USA > California > A history of the new California, its resources and people; Vol I > Part 32
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Commissioners for the management of the Yosemite Valley have been in charge since the appointment of the first board by Governor Low in 1864 to the present time, a period of forty years. The gentlemen appointed from time to time to this important office have been selected from among our best citizens, men of culture, refinement and education, eminently quali- fied to adorn this important position, who are lovers of nature and deeply in- terested in the development of the state. These gentlemen have put forth their best efforts in all these years, with the limited appropriation made by the legislature, to improve the conditions in the valley, building roads and trails of approach, clearing the underbrush, erecting habitations for the en- tertainment of tourists and advertising the natural wonders of the valley. Every report made by these commissioners since the beginning recites to what degree and extent they are hampered by the lack of sufficient funds to carry on much needed improvements and provide for the steadily increas- ing influx of tourist travel. Some legislatures have been very niggardly, others more generous, but the generosity always inadequate to fulfill the de- mands. The total appropriations for the care and management of the Yo- semite Valley since the cession to the state has been $495,442.83, including traveling expenses of the commissioners, salary of guardian and $60,000.00 appropriated to pay claims of the so-called squatters within its precincts. $40,000.00 of these moneys was applied to the necessary adjunct of a hotel, but the amount was insufficient to erect one of adequate size and accommo- dation, or furnish it with modern appliances to meet the requirements of a discriminating public. $25,000.00 was used for the installation of an elec- tric lighting plant.
Photo by Taber
WORLD'S FAIR TREE, MAMMOTH FOREST, CAL.
MEASURES 99 FEET IN CIRCUMFERENCE AND 312 FEET IN HEIGHT. SUPPOSED TO BE NEARLY 3000 YEARS OLD.
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A visit to Yosemite without staying over at Wawona and the Big Trees is like going to Rome without seeing the Vatican.
Muir has fitly described the Big Trees as the kings of the world's conifers : the noblest of a noble race. The elevation of the Big Tree belt is from 5,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea. From the American River Grove to the forest on King's river, the trees are found only in small, isolated groups, in some cases as far as 40 miles apart. D. J. Foley's Guide quotes from John Muir as follows:
"But from King's river southward, the Sequoia is not restricted to mere groves, but extends across the basins of the Kaweah and Tule rivers in noble forests, broken only by deep canyons. Advancing southward, the giants become more and more irrepressibly exuberant, heaving their massive crowns into the sky from every ridge and slope. But though the area occu- pied by the species increases from north to south, there is no marked in- crease in the size of the trees. A height of 275 feet and a diameter near the ground of about 29 feet, is about the average size of a full-grown tree favorably situated. Specimens 25 feet in diameter are not rare, and a few are nearly 300 feet high. In the Calaveras Grove there are 4 trees over 300 feet in height, the tallest of which, by careful measurement, is 325 feet. The largest I have yet met in my wanderings is a majestic old monument in the Kings river forest. It is 35 feet 8 inches in diameter inside the bark 4 feet from the ground.
"Under the most favorable conditions, these giants probably live 5,000 years or more, though few of even the largest trees are more than half as old. I never saw a Big Tree that had died a natural death; barring acci- dents, they seem to be immortal, being exempt from all the diseases that afflict and kill other trees. Unless destroyed by man, they live on indefinitely until burned, smashed by lightning, cast down by storms, or by the giving way of the ground upon which they stand. The age of one that was felled in the Calaveras Grove, for the sake of having its stump for a dancing floor, was about 1,300 years, and its diameter, measured across the stump, 24 feet inside the bark. Another that was felled in the King's river forest, a section of which was shipped to the World's Fair at Chicago, was nearly 1,000 years older (2,200 years), though not a very old-looking tree. The colossal scarred monument in the King's river forest, mentioned above. is
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burned half through, and I spent a day in making an estimate of its age, clearing away the charred surface with an ax, and carefully counting the annual rings with the aid of a pocket lens. The wood rings in the section I laid bare were so involved and contorted in some places that I was not able to determine its age exactly, but I counted over 4,000 rings, which showed that this tree was in its prime, swaying in the Sierran winds, when Christ walked the earth."
