A Yosemite Journey in 1874: 52 Ancestors- Wk 18

"A Road Trip"  is the theme of this week's "52 Ancestor" Challenge  and I am featuring the story of my American friend's  great grandfather who in 1874 journeyed into the Yosemite Valley by horse and carriage. 

   

John KInsey Smedley was born 10th July 1839, fourth child of Jeffrey Smedley and Catherine Denny with siblings, Lydia, Amy, Isaac, Abiah, Catherine, Anna, Jeffrey and Charles. He was a fifth generation American of English Quaker heritage.

 John  served in the Union Navy during the American Civil War,  resigning his position in 1866  and the family  still holds,  among the family treasures, his naval sword, sheath, and belt, shown in this photograph below. 
 

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Heading West 
Unlike his brothers, John's life was to move far beyond Pennsylvania to Utah and California, working as an engineer, inventor and traveller.

According to a story  passed down through the family,   John  was present  in 10 May 1869 at the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah to mark the joining   of two sets of rail tracks on the  completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.  This meant that travel time between America's east and west coasts was immediately reduced from months by wagon  to less than a week. 

Golden Spike Ceremony 

In the US Census for 1870 John  was working as an steam engineer at Corinne, Box Elder County, Utah.  In 1872 the California Voters Register showed John to be in Sacramento where he was staying at the Pacific Hotel. 


1874 - A Yosemite Journey 
In 1874 John wrote an account of his trip by coach and four to Yosemite Valley - in a journal which has been transcribed by his great granddaughter, Gail.   

 

20th May 1874

The party of six set off  with " a very fine large span of bay courses and a nice easy riding carriage." 

A later entry read: 

“Crossed the Tuolumne (River) at 9pm.   Arrived at the foot of Rattlesnake Hill at 10pm. Then it was our turn to walk. 

Just think of a hill two miles long and rising 1700 feet.  We all got out to walk but for Sutton who was the smallest of the party.  Up, up, up we went and I thought we had walked five miles when Chase  said "This is halfway."  Oh goodness.  Only a mile, and up, up another.  Then we began to change riding as some had done the first quarter mile.  Around and around, thinking every turn would be the last. Coats and hats off, and 11pm.  By this time, we had all climbed in the carriage.

Finally, we heard the bark of a dog, knowing a house was near.  In a few minutes we reached Priest's, the best place and table in the whole land, and a pretty girl to attend to the table.  They were all snug in bed, but when we called they got up, and in 20 minutes, had a steaming hot dinner of fricasseed chicken, fried ham, beefsteak, good coffee and tea and milk, pie and cake and strawberries.  Such a luscious supper!  May Priest's shadow never grow less!

We enjoyed our supper and did not tarry long before retiring where we had good beds and slept sounder than ever.  In the morning, Saturday the 23rd, the sun was shining beautifully and when I got up and went down, I saw we were really above the clouds and to look down that awful long hill I could only laugh and think we would have the best of Old Hill when we returned.  Sure did!”

 

This is a section of Old Priest Grade – or Rattlesnake Hill as John Kinsey Smedley knew it, so named for Rattlesnake Creek flowing down the centre of Grizzly Gulch in Tuolumne County, CA.  It’s a shorter, narrower, steeper (15-17% grade) route up one side of the gulch.  It rises 1700 ft. in elevation in 2 miles.  The main highway on the opposite side of the gulch known as New Priest Grade (built in 1915) takes over 6 miles to climb the same rise in elevation with countless switchbacks. 

John wrote:

"Oh, so high magnificent views - Yosemite, Nevada, El Capitan, and Royal Arch.   I wrote my name on a pine tree on Union Point.....the sound of Yosemite Falls booming like discharges of artillary was grand.  We could overlook the falls across the valley  and see great volumes of water rushing over and falling below."

John  concluded his account by saying "The best trip I ever made, meeting the most sociable of people of every state  and connected with the most magnificent scenery  in the world. " 

In the same journal as he recorded his Yosemite journey, John  jotted down notes from his work as an engineer for rail, mill and mine companies, as he reported on turntables being in good shape or needing repairs, and work needing to be done to mill and mine machinery.  


Marriage

In 1878 at the age of 38, John Kinsey Smedley  married in San Francisco Ella Chase Taylor ten years his junior, with their only child Harriet (Hattie) Bell born a year later.  A charming photograph of Ella (right) with her half-sister Eliza

The voters' registers and census returns  continued to track John's moves across the state from San Francisco  to Alameda. 

In 1889, he was still in San Francisco, described as an Engineer with Ella's  occupation given as "Keeping Home".  

John later found steady employment with the US Post Office but his love of engineering did not fade and in 1898 he invented a "New Streetcar Fender" (below)   to be attached to the front of trolley cars - though there is no evidence that it was actually adopted in practice.  

Ten years on, in 1900, the family was in Oakland, Almeda with John described as:   aged 61,  a Stationary Engineer.  Besides Ella and Hattie was a "roomer" - 45 year old Elizabeth Soundry, a German widow.

John died 22nd July 1905 at Alameda buried at San Francisco Cemetery with his gravestone paying tribute to his Civil War Service. 

Find A Grave

    

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Around 1910,  Frank Herbert Bradley (John's son-in-law) journeyed to Yosemite by horse and carriage and climbed  the Overhanging Rock.    Gail writes:

"My grandfather is one of these daring fellows sitting out on Overhanging Rock at Glacier Point 3000 ft. above the Valley floor.   I’m fairly certain Frank Herbert Bradley is the second fellow in the larger hat.  Today the rock is off limits."

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Generations of the Smedley family continue to visit Yosemite National Park to experience their ancestors' journeys there.   In recognition of John Kinsey Smedley's journey, Gail was invited to contribute to a Time Capsule being buried in the Park on the occasion of its 100th anniversary - to be opened 100 years hence in 2091. 

With special thanks to John's Kinsey Smedley's great granddaughter Gail

for sharing his story with me. 

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Notes

Yosemite National Park is best known for its waterfalls, but within its nearly 1,200 square miles, you can find deep valleys, granite cliffs, grand meadows, glaciers, ancient giant sequoias, a vast wilderness area - a world of biodiversity. 

The first trails into the area were made in 1857 and the valley was first given protected status in 1864.  Three stagecoach routes  were built in the 1870s to provide better access for the growing number of visitors to the Yosemite valley, that included in that decade John Kinsey Smedley.

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