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

    

*****************

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."

*

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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Travel Tuesday: John Kinsey Smedley's Yosemite Journey 1874

John Kinsey Smedley (1839-1905)

In the Smedley Family at War, I featured  the story of John Kinsey Smedley's  service in the Union Navy in the American Civil War.   A second post looked at the lives of his Four Brothers - Isaac, Abiah, Jeffrey and Charles, sons of Jeffrey Smedley of Pennsylvania - a fifth generation family of Quaker English  descent.    

Here I look at John's life after he resigned as a naval engineer in 1866.


HEADING WEST
Unlike his brothers, John's life was to move far beyond Pennsylvania to Utah and California.

Golden Spike Ceremony 

According to a story  passed down through the family,   he 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.

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.   

 

Here is an entry  from late May, 1874: 

“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 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. 

In California John worked as en engineer for rail, mill and mine companies from Monterey to Silver  Mountain in Alpine County.  In the same journal as he recorded his Yosemite journey he jotted down notes abut turntables being in good shape or needing repairs, and work needing to be done to mill and mine machinery. 

MARRIAGE

At the age of 38 in 1878, 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.   Ella’s mother died when she was a young girl and she was raised with her father’s sister’s family back east,  while he went out west to Sacramento, California to open an apothecary shop and tend, as a doctor, to injured gold minors.  

While in California he remarried and he and his second wife had a daughter  Eliza. On the death of her father and step mother, Ella traveled to California by ship around the “horn” of South America – with a piano, no less - to  look after her younger half sister.

Ella (right) with her sister Eliza

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

In the 1889 census,  he was still in San Francisco, described as an Engineer with Ella 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" (right)   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.

    

 John Kinsey Smedley Memorial

With special thanks to John's great granddaughter Gail

for her contributions to this post. 

Travel Tuesday is one of many daily blog prompts from Genabloggers encouraging writers to record aspects of family history. 

 

Sibling Saturday - Five Smedley Brothers of Pennsylvania

Civil War combatants, a Yosemite traveller, a news agent and a cigar & tobacco dealer -  all activities of the  Smedley brothers shown  here in this striking collage. 

The brothers along with siblings Lydia, Amy, Abiah T., Catherine Ann, and Anna Mary were fifth generation Americans of English Quaker descent, born to Jeffrey Smedley and Catherine Denny of Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.  

The Ancestry website includes among its American records those of the Pennsylvania Quakers  and the surname  of the extended Smedley family  features prominently.  

The brothers' parents Jeffrey (below)  and Catherine married 18th December 1834.  

The 1850 census showed the Smedley family  of eight children  with only second son John Kinsey not at home on census night.  Jeffrey, aged 39 was described as a Farmer, with his wife, Catherine, eight years older at  47,   What must her life have been like with nine children under the age of 14 and with her three youngest children born when she was in her 40's ? 

Ten years on in the 1860 census, 49 year old Jeffrey was still described as a farmer, as was his eldest son Isaac, with daughter Amy a teacher.  Of his children, only John Kinsey again  was away from home, traced to Philadelphia where he was also farming.

Within a year, Jeffrey senior was dead, as recorded in the "Obituaries of the Members of the Society of Friends in America for the year 1861".  I had hoped for an obituary giving some insight into Jeffrey's life, but unfortunately  only the bare name and date was given in the entry.  

By the time of the 1870 census, his widow Catherine was living a very different life - instead of being surrounded by her family, she was living on her own.  She died in 1877 at Leopard, Pennsylvania, with the Quaker Journal giving a simple entry, with no reference to other family members, and noting she was buried in Williston Friends Ground.  

But what of their sons, with Isaac, John Kinsey and Abiah  serving their country  in the American Civil War, as told in a previous post. 


Elder brother ISAAC was born 1 March 1838 at Chester, Pennsylvania and named after his paternal grandfather. 

The USA Civil War Draft Registration Records   show that 23 year old Isaac enlisted in  the 97th Pennsylvania  Volunteer  Infantry.  He rose to the rank of 2nd  Lieut. but was honorably discharged on a surgeon's certificate at Seabrook Island, South Carolina.  

Unmarried, he sadly died of consumption om 12 February  1867 at the young age of 28, buried in Willistown Friends Cemetery, Chester, Delaware Co.  