Wawona, the beautiful mountain retreat that enchants travelers, is the ideal viewpoint and starting point for sightseers. Foley's delightful Guide says :
"Within a radius of 10 miles about Wawona are to be found more interesting, varied, and inspiring scenic attractions than in any similar com- pass the world over. Eight miles to the southeast is the great Mariposa Big Tree Grove, in which are many of the largest trees in the world. This is the state's grove, and is managed by the Yosemite commissioners. Noth- ing more delightful and inspiring can be imagined than a picnic jaunt to these wonders. Eight miles westward Signal Peak looms up like a grim sentinel, guarding this peaceful nook. Five miles off to the northeast are the Chilnualna Falls, that would be famous wonders any other place than in this land of big things, while off in the same direction is beautiful Crescent Lake, only 12 miles away, and alive with trout. There is also good fishing in the South Fork of the Merced, which flows within a stone's throw of the hotel.
"A good road and trail enable the visitors to reach the Chilnualna Falls, so that they can enjoy their 300 feet of descent and the sparkling, roaring, foaming cascades below. Rev. John Hannon says that 'Capitol Dome, a towering mass of granite, takes the Chilnualna in its hands, and with its rocky fingers is giving out from its cascades a music of magnificence and beauty nowhere else to be found.'
"Wawona is the Indian name for big tree, and it takes its name from the Mariposa Grove near by. In early days it was known as Clark's, or the Big Tree Station. At one time it was owned by Mr. Galen Clark, formerly guardian of the Yosemite, whose home is now there. Wawona is about 26 miles from the Yosemite and 40 from Raymond, the nearest railroad point, the present terminus of the Yosemite branch of the Southern Pacific.
Photo by Taber.
BALD ROCK, FROM MERCED RIVER, WAWONA. A. D. 1890.
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It is 4,000 feet above sea-level. Here are the headquarters of the Yosemite Stage and. Turnpike Co., the largest and most complete now on this coast. To give the visitor some idea of what it costs to operate this stage line, we will mention just one item of expense, and that is, that it takes about 500 horses to stock this road for the season of travel. To get the roads in good condition usually means an outlay of from $3,000 to $5,000. During a year when much snow has fallen, it has frequently to be shoveled out of the entire road between here and the Yosemite. Big drifts of it are sometimes blown out by blasts of black gunpowder.
"The Washburn Bros. not only know how to please their patrons, but they also do it. No wonder, then, that Wawona is yearly becoming more popular. An electric road from Raymond is all that is now necessary to make this one of the greatest resorts of the world. Such a road will. no doubt be built at an early date.
"Signal Peak is one of the many interesting points of view in and around Wawona. It has an altitude of 7,500 feet above the sea. There is a good wagon road completed to within a few rods of its summit. Signal Peak stands out alone, above all its surroundings. Seemingly it was put there to guard the beautiful glen below, and so near by, Wawona. From its summit, the view is almost as complete as in mid-ocean. The radius of this great circle is about 200 miles, so that over 1,200 square miles are to be seen from here, and there is not an uninteresting square mile in this vast area. There is no other point on this western coast where one can see so much territory at once as from here. 'The rugged, snow-clad peaks of the High Sierras, the towering walls of the Yosemite, the heavily-timbered slopes of the nearer mountains, the vast valley of the San Joaquin, and the far-off summits of the Coast Range melting away in the distance, all combine to form an entrancing panorama, which will never be effaced from the memory of any true lover of nature who has once gazed upon it.' So wrote a visitor in the hotel register at Wawona some years ago. He put it in the same class as the Yosemite and the Big Trees-more can not be said."
Standing within the shadow of the Big Trees one feels a sense of the world's age such as no other scene inspires. To behold giants that were old almost before historic epochs, to hold converse with such heritages of the past takes one nearer to the origin of the world than he can get by any other earthly experience.
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CLAUS SPRECKELS.
Claus Spreckels, of San Francisco, is a man of national and world-wide reputation, and his operations in industry and commerce place him among the noted Americans of this and the past century who by force of sheer industry, shrewd business ability and foresight and unexampled executive powers have assumed directing command of the commerce and industrial production of the world and wield a power and influence beside which the regal potentates and vain-glorious military chiefs of the past were mere shadow puppets in the play of history.
