Herbert Wilson, in his 1922 book
The Lore and the Lure of the Yosemite Indians
offers an additional motive that could have been on Anderson's
mind when he made his first ascent. Wilson does not give a source
for his statement, therefore it is hard to tell how much of the following
is based on facts, and how much is fiction.
The Lore and the Lure of the Yosemite Indians
by Herbert Earl Wilson, San Francisco, 1922, pp. 86-88
...Captain Anderson was at that time a resident of the Valley, and
it had been his desire since his arrival to scale the magnificent peak,
not alone because of the distinction of being the first man to reach the
top, but because it was tacitly understood that to the man
attaining this distinction would be granted a concession for building a
hotel at the eastern base of the dome. In his effort Captain Anderson was
opposed by some two or three others who were actuated by the same
desire. One might almost wish that such a creditable ambition had been
inspired by a less mercenary motive. However, be that as it may, one day
Captain Anderson disappeared from the Valley without having told anyone of
his intended departure or destination. This procedure was in those days
unusual, and after some two or three days had elapsed without him having
put in an appearance, grave fears were felt for his safety and a search
party was organized to look for him. This party, composed of several
residents of the Valley, concluded that the most logical place to look for
Captain Anderson was in the vicinity of Half Dome, and accordingly
proceeded in that direction along the old trail past Happy Isles and
Vernal and Nevada Falls. On the trail near Nevada Falls they met Captain
Anderson returning to the Valley, and in answer to a query as to where he
had been, he said, "Gentlemen, I have been to the top of Half Dome".
...Captain Anderson had conceived this idea after days of the most
painstaking exploration had failed to disclose any other way to the
top. Taking no one into his confidence, he had, alone and unaided,
gathered his materials, transported them over the ten miles of rough trail
to the beginning of his ascent, fashioned the pegs, and slowly, step by
step, had drilled the holes and built himself a ladder, nine hundred feet
long, to the coveted summit...
1875: First tourists on Half Dome
Ascenders: Anderson, [William] Robinson & [James] Robinson, Gammon,
Moreland, West [Wesley Wood], Groom
Within days of Anderson's first ascent,
at least two other parties made it to the top.
Here is a description of what probably was the first
"tourist" party atop the Dome:
San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, October 24, 1875, p. 2
Climbing the Rocks
The Feat Which a Party of English Tourists Accomplished—A Narrow
Escape From a Fearful Death.
The celebrated South Dome of the Yosemite is well known,
and it has hitherto been asserted that to reach its summit
was an impossibility. On September 15
[actually, on October 12th] both visitors and residents
in the valley were thrown into a state of excitement upon it being
made known that a Scotchman named George Anderson, formerly a sailor,
had actually accomplished this wonderful and daring feat. Very few
believed the tale, and those who had already seen the South Dome
utterly denied that the feat was within the limit of possibility.
A party of the English tourists concluded that they would judge for themselves
by visiting the spot. Those who have been there know the kind of riding
necessary to reach the base of its[!] mountain, which rises some
6,000 feet above the level of the valley.
The news spread like wildfire
that the Britishers would attempt the ascent. At 6 A. M. on Saturday,
the 16th of September [actually, Saturday, 16th of October],
a party of eleven adventurers, headed by George Anderson,
started from Black's hotel upon their seven miles ride up the
precipitous height, past the Vernal and Nevada falls, and struck the little
frequented trail to South Dome. On reaching
the heavy masses of fallen granite
known as the "Camel's Back", they dismounted, and after a brief rest,
a few commenced the dangerous climb to the foot of the dome.
The Scotchman arrived first. As the party assembled at the foot
of an almost perpendicular rock, which is according to Prof. Whitney's
calculation, at least 1,300 feet high, they looked with dismay
at the journey before them.
Watkins stereoview #3051, New series, "The first
tourists
who made the ascension of the Half Dome",
no date.
According to Hank Johnston, Anderson is
the man on the left.
George Anderson then explained that as he
climbed he had bored holes in the rock, and inserted iron eye-bolts.
To these eye-bolts he had secured a rope, and those who would venture
to climb, holding the rope with their hands and pressing the rock
with their feet, might do so,
providing their strength held out, in perfect
safety. Two of the Englishmen said it might be good fun walking up walls,
but they "didn't feel like trying". Anderson, however, with a cheer
went ahead.
There was a moment's hesitation, then, with a shout of enthusiasm,
some of the crowd rushed forward to the rope. It was first secured by
two young Englishmen named Robinson, who rapidly commenced the
escalade. They were followed by another rejoicing in the name of
Gammon. Then Mr. Moreland, an American, ascended, followed
closely by West, a guide from the valley. These were allowed to work
their way up, lest the rope should break. Mr. Liedig, of the valley,
then went up, followed by Mr. Groom, another English tourist.
Anderson now looked like a fly crawling in the distance as he rapidly
distanced his followers, shouting words of encouragement as they
cautiously made their way upward.
Sometimes they stopped, holding on convulsively to the rope
and the eyebolt until they could continue up the dizzy height.
Mr. Liedig turned sick, and with difficulty returned, swearing that
for all the dollars in California he could have not gone further.
