856 research outputs found
Letter from W[illiam] Keith to John Muir, [1909 ?].
Dear Muir,Cant you come down next Saturday. I told Mrs [Sather?] that you might be here - if she is coming in just to meet you - she is the widow of the Banker [I gather?] she has given a great deal of money to the University and is a very interesting personality aside from this matter of money - any how if you cant come write me a nice little letter - that I can show to her - theres nothing wrong in that - simply the polite thing - she is very much interested in you & you dont suffer at my hands - do this Johnnie for auld lang syne my dear.https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/31594/thumbnail.jp
Letter from W[illia]m Keith to John Muir, [ca. 1904].
424 PINE STREETSAN FRANCISCODear JohnDr. Taylor has just shown me your letter & it is a good letter. We both want you very much to come down - do come Johnnie, & next Saturday - we will give you a grand Lunch come - come - and I will show you a poem I have written - it is very fine - besides my last great works wonderful. Come. Yours W Keith[illegible]: S[illegible] R[illegible]03332https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/28670/thumbnail.jp
Letter from [John Muir] to Mary [Muir], [1874] Sep 11.
[Original letter in possession of Mrs. Mary Muir Hand]Oakland. Sep. 11, [1874].My dear bra highland Mary:I am off for an excursion into the Sierra again and so farewell. I hope you find the world full of light and love and color and that your life is clear to absorb and enjoy it.I had a letter from Prof. Butler lately. You must go there at times. How do you progress with your painting? I have a friend here, W. Keith, a splendid artist with whom I wish you might practice. Yet I am glad you did not come out here. I dislike the town and most of the spirit that pervades it the more I see of it, and then all hopes of being long enough in one place to make anything like a home for you seems more improbable every day.Work hard and continuously, for there is nothing like it. Yet be sure that you do not work fretfully and anxiously, for that is destructive to health, and see that you do not want for anything you require while for the sake of independence you practice economy. It is easier to practice a mean and hurtful economy than a wise and comfort making one.Have you any friend in Madison that you can trust for counsel in case of need? I think Prof. Butler is true and faithful. Heaven bless you, my lassie, and cheer and love you as you deserve.Fare ye well. Address Oakland as before.[John Muir][Envelope addressed Mary Muir, Madison, Wisconsin, postmarked Oakland, Sept. 14, no year given][Year 1874 supplied, because Muir appears, from letters to Mrs. Carr of about this date, to have visited Oakland about this time]0069
Letter from [John Muir] to Mary [Muir], [1874] Sep 11.
[Original letter in possession of Mrs. Mary Muir Hand]Oakland. Sep. 11, [1874].My dear bra highland Mary:I am off for an excursion into the Sierra again and so farewell. I hope you find the world full of light and love and color and that your life is clear to absorb and enjoy it.I had a letter from Prof. Butler lately. You must go there at times. How do you progress with your painting? I have a friend here, W. Keith, a splendid artist with whom I wish you might practice. Yet I am glad you did not come out here. I dislike the town and most of the spirit that pervades it the more I see of it, and then all hopes of being long enough in one place to make anything like a home for you seems more improbable every day.Work hard and continuously, for there is nothing like it. Yet be sure that you do not work fretfully and anxiously, for that is destructive to health, and see that you do not want for anything you require while for the sake of independence you practice economy. It is easier to practice a mean and hurtful economy than a wise and comfort making one.Have you any friend in Madison that you can trust for counsel in case of need? I think Prof. Butler is true and faithful. Heaven bless you, my lassie, and cheer and love you as you deserve.Fare ye well. Address Oakland as before.[John Muir][Envelope addressed Mary Muir, Madison, Wisconsin, postmarked Oakland, Sept. 14, no year given][Year 1874 supplied, because Muir appears, from letters to Mrs. Carr of about this date, to have visited Oakland about this time]00693https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/36245/thumbnail.jp
Letter from W[illiam] Keith to [John Muir], [ca.1903 Winter].
Dear JohnieProf. Rising I met the other day, & he wants me to tell you that lately while in Washington D.C. he met Senator Bard who told him that, Pres Roosevelt had said to him (Bard) that hen he got out to California he was very anxious to make a camping trip with John Muir - I told Rising that I would write to you. I think Johnie [illegible] better go Mrs [illegible]ertz told 03321https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/41164/thumbnail.jp
The John Muir Newsletter, Summer 2002
o NEWSLETTER John Muir\u27s Aunt Mary by Roberta M. McDow ost people acquainted with the life of John Muir are probably aware that his father Daniel and Daniel\u27s sister Mary were orphans. In 1885, John wrote in his obituary for his father: His mother was English, his father Scotch and he was born in Manchester, England in the year 1804. When he was only six months old his mother died and he lost his father also a few months later when an elder sister became a mother to him and brought him up on a farm that belonged to a relative in Lanarkshire, Scotland... While yet more boy than man he suddenly left home to seek his fortune with only a few shillings in his pocket, but with a head full of romantic schemes for the benefit of his sister and all the world besides.1 Although John mentioned Margaret, his maternal aunt, in his autobiography, he didn\u27t write again about his father\u27s sister. His aunt Margaret, he wrote, had a precious lily-bed in the corner of the Muirs\u27 Dunbar garden that the future naturalist loved to visit.2 His father\u27s sister lived in Lanarkshire, too far away to see often. In fact, it is probable that John never saw his aunt Mary while he lived in Scotland. John\u27s first biographer, William Frederic Bade, quoted extensively from Daniel\u27s obituary in The Ancestral Background, the first chapter of his two-volume work.3 He relied on the knowledge and memories of John\u27s family and friends to expand on the details given in the eulogy. By March 1920, a little over five years after John\u27s death, Bade had finished the draft of the first chapter. . . .but I am leaving it open for the discovery of new matter, 4 he wrote to John Hills from whom he hoped to learn more about the naturalist\u27s maternal ancestors. Sarah Galloway, John Muir\u27s sister and David Galloway\u27s widow, was one of Bade\u27s valuable resources. I have looked carefully over the paper you have sent me and find little I could change, she wrote to him in 1922. A change she did suggest concerned Daniel\u27s age at the time of his mother\u27s death. . . .he was nine months old you have it six, 5 she corrected. Another interesting exchange occurred between the biographer and Sarah in May 1923. A careful researcher, Bade consulted her about a scrap of paper he had found in the family documents on which the surname of Daniel and Mary\u27s mother had been written Hague, not Higgs. 6 The maiden name of our father\u27s mother was Sarah Higgs, she replied. In my school girl days I wrote the name Hague because I liked it better, but that is not the name. 7 At the time of this exchange, Sarah was eighty-seven years old. Bade was able to obtain information from a family member who was even older. She was an aged daughter of Mary Muir, Grace Blakeley Brown. 8 Bade does not say how he obtained this data, but it is from her that he learned the Scottish farm to which Daniel and Mary were taken was situated at Crawfordjohn, about thirty-five miles southeast of Glasgow. \u27 A better picture of the Muirs\u27 ancestry was emerging. Bade concluded that the naturalist\u27s name appears to have [been] taken from his paternal grandfather, a Scotchman by the name of John Muir. But beyond that it may be doubted whether a search of Scotch parish records. . .would reveal more than another bare name. 10 The elder John Muir, a soldier, married Sarah Higgs, an English woman. Two children were bom to them, the younger in 1804. Sarah died when the younger was nine months old, Bade wrote, here deviating from the obituary and accepting Sarah Galloway\u27s correction. Three months later, the elder John died and the children went to a farm that belonged to a relative in Lanarkshire, Scotland. Bade mentioned an allegation that the farm was owned by a relative of Sarah\u27s, but he did not agree or disagree with this assertion.12 Although the naturalist was the subject of the biogra- (continued on page 5) U IM EVER S I TFftTif- OR page 1 E=» /V O I R I C