The life of Claus Spreckels is one of the interesting and absorbing personal histories of which America is so proud. He was born in Lam- stedt, Hanover. Germany, July 9, 1828. At the age of twenty, in 1848, he came to Charleston, South Carolina, where he was employed in the humble capacity of grocery clerk, at small pay. Right here his genius for executive management and commercial control soon became apparent, for after a year and a half he bought out his employer with a promise to pay, and in one year was able to meet all his debts and have the store for his own. In 1855 he sought a larger field in New York city, where he estab- lished a wholesale and retail grocery. He soon afterward purchased a grocery business in San Francisco from his brother, and in June, 1856, he started for California. In 1857 he established the Albany Brewery in San Francisco, and after conducting both enterprises for a time, sold the store. His next concern was the establishment of the Bay Sugar Refining Com- pany, but two years later he sold this and went to Europe to study more thoroughly the production and refining of beet sugar. While in Europe he entered a beet sugar factory as a workman, and thus became familiar with all the details of the industry. He discovered that beet sugar could not at that time be manufactured in the United States with profit, and he accord- ingly returned to California and started the California Sugar Refining Com- pany, which has grown to such proportions that it is now a landmark of San Francisco.
Mr. Spreckels, in the course of some visits to the Sandwich Islands, was impressed with the possibilities of sugar-cane culture and leasing twen- ty thousand acres of land for his purpose from the government, he devel- oped it and made cane-growing one of the foremost industries of those ocean realms. This enterprise not only profited himself, but was of untold benefit to the islanders, in recognition of which King Kalakaua made him a knight commander of the Order of the Kalakaua.
Mr. Spreckels was one of the organizers of the Independent Electric Light and Power Company and of the Independent Gas Company in San Francisco, being the first president. With the immense fortune acquired through his varied enterprises he has been one of the most liberal men of California, and many public and charitable institutions have reason to be grateful that such a liberal and broad-minded captain of industry exists,
John Denrocket
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not only as one of the pillars upholding the financial and industrial world of to-day, but as one who dispenses wisely the profits which his life of dili- gence and high ability have accumulated.
JOHN D. SPRECKELS.
John D. Spreckels, son of Claus and Anna D. Spreckels, has for a number of years co-operated with his famous father in the various enter- prises with which the Spreckels name is identified, and his individual inter- ests, especially those concerned with the Pacific steamship traffic, show that he has inherited all the financial and organizing ability of his father and is fully capable of assuming the responsibilities and carrying out the business policies which the senior Spreckels inaugurated.
Mr. J. D. Spreckels was born in Charleston, South Carolina, August 16, 1853. He was educated in Oakland College, California, and in the Polytechnic Institute of Hanover, Germany. On leaving school he at once entered business with his father, but in addition to the business interests which have been noted in the above sketch of his father, he has developed enterprises of his own. In 1880 he organized the J. D. Spreckels and Brothers, a company with two millions dollars capital, whose purpose was to establish a trade line between the United States and the Hawaiian Islands. They began with one sailing vessel, the Rosario; now they control two large fleets of sail and steam ships. This firm also engaged extensively in sugar refining, and became agents for leading houses. Much of the credit for the development of the trade and the promotion of the commercial inter- ests between the United States and Hawaii is due to this firm.
In 1881 Mr. Spreckels founded the Oceanic Steamship Company, which at first chartered vessels, but now owns and operates a first-class line of mail and passenger steamers between San Francisco and Hawaii. In 1885 this company's operations were extended by the Pacific Mail Company's going out of the Australian trade, and now this company is the only one flying the American flag on a regular line between San Francisco, Honolulu and Australia, and New Zealand. Mr. Spreckels has been president of the company from the first, and in this connection has done much for the com- mercial interests of San Francisco.
