John Muir Newsletter, Winter 1995/96

John Muir Newsletter winter 1995-96 university of the pacific volume 6, number 1 HOW I FOUND SMOKEY JACK\u27S CAMP AND TWENTY-HILL HOLLOW ByRobert Bauer (Editor\u27s note: When not raising turkeys, Robert Bauer is a graduate student in anthropology at California State University, Stanislaus, working on a master\u27s thesis that places Muir and his work in the context of the land and people of the Sierra foothills between the Merced and Tuolumne rivers.) John Muir first came to eastern Merced County in 1868 by a circuitous route. Following a botanzing trip through Florida and Cuba, he was taken with a fever that prevented himfrom reaching his initial destination, the AmazonBasin. After a long convalescence in Florida, and still weak, he returned to New York to be nearer to medical assistance if necessary. But the sea voyage itself proved healing, and Muir changed plans. Upon landing in New York, he took passage to California en route to Yosemite. Arriving in San Francisco on March 27,1868, he set out the next morning, heading south on foot. He crossed over the coast range at Pacheco Pass, dropped down into the San Joaquin valley, and followed the Merced River to the small town of Snelling, at that time the county seat of Merced County. For the next year and a half except for a two-week excursion to view Yosemite and a trip of some three months to Toulumne Meadows, Muir lived and worked in and about the towns of Hopeton and Snelling on the Merced River, and French Bar (La Grange) on the Toulumne River. Bordered by the Toulumne to the north, the Merced to the south, the flat plains of the San Joaquin to the west and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada to the east, this treeless grassland covers about 100 square miles. Rainfall averages a sparse 14 inches per year, and most of that comes between January and April. Plant life explodes in vigor and growth during these months before the oven-like heat of the 100-degree summer days turns the vegetation a dusty brown. From its origins in the foothills east of the plain, Dry Creek, the largest of several small streams in the area, meanders down through low rolling hills between the Merced and Toulumne rivers. After working a few months at odd jobs, Muir on December 18,1868, hired out as a shepherd to a sheepman from French Bar named John Connell, known locally as Smokey Jack. He put the novice herder in charge of some 1800 sheep. It was a job Muir would both love and hate for the next five months. The feeding range, soon the focus of his life and activities, was centered on two locations: the sheep camp with its cabin and corral, and a small valley he named Twenty Hill Hollow. Muir kept a diary during this period that described the work, the weather, and the local geology and botany. During the long, lazy spring days spent on hill and hillock, he also had time to write long letters to family and far-away friends, telling all he saw and experienced. His most earnest thoughts he worked into an article, Twenty Hill Hollow, published in The Overland Monthly in 1872 and then as the last section of A Thousand Mile Walkto the Gulf\u27in 1916. To Muir, Twenty Hill Hollow was the Yosemite of the Plains, a feature he considered as important to the San Joaquin Valley as the Yosemite Valley (continued on page 3) EAGLE ROCK UPDATE by StanHutchinson (Editor\u27s note: A Muir scholar and collector for many years, the author has carefully investigated the Yosemite site locations Muir mentioned in both published works and unpublished manuscripts. Following the publication in this Newsletter of John Muir and the 1872 Earthquake: Where was Eagle Rock? (v.l, no. 4, fall 1991), he provided additional information to Gerald Wieczorek of the U.S. Geological Survey, whose report on the subject was published several years ago. In correspondence with the Newsletter editors, Stan also described his findings and kindly consented to allow publication of the following excerpt). The shattered rock formation identified as Eagle Rock by Muir was known to then Guardian, Galen Clark, by another name; in the May 16,1872, edition of the California Farmer Clark wrote of the effects of the March 26,1872 earthquake after a visit to the Yosemite Valley from his South Fork ranch: One prominent point known as Pelican Peak, just behind Hutching\u27s