Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian War of 1851, Which Led to That Event. Lafayette Houghton Bunnell

come one at a time and, standing in open ground, send arrows at him until shot down; and one old chief who used to cook for Savage, would ask him after every shot where he had hit him. They would talk to him to find out where he was, and as soon as he would answer, the balls and arrows would fly thick around his head: but he escaped unhurt; but as he said, worse frightened than he ever was before. He did not fancy such partiality.

      A large party has started on a second expedition, but I believe I am perfectly satisfied with Indian fighting.

      T. G. Palmer.

      Note.—It will have been observed that especial reference has twice been made to Gim-o-sell brush, a shrub that grows only on warm slatey soil, on Southern exposures, sought by Indians for winter quarters, and not on the granite cliffs and mountains of the Yosemite. I had not thought it necessary to draw upon nature for testimony, but a new generation has sprung into existence, and the eternal hills may speak to them.

      The mining camp or village of Agua Fria, at the date of the organization of the battalion, was the county seat of Mariposa County, and the residence of the Sheriff, Major James Burney. Whittier’s Hotel was the head-quarters for enlistment. Finding the number called for incomplete, while yet in daily expectation of the arrival of the mustering officer, James D. Savage made a rapid ride to the San Joaquin diggings, and returned with men enough to complete the organization.

      We were formally reported for duty, and went into camp about two miles below Agua Fria, on about the 10th of Feb., 1851, but when mustered in, the rolls were dated to include service from Jan. 24th, 1851, the date of the last order of enlistment. An informal ballot was taken to show the preference of the men for officers to command us, Major Burney having previously declined, and when that had been demonstrated, other aspirants were withdrawn by their friends, a formal ballot was taken and a regular organization of three companies completed. The Governor was duly notified of our proceedings, and in a few days the commissions were received by our respective officers.

      After a few days in camp on Agua Fria Creek, we moved down to a camp in the foot hills, known afterwards as Lewis Ranch, where we had abundant grass and good water, and there was established our head-quarters, while waiting for Col. J. Neely Johnson and the U. S. Indian Commission, as stated in this chapter.

      After instructions were given us by Col. Johnson, and the Commission had exhausted its eloquence upon the “Children of the Great Father at Washington,” and had started for the Fresno, we were allowed to go in pursuit of some very sly marauders who had stolen into our camp in the night, loosened and run off some of our animals, and taken some others herded in the foot hills, but no extended operations were allowed, as Major Savage ordered us to be in readiness for a campaign against the Yosemities, when the first big storm should come, that would prevent their escape across the Sierra Nevada. After a few days’ delay the storm did come with continued violence, as recorded.

      In view of the facts and dates here given how absurd the statement that we did not go to the Yosemite “until about the 5th or 6th of May, 1851.” Our idleness in camp from Feb. 10th and the patient indulgence of the Commissioners, while waiting for the results of our first operations, surpass belief.

      And now I reluctantly notice an error of statement by Mr. Julius N. Pratt in the Century Magazine for December, 1890.

      Had the usual courtesy been extended of allowing me to see and answer Mr. Pratt’s erroneous impressions in the same number, I am convinced that he would have kindly withdrawn his article. I am led to this belief, not alone from letters received, but from the internal evidence of an upright character conveyed by Mr. Pratt’s graphic account of “A Trip to California by way of Panama in 1849,” in the Century for April 1891.

      The Century Magazine is a most powerful disseminator of truth, or error, and though I cannot hope for a complete vindication through this volume, its readers shall have the facts of “The Date of Discovery” set before them, “for a truthful regard for history” and my own self-respect require it.

      In the Century Magazine for September, 1890, page 795, is an article from my pen which gives the date of discovery of the Yosemite as March, 1851. Mr. Pratt, in the December number following, assumes, with “a truthful regard for history,” that I was in error, and gives about “January 10th, 1851, as the approximate, if not exact date of discovery.” Many of the men whom Mr. Pratt supposed to have been the discoverers, were, or became, my own comrades. When Mr. Pratt’s article appeared, I at once sent a reply, but it received no recognition.

      Knowing that Mr. Theodore G. Palmer, of Newark, New Jersey, was in the only engagement occurring with Indians in Mariposa county at the time given by Mr. Pratt as the date of his supposed discovery of the Yosemite, I wrote, requesting Mr. Palmer to call on the editor of the Century in my behalf.

      In a letter of January 9th, 1891, Mr. Palmer wrote: “It is the unexpected which always happens, and your communication to the Century in response to Pratt’s ‘California,’ was never received. Mr. Johnson, the associate editor, received me very pleasantly. He assured me that although he sent you an advance copy of Pratt’s article, nothing had been received in the office from you since in reply, and he presumed you had given up the case in default.

      “I so completely satisfied him that Mr. Pratt is in error, that he requested me to express my reasons in the Century, and to assure you that any communication from you will always have respectful attention.”

      On January 24th, 1891, Mr. R. W. Johnson, associate editor, wrote me, saying: “Since telling your friend, Mr. Palmer, that we had not received an article from you in reply to Mr. Pratt, we have discovered the manuscript. We have in type a short note from Mr. Palmer which will be acceptable to you.”

      A few days after Mr. Johnson kindly sent me the proof. On March 12th, 1891, Mr. Johnson wrote me: “Mr. Pratt, after examination of the subject, has written us a short letter, withdrawing his contention of your claim to the discovery of the Yosemite, the publication of which we trust will be satisfactory to you and also to Mr. Palmer. Will you now tell us whether there is anything in this new claim that Walker was the discoverer of the Valley?”

      I at once saw that if Mr. Pratt’s retraction was published there would be no need of the publication of Mr. Palmer’s communication. About this time a letter of earlier date, January 28, 1891, was sent me by Mr. Palmer, received from Mr. Pratt, in which the latter gentleman says: “I enclose a letter which seems to prove that the party about which I wrote to the Century was not your party. One went to the North fork, the other (yours) to the South.” That statement left no base whatever for Mr. Pratt’s imaginary “fight at the Yosemite, and thus of the discovery,” for the North Fork affair was not a battle at all, but “a scare” on a fork which enters the Merced river thirty-five miles below the Yosemite, and as for the battle fought on the 11th of January, 1851, by Major Burney’s company, in which Mr. Palmer was engaged, it was not fought on the South fork or in any valley, but upon a high mountain of the Fresno river.

      Mr. Palmer now felt that his note to The Century was too long delayed, and wrote asking for its withdrawal or its publication. Mr. R. U. Johnson replied: “The Century is made up two months in advance,” but that he intended inserting it in the April number, &c. Mr. Palmer added in his letter to me, “I think he will.”

      The matter had now become not only interesting, but amusing to me; for very soon Mr. Palmer wrote, “whether my answer to Pratt will be published or not, is doubtful. I infer (from a letter) that Pratt will not rest quiescent under my contradiction.” Again Mr. Palmer wrote, enclosing copy of letter to Mr. Johnson of March 14th, 1891, answering Mr. Johnson’s Statement, “that Mr. Pratt, while being convinced of his injustice to Dr. Bunnell and being ready himself to withdraw his former statement, takes issue with you as to the identity of the two parties,” and then Mr. Johnson asks, “would it not be just as well and more effective if we were simply to print from Mr. Pratt that he is ‘pleased to withdraw all contention of the claim made by Dr. Bunnell that he was the original discoverer?’ ” Let me here say, in passing, that I never made such a claim.

      Mr. Palmer very properly objects to becoming the “scapegoat”