find it a pleasure to connect with this first citizen of Yosemite.
(Note: The village graveyard is easily accessed just west of the Museum. Only restrictions are a fence around it, but with multiple entrances.)
On my checklist for the near future:
1. Packpack into the Valley on the old trails via "Clark's Station" (Wawonna).
2. Climb Mt Clark and the other summits of the Clark Range.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, mouse.... neat share! thanks for sharing the wonderful pics that go with...
say, ron, thanks for the added nice share, as well...
and mooser, oh my--i get lost in that prose, too, but wow, with it wound around the neat history and other choice finds, i too, get through with
many blessings, from those mouse shares, :)
(said in kindness, of mouse, of course, just his interesting way of making us think and dig-deep on the ol' word-trails) :)
as to this:
I happened to be in the library on the twenty-eighth, however, and on a whim picked up a biography of Galen Clark. I got it home and son-of-a gun if the author isn’t Shirley Sargent, the late Yosemite resident historian. I just kind of grabbed the book when I was seeking a bio of Churchill. It must be that fickle finger finding me again
yes, mouse! and may you ever more find good treasures and may you continue to share them with us for a long long time!
god bless!
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, spider... say, thanks for sharing your goal-plan there...
may the trip be extra special and hope you can share some, on it all, later...
:)
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Clark was always a hero to me. I named my son after Galen Clark; it seemed such a strong name. And have to say, climbing Mt. Clark was a real thrill. Love that range.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 6, 2014 - 12:26am PT
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"Moore" about Clark
I find it interesting that the name for lead is galena. Clark was anything but a lead-ass. Just a random thought...
Galen Clark was a tough guy in a sickly body and he decided to approach the problem of being in the wild by being wild.
He wore no hat and he seldom went shod...he felt better thus and so going bare-headed and bare-footed became his habit once he settled in the hills. Needless to say this gave him an eccentric cachet. This says nothing about bathing habits, which I assume were normal for the place and time.
He breathed through his nose as it promoted the passage of electrical stimuli better than oral breathing. Where these ideas originated is back east somewhere in the mists of time. Quackery had a high reputation to maintain.
His daughter, Elvira, whose husband, Dr. George Lee, passed away around age fifty, moved to San Francisco from Merced. She became a doctor, according to Shirley Sargent, who writes:
“After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake Elvira FLED TO OAKLAND, rented a house, and advertised herself in the Oakland city directory as “Dr. Elvira M. Lee. Electro Medical Institute. Hours 12-4 and 7-8, Home Treatment when desired, 216 11th, phone Oakland 5691.”
The College of Fine Forces had existed for three years in San Francisco, teaching about electric light bathes and the use of modern appliances for CREATIVE TREATMENT. A correspondence course had been given by the CFF located in LA, in which a degree of DOCTOR OF MAGNETICS was earned after learning about ‘electricity, heat, light, color, steam, FERROMAGNETISM and mind cure.’
Though her practice was unorthodox Elvira was one of the few women doctors of that era. She is remembered as being a heavy, short woman, dark, and aloof. None of her McCoy [her middle initial] relatives knew of her ‘medical’ practice and Galen never mentioned it in any known letters or conversation.
Elvira’s other eccentricity was in foreseeing disasters. She felt approaching doom months before the earthquake, and in February, 1911, wrote her Aunt Carrie that her hand was ‘controlled to write’ and that she had been warned of an impending war with Japan. It appears that both father and daughter shared and interest in spiritualism.”
Galen finally left the earth just four days before his birthday in 1910 while staying in Oakland with Elvira...doctor said he was a victim of bronchial pneumonia (they'd predicted this for years due to his sickly constitution).
Red tape and delay intervened before his body could be buried up in Yosemite in Galen's painstakingly-prepared gravesite. Major Forsyth, the Army's superintendent, had to obtain a permit from the Interior Department to bury the man. Services were just done simple at the Oakland house.
Interior’s reply to Major Forsyth indicated that the burial was to be the very last authorized for the Yosemite Cemetery. Undertakers took the coffin on the SP and YVRR to El Portal. Then it was staged into the Valley. The casket was carried by Nelson Salter, JT Boysen, John Degnan, Jay B. Cook, James McCauley, and JW Coffman. George Fiske recorded the somber ritual.
A friend of Galen’s, Daniel Foley, wrote this for the Merced Evening Sun for March 31, 1910:
With the passing of Mr. Clark there is created a void in Yosemite and Big Tree affairs that cannot be filled....His knowledge of the general history of the people and conditions that made it, the flowers, birds, animals, trees and Indians cannot be duplicated by another living person....I consider that Mr. Clark was the one man who really, truly loved Yosemite, not for what he could get out of it, but for itself, its wonder, its beauty....Like Yosemite, he was beyond words: too great to talk about, impossible to describe.