Hotel, fell with a terrible crash.... From the Yosemite Chapel eastward, the talus slopes below the south valley wall represent rocks of many mixed dates and, having scrambled along most of it, I can relate that it is extremely difficult to determine exactly which of this jumble resulted specificallyfromfhe 1872 quake. The seemingly freshest I\u27ve found occurs almost directly behind the chapel-south, and a few degrees east. Further east it becomes more and more doubtful (because of the ridge behind the Hutching\u27s Hotel site) that Muir could have actually seen any fiery shower of rock from his vantage point at Black\u27s Hotel nearly half a mile further west. The quake is a key element of my MS research and kept me working hard before puzzling it all out to my own, on-site satisfaction. A Pacific Coast stereo view made from Rocky Point shows clearly the chute immediately west of the spur which terminates just southeast of the Hutching\u27s Hotel site. I believe Eagle Rock - Pelican Peak came at least partway down this defile. The stereo also illustrates that the massive wall below Union Point effectively blocks from a viewer (across the river and behind a pine within the angle of Black\u27s Hotel) almost all rockslide activity within most of the chute, excepting the deposit area. Pine, cedar and fir invasion of a once open black oak woodland, leafless in March, even now obscures the deposit area. I seriously question whether Muir actually saw, from Black\u27s, the first rockslide, orfall, from Eagle Rock ; it\u27s entirely possible his viewpoint was actually from well out into Sentinel Meadow. If the latter was the case it is hard to imagine him running one half mile and arriving on the rockfall while it was still chafing, grating... groaning and settling into place. It may be easier to believe that he heard the first great rockslide, proceeded up-river and then saw the second rock fall, nearly head-on, from near Hutching\u27s. He would have certainly been in better position to climb up onto the slide while its settling was audible. Perhaps, with a bit of writer\u27s license, Muir combined the Eagle Rock/PelicanPeak sequences into the one cataclysmic event of which he wrote so eloquently? It is puzzling, indeed, and all open to any number of theories... BOOK NOTES Enos Mills: Citizen of Nature, by Alexander A. Drummond (University Press of Colorado, 1996). This authoritative biography of Mills is a thoroughly researched study of the father of Rocky Mountain Park. Thirty years younger than Muir, Mills was a devoted follower of the senior naturalist and used many of Muir\u27s conservationist ideas in his own work. For order information contact UPC (800) 268-6044. John Muir\u27s Stickeen and the Lessons of Nature, by Ronald H. Limbaugh (University of Alaska Press, 1996). A literary history that covers the origin and significance of the dog story, along with a reproduction of Muir\u27s 1880 Alaska journal notes and his first unexpurgated version of the narrative which was influenced by the Darwinian debates and the animal rights movement. For order information contactUAP (907) 474-6399; telefax (907) 474-5502. La Mia Prima Estate sulla Sierra [My First Summer in the Sierra], translated by PaolaMazzarelli (Torino: Vivalda Editori, 1995). This is the first Italian edition of Muir\u27s popular narrative, essentially a reprint with two additions: a brief introduction by the translator, and photos from a variety of sources, including the Muir Family collection in the Holt-Atherton Library at the University of the Pacific. For order information contact Vivalda Editori, Torino. Phone:011/7720.444;Fax011/7720/449. JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER. VOL. VI, NUMBER 1 WINTER 1995-96 Published quarterly by the John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 Editor Center Director Staff o Sally M. Miller R.H. Limbaugh This Newsletter is printed on recycled paper. John Muir\u27s sketch of Twenty Hill Hollow, Mile Walk to the Gulf (1916). (continued from page 1) was to the Sierra. In addition to the Hollow, in letters and in his diary, Muir described the whole sweep of the land about him, including Lily Valley, Cascade Creek, Castle Creek, Rock River and numerous other brooks and places he named and revered. At no other time and at no other place had he felt as keenly the slow and timeless cycle of the seasons\u27 march across the land, and the birth, growth and quick fading of boundless plant life. My research into the life and time of John Muir in the foothills of northern Merced County began in 1994 as an offshoot of work I was doing on the history of Snelling. The search for the sheep camp commenced with an exhaustive reading of Muir\u27s diary At Smokey Jack\u27s Sheep Camp, published in its entirety in John of the Mountains, by Linnie Marsh Wolf. In his diary, Muir describes the camp\u27s location as being on Dry Creek five miles south of the Toulumne, on a hill to the right of the\u27Snellingroad.