John Muir Newsletter, May/June 1983

Holt-Atherton Pacific Center V-/ / University of the Pacific for Western Studies X Stockton, Calif 95211 VOLUME 3 MAY/JUNE 1983 NUMBER 3 EDITORIAL STAFF: RONALD H. LIMBAUGH, KIRSTEN E. LEWIS FINANCIAL UPDATE Pardon our delay, but this is one case where no news is good news! Congress has approved favorable budget legislation for both NHPRC and NARS, and also has given the green light to a bill separating NARS from the General Services Administration. It remains to be seen what the ultimate outcome of the current budget battle with the White House will be, but unlike earlier Congresses, this Congress seems capable of defending the high road against an Administration backlash. Keep your fingers crossed. Our own budget prognostications hinge not only on the news from Capitol Hill but also from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which recently delayed final action on our $20,000 matching grant proposal until we clarified a few legal and procedural points raised by NEH National Council at their May session. Those questions have been answered—we hope to the Council\u27s satisfaction—and we expect a decision late August. If approved, the new funding should carry the Project through to completion in 1985. PROJECT UPDATE Meanwhile our copyright attorney, after coming to Stockton from Washington, D. C. to get a firsthand impression of the papers, has concluded that the bulk of the incoming correspondence can be published under the fair use doctrine of the new copyright law. This will expedite matters considerably by avoiding an expensive and time-consuming search for literary heirs to some 7,500 letters from nearly 1,500 individuals who wrote to Muir. Most of the photographs in the Muir collection apparently are also open to publication. We are now working to complete the clearance and editing prodedures in order to begin filming by early 1984. SEARCH CONTINUES FOR A PUBLISHER Earlier this year we learned that our prime candidate for micropublisher had sold the business and would take no new contracts. While we explore new publishing possibilities, we have altered our filming plans in order to provide patrons with media options not previously considered. Our revised plan is to generate a master negative on 35mm. microfilm, and from this prepare microfiche as an option to purchasers who may order either film or fiche. State-of-the-art microtechnology allows fiche to be produced from film without any significant loss of resolution, although the cost may be higher and the standard sleeved fiche card is a 48 frame format, rather than the regular 98 frame format generated by a step-and-repeat camera. Despite the higher price, the advantages are both user convenience and higher resolution microfilm for hard-to-read originals such as light contrast journals or badly smudged pencil corrections on draft manuscripts. We think patrons will appreciate having the option of purchasing either film or fiche. What do you think? RECENT MUIR RESEARCH In our last newsletter we published by request a list of individuals who are or have been engaged in research involving the John Muir Papers at the University of the Pacific. Since that list was prepared several other scholars have consulted the Papers. Name Arlen Hansen Wilbur Jacobs Douglas Tedards Institution University of the Pacific University of Calif., Santa Barbara University of the Pacific JM and R. W. Emerson JM and the highlights of environmental history JM and R. W. Emerson JOHN MUIR LIVE ON STAGE Lee Stetson, professional actor and director who has performed over 40 stage, screen and television roles, is now appearing in a new one-man show at Yosemite Valley. Entitled John Muir Live on Stage, the show is a theatrical tour de force by Stetson, who spent two years preparing for the role by following Muir\u27s Yosemite trails and by immersing himself in Muir literature. By popular demand, the show has been extended into early fall, and may be seen every Friday and Saturday night at 8:00 P. M. in the Valley Visitor Center Auditorium. Tickets may be purchased in advance. FROM THE MUIR COLLECTION AT UOP Editor\u27s note: the following article, clipped from the Pasadena Daily Evening Star, August 18, 1894, contains Hiram Alvin Reid\u27s little-known description of Muir\u27s first expedition into the San Gabriel Mountains. Reid\u27s letter apparently was addressed to George Wharton James, who released it for publication. Although we have not seen a copy, the book referred to is presumably H. A. Reid, History of Pasadena... (1895). MUIR\u27S PEAK John Muir\u27s Mountain Climb in Pasadenaland Mount Lowe Echo We have received, the following from Dr. H. A. Reid, Pasadena\u27s painstaking and conscientious