All this time and here is some Great Notion that I ran across.
A second category is what Walker calls ecotopian suburbs. This is composed of the mock cabin and craftsman houses tucked into hills and surrounded by oaks, redwoods, and eucalyptus. These areas, although they look natural, were made: the coast range of the Bay Area was mostly grass, and so homeowners and developers had to plant all the trees, as well as building the houses. The inspiration for these places, Walker argues, is Yosemite and Big Trees. Ecotopian suburbs can be found in parts of San Francisco, in the Oakland Hills, in Berkeley, and Marin. These are the homesteads of the libertarian, bohemian middle class. They combine mysticism, Romanticism, and Masonic ideals and stand in opposition to LA
Taken from this link:
http://www.joshuablubuhs.com/1/category/bohemianism/1.html
The reason I include this is simply because many of us want that special part of Galen's character and his regard and love for the place he lived to be part of ourselves because we cherish the same place and many of those ideals he embodied in his actions. We took Wawona and brought it to Berkeley, Muir Woods, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz...hardly Merced, though there are some places here...and more to follow when the UC crowd settles out.
I was also thinking how much of the Ahwahneechee language Galen picked up over the years. He had empathy, certainly, so he was probably somewhat of an expert, but this is surmise. We know he said Wawona means "Really large woody objects," or words to the same effect. I got that from TimidToprope and nobody else...
ST links to Wawona Dome.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1046185/new-Wawona-Dome-climbing-site
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/123367/Wawona-Dome-worst-approach-in-Yosemite
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/29496/Fred-Beckeys-1970-Direct-route-on-Wawona-Dome
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 7, 2014 - 11:06am PT
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Fiftieth Anniversary of the Wilderness Act Celebration
by BooDawg
from YOSEMITE CLOSE UP TOURS' website at
http://www.yosemitecloseup.com/stories/yosemite-news/
(September 3) Ken and Lisa attended the special events in Yosemite Valley that commemorated the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Wilderness Act and the 30th anniversary of the passage of the California Wilderness Act. These events were created so that the public would better understand and appreciate the impacts that these two laws have had on our public lands and the policies by which these lands are managed.
There were a series of interesting and informative tables and booths in front of the Valley’s Visitor Center which demonstrated various aspects of on-going park management.
Most interesting to Ken and Lisa, was the Yosemite Conservancy’s Resident Naturalist, Pete Devine’s performance as Galen Clark, Yosemite’s first “Guardian.” Dressed in appropriate style of the early 1900’s, Pete gave a memorable impersonation of Galen Clark, complete with a New England accent (where Clark grew up.) He gave an overview of Galen’s personal life as well as the challenges Clark faced as the man who had to implement the policies that were decided by California’s commission that set the policies for the new park.
He then took us over to Yosemite’s cemetery where he “introduced” us to, and talked about, some of his friends that were buried there.
Our last stop was at his own gravesite where he told us about transplanting some Giant Sequoia trees from the Mariposa Grove (which he had discovered) to his chosen gravesite in the Yosemite Valley Cemetery to ensure that he would be buried there.
Now the Giant Sequoias that he planted at his gravesite have grown into much larger trees. He spoke eloquently about his hopes for the future of Yosemite and all wilderness areas, encouraging all who were in attendance to do what we could to promote the ideals of wilderness and its conservation. He asked us, personally, to do what we can to pass down both the lands and the associated values to future generations.
Since Ken is Galen Clark’s great-great-great nephew, it was somehow appropriate that he should be photographed with “Pete-As-Galen Clark, ” just prior to the performance.
Thanks for the report, Ken!
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Thanks, Mouse, for an excellent summary of Galen Clark's life and thanks also, for posting my visit to Pete Devine-As-Galen Clark a few weeks back.
I have to tell you that it was humbling to learn of my relationship to Galen Clark, many years after Guido and I, in 1970, made the FA of Mt. Clark's SW face.
It so happens that my Great grand mother, Hattie Muth McCoy and her family visit Yosemite in 1903 (in conjunction with President Teddy Roosevelt?), and she took many photos of that visit, including these two of Galen Clark in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias:
A more complete version of my great-grandmother's photo album can be found here:
Well somewhere on S.T. Perhaps Tarbuster had a old photos thread where I posted them. I can't find it now. Maybe someone can help out...
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FRUMY
Trad climber
Bishop,CA
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Great post thanks.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 7, 2014 - 05:20pm PT
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You bet it can be.