\u27In addition, in his first day m with the sheep Muir llibt\u27 \ wlBmt noted that his flock must cross the creek \ MWmm from the south to reach ^R«#P|iilfI^^B^^P|ji the corral, placing the ^SwIWil^^^^^^^^B cabin on its north bank. ||| - 1 However, the possible ^^^^^^^^Sw^M^^^- locations for the camp ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^W are many, as the northern bank of Dry Creek stretches some 7 to 8 miles through this range of land between the Merced and Toulumne rivers. The key to the site is the historic track of the\u27 Snelling road.\u27 In 1867,Mr. GeorgeP. WW famBmmmmm ca. 1869, published in A Thousand Robert Bauer\u27s photo of Twenty Hill Hollow, 1996 Ingalls, under contract with the Government Land Office, surveyed the original section lines in the township that would contain the cabin site. His field notes gave reference to changes in topography, to streams crossed, houses, fields and fences encountered and to the general direction of existing roads. These notes were later transformed onto a rough map, one copy of which is held today at the Merced County Surveyor\u27s Office. This map identifies two major road tracks used during this period, one running to the north-northeast from Snelling toward Coulterville and the other called the Knights Ferry to Snelling Road, lying in a northerly direction from Snelling to a river crossing near La Grange. With this information, I began a series of extensive walking surveys, first swsra*:™^ locating the faint tracks of these near-130 year old roads, and noting the cutbacks as they ; crossed various creeks and dry washes. Given the restrictions placed on the camp\u27 s location by virtue of Muir\u27s own notes, the camp\u27s iliB^^liSii^i^^^^^^S placement could be ^^^^\u27 \u27\u27 \u27 \u27 -.§ then restricted to about two square miles of rangeland. However, this still left an unacceptably large area to survey for possible surface debris or other indicators of the camp. So while these surveys helped my own understanding of the region as it existed in the 1860s, it was the combination of this knowledge and the use of an unpublished pencil sketch by Muir, on file at the Holt-Atherton Library, that finally solved the puzzle of the camp\u27s location. The drawing, with the caption Smokey Jack\u27s Sheep Camp,Feb. 1869, depicts the sheep camp on a small hill with associated bluffs and grasslands about it. By comparing the sketch to those profiles of hills and bluffs within the sheep range that fit the description offered by Muir, and making use of those seemingly lost hours I spent wandering the banks of Dry Creek, I located the site of the camp within 24 hours of receiving the drawing. Perched on an uneven slope, the cabin rested about halfway up a long, undulating east-to- west hill, setting on a long spur of the hill on the western side. The cabin itself was probably no more than 10 to 12 feet square. It apparently had no chimney, and no foundation is today visible. It is unlikely the rickety box would have possessed either. Muir described his abode as ...a remarkably dirty and dingy old misshapen box of a place it was-like the poor Briton\u27s dwelling which the King durst not enter; the rains entered it and all the winds of heaven whistled through it. Given this graphic description, Smokey Jack\u27s cabin has in all likelihood been consumed by the plains it stood on, save for a precious few nails and odd bits of glass, pottery, and metal. As the cabin stood, it was joined to the East by the corral, an enclosed area some 100\u27 by 100\u27. The corral rose up the flank of the hill and was set at a rather rakish angle, probably in order to provide the sheep as much protection as possible from the cold southeast