historian and gladly give it a place in our columns: DEAR PROFESSOR JAMES: There is acertain peak in the Mount Lowe series of peaks, canyons, etc., which I dubbed Summer-sunrise peak last year, because it bore that relation to the Echo Mountain house. But since studying up the history of Pasadena and her adjunct territory, I find that the famous John Muir climbed to the top of that peak in August or September, 1875, and was, so far as known, the first white man or at least the first American who had ever stood upon its summit. Hence, in my forthcoming history I wish to designate it as Muir\u27s Peak —and I respectfully submit the matter to the Mount Lowe Echo, and ask its concurrence in this name. To show my historic reasons therefore, I send you herewith an extract from MSS. of my history volume now in course of preparation. „ , „ Yours very. truly, H. A. Reid, A. M., M. D. Well, who is John Muir? Why, he is the man who has climbed more mountains, walked more miles,, lain out more nights, and discovered more glaciers than any other man known to history. Glaciers was his hobby. In Harper\u27s Monthly for November, 1875, he gives an account of the \u27Living Glaciers of California, \u27 and says he had discovered no less than sixty-five of them in the Sierra Nevada mountains between latitudes 36 degrees 30 minutes and 39 degrees, his first discovery being in October, 1871. These living glaciers form the head fountains of the San Joaquin, the Tuolumne and the Owens rivers. He was also the first explorer of the great Muir glacier in Alaska, which rightly bears his name. He was the editor of a notable art-work published in 1888, entitled \u27Picturesque California, and the Region West of the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Alaska. \u27 John Muir was a classmate with Dr. 0. H. Conger in the State University at Madison, Wisconsin, when Dr. Ezra S. Carr of Pasadena held the chair of Natural Sciences in that noble institution, dr. Conger settled in Pasadena in 1874; and in the summer (August) of 1875 John Muir came to visit him and renew old acquaintanceship.\u27 At that time no man had ever gone from Pasadena directly to the top of the mountains, and Muir made the venture alone. Mrs. Conger baked three loaves of bread for him, and gave him half a pound of tea, which he usually steeped by putting a little into a bottle of cold water and laying the bottle on a rock in the warm sunshine. He carried no firearms, as he had conscientious scruples against taking animal life, and hence used no meat food. With provisions and blankets on his shoulder he started, and was gone three days. When he got back he was extremely hungry, and Mrs. Conger writes: \u27He said that in all his mountaineering he had never found any trip so laborious as that, on account of the very thick growth of underbrush; and he had never found a view so fine as that from the top of these mountains. \u27 In another note Mrs. Conger adds this interesting item: \u27He brought me some tiger lily bulbs from the mountains, and I planted them in my yard, where they have blossomed every year since (nineteen years) and I have always called them my John Muir Lilies. He made his trip to the mountains by way of Eaton canyon; and in an article on The Bee Pastures of California, \u27 published in the Century Magazine of July, 1882, he gives some account of this mountain climb. It is the first report on record of any trip or exploration from Pasadena to our immediate mountain summits, and hence I quote a few paragraphs. He took one day in getting from Pasadena to the mouth of Eaton canyon— camped there over night with a native Mexican woodchopper, and in the morning walked up to the falls—then hard climbing commenced. Of this Mr. Muir wn\u27.tes: From the base of the fall I followed the ridge that forms the western rim of the Eaton basin to the summit of one of the principal peaks, which is about five thousand feet above sea level.* Then turning eastward, I crossed the middle of the basin,** forcing a way over its many subordinate ridges and across its eastern rim, having to contend almost everywhere with the floweryest and most impenetrable growth of honey bushes I had ever encountered since first my mountaineering began, etc., etc. H. A. REID. *This is the peak which ascends to a culminating summit from Pine canyon, Rubio canyon and Castle canyon—and forms part of the west wall of Eaton canyon and part of the south wall of Grand Basin. **This is the Grand Basin of the Mount Lowe literature. JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER Holt-Atherton Pacific Center for Western Studies University of the Pacific Stockton, CA 95211https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1012/thumbnail.jp