Taken from Clarence King: A Biography by Thurman Wilkins (MacMillan/1958) and which shows us Clark’s relative importance to the history of California mountaineering and exploration.
“Brewer defined the diet to which the party had been reduced as 'partial starvation.' It was urgent for them to hurry back to the cache at the sawmill [Millwood, the Thomas mill, sixty miles from Visalia}, and in doing so they passed Big Meadows, where the military escort waited, seven soldiers fitted out with carbines, mules, and a month’s supply of rations. Brewer was ill, with an ulcerated tooth that resisted all of King’s attempts to pull it out with a bullet mold, and King insisted on going with him in search of a dentist. They rode all night to Visalia. When the ulceration broke Brewer’s relief was so frank that King dared beg him for permission to climb the Kern Sierra for an attempt on the helmetlike peak which they had named Mount Whitney.
Brewer consented, gave him a hundred dollars for expenses, and told him to rejoin the party on August 1 at Galen Clark’s Ranch--or Clark’s Station, as it was also called. King secured an escort of two cavalrymen, a pack horse, and rations for a two-week trip. He left Visalia on July 14, with the temperature ranging between 108 and 111 degrees in the shade, and entered the mountains the following day by way of a new trail that a cattleman named Hockett had opened alog the south fork of the Kaweah River.”
It is soon after this that Clarence becomes acquainted with our dear friends, the Newtys from Pike and their pigs. Another story line, but get BooDawg to sing you “Sweet Betsy from Pike” over a campfire sometime.
After all the excitement of meeting the Newtys and after some boring mountaineering, King rejoins his boss, Brewer, at Clark’s. Of that mountaineering, suffice it to say, as Wilkins does, “Defeat of the moment did not check King’s optimism that a feasible way would be found to the top of Mount Whitney, and he regretted that time did not permit a further search on this occasion.”
His boss, Brewer, and his party “were more than three weeks late.” HAH! The joke was on King. He should have ignored his obligations for once, but he was still very much an apprentice, not likely to do so. He didn’t learn anything from Betsy’s family, obviously having known of the reputation of Pikers. And of course, there was no reliable cell service, either, at least not back then, so he couldn’t contact the boss and the boss couldn’t contact him.
After three weeks waiting, then see what the cat dragged in:
“All looked gaunt and worn, and Hoffmann had become too lame to walk or ride. But the story of their movement north gave the expedition’s history an impressive finish—how they had followed an Indian trail down into the South Fork of the Kings, a gorge surpassing Yosemite for the height of its cliffs; how, unable to find a way up through the head of the canyon, they had climbed to the northern rim and made a camp between two principal forks of the Kings; from where, five miles away, they could see three peaks surging nearly 13,000 feet against the sky. They had named the tallest one, which sheered away in enormous cliffs on the northwest side, Mount Clarence King, the lesser ones Mount Gardiner and Mount Cotter. They had also seen and named the Palisades.
“They tried, then, to find a route directly north, but the region proved impassable for the animals, and the only remaining course, except retreat, lay over the crest to Owens Valley. Crossing a pass later named the Kearsarge, in the wake of several hardy gold prospectors, they reached the Owens River by July 28, then marched up the valley while Indian fires signalled their progress from heights on either side. On August 2 they recrossed the divide through a saddle which Brewer judged to be the hightst American pass yet trod by horses.
"They camped in favored digger retreats along the Middle Dan Joaquin, passing the days in rides through almost impenetrable terrain.The nights turned freezing, and food grew scarce. Their ragged clothes had to be patched with old flour sacks. Buckskin went lame, and one of the soldiers was lost for days. Hoffmann’s rheumatism became acute, while an abcess developed in his left thigh. Even Brewer, who had lost thirty pounds, frlt thoroughly worn out; and so on August 23 he brought the expedition in to Wawona, with Hoffmann lashed to his saddle.
"Thus ended one of the greatest feats of exploration in the history of the Sierra-...” at Clark’s Station.
Of the time spent at Clark’s Station (rather than spending it trying to get up Mount Whitney) awaiting Brewer’s appearance, Mr. Wilkins writes, “During the wait he [King] came to know Galen Clark, a bearded, middle-aged man who ‘looked like the Wandering Jew and talked like a professor of belles-lettres.’ King also found that Frederick Law Olmsted was camped at Wawona with his wife and children, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Ashburner. [These good folk all served on the first commission to administer the new park.] Olmsted was still in delicate health, but he could relax among the majestic trees of Wawona, for he was on vacation from his managerial duties at Bear Valley. King spent several days with the Olmsted party, eating trout and venison prepared by an artful black [sic]cook and ‘squiring the ladies on rides and entertaining them with stories of his adventures.’”
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