winter winds that sweep this region. As with the cabin, nothing today remains of the corral, though the post- holes that mark the fence line are still visible. Yet in all the lands about this site, very little can be seen that has changed from Muir\u27s day. To stand as Muir did, to look out on far blue mountains, on endless rolling grasslands and a small ribbon of creek, takes one effortlessly back to his time. He is there and his words call you back to him. The location of the camp radically altered my search for Twenty Hill Hollow. Where once I had looked to the east, I now looked to the west of the known camp. The reason has to do with the geography of the area and especially the course of Dry Creek. At the foot of the camp\u27s hill, Dry Creek runs southward and then winds its way north. Muir had written of Dry Creek behaving more like a river than the small drainage it was, for during periods of heavy rainfall the creek would quickly fill to a roaring torrent, forcing him to graze the sheep on the creek\u27s north bank. Just five days after this entry Muir made his first reference to Twenty Hill Hollow. By this, I came to believe that the hollow lay northwest of Dry Creek. It was also reasonable, I felt, to assume that his sheep band would be necessarily limited in the distance that they might feed in any one direction, as every night Muir would round up and drive his charges back into the relative protection of the corral. By this means, I arbitrarily restricted the outermost range of the sheep to some 2 to 2 1/2 miles from the camp. On the evening following the discovery of the sheep camp\u27s location, I once again pulled out my now well-worn U. S. G. S. quadrangle map to search those areas to the west of the camp and immediately noticed a small hollow encircled by hills. The next morning I drove to this spot, walked up a low, rounded hill and stood gazing out at Twenty Hill Hollow. It is wonderfully undisturbed and unchanged; only cattle, coyotes and birds seem to visit often. The grass is deep and full of flowers, and Hollow Creek winds along the bottom. The first edition oL4 Thousand Mile Walk To The Gulf has a sketch by Muir depicting the hollow, with a view to the southwest. Today it is possible to stand on the very hill Muir used and to see the same view. The drawing and the reality are so much alike that one can only be amazed. Even more so than the sheep camp, John Muir is close at hand. There is much more to write regarding this special, remote and nearly unchanged place. Old roads, steel wagon rims and numerous abandoned house sites dot the land. The Gold Rush-era towns of Snelling and La Grange, and the lands around and between them, are very nearly frozen in time, so much so that Muir himself might easily find his way about. Of Smokey Jack\u27s Sheep Camp and Twenty Hill Hollow? Their full investigation, and appreciation, has only just begun. MOUNTS WANDA AND HELEN NOW OFFICIAL A recent letter fromRoger L. Payne, Executive Secretary of The U.S. Board on Geographic Names, announced approval on November 9,1995, of the request to give Mount Helen and Mount Wanda official status on the national repository of automated names. The two entries will be recorded as follows: Helen, Mount: summit, elevation 201 m (660 ft), in John Muir National Historic Site, onE side of Franklin Ridge, 183 m(600ft) Sof dirt road, 1.9km(1.2mi)S of community of Martinez and 2.1 km (1.3 mi) N of Alhambra Valley, named for HelenLillianMuirFunk(1886-1964),younger daughter of JohnMuir; Contra Costa County, California; T2N, R3 W, MountDiabloMer.;3758\u2754 N,12207\u2756 W;USGSmap- Briones Valley 1:24,000. Wanda, Mount: summit, elevation 195 m (640 ft), in John Muir National Historic Site, onEside of FranklinRidge, 76 m (250ft)Nof dirt road, 1.9km(1.2mi)Sof community of Martinez and 2.1km(1.3mi)N of Alhambra Valley, named for Annie Wanda Muir Hanna (1881-1942), eldest daughter of JohnMuir; Contra costa County, California; T2N.R3W, MountDiabloMer.;3759\u2701 N,12208\u2709 W;USGSmap- Briones Valley 1:24,000. NEW CURRICULUM BRINGS MUIR AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION TO CLASSES K -12 The Sierra Club announces the publication of an exciting new environmental education tool ~ the John Muir Day Study Guide, simultaneously published in traditional print and in online format on the World Wide Web. The