7 News & Notes John Muir\u27s art collection set for Saint Mary\u27s College exhibit by Steve Pauly Beginning August 17, Saint Mary\u27s College in Moraga, will exhibit many of the twenty-two paintings John Muir displayed in the Martinez Ranch House. His collection included twenty William Keith paintings and two Thomas Hill paintings. All but four are mountain landscapes. The collection began with Muir\u27s mother-in-law and father-in- law, Louisiana and John Strentzel, who received a Keith painting from Mrs. Jeanne Carr. Over the years, Muir added paintings of his favorite mountain scenes. Images of Tuolumne Meadows, Mt. Shasta, Yosemite Falls, Vernal Falls, Mt. Rainier and Muir Glacier (Alaska) graced the walls of the mansion along with portraits of Dr. and Mrs. Strentzel, a charcoal sketch of Muir\u27s younger daughter Wanda and a sketch of Santa Barbara Mission. The exhibit runs through February 23, 2003. John Muir and William Keith first met in Yosemite Valley in 1872. An instant and life-long friendship was bom between the two who both were bom in Scotland in 1838. Muir guided Keith to Sierra, Cascade, and Alaska mountains and urged Keith to make true-to-life paintings of the landscape. The Muir collection was first seen by Keith biographer Brother Fidelis Cornelius, F.S.C., during a 1908 visit to Muir\u27s Martinez home. At the time, Cornelius was a novitiate at the Christian Brother\u27s Martinez Seminary and was interested in art. The twenty Keith paintings in the home convinced Brother Cornelius of Keith\u27s genius, and he made Keith the subject of much of his life\u27s work while director of Saint Mary\u27s Art Department. The extensive Keith collections at Saint Mary\u27s Hearst Gallery and at the Oakland Museum are the direct result of Cornelius\u27 persuasion and tenacity. After his death, the art collection was divided among Muir\u27s descendants and now is in the hands of his family and several private collectors. ******** In the Winter 2001/2002 issue (Vol. 12, No. 1), The John Muir Newsletter ran a piece on John Muir\u27s Telephone Number by Harold Wood. According to Charlene Perry of the Martinez Historical Society, it was not Muir but Dr. John Strentzel who installed the telephone in what became the John Muir National Historic Site. In was installed, in fact, much earlier than the listing in the 1897 State Telephone Directory — it was operating in 1884! The Contra Costa Telephone Company in that year reported it owned 54 miles of telephone lines and 34 instruments, after three years of operation. One mile of that line served the railroad, while one and a half miles gave Dr. John Strentzel contact with the downtown from his new home, now the John Muir National Historic Site. (Source: A Look Back 100 Years by Charlene Perry, Martinez Historical Society, Martinez News-Gazette, December 28, 1983). ******** Mountain Days, the John Muir Musical, has just completed a very successful month-long run at the John Muir Amphitheater in Martinez, CA. Preceding the performances, a series of talks was held, many of which were given by old friends who have written for the John Muir Center\u27s publication program. They included Ross Hannah (grandson of John Muir), Ron Good (of Restore Hetch Hetchy), Harold W. Wood (of the Sierra Club), and Muir scholars Barbara Mossberg, Michael Branch, Steve Pauly, and Chris High- ■ land. All readers should plan to attend the play and the programs beforehand next summer. * * * * * * * * There will be a November treat for Muir fans in Northern California! On November 2 at Dominican University in San Rafael, at 7 p.m. an exciting benefit has been planned for the Restore Hetch Hetchy project. Lee Stetson, the well- known actor who depicts John Muir throughout the country will give a performance, as will Alisdair Fraser, a fiddler specializing in Scottish and Gaelic music. His stories and songs will introduce the audience to themes of Scottish culture, so much a part of Muir\u27s world. For information on tickets and directions, call (925) 933-4489. ******** ill NEWSLETTER Volume 12, Number 3 Summer 2002 Published quarterly by The John Muir Center for Environmental Studies University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 ♦ Staff ♦ Editor Sally M. Miller Production Assistants .. . Marilyn Norton, Pearl Piper All photographic reproductions are courtesy of the John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Libraries. Copyright 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust. This Newsletter is printed on recycled paper. i page 2
John Muir In The Central Valley: An Ecological Perspective by Howard R. Cooley John Muir, California\u27s most famous naturalist, crossed the Central Valley of California each time he traveled between the Bay Area and the Sierra. In one of his earliest published articles, Rambles of a Botanist, (1872),\u27 he describes how most travelers remember the valley as a scorched and dust- clouded waste. But Muir was always eager to speak in its praise, all the more because its plant inhabitants are so fast disappearing beneath gang-plows and trampling hoofs of flocks and herds. This of course has come to pass. The significance of Muir\u27s insight has increased with time as the Valley\u27s remaining native plants and animals are threatened by widespread urban development. Early explorers like Jedediah Smith, John Charles Fremont, John Bidwell, and William Brewer, recorded some scenery and plants, but John Muir is the only known early writer to chronicle the full range of habitats in an undeveloped Central Valley. He later wrote that when California was wild virgin wilderness The Great Central Plain of California. . .was one smooth, continuous bed of bloom. . .marvel- ously rich. . .from one end of it to the other, a distance of more than 400 miles. 2 When Muir first arrived in California in the spring of 1868, he headed for Yosemite by way of Pacheco Pass in the Coast Range east of Gilroy. From the summit, the uncor- rupted view of the Central Valley, he later said, was like a lake of pure sunshine. . .one rich furred garden of yellow Compositae. 3 And to the east rose the Sierra Nevada mountains, clear and bright as a new outspread map. 4 Many a Muir disciple in recent times has sought that shimmering view only to be confronted by a curtain of smog. ■ •■. After crossing Pacheco Pass and descending the eastern foothills of the Coast Range, Muir passed the San Louis Gonzaga Ranch. This was part of the widespread ranchos of Francisco Pacheco, where San Louis Creek flowed east to the San Joaquin River.5 The old St. Louis Ranch was located near the headwaters.6 Writer Edgar Kahn quotes Andrew Hillsdale (circa 1850) as saying that there were no towns, villages, or settlements between San Jose and the St. Louis Ranch, and no human life between there and the San Joaquin River.7 Today much of the former Rancho is flooded under the San Louis Reservoir to add to southern California\u27s water supply. Ganzaga Road leads to the dam. Continuing across the valley, Muir also described the level plain as an ocean of flowers. 8 In July, he wrote a letter to his friend Jeanne Carr of Madison, Wisconsin, stating, Florida is indeed a land of flowers, but. . Here, here is Florida!9 There is ample evidence to confirm the Central Valley\u27s former floral diversity and abundance. Fremont (March 1844), after traversing the snowy Sierra Nevada Mountains, entered the Central Valley near the confluence of the American River with the Sacramento. The landscape was a vast waving parkland of tall green grass, huge valley oaks up to eight feet in diameter, and gushing streams. The grasslands were mixed with broad patches of yellow mustard, and miles of yellow and white poppies. The Coast Range was clear and blue on the western horizon. Fremont also recorded herds of deer, huge flocks of ducks • and geese, quail, magpies, and meadow larks. A few weeks later Fremont and his troops headed south, evading Mexi- can-Califomio soldiers by staying on the east side of the Central Valley, crossing the Cosumnes, Mokelumne, Calaveras, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Merced, San Joaquin, Kings, and Kern rivers, all in flood from snowmelt in the Sierra, and as much as three hundred feet across. Wild berries and grapes were found growing along the banks, and dense groves of valley oak and interior live oak were seen among endless fields of poppies. Fremont wrote, A showy Lupinus adorned the banks of the river. . .The hills were purple and orange, with unbroken beds. 10 They also saw vast herds of deer, pronghorn, and tule elk, as well as wild horses and cattle from the Mexican Ranchos, more ducks and geese, bears, wolves and coyotes. In April they moved into the Tehachapi Mountains and over Oak Pass. Pioneer John Bidwell wrote in 1841 that Never did I expect to see the earth so beautifully arrayed in flowers as it is here. But even as early as the time of John Muir\u27s arrival, plows and sheep had caused a noticeable effect on the natural spread of wildflowers. As Muir later reminisced about his 1868 trek across the Central Valley, he wrote down various aspects in several accounts. In his 1894 book, The Mountains of California, he also told of abundant wildlife including small bands of antelopes. . .almost constantly in sight. 