In 1887 the Spreckels Brothers Commercial Company established in San Diego the largest coal depots, warehouses and wharves anywhere along the coast, the coal capacity being fifteen thousand tons. Mr. Spreckels holds much of the stock in the Coronado Beach and Hotel Company, which has one of the finest properties of the kind in the world. He is the owner of the street railway and ferry system of San Diego, and is connected with many other enterprises. He is president and active manager of the Olympic Salt Water Company, which has placed a system of water mains under the city, conveying salt water from the pumping station on the beach to the Lurline Baths in the heart of the city; in the building numerous small baths are maintained and an immense swimming tank is kept filled with salt water.
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He is president of the Beaver Hill Coal Company, supplying coal to San Francisco from the mines in Oregon; was one of the founders and builders and now a director of the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad, which is one of the most important enterprises undertaken for the local development of California; is manager of the extensive real estate holdings of the Spreckels family in San Francisco, comprising some of the finest office and business buildings in the United States ; is owner and pub- lisher of the San Francisco Call, one of the most successful and profitable newspaper properties in the west; is president of the Western Sugar Refin- ing Company; president of the Western Beet Sugar Company ; president of the Pajaro Valley Railroad Company and the Coronado Beach Company ; is also interested in the Hutchinson Sugar Plantations Company and the. Hakalan Plantation Company of Hawaii; and many other concerns.
Mr. Spreckels is an earnest Republican, and for a number of years has been one of the most influential in the councils of the party in this state. He has been chairman of the state central committee, and in 1896 was dele- gate at large to the national convention and California member to the nation- al committee. He has often been mentioned for the office of governor or United States senator, but has never sought such distinction, and his desires all tend toward private life and the caring for his business interests.
Mr. Spreckels married, in 1877, Miss Lillie Sieben, of Hoboken, New Jersey. They have four children: Grace, Lillie, John D., Jr., and Claus.
WILLIAM FLETCHER MCNUTT, M. D.
Dr. William Fletcher McNutt, physician and surgeon of San Francisco and the author of valuable works and essays upon medical and surgical subjects, is accorded a position of distinction as a member of the medical fraternity of California, not only by the general public but also by his professional brethren. Strong purpose and laudable ambition underlie every successful career and they have been the foundation upon which Dr. Mc- Nutt has builded his fame and prosperity.
A native of Nova Scotia, William Fletcher McNutt was born on the 29th of March, 1839, a son of William and Mary (Johnson) McNutt. At a very early epoch in the colonization of the new world the McNutt family was established in America, and in 1743 the great-grandfather of Dr. Mc- Nutt removed from his home in Virginia and settled in Nova Scotia upon land granted by George II of England, obtained through his brother, Colonel Alexander McNutt, of the British army. Successive generations of the family have resided in Nova Scotia down to the present time.
Dr. McNutt pursued his primary education in the public schools of his native country and supplemented his early school privileges by a course of study in the Presbyterian Seminary of the Lower province, now the Uni- versity of Dalhousie. With a broad literary knowledge to serve as an ex- cellent foundation for professional learning he took up the study of medicine in 1859, under the direction of Dr. Samuel Muir. of Truro, Nova Scotia, and later he attended lectures at the medical school of Harvard University,
THE
PUBL
CALL BUILDING, SAN FRANCISCO. CAL.
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during the spring, summer and winter terms of 1861-2. He then matricu- lated in the medical department of the University of Vermont, where he re- mained through the regular school year, and was there graduated with the class of 1862. He did not regard his professional education as completed, however, and entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, where he remained through the scholastic year of 1862-3. He was also in the Philadelphia Hospital for the annual term of 1863, and then entered the United States navy and was two years in the west: was at the siege of Vicksburg and was with Admiral Porter and General Grant. Then going abroad, he spent the year 1864-5 as a student in Paris. In the spring and summer of 1865 he continued his scientific investigation at Edinburg, and London, and won diplomas from the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Physicians, at Edinburg, in 1865. He profited by the instruction of many of the most renowned medical educators and spe- cialists of the old world, and thus splendidly equipped for his chosen calling entered upon his professional duties upon his return to America.