Study Guide presents a curriculum covering all grades from Kindergarten to 12th grade, with exercises keyed to fit the California Department of Education curriculum guidelines for social studies and environmental education. State law (Education Code Section 37222), encourages all public and private schools in California to annually recognize John Muir Day, April 21 (the anniversary of Muir\u27s birth)., by conducting appropriate exercises. The guide is intended especially to help teachers make this a special day for their students, but may be used throughout the school year, and integrated into a variety of other curriculum topics. The guide provides teachers with photocopy-ready classroom exercises, including writingactivities, learning games, and hands-on student projects. There is also a list of additional resources and extension activities. The curriculum covers all ages from Kindergarten using Yosemite or local issues as the focus. Students in these upper grades learn to identify different perspectives on valuing the environment and to develop personal responsibility on a local issue through citizen action. The study guide uses a historical/biographical focus to help students to make decisions and solve today\u27s environmental challenges in their community, state, nation, and world. Learning about John Muir\u27s life can serve as a launching pad to a wide variety of environmental studies through earthquakes, glaciers, trees, fossils, geology, resource management, biodiversity, air quality, urban and regional planning, and even astronomy, as - in Muir\u27s words - we hitch up to everything in the universe! said environmental educator Betsy Keithcart, one of the writers of the study guide. The John Muir Day Study Guide is published by Sierra Club California with a grant from the CaliforniaDepartment of Education. It is widely available, including through the Internet via the World Wide Web, at the following URL: http:/ /ice.ucdavis.edu/John_Muir/John_Muir_Day_Study_Guide/. For those without Internet access, copies are available for $4.00eachplus$3.00 shippingandhandlingfrom: Sierra Club California 923 12thSt., #200, Sacramento, CA95814. Telephone: (916) 557-1100. JOHN MUIR CENTRE OPENS IN SCOTLAND (Editor\u27s note: the following is provided courtesy of Graham White, Publicity Coordinator, Dunbar\u27s John Muir Association, who can be reached by phone/fax 0131-557-2135 [day] or 01368-863-478 [evening]). Dunbar\u27s John Muir Association was constituted on 27th July 1994, as an association of local people from Dunbar, East Lothian and throughout Scotland. Strong support has come from The John Muir Trust whose patron, the Prince of Wales, is deeply involved in promoting conservation. International support and members have come from across the world: from the USA, Hawaii, California, Israel, New Zealand and Japan. By June 1995 there were more than 400 local members. On Thursday 27th July 1995 John Home-Robertson, Member of Parliament, will formally open the Association\u27s JohnMuir Centre Information Office at 138 High Street in Dunbar. Dunbar\u27s John Muir Association\u27s Mission is to: Reclaim John Muir as the Scot\u27s-born pioneer of World Conservation for the benefit of the people and economy of Dunbar and East Lothian Illuminate Muir\u27s life andworkforaRegional, national and international audience, using cinema, exhibitions, conferences and trained Centre Guides. Develop a superb national and international tourist venue for East Lothian Produce a Historic Town Trail of JohnMuir\u27sDunbar for visitors together with a self-guiding illustrated brochure (startedin April 1995) Promote Dunbar as the Environmental Gateway to Scotland for all visitors Design a visionary building for the 21 st Century - a model of environmental excellence, energy conservation and the sustainable use of resources Create permanent jobs and other economic spin-off projects for Dunbar Offer the Centre\u27scinema, auditorium, art gallery, exhibitio and seminar spaces as a national showcase for use by environmental agencies and the local community Establish anationalEnvironmentalEducation Centre, for Scotland\u27s 3,000+ schools, England\u27s 20,000+ schools and for all of Europe. Realize Muir\u27s vision locally by conserving and enhancing East Lothian\u27s natural heritage through campaigns, projects and practical work.