12 And in his personal narrative he recalled, Plovers in great numbers and of several species. . .with snipes and geese and swans. 13 Today in California pronghorn antelope are restricted in their range to Modoc Plateau in the northeastern portion of the state\u27s boundaries. Several wildlife and waterfowl areas are found between Pacheco Pass and the San Joaquin River, watered in part by overflow from San Luis Reservoir. The various species of bees Muir noted as a method for writing about the flowers are now endangered from pesticides and other ecological imbalances.14 After his first short visit to Yosemite in April-May 1868, Muir returned to the Central Valley to find work. Hired by Pat Delaney to tend a flock of sheep, he was allowed a shanty for a home. Foremost on his mind was returning to the Sierra Mountains when he earned enough for supplies, but he knew he must also learn how to keep himself fed as there would be no outposts on which to rely. In a now well-known story from the sheep camp, Muir wrote in his journal in December, 1868: I filled the big cylindrical pot with dough and applied hot coals on the hearth, trusting the result might be bread, but. . .innocent of yeast. . .was found to be black and hard. . .and perfectly solid. It became extremely hard in cooling. . .1 began to hope that like Goodyear I had discovered a new article of manufacture. . .1 told my troubles to a neighboring shepherd, and he made me wise about sourdough ferment, and henceforth my bread was good.15 Once the Central Valley was a land of extensive prairies, composed mostly of perennial bunch grasses, now replaced by old-world annuals. The grasslands were dotted page 3
I scrub, and vernal pools spread over the floor of the (fey in all directions. Spring wildflowers bloomed precisely. The native grasslands and floodplains were a sanctuary for a great variety of wildlife. At Twenty Hill Hollow, between Snelling and La Grange, John Muir had a chance to study this environment in detail from November, 1868, to May, 1869. Here, he again saw antelope and waterfowl, as well as coyote, jackrabbit, ground squirrel, golden eagle, blue heron, house finch, and numerous reptiles and insects. He listed these in his journal, and added, . . .countless forms of life thronging about me. 16 In his journal he also listed a variety of fems, wild parsleys and mustards, violets, geraniums, buttercups, primroses, buckwheat, borage, poppies, gilia, plantain, lilies, and several other flowers including yellow starry Composita. . .the glorious sheet-gold. . .like a sea. 17 When the rains came he reveled in discovering wetlands: January 1, 1869. Every groove and hollow, however shallow, has its stream — living water is sounding everywhere. January 4. Dry Creek. . .overflows in the rainy season. . .In the course of a few hours after the close of a rain, it will retire within its banks, leaving many flat, smooth fresh sheets of sand. January 11. . .all the ground is covered by a film of water. . . January 30. The whole face of the plains is brilliantly mirrored with pondlets. . . February 10. . .the plain in soak— one shallow lake.18 The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers in their natural state, before dams and artificial levees, flooded annually, and massively about every five years. Sediments deposited during millennia of flood stages produced a natural levee about ten to twenty feet high and out to a mile from each bank. During winter and spring rains these rivers would overflow their banks, supplying rich silt and nutrients to adjacent floodplains up to 25 miles from either side of the banks of the rivers. Floodwater from several prominent floodplains could not drain back over the levees to the river and would remain throughout the summer, or all year. These freshwater wetlands, occupied by water-adapted plants, attracted huge flocks of migratory waterfowl. In an essay entitled Twenty Hill Hollow, Muir described observing a distant view of the grand Sierra. . .along the plain. . .the white row of summits pointing to the heavens. 19 Muir\u27s observations of the floodplain ecology culminated in January, 1875, from the heights of the Sierra. After exploring the geology and topography of the basin of the Feather River, Muir came to the edge of the main forest belt, where revealed before him was, as he notes in The Mountains of California: . . .a beautiful section of the Sacramento Valley some twenty or thirty miles away, brilliantly sun- lighted and glistening with rain sheets as if paved with silver. . .The blue Coast Range was seen stretching along the sky like a beveled wall, and the somber Marysville Buttes [Sutter Buttes] rose impressively out of the flooded plain like islands out of the sea.20 In September, 1877, Muir was a guest at the ranch of California pioneers General and Mrs. John Bidwell on the Upper Sacramento River near Chico. After he expressed his inclination to explore the river, the general had a worker build a raft in which Muir soon set off. Dense riparian forests of willow and cottonwood lined the river banks. Extending out along the margins of streams- and river bottoms grew great forests of cottonwood, willow, ash, sycamore, alder, and box elder, with a lush understory of elderberry, blackberry, wild rose, wild grape, and native grasses. Almost a century later, by 1960, 99 percent of this riparian forest had been destroyed, and replaced with piles of stone to channel flood waters and to curb erosion once checked by the trees\u27 network of roots. Farther back from the river\u27s edge were widespread valley oak woodlands. Low shrubs and herbaceous plants flourished in the shade beneath the dense canopy. Most of these oak forests have also been cut away to allow fruit and nut orchards. On his rafting trip down the Sacramento, Muir observed, Great numbers of birds. His journal lists herons, geese, ducks, shorebirds, .. .pelicans in large flocks. . ., osprey, bald eagle, beaver; and, Salmon in great numbers. Plants listed include buttonbush (Cephalanthus), wild grape (Vitus californica), and a huge old arching sycamore. 21 Muir took a side trip to the Sutter Buttes: six miles to the base, 1,950 feet to the summit, down again to the base, and six miles back to the river — in seven hours! After a brief visit to the Kings and Kaweah basins, where he quickly climbed a 5000 foot canyon wall, Muir built another skiff and rowed down the lower Merced to the San Joaquin and, . . .thence down the San Joaquin, flowing freely in that pre-dam era, past Stockton and through the rule region into the bay near Martinez. He then climbed Mount Diablo.22 And though he does not explicitly say so, we can assume he enjoyed another wonderful vista of the Central Valley, with the bright Sacramento pouring through the midst of it from the north, the San Joaquin from the south, and their many tributaries sweeping in at right angles from the mountains, dividing the plain into sections fringed with trees. 23 Later, of course, he would live in Martinez with his wife and daughters, and often gaze upon Mount Diablo\u27s mass of purple in the morning, 24 or its winter dusting of snow. In 1888, Muir began editing Picturesque California, compiling a series of essays by several contributing authors. It included a prophetic article on the Delta by San Francisco journalist, Charles Howard Shinn. The Delta, where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers converge in a lacework of channels, is a vast continuation of the once extensive Central Valley rule marshes. With an area of 625 square miles, the Delta originally had native riparian habitat along its waterways with its marshes populated by millions of migratory waterfowl. In his essay, Shinn predicted that, All that now appeals most to the visitor will have disappeared. . .and no Califor- nian of the present time would recognize it. 25 The transfor- (continued on page 10) page 4
7 ^n Muir\u27s Aunt Mary by Roberta M. McDow (continued from page i) phy, Bade also recorded data about John\u27s aunt Mary. When she became a mother to her orphaned brother, she was not a grown woman. She was about eleven years older than Daniel.13 Since the siblings went to Scotland about nine to twelve months after Daniel\u27s birth, Mary would have been about twelve years old when she assumed the role of mother to Daniel. In the course of time, Bade continued, . . .Mary married a shepherd-farmer. . .by the name of Hamilton Blakley, whereupon her new
Letter from W[illiam] F. Herrin to John Muir, 1907 Oct 17.