Dr. McNutt served as a surgeon in the United States navy in 1863 and 1864. He afterward passed an examination for the British army when in London, in August, 1865. He engaged in the practice of medicine in 1866-7 in Nova Scotia, and came to California in 1868, remaining here contin- uously since. He was not long in demonstrating his ability that had been won through comprehensive study at home and abroad, and a constantly growing practice has rewarded his efforts. He is a valued member of a number of the leading societies of the profession, including the International Medical Congress, the American Medical Association, the Medical Society of the State of California, the San Francisco County Medical Society, and the San Francisco Gynecological Society.
His professional labors outside of the practice of medicine and surgery have been of a varied and important character, he being well known as an educator and author. He has heen professor of the principles and practice of medicine in the medical department of the University of California, oc- cupying the position from 1879 until 1899, and was professor of diseases of the heart and kidneys in the post-graduate department of the same university from 1894 until i898. He was president of the board of trustees of the vet- erinary department of the University of California; was consulting physi- cian and surgeon to St. Mary's Hospital, of San Francisco, and also to the Children's Hospital for several years; while for four years, from 1878 until 1882, he was a director of the state prison.
Dr. McNutt's contributions to medical literature are many and include a text-book on "Diseases of the Kidneys and Bladder." published by Lip- pincott, of Philadelphia, 1893. He is the author of a chapter on appendi- citis, published in the American System of Medicine, A. L. Loomis, M. D., editor, in 1895; a paper on "Cremation, the Only Sanitary Method of Dis- posing of the Dead," published by the California State Sanitary Association, in June, 1894: "Vaginal Hysterectomy for Cancer-Twenty-three Cases," appearing in the Pacific Medical Journal of 1894: "Vaginal Hysterectomy for the Pregnant Cancerous Uterus," in April, 1893. He has also delivered
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a number of public addresses, including one on "Jute Culture," given on Canadian day before the Mid-winter Fair at San Francisco, in 1895; a re- port on the mineral and thermal springs of California, delivered before the Internal Medical Congress in 1887; a paper on Medical Education, read before the Medical Society of the State of California, in April, 1902; and many others. His writings, covering many topics and presenting a com- prehensive view of the subjects treated, have won for him distinction and awakened deep thought among the members of the medical fraternity.
In 1871 Dr. McNutt was united in marriage to Miss Mary L. Coon, an only daughter of Hon. H. P. Coon, M. D., of San Francisco. They have two sons and two daughters: Mary Louise, now. the wife of Lieutenant Potter of the United States army; Maxwell, an attorney-at-law of San Francisco; W. F., Jr., who is practicing medicine in connection with his father ; and Ruth, at home.
Aside from his profession and its kindred duties and labors, Dr. Mc- Nutt has been active and influential in community affairs in San Francisco. He was a member of the board of freeholders for making the first charter for the city and county of San Francisco in 1882, and served as police com- missioner in 1899-1900. He was one of the six organizers of the New United Republican League, an association whose object is to do away with all factional parties in Republican politics, and labor solely for the organization and its principles and not for the individual. Socially he is identified with St. Andrew's Society, the British Benevolent Society, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Masonic order, in which he has attained the Knight Templar degree. Honored and respected in every class of society, he has been an influential factor in fraternal, political and profes- sional circles, and his labors have ever been actuated by fidelity to principles and promoted by an earnest desire for progress and improvement.
GEORGE A. KNIGHT.
George A. Knight, of San Francisco, has for a quarter of a century figured prominently in the legal and political affairs of California and his po- litical activity has also gained for him a prominent place in national history.
George A. Knight is descended from Revolutionary ancestors and was born in New England, his birth occurring in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1851. George H. Knight, his father, was a native of Providence, Rhode Island: and his mother, Elizabeth McFarland, of St. Andrews, New Bruns- wick, hier people being early settlers of New Brunswick. In 1853, George H. Knight, who was a prominent merchant in Providence, Rhode Island, dis- posed of his interests there and, accompanied by his family, wife and two sons, Fred S. and George A., came to California, making the journey via the Isthmus of Panama. They located in Eureka, Humboldt county, where Mrs. Knight's two brothers, Alexander and George McFarland, had settled in 1849, and Mr. Knight was jointly interested in mining properties with them for a number of years, until his death in 1858.
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