 Second son, JOHN KINSEY  was born 10 July 1839 in Williston,

 Pennsylvania.  So far the origin of his distinctive middle name has not been traced.  It was not a name from either his parents or grandparents,  though his uncle was a Kersey Smedley.  

The young John was not with his family on census night in 1850 and ten years on aged 21, he was  a farmer in Philadelphia.

In September 1862 at the age of 23, John  enlisted in the Union Navy as a naval engineer. He  participated in blockade duties and attacks on the Confederate forts in Charleston Harbor including  Fort Sumter,  and served aboard vessels Nantucket, Wabash, Mohican and Tullahoma.

Unlike his brothers, John's life was to move far beyond Pennsylvania to Utah and California, working as an engineer, inventor and traveller.  In 1874, he  wrote an account of his journey into the Yosemite Valley in a journal still in the family safe keeping. John died in California in 1905.

John's eventful life will feature in the next posting on the Smedley family.

Brother JEFFREY, named after his father, was born in 25th May 1845 and was in the family  home in the 1850 and 1860 censuses. By the 1880 census, Jeffrey was married, his wife Sallie, with a 6 year old daughter Florence. His occupation was given as News Agent, The 1900 census again llisted his wife Sarah and  daughter Florence,but Jeffrey this time  described as a Cigar and Tobacco Dealer - an occupation which somehow fits in with his suave appearance in  this photograph. 

Records show that he died  on 12th March 1917 at Bala, Montgomery, Pennsylvania.  The  US Find a Grave Index  noted his burial at Arlington Cemetery on Drexel Hill, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. 


                                     

 

Youngest brother CHARLES D.  was born 6th January 1847 - the youngest of Jeffrey and Catherine's nine children. 

In 1880 Charles was  living on his own at Eastown, Pennsylvania, described as a Dealer in Dried Goods and Groceries.  A year later, he  married Alta J. Epwright, - at 17 years old, half his age.

The 1900 census showed the  family, living at Newtown, Pennsyslvania  with five daughters (Martha, Anna, Jessie,  Helen and Ella), and  one son Jeffrey.. Like his father, Charles occupation was given as Farmer. By the time of the 1910 census, another daughter had been born - Olive,  and Charles was still farming. 

The 1920 census was much more informative than earlier ones,  and showed that the family was living in rented accommodation at Haddinton Street, Philadephia Ward 34 and  that all the family could read and write.   Charles aged 73 had had a change of occupation to that of a Watchman in the River Fuel Industry.  Three daughters were still living at home - 27 year old Helen was a nurse, 20 year old Ella a typist in a printing office, with no occupation indicated for 18 year old Olive. 

Charles died two years later in 1922, with his wife Alta living a further 32 years, dying in 1956 at the grand age of 93 -  both buried in Willistown Meeting House Cemetery, Delaware Co., Pennsylvania.  Charles death marked the demise of the four Smedley brothers - Isaac, John Kinsey, Jeffrey and Charles.   However there was a fifth brother  ABIAH, born in 1840, the fifth child of Jeffrey (Senior) and Catherine - his name is of Hebrew origin meaning " God is my Father".  An entry in the US Find a Grave Index brought to light that Abiah served in the  Civil War.  His record   showed that he enlisted in Company B, Pennsylvania 6th Cavalry Regiment on 30 Aug 1861 a few months after the outbreak fo war.    In 1865 was promoted to First Lieutenant.   Abiah sadly died in 1867, aged 27,  leaving a young widow Mary and a daughter Mary Emma  born two months after his death.  Abiah was buried in Willistown Friends Cemetery, where his eldest brother Isaac, had been laid to rest just three months earlier.     ************  SOURCES Family notes and photographs, with special thanks to Gail - John Kinsey Smedley's great granddaughter. On www.ancestry.co.uk:   US Civil War Draft Registration Records 1863-1865 US Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles 1861-1865  Officers of the Continental & US Navy & Marine Corps 1795-1900.  US Navy Pension Records US Veterans Grave-sites US Federal Census Returns 1850-1920 US Quaker Meeting Records  Obituaries of the Members of the Society of Friends in America,  1861. Quaker Journal, 1877 California Death Index  US City Directories   Biographical and Portrait Encyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania  Sibling Saturday is one of many daily blog prompts from Geneabloggers,  that encourages writers to record aspects of their family history.