WILLIAM F. HERRINFLOOD BUILDINGSAN FRANCISCOOctober 17, 1907. John Muir, Esq.,Martinez, Cal. My dear Mr. Muir:--Mr. Keith has sent me your letter of Sept. 23d, in which you suggest a trip to Arizona, which will include the petrified forest and Taxadium Grove. I should be very much pleased to make this trip with you and Mr. Keith. My two daughters insist upon going, but I am not familiar enough with the sort of trip we will have to know whether they could very well join us. Please let me have particulars--that is, I would like to know what points on the railroad we must go to, and how far we will travel by other conveyance than railroad. I think I can manage to make this trip with you and Mr. Keith some time in November.With kindest regards, I amVery truly yours,Wm F Herrin03955https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/29456/thumbnail.jp
The John Muir Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2012
Page 1 transcription missing
PAGE 2 \u27Women as History-Makers In California Symposium The 59th California History Institute was held this past March at University of the Pacific. This year\u27s theme was Women as History-Makers in California. The event was planned and co- organized by Edith Sparks (Senior Associate Dean of the College), Jennifer Hel- gren, Assistant Professor of History, Corrie Martin, Director of the Women\u27s Resource Center, and W. Swa- gerty, Director of the John Muir Center. On Friday, March 23, twenty students and faculty motored to Sacramento to tour the California Museum. Exhibits on California\u27s Remarkable Women, Women and the Vote, and permanent exhibits including California\u27s Hall of Fame provided individual biographical introductions to around 120 women in the state\u27s history. A moment at the Constitutional Wall also reminded all of the importance of California\u27s beginnings and its continued promise to native born and immigrants alike. Historians, students, environmental activists, and community organizers came together in Grace Covell Hall on Saturday, March 24, to hear presentations. Edie Sparks and coauthor Jessica Weiss of California State, East Bay, opened the symposium with Placing Women in California History, emphasizing how women have remained in the background in most texts on the state\u27s history, despite their achievements as shapers of social, economic, political and legal themes unique to California. Alice Van Ommeren, a local Stockton historian, provided case studies of leaders among women during Stockton\u27s Golden Age, 1890-1940. Her case studies ranged from Lottie Gunsky, a career teacher (1853-1922), to Lilla Miller Lomax (1859-1941), Stockton\u27s first female medical doctor, to Laura DeForce Gordon (1838- 1907), suffragette and attorney who was the first woman in the U.S. to own a newspaper, to EdnaGleason (1914- 1961), the first woman to serve on the Stockton City Council and President of the California Pharmaceutical Association. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon of San Francisco State University connected her own family\u27s history with Stockton\u27s large Filipino community, noting that within the city, Little Manila once housed the largest community of Filipinos outside of Manila itself. After an Asian- theme luncheon, Professor Emerita of American Studies, Judy Yung (U.C. Santa Cruz) provided the key note on the theme of Chinese women in the state\u27s history giving examples from the era of the Gold Rush to the twentieth century of Chinese women who broke the stereotype of those who came to Gold Mountain. These include Au Toy, one of San Francisco\u27s most successful business women who owned houses of prostitution and gambling, Ana May Wong, the most famous Chinese- American actress in the state\u27s history; Jay Snow Wong, the celebrated Bay-area ce- ramicist; March Fong Eu, first Asian- American Secretary of State; and Betty Suan Chen, who received the Presidential Citizen Medal in 2010 for her social work among the homeless. Student papers by Pacific\u27s own Christiana Oatman and Devon Clayton focused on women and campus life and organizations. Clayton traced the history of women\u27s literary societies going back to the San Jose campus (1871-1924) and con nected these with modern sororities on the Stockton campus. Michelle Khoury from Santa Clara University informed all of the struggle of Native American women after the Gold Rush as they faced discrimination, stereotyping, and graphic ridicule for traditional lifestyles and attempts to survive in the hostile environment of Anglo-California. Women and Environmental Justice was the theme of the final panel, which included an overview by Professor Nancy C. Unger of Santa Clara University on women as Nature\u27s Housekeepers, and case studies by Tracy Perkins, U.C. Santa Cruz and Teresa DeAnda, Director of the Committee for Well Being of Earlimart on citizen action in policy and pesticide reform (respectively). Jennifer Helgren closed the symposium with remarks on what we have learned, tying the exhibits in Sacramento at the California Museum with the papers and presentations given on campus.
Page 3 Archivist\u27s Corner Cruising in Muir\u27s Footsteps By Michael Wurtz Holt-Atherton Special Collections University of the Pacific Library Years ago as a history graduate student at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, I worked closely with the geography and geology departments. One of the geology grad students was involved with a project to re- photograph the Grand Canyon 100 years after Robert Brewster Stanton had surveyed and photographed a possible route for a railroad along the banks of the Colorado River in 1890 (Grand Canyon, A Century of Change: Rephotography of the 1889-1890 Stanton Expedition by Robert H. Webb 1996). The notes and markers that Stanton left made it possible to set up cameras in 1990 for precise re- photography. The grad student had told me that in one case they found Stanton\u27s footprints encased in petrified mud and knew exactly where he stood when he made the photo! This sense of place in history has been captivating to me ever since. In 2010, I traveled to Alaska for the first time, and I wanted to find John Muir\u27s footprints. Muir\u27s trips focused on Southeast Alaska, and I was going mostly into the interior. Fortunately, Muir and I did cross paths - albeit 111 years apart - in Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet. Muir was with the Harriman expedition in 1899, and I was on the Wurtz-Cosper trip of 2010. Dan Cosper\u27s father was stationed at Whittier in the 1950s, and there are many glacier cruises that embark from there. I gathered information on the cruise routes and compared them to Muir\u27s drawings and journals and notebooks. I harvested scans of the journals from the John Muir Papers website (go.pacific.edu/specialcollections), transcribed the text I could read, printed them out, and stuck them in Ziploc bags. Our initial trip to the Port Wells glaciers was to include a half-dozen more glaciers on the College Fjord, but our mighty boat the Klondike Express broke down, leaving us narrating stories and songs of that fateful cruise. The next day brought clearer skies and another glacier cruise to complete the mission. I could never triangulate most of the drawings as precisely as I was hoping, but the following were the best rephotography and they helped me to see Alaska as Muir saw it. — Muir\u27s notes indicate that he had drawn this opp[osite] Homer P.O. [Post Office] . The Post Office had moved many times, and the local museum could not clarify its location in 1899.1 went to an overlook behind town and snapped this photo from the about the same angle, but not the same aspect. (continued on page 8)
Page 4 vihlcn ooaaAal cani^imJCe^, lo CtrWiiuurv =)Luvcotrva- t\u3eXoJt\inxu27u. in^AalaJoXe-, XJnuA aa/iincu -true Mkuj- Lew Vtvu. JLatumal Jo^tc tiAitiX&m, (continued from page 1) single photograph in my life. 2 Photographers such as, Carleton Watkins, George Fiske, Edward Curtis, Theodore Lukens, and C. H. Mer- riam stand out within the collection because of their thorough survey of western landscapes or their contribution to conserving or restoring them. Carleton Watkins is known as one of the great photographers of the West. In the summer of 1861, Watkins took his mammoth plate camera (18 x 22 glass plate negatives) to Yosemite to create highly detailed images of the Valley. According to the Getty Museum, he created a comprehensive photographic survey, which partly contributed to Abraham Lincoln\u27s signing of the 1864 bill that declared the valley inviolable, thus paving the way for the National Park system. 3 Watkins\u27 stereo cards of southern California landscapes depicting agricultural practices are also commonly found in the John Muir Papers. Carlton Watkins captured landscapes of the West. Muir may have used this photograph of an irrigated orange grove in San Gabriel as a guide to tending his own orchards. (f 15-764 John Muir Papers Holt-Atherton Special Collections©1984 Muir Hanna Trust) The extent of Muir and Watkins relationship is relatively indefinable, but in a letter from William Keith to Muir in 1909, Keith tells of Watkins\u27 son selling photographs from his father\u27s collection because Watkins was approaching blindness and financial hardship had left the family in need. Keith suggests, I gave him 50.00 and I think you ought to do something. 4 George Fiske is prominent in John Muir\u27s photo collection too, and was a principal photographer of the Yosemite Valley. He began in San Francisco and soon was working with Watkins and Eadweard Muybridge in Yosemite. In 1879 Fiske moved to the Yosemite Valley and was the first full-time resident photographer.5 Fiske was able to photograph the valley during every season. Muir responded to a threat to Fiske\u27s residency in the valley in 1905, I don\u27t believe there is the slightest danger of your being turned out of Yosemite Valley. If only one photographer should be left in the Valley, I think every right-minded person in the country would agree that you were that one. 6 George Fiske took A Glimpse of El Capitan in the summer and winter of 1880. His photographs of the Yosemite are very comprehensive and document the valley well. (f47 2722, f47-2723 John Muir Papers Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust) The self-taught photographer Theodore Lukens used photography for his extensive research of trees. As a member of the Sierra Club, he was
