La cabaña de Galen Clark, el guardián del bosque

1814-1910

Galen Clark

Galen Clark (March 28, 1814 – March 24, 1910) is known as the first European American to discover the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia trees, and is notable for his role in gaining legislation to protect it and the Yosemite area, and for 24 years serving as Guardian of Yosemite National Park.

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Galen Clark Museum, Yosemite
Galen Clark WAS one of the first managers of the Yosemite National Park. I would stay in a cabin like this for a FEW months Each year.

Galen Clark shortly before his death; photo by

Mode Wineman, from a biography by

C. Frank Brockman 

NPS Historic Photo Collection

“I have seen persons of emotional temperament stand with tearful eyes, spellbound and dumb with awe, as they got their first view of the Valley from Inspiration Point, overwhelmed in the sudden presence of the unspeakable, stupendous grandeur.”

– Galen Clark, guardian of the Yosemite Grant

"Wm. H. Seward," Mariposa Grove, c. 1868.
Stereoview: E. Muybridge (click to enlarge)

"Big Trees, Mariposa Grove," c. 1872.

Engraving, Picturesqe America

Galen Clark and Giant Grizzly, c. 1865.
Stereoview: C. E. Watkins (click to enlarge) 

(...) The first non-native resident in what is now known as Wawona was Galen Clark (1814–1910), widely hailed as the “discoverer of the Mariposa Grove of giant trees.” A New Hampshire native, Clark left for the Golden State in 1853, lured by newly mined California gold dust he had seen on exhibit at the Crystal Palace in New York. Arriving in Mariposa County, he engaged in mining and surveying Government land.

In 1855, Clark made his first visit to Yosemite Valley. Two years later, suffering severe pulmonary hemorrhages that threatened his life, he moved to the south fork of the Merced River, staking a claim and building a log cabin on the spot where the Wawona Hotel now stands. A bridge over the river and trails followed, and soon travelers on the way from Mariposa to Yosemite Valley were stopping for food and shelter at Clark’s Station.

It was here, in 1868, that John Muir, on his first visit to Yosemite, met Clark. In his book The Yosemite (1912), Muir devoted a chapter to Clark, reminiscing:

Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest and most amiable of all my mountain friends. I first met him at his Wawona ranch forty-three years ago on my first visit to Yosemite. [...] Botanizing by the way, we made slow, plodding progress, and were again about out of provisions when we reached Clark’s hospitable cabin at Wawona. He kindly furnished us with flour and a little sugar and tea, and my companion, who complained of the benumbing poverty of a strictly vegetarian diet, gladly accepted Mr. Clark’s offer of a piece of a bear that had just been killed.

Muir also set the record straight about the discovery of the Mariposa Grove:

Though not the first to see the Mariposa Big Tree grove, he was the first to explore it, after he had heard from a prospector, who had passed through the grove and who gave him the indefinite information, that there were some wonderful big trees up there on the top of the Wawona hill and that he believed they must be of the same kind that had become so famous and well-known in the Calaveras grove farther north. On this information, Galen Clark told me, he went up and thoroughly explored the grove, counting the trees and measuring the largest, and becoming familiar with it. He stated also that he had explored the forest to the southward and had discovered the much larger Fresno grove of about two square miles, six or seven miles distant from the Mariposa grove. Unfortunately most of the Fresno grove has been cut and flumed down to the railroad near Madera.

Galen Clark construyó una cabaña en el bosque de Mariposa en 1861. La Mariposa Grove Museo se ubica actualmente en el sitio. 

Galen Clark built a cabin at the Mariposa Grove in 1861. The Mariposa Grove Museum now stands on the site. 

Clark, who recovered his health and lived to the age of 96, was among the key preservation advocates whose opinion led to President Lincoln’s signing, in 1864, an Act of Congress transferring Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove to the State of California as a grant reserved from settlement. The grant was locally administered by a guardian representing a board of commissioners. The first man picked for the position was Galen Clark, who fulfilled the role for 24 years. (...)

(http://berkeleyheritage.com/essays/wawona.html)

THE WAWONA OR TUNNEL TREE, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, WITH GALEN CLARK, DISCOVERER OF MARIPOSA GROVE. Courtesy of Julius Boysen

galen-clark-portrait-rock-glacier-point-yosemite

sundayisforlovers.wordpress.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Clark

http://www.nps.gov/yose/historyculture/index.htm

http://www.cathedralgrove.eu/text/05-Pictures-Politics-3.htm

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/yosemite_nature_notes/26/

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/shirley/sec1.htm

http://windyscotty.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/galen-clark-beloved-guardian-of-yosemite-2/