page 5 a friend of John Muir\u27s and an active conservationist and forester. In a letter written to John Muir from Lukens in 1897 about a stand of especially large oak trees near Santa Barbara, he states, Don\u27t you think I had better go up and measure the trees accurately, photograph them, and collect acorns and sprays of the foliage to send to you and Mr. Sargent. 7 Muir and Theodore Lukens corresponded about what was probably this large Oak that Lukens found near Santa Barbara. The photograph was taken by Lukens and probably sent to Muir along with some acorns and branches. (f 18-940 John Muir Papers Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust) C. Hart Merriam, another amateur photographer, focused on zoology, ornithology, and later ethnography. Muir wrote letters to Merriam requesting photographs of varying subject matter for his books, Can you let me have a few telling photos of Sierra birds and beasts? bears, squirrels, chipmunks, neotoma, quail, grouse, woodpeckers etc. etc. etc. for illustrations? 8 Merriam\u27s lack of skill is evident throughout. His portrait of a porcupine is not compositionally balanced and shows someone\u27s boots and legs in the upper left corner. Bronzing, usually due to poor quality paper and improper developing method, can be found among Merriam\u27s images. C. Hart Merriam must have taken this photograph of a porcupine in Tuolumne Meadows in 1901 strictly for documentation as it is not aesthetically pleasing. (f45-2559 John Muir Papers Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust) As the appointed photographer of the 1899 Harriman Expedition, Edward Curtis expansively documented the trip to Alaska. While on the expedition, Curtis began to gain an interest in the native peoples of the region and devoted the rest of his career to studying and documenting Native American tribes. Edward Curtis captured this image of Inuit children in Alaska on the Harriman Expedition of 1899. (f9 426 John Muir Papers Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust) Looking through the John Muir Papers photography collection, one will observe many patterns. Landscapes, trees, animals, glaciers, botanical images, and family are among the frequent subjects that emerge in the collection, while less common subjects such as native peoples, land exploitation, and farming practices intermittently appear. Although Muir\u27s photographic collection included images from all over the world, California and Alaska are the dominant subjects in the collection. The images of California including Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Pasadena, make up almost half of the entire eFL imoaed. L^ti|Wnl
Page 6 (m\u3e, a, natwuui&t, a^aiaakeX, uatani&X, and. i&wLeA,, J\(maa, u&ed. pMataoAaaJluv la ejxamAnz. liAlina. ininaA aL true lacaXionA ne, -OxAileo. collection. As may be expected, roughly 575 images, the vast majority of California views, are of Yosem- ite\u27s vistas, trees, waterfalls, and more. A surprising amount of images of native peoples, their dwellings, and hieroglyphics from places like Yosemite, Alaska, Arizona, Utah, Africa, South East Asia, and Japan also surface in the collection. As a naturalist, geologist, botanist, and writer, Muir used photography to examine all living things at the locations he visited. He sent himself photographic postcards with flowers, landscapes, and native peoples to add to his collection. Muir also received photographs from his friends - especially images of trees. Many people sent him specimens and photographs of trees to identify or learn about new species. Lukens again sent Muir a letter in 1897, On my way home I met Mr. C. Knapp..., and he has promised to send me [a] branch and photo of an oak tree at his place 32 feet in cir. And he thinks it is the largest in this country. He went on to note, I will go up and photo it and get branches and acorns and send you some photos. 9 gg. POST CARD is- Muirwould purchase postcards to document botanical specimens that he found on his travels. (f20-1084 Pillsbury Picture Co. John Muir Papers Holt- Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust) In another letter Muir expressed his gratitude for a photograph of a sugar pine sent by George King. Muir was very interested in the pine and wanted to know more about it. Where did you find that magnificent sugar pine? The finest specimen I have ever seen in a photograph. How tall is it, and how large in diameter 4 feet from the ground? 10 In addition to using photography for research, Muir used photographs in his conservation efforts. The collection consists of many photographs of logging, mining, railroads, and Hetch Hetchy. Muir expresses his joy of receiving some photographs from King again, I have received with many thanks your magnificent Hetch Hetchy photographs, a very telling lot. He went on to express, We are having a hard fight for Hetch Hetchy but think we will win. Help all you can. 11 Muir seems to have also collected photographs that document the exploitation of the land and the abuse of natural resources. This one is titled, Culling timber in Oregon and was planned to be used in a book. (f34-1933 John Muir Papers Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust) Despite John Muir\u27s focus on nature, he collected nearly 800 images of his family and friends throughout his life. During the 19th and 20th centuries photography became a popular device for sharing one\u27s life. Nicole Hudgins claims that, the photo album of the 1890\u27s was a sort of Victorian Facebook, in the sense that dozens or even hundreds of portraits were preserved, displayed, and circulated among social and family networks. 12 In Muir\u27s correspondence it was not uncommon that a
PAGE 7 portrait was either mailed to or from him. Although known for being alone in nature, many photographs reveal his good disposition and love of people. In one of the most touching of images of the collection, one can see the joy and love that Muir feels when surrounded by his grandchildren. A large number of images that are included in the Muir Papers illustrate the importance of people in his life. :.\u3c -- ■w-O V t **i\u3e*i W . ^M [uy_2 John Muir plays with his grandchildren Richard, John, and Strenzel Hanna in Martinez shortly before his death in 1914. (f24-1352 John Muir Papers Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust) After analyzing the entire photography collection of John Muir, it seems that he used photographs for many diverse purposes. It is obvious that he used these images for research and to get a well rounded understanding of the areas in which he was interested. He also utilized the photographs to provide evidence to support his conservationist efforts, and he included images in association with his writing to provide readers with a view into his experiences. The collection also shows that he acquired photographs from numerous people including some of the most famous photographers of the West. In a letter to C. H. Merriam in December of 1900 Muir almost sums up his thoughts of photography in general when he says, Many thanks for the two fine lots of photographs. How well most of them have come out. The trees especially. They will be very useful to me besides bringing forward our fine trip last summer. 13 ENDNOTES 1. Ron and Maureen Willis, Photography as a Tool in Genealogy. Retyped by Ted Swift (Mountain View, CA). 2. Letter from John Muir to C. Hart Merriam 1901 Dec 31. John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust. 3. Carleton Watkins. Getty Museum. http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/ artMakerDetails?maker= 1989&page= 1 Accessed April 02, 2012. 4. Letter from William Keith to John Muir circa 1909. John Muir Papers, Holt- Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust. 5. Views of Yosemite: George Fiske, 1880-1890. Bancroft Library. Online Archive California Library, http:// www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/ tf238nb395/. 6. Letter from John Muir to George Fiske, 1905 Mar 13. John Muir Papers, Holt- Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust. 7. Letter from Theodore Lukens to John Muir, 1897 Jun 29. John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust. 8. Letter from John Muir to C. Hart Merriam 1901 Mar 28. John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust. 9. Letter from Theodore P. Lukens to John Muir 1897 Jun 30. John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust. 10. Letter from John Muir to George King Nov 1913. John Muir Papers, Holt- Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust. 11. Letter from John Muir to George King Nov 1913. John Muir Papers, Holt- Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust. 12. Nicole Hudgins, A Historical Approach to Family Photography: Class and Individuality in Manchester and Lille, 1850 - 1914, (Journal of Social History, 2010), 565. 13. Letter from John Muir to C. Hart Merriam 1900 Dec 26. John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections ©1984 Muir Hanna Trust.
Page 8 (continued from page 3) Surprise Glacier was an easy one to spot with its distinctive medial moraine. Our tourist boat did not get as close in as Muir, so I was unable to get the exact angle or aspect. The drawings do not capture the detail that a photograph can, but the Catarack Gl[acier] on the left seems to have receded quite a bit. This was on the Harriman Fjord of Port Wells of Prince William Sound. The focus of this drawing and photograph is actually a tributary of the Serpentine Glacier. The Serpentine Glacier itself is the debris-covered glacier that we can only see entering the Fjord in the foreground from the right. It appears that the tributary has receded quite a bit. All drawing pages are from June-July 1899, Harriman Expedition to Alaska, Part II, Reel 29 Journal 3, John Muir Papers, Holt- Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. © 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust. Cascade Glacier was one the steepest we saw on our cruise. We did not get close enough to see it quite like Muir on the Harriman expedition in 1899. On many occasions, Muir had the opportunity to get off the boat and hike around. Barry Glacier is on the right.
Book Review Page 9 The Making of Yosemite: James Mason Hutchings and the Origin of America\u27s Most Popular National Park. By Jen A. Huntley. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011. xi +232 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 34.95.) Occasionally a book alters our general understanding of an individual and that person\u27s place in history. This study is one of those, shedding new light on James Mason Hutchings (1820-1902). Born in Towcester, Northamptonshire, England, Hutchings grew up in the geographic center of England, the sixth child of William, a carpenter, and Barbara, a paper lace maker. Lured to America by George Catlin\u27s touring exhibit of American Indian portraits, Hutchings immigrated to California in 1848 and located himself in Placerville during the height of the Gold Rush. In 1855, after seven years of part-time mining, part-time real estate speculation, and occasional newspaper editing, Hutchings visited Yosemite, a tipping point in his life. Seeing opportunity in promoting California, Hutchings moved to the valley, established himself as an entrepreneur in Yosemite, providing services for tourists and building a hotel, sawmill, and other facilities, some of the earliest infrastructure within the future national park. From 1855 to his death in 1902, Hutchings\u27 life and the Anglo expropriation and promotion of Yosemite were inextricably linked. This is the second recent biography of Hutchings, and goes well beyond Dennis Kruska\u27s James Mason Hutchings of Yo Semite: A Biography and Bibliography (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 2009), which emphasizes his contributions in print, notably letter sheets, almanacs, and Hutchings\u27 California Magazine (1856-1861). Through careful and thorough research, Hundley introduces a man we have not known, a misunderstood businessman, husband, father, and patron of the arts and sciences, who has received mixed treatment by previous scholars more interested in t
The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2010/2011
Page 1 transcription missing
PAGE 2 John Muir Back and Newsletter Going Digital After a year, we are back! Last year we announced that we would become an occasional newsletter, projecting two issues per year. We only released one issue this past year. In an age of high cost of reproduction and mailing we have decided to follow the trail of other newsletters by going digital. Those with e mail can continue to receive at no charge the newsletter as part of a web serve list. Simply e mail us at [email protected] and we will include you in our future announcements and you will receive a PdF version of the Newsletter. Those who do not have web access, please send us a short note requesting a hard copy of the Newsletter. We suggest a donation of nln 1 869: OYamhte, to tne AMmmll al JlLount Jy^olLmxxAt, eX&Q&n tnauAana LeeX, nian, tne, hiatve&t paint in wle. 6, iawun&n nvn LeeX, natie. net taucnea. From Mount Hoffman John Muir My First Summer in the Sierra By Terry G if ford Your \u27ramble\u27 up from the Valley To spend a night on this bare mountain, A steep ascent of five thousand feet, Left me breathless before I turned the page. And even starting from Snow Flat I was pleased to pause on a real chair (My first in weeks of boulder- seats) Left outside by the tree-stump table Amongst the cabins of May Lake Camp. Breathless from the final scramble And the view, looking down on Half Dome, Cloud\u27s Rest, far glaciers and Tenaya Lake, I sit quite still and meet the marmots Smiling eerily like cats as they creep Out from their crevices, expecting to be fed. Disgusted by these half-tame summit pets I turn and scree-slide down the dusty trail To bathe my legs in the clear May Lake. From: Terry Gifford, Reconnecting with John Muir (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2006), p. 131. John Muir Event at Pacif April 13 On April 13, 2011, a special John Mur event will be held in the Janet Leigh Theater at University of the Pacific. From 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. photographer Scot Miller will give a presentation on his work in the illustration of the 100th anniversary edition of My First Summer in the Sierra. From 7:30 until 9:15 p.m., film maker Catherine Tatge of Global Village Media will give a brief introduction to her film John Muir in the New World . This is a biographical documentary of the extraordinary life of John Muir and his influence on American history. The 90 minute film, which is sched uled to be broadcast on the PBS American Masters series on April 18, will be shown after Ms. Tatge\u27s introduction. From 9:15 until 10:00 p.m. there will be a reception and book signing by Scot Miller.
Page 3 Mike Wurtz In the archives 2010 Online Inventory of Muir Papers is Updated By Michael Wurtz Holt-Atherton Special Collections University of the Pacific Library Recently, the staff of the Holt-Atherton Special Collections had announced the addition of thousands of John Muir correspondence to the web - library.pacific.edu/ha/muir and click on digitized material. This was added to images of Muir\u27s drawings, photographs, and journals. These digital assets have been a tremendous help to researchers around the world. However, there is still much of the collection that is not available online. Digitally scanning and loading the entirety of John Muir Papers and other collections would be a daunting task, so only the most useful and significant items are made available via the web at this time. In addition to all the new online material, we have updated the John Muir Papers finding aid. A finding aid, sometimes referred to as a finding guide, could be considered an inventory, table of contents, index, and annotated bibliography all in one. Collections that are the size and scope of the Muir Papers cannot be easily itemized. Atypical six inch box can hold over a thousand individual documents. To list and describe each of those items would take a great deal of time. Archivists have chosen to organize collections along the lines of what the creator (in this case, John Muir) intended. Once we have created the categories (such as letters, drawings, published materials, etc.) we describe them in slightly more specific terms, such as by date or location or subject. Then the researcher must request the items by folder or box. The online material represents the richest portion of the John Muir Papers. However, it is a minority of all the Muir material. The microform project that was completed in the 1980s includes much more of the collection, but still not every item. The entire collection resides at Holt- Atherton Special Collections in the University of the Pacific Library. How can the researcher find out about what is in the materials that are not accessible via the web or microform? The online finding aid is the answer. It lists the contents to every folder in the collection. For example, researchers will find that the Papers contain most of the collected bibliography of Muir as listed in Kimes\u27 John Muir: A Reading Bibliography. They will also find photographs that have been donated to the collection since the microform project was completed. In addition, the collection includes Muir biographer William F. Bade\u27s transcriptions of many of Muir\u27s Journals, as well as Bade\u27s collected reminiscences, and personal letters. One can also find Linnie Marsh Wolfe\u27s correspondence and papers as she wrote her biography of Muir, and her transcriptions of some of Muir journals. Papers from the Strenzel and Muir family including legal and business papers for the Muir ranch in Martinez are also available. There is also poetry to and about Muir; John Muir\u27s clipping files that he kept on many different topics and memorabilia that includes Muir\u27s odds and ends such as passenger lists, maps and botanical information from trips he took around the world. Researchers can also find a few real jewels within the John Muir Papers that have never made it to microform or online including photographs of construction of the Half Dome Cables Trail in 1919 and clippings on early California agriculture that were probably collected by Muir and his father-in-law, John Strentzel. To get to the finding aid for the John Muir Papers, visit library.pacific.edu/ha/muir/find and click on Finding Aid of the John Muir Papers. From the above website, researchers are invited to click on Related Collections. Here, researchers can see over a dozen finding aids to other Muir related collections that the University of the Pacific Library holds.
Page 4 Charles E. Swann\u27s Military Map of Kentucky and Tennessee www.davidrumsey.com &heJve, \A nathlna, nuyce, eXaauenl in. JLatwie, than a nvoumXain fivtteam, ana Void, id, tne, Ia/iaI s eXleA, daw.. . . (continued from page 1) Muir\u27s choices of routes, and through comparison to modern maps. Some of the maps examined were George Woolworth Colton\u27s 1869 Map of Kentucky and Tennessee, 9 A.J. Johnson\u27s 1866 Map of Kentucky and Tennessee, 10 as well as all the relevant, internet- available maps from the collections of the Library of Congress11, the David Rumsey collection of historical maps12, and the historical map archive of the University of Alabama.13 These comparisons show that the best available map from the era of Muir\u27s walk is Charles E. Swann\u27s 1863 Military Map of Kentucky and Tennessee. 14 Also valuable because it gives the names and characteristics of roads, is N. Michler\u27s 1862 Map of Middle and East Tennessee.15 The 1863 map Mountain Region of North Carolina and Tennessee by W. L. Nicholson and A. Lindenkohl16 has almost twice the scale and was useful for confirming the previous two maps. Finally, the General Topographical Map by Julius Bien & Co. was issued by the United States War Department in 1895, but it was part of an Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 1861- 1865 and seems to show features as they existed in 1865, not 1895. Sheet XV is the relevant map.17 None of these maps show features with the accuracy and scale with which we are familiar today. None of them show elevation contours; however the General Topographical Map of Julius Bien mentioned above depicts mountain- David Rumsey Map Collection r.........,n, I ous terrain through the use of hachures. The earliest maps that would today be considered topographic maps are the 30 minute quadrangles18 issued by the US Geological Survey in the 1890s. These were surveyed two or three decades after Muir\u27s walk, so they need to be used judiciously and in connection with the Civil War- era maps. Reconstructing the route In order to reconstruct Muir\u27s probable route, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf and Muir\u27s journal for the trip were searched for geographical clues, then a reasonable route was traced out on Civil War-era maps. That information was then transferred to topographical maps from the 1890s, and then transferred to modern maps. The result of this process has been recorded on Google maps.19 To see this map, go to http:// maps.google.com/ Click on search options. On the drop-down menu, select User-created maps. Type in John Muir Cumberland. Click on search maps. Then click on John Muir\u27s Crossing of the Cumberland to see Muir\u27s route and places visited along the way. This process is for the most part easier than it sounds, and while it cannot be and does not pretend to be exact, most individuals performing the process would come up with a very similar route; however a researcher possessing detailed local historical and geographical knowledge could probably improve the end result. According to Muir\u27s journal and A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, Muir passed through Burkesville, Kentucky on September 8. He (i.nriivil inttncjf.-Tphk.-il m,sp. Sh^r-1 XV. lull us Hkn A Co.r I itfe.., \.Y. (EH\u27J] ifw:*) The author found this map of the Cumberland drawn in 1895, but represents this area from the Civil War, to have provided the most detail of that area from the time that Muir passed through. (captured from the David Rumsey Map Collection website)
page 5 Google rn a PS John Muir Cumborl and Search Maps 6M Cmrtiom UlMUX Save 1oM» Mans Jolin Muir\u27s Crossln-g of Hie Cumberland My cost estimation ti4 ihe route t aken b| John Muir when he crossad tho Cumberland Plateau on 10.11, and 12 September 1 ST. Thw was pan of Mun\u27i wilh horn Lour*rfle. Kairtiicky.to Cedar h\u3ejr. Fkwde. 0\u3es.cnfced ^ Ins boor: *A Thousand-Mae Walk To 1h* GuT Red poioLert re-piesert towns v.s*ed bj Mini. Qfue\u3e poeTtera iapres*nl ailee to w* too ** to 901 b tew* of what Muir saw in 1867 Map by Dan Si yei. 7Z eiawa - Publ ic C» *!»d on Aug 38.2QB - Updated Mat 31 By Dan Slyer PM* Ineirtip-Will* tHrtrt»nt fftjftaaili KY Mun pasted through on 8 Septeenoir 1967 tjaraeslawn. 1H Muir passed through on 10 Seplerribe r 1887. ftnonuoirion. TH Howe ghost Irjwn Hur passed through in Che fflafleee] ol 17 Senteenbei 1967 t Kingston TN Mlui tie (Bit ten the night, of 1? Senlembar 1867 / Mull\u27. Wllle tnybesl eetlnwiion of the roule liken by John Mue wSoo ha ciassed the Cnmberland Placeau on 10. 11. and 12 Seplernoor 1867. This best eelmiatBd mule mosltp follows moderrt-datr roaoH, tot or places (a tf\u27T\u27 \u27 Blurts, rocknSut*s, natoril avclves. fpapa Cmk Sale Malum fraa 5tal* Natuul Area Jkichee and watereat* In Ihe 1356 Wwibuig (uadranuje, this lit! was called simply The Wideirwss 5 John Muir Cgmbe dand The author posted this user-created map of John Muir\u27s 1867 route through the Cumberland on Google maps. The map includes clickable points with information and photographs of places that Muir had visited. Instructions for finding this map online are included in the article. crossed the state line into Tennessee towards evening 20 on September 9. The next day, after a few miles of level ground 21 Muir walked upgrade with occasional views in which Kentucky was grandly seen 22 for six or seven hours 23 to reach the top of the Cumberland Plateau. He passed through Jamestown and as previously mentioned, spent the night with a blacksmith and his wife. On September 11 he walked a long stretch of level sandstone plateau 24 and was compelled to sleep with the trees in the one great bedroom of the open night. 25 Finally, on September 12 Muir breakfasted in Montgomery and descended the east slope of the Cumberland Mountains. He forded the Clinch 26 and reached Kingston before dark. 27 The Civil War-era maps show several routes from Burkesville to Jamestown, but the most direct route, the route that would be more in Kentucky than in Tennessee,28 the only route that would give a view north to Kentucky while climbing the plateau, and the only route that is level until one long steady climb to the top of the plateau, is the route through Albany, Kentucky and Pall Mall, Tennessee. In the author\u27s opinion, the only plausible ^oute from Jamestown to Montgomery is the Pile Turnpike. Montgomery, now a ghost town but then the Morgan County Seat, was then located on the upper reaches of Emory River, just west of Wartburg. From Montgomery to Kingston, the only practicable route is east through Wartburg, then branching southeast at Crooked Fork and proceeding northeast of Bitter Creek. This road reaches Emory Iron Works on the watercourse variously known as Emory Creek, or Little Emory Creek, or Little Emory River (its modern name). This route then descends through a gap in Wal- den Ridge on the left bank of the Little Emory, and finally fords the Emory and Clinch Rivers in the lowlands east of the plateau. In the text of A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, the eloquent... mountain stream 29 crossed by Muir on September 12 is identified parenthetically as the Emory River. However the mountain stream is unnamed in his journal. The gorge of the Emory River, as it descends from the plateau, is so rugged that no road followed it in 1867 and no road follows it even today. The author asserts that the name was inserted incorrectly either by Muir or by editor William Frederic Bade long after the trip,30 and that the eloquent mountain stream is actually the Little Emory River. JLe
Page 6 A y^/^ •&&** w \u27*ZSZ~L^M~ —S5
PAGE 7 Cystopteris (bladder fern) One of the plants mentioned by Muir From: luirig.altervista.org seat of Jamestown. Indeed, even today the telephone book shows that there are three households named Livingston in Jamestown. And all of them live near the author\u27s estimated route south of downtown Jamestown! At this point the author reached a dead end toward a solution of the blacksmith question, as many Fentress County records were lost during a 1905 courthouse fire. However, a determined seeker armed with local records and local knowledge might be able to uncover more. A visit today In his thousand-mile walk, Muir sought out the wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find. 34 The geographical route Muir took is no longer particularly wild, leafy, or untrodden. Anyone wishing to recreate Muir\u27s journey will need to take side trips away from Muir\u27s geographical route to glimpse his spiritual route through the wild, the leafy, and the least trodden. John Muir\u27s Crossing of the Cumberland 35 suggests more than two dozen sites to visit, from waterfalls to overlooks to springs to virgin forests. It is interesting to note that the thousand- mile route taken by Muir is not the route taken by the present-day John Muir Trail, which runs for 42 miles in the Cumberland Plateau through Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area and adjoining Pickett State Forest. Nor is it the route taken by the John Muir National Recreation Trail, which runs for 21 miles along the north bank of Hiwassee River within Cherokee National Forest in eastern Tennessee. These two trails were named to acknowledge Muir as an early naturalist walker in the area, not to recreate his precise route. Acknowledgement The author is grateful for the help of Willie R. Beaty, President of the Fentress County Historical Society in Jamestown, Tennessee, who suggested some profitable avenues of investigation. Also to Wil Reding of Kalamazoo, Michigan who with his wife Sarah Reding retraced the thousand-mile walk route on 5 May to 25 June 2006, suggested improvements to a late draft of this article. ENDNOTES 1. Digitized images of Muir\u27s notebooks are available through http://librarv.pacific.edu/ha/ digital/muiriournals/muiriournals.asp See journal number 1, images 9 through 13. 2. John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, ed. William Frederic Bade (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916). Reprinted in John Muir, The Wilderness Journeys, ed. with introduction by Graham White (Edinburgh: Canon- gate Classics, 1996) 3. Ibid., (1916), p. 17; (1996), ed. White, p. 9. 4. Ibid., (1916), p. 22; (1996), ed. White, p. 11. 5. Ibid., (1916), p. 29; (1996), ed. White, p. 14. 6. Bonnie Johanna Gisel, ed., Kindred and Related Spirits: The Letters of John Muir and Jeanne C. Carr, (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2001), pp. 57-59. 7. Muir, op. cit., (1916), p. 15; (1996), ed. White p. 8. 8. Ibid., (1916), p. 30; (1996), ed. White, p. 15. Muir\u27s Houghton-Mifflin editor, William Frederick Bade identified the river in brackets as [Emory River]. 9. George Woolworth Colton\u27s 1869 Map of Kentucky and Tennessee (scale 1:1,584,000) is available through http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/ us states/kentuckv/index.html It shows a road running from Montgomery, Tennessee to Kingston, Tennessee, along the west bank of the Emory River. The road shown on this map supposedly crossed Obed\u27s River just before that river joins with Emery\u27s River. Modern names for these rivers are Obed River and Emory River. Modern maps show that this supposed road would have to descend a 400-foot cliff to reach the Obed and then immediately ascend a 400-foot cliff on the other side. Colton\u27s map also shows Clear Creek emptying into the Obed upstream of Daddy\u27s Creek, whereas modern maps show that the reverse is correct. No other map of that era shows this road. 10. A.J. Johnson\u27s 1866 Map of Kentucky and Tennessee (scale 1:1,521,000) is available at the same web site listed in note #9. It shows a road direct from Kingston, Tennessee to Madisonville, Tennessee. 11. http://memorv.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/ gmdhome.html 12. http://www.davidrumsey.com/ 13. http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/ historicalmaps/index.html 14. Charles E. Swann, Military Map of Kentucky and Tennessee, 1863, scale 1:350.000 Available throughhttp:// www.davidrumsey.com/maps2433.html http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3951s.cs0216800 no tonxx^A, •pa/i/tiou.- ta/ttu, -\\kia, tWtXu-, qa, unviaOG^n. Had Muirwalked this same route 143 years after he did, he would have plenty of food options. This Hardee\u27s fast food restaurant on the Knoxville Highway in Wartburg, TN is probably only a few steps off the thousand mile walk to the Gulf. (Used with permission from the Fisherman\u27s Quartet website http:// thefishermansquartet.com November 18,2010
Page 8 Schrankia, (sensitive briar) One of the plants mentioned by Muir kansasnativeplantsociety.org 15. N. Michler, Map of Middle and East Tennessee, 1862, scale 1:235,000. Available through http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/ g3962t.cws00162 16. W.L Nicholson and A. Lindenkohl, Mountain Region of North Carolina and Tennessee, 1863, scale 1:633,600. Available through http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3900.cw0053000 17. Julius Bien & Co., General Topographical Map, sheet XV, United States War Department, 1895. Scale 1:633,600. Available through http://www.davidrumsev.com/detail?id=l-l- 26982-1100281 18. These U.S. Geological Survey 30 minute quadrangles (scale 1:125,000) are relevant: Wartburg, Tennessee, Edition of Mar. 1896. Topography by A.E. Murlin. Surveyed in 1893. Briceville, Tennessee, Edition of July 1896. Topography by J.F. Knight and E.C. Barnard. Surveyed in 1888-91. Loudon, Tennessee, Edition of Oct. 1895. Topography by F.M. Pearson 1884-5. Topography by C.E. Cooke 1891. Kingston, Tennessee, Edition of Mar. 1891. Topography by F.M. Pearson. Surveyed in 1884-5. Available through http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/ us_states/tennessee/topos/30mintopos.html 19. John Muir\u27s Crossing of the Cumberland. Available through http://maps.google.com/ Search User-created maps for John Muir Cumberland. 20. Muir, op. cit, (1916), p. 15; (1996), ed. White, p. 7. 21. Ibid., (1916), 22. Ibid., (1916) 23. Ibid., (1916). 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid., p. 15. 26. Ibid., 27. Ibid.. (1916), (1916), p. 16; (1996), ed. White, p. 7. p. 16; (1996), ed. White, p. 8. p. 16; (1996), ed. White, p. 8. p. 26; (1996), ed. White, p.13. pp. 29-30; (1996), ed. White, (1916), p. 31; (1996), ed. White, p.16. (1916), p. 32; (1996), ed. White, p.16. 28. About 25 miles in Kentucky and 10 miles in Tennessee, to the base of the plateau at Pall Mall. 29. Muir, op. cit, (1916), p. 30; (1996), ed. White, p. 15. 30. Although most of A Thousand-Mile Walk to The Gulf is a journal, wr
Tenecteplase versus alteplase for acute stroke within 4·5 h of onset (ATTEST-2): a randomised, parallel group, open-label trial
Background: tenecteplase has potential benefits over alteplase, the standard agent for intravenous thrombolysis in acute ischaemic stroke, because it is administered as a single bolus and might have superior efficacy. The ATTEST-2 trial investigated whether tenecteplase was non-inferior or superior to alteplase within 4·5 h of onset. Methods: we undertook a prospective, randomised, parallel-group, open-label trial with masked endpoint evaluation in 39 UK stroke centres. Previously independent adults with acute ischaemic stroke, eligible for intravenous thrombolysis less than 4·5 h from last known well, were randomly assigned 1:1 to receive intravenous alteplase 0·9 mg/kg or tenecteplase 0·25 mg/kg, by use of a telephone-based interactive voice response system. The primary endpoint was the distribution of the day 90 modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score and was analysed using ordinal logistic regression in the modified intention-to-treat population. We tested the primary outcome for non-inferiority (odds ratio for tenecteplase vs alteplase non-inferiority limit of 0·75), and for superiority if non-inferiority was confirmed. Safety outcomes were mortality, symptomatic intracranial haemorrhage, radiological intracranial haemorrhage, and major extracranial bleeding. The trial was prospectively registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02814409). Findings: between Jan 25, 2017, and May 30, 2023, 1858 patients were randomly assigned to a treatment group, of whom 1777 received thrombolytic treatment and were included in the modified intention-to-treat population (n=885 allocated tenecteplase and n=892 allocated alteplase). The mean age of participants was 70·4 (SD 12·9) years and median National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale was 7 (IQR 5–13) at baseline. Tenecteplase was non-inferior to alteplase for mRS score distribution at 90 days, but was not superior (odds ratio 1·07; 95% CI 0·90–1·27; p value for non-inferiority<0·0001; p=0·43 for superiority). 68 (8%) patients in the tenecteplase group compared with 75 (8%) patients in the alteplase group died, symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage (defined by SITS-MOST criteria) occurred in 20 (2%) versus 15 (2%) patients, parenchymal haematoma type 2 occurred in 37 (4%) versus 26 (3%) patients, post-treatment intracranial bleed occurred in 94 (11%) versus 78 (9%) patients, significant extracranial haemorrhage occurred in 13 (1%) versus six (1%) patients, respectively, and angioedema occurred in six (1%) participants in both groups. Interpretation: tenecteplase 0·25 mg/kg was non-inferior to 0·9 mg/kg alteplase within 4·5 h of symptom onset in acute ischaemic stroke. Easier administration of tenecteplase, especially in the context of interhospital transfers, indicates that tenecteplase should be preferred to alteplase for thrombolysis in acute ischaemic stroke. The ATTEST-2 population was large and representative of thrombolysis-eligible patients in the UK and, together with findings from other trials, provides robust evidence supporting the introduction of tenecteplase in preference to alteplase. Funding: the Stroke Association and British Heart Foundation.</p
- …