The spectators now waited nervously for those who had gained
the summit, and were soon relieved from their anxiety by hearing
the report of West's revolver, which was to be the signal of their safety.
They now commenced to clamber painfully down the "Camel's Back"
to the horses and those who had not cared to make the ascent.
There being no trail, each had to make one for himself. Several
had narrow escapes. Mr. Groom, after an involuntary roll of some
fifteen or twenty feet, suddenly found himself looking over
a precipice between two and three thousand feet deep into the valley
below. He had slidden so far down the rock that without the aid
of ropes, he could not return. To advance was almost certain death
of a most horrible nature. None understood the terrible import of
his cries for help. His sole support was a narrow ledge of granite
to which he held on with the grim tenacity of a man who fights for life.
But his strength could not last, and with a loud cry he rolled headlong
down, down, as he believed, into eternity. But in throwing his arms
forward as he fell they slid into a crevice by which he held on.
Here he was able to take advantage of a slope in the rock, and with
the calves of his legs and his hands he worked himself downward to
a firm footing. He afterward reached the base of the mountain
in safety. We think that one, at least, of these Englishmen will remember
the ascent of the South Dome.
Soon after this incident George Anderson and the adventurers who
had followed him returned safely. Three cheers were given and the party
commenced the descent to the valley. Anderson has performed a feat
which has scarcely a parallel in any country. A subscription has
already been opened for his benefit in the valley in order to enable
him to build a secure staircase for those who will in future
ascend the Dome under his guidance.
This San Francisco Chronicle article was widely reprinted
throughout the U.S. It was,
e.g., copied in the St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat,
November 4, 1875, p. 2,
the Chicago Sunday Times, November 7, 1875, p. 10,
the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, November 17, 1875, p. 5,
the Daily State Gazette, Trenton, New Jersey,
November 25, 1875, p. 1, and
The Farmers' Cabinet, Amherst, New Hampshire,
December 29, 1875, p. 1.
Watkins' stereoview used in this paragraph may or may not be a photo
from October 16, 1875. Some photography experts date this view to 1878
or later. See also
Watkins' stereoview #3050, with the same capture
("The first tourists who made the ascension of the Half Dome") but with
only five people. I thank Dennis Kruska for bringing those
Watkins' photos to my attention.
Note added:
Mark Ashley, of Lemoore, California, has identified the Robinson brothers as
William Rose Robinson and James Shaw Robinson, two eldest children of
Sir William Rose Robinson, a prominent veteran of the India Civil
Service. Mark's interesting note about the
Robinsons will be posted shortly.
A shorter account, based on an article
from the Sonora Union Democrat (probably printed on October 30, 1875),
appeared in the San Francisco Bulletin in November:
San Francisco Bulletin,
November 11, 1875, p. 1
South Dome at Yosemite.—The summit of the South
Half Dome in the Yosemite Valley has at last been attained, a Scotch
sailor named Anderson having climbed the precipice, a distance of 1,300 feet,
by means of spikes and ropes, accomplishing one of the most perilous
feats on record. The ascent was made on the 15th of September
[actually, on the 12th of October], and on the 16th [October]
half a dozen tourists successfully
reached the dizzy hight. They found an area of about 100 acres on
the summit of the Dome and say that a magnificent view can be obtained
from the height. A staircase will be erected, so that all may ascend in
safety, and another feature will thereby be added to the attractions
of the valley. Last season an English tourist attempted to reach the top
of the Dome and failed. He then offered $500 to any one who would
accomplish the feat and arrange it so that he could follow. There is but
one chance left for an adventurous man to eclipse Anderson's feat, and that
is for some one to reach the "Tree in the Niche", a pine which projects
from the side of a cavern or platform, 2,000 feet from the valley, on
the sheer face of El Capitan.—Sonora Union Democrat.
This text was also reprinted in the Friends' Intelligencer,
Philadelphia,
on December 25, 1875, Vol. 32, No. 44, p. 704, and probably in
other U. S. newspapers.
1875: Sarah Dutcher — First female ascent
Ascenders: Anderson, Sarah Dutcher, Galen Clark
Miss Dutcher of San Francisco was the first
female who ascended Half Dome. It doesn't appear that any
newspaper article from 1875/76 reported that feat. However, at least two
indirect but independent accounts make no doubt that the credit
belongs to her. An early (and first?) mention of her achievement
comes from James M. Hutchings. He has the following brief note
in his book printed in 1886:
In the Heart of the Sierras, by James M. Hutchings, Chapter 26
[Anderson's] next efforts were directed towards placing and securely
fastening a good soft rope to the eye-bolts, so that others could climb up
and enjoy the inimitable view, and one that has not its counterpart on earth.
Four English gentlemen, then sojourning in the Valley,
learning of Mr. Anderson's
feat, were induced to follow his intrepid example. A day or two afterwards,
Miss S. L. Dutcher, of San Francisco, with the courage of a heroine,
accomplished it; and was the first lady that ever stood upon it...
In 1912, Julius Charles Birge published his traveling memoirs under the
title The Awakening of the Desert. He talks about his several trips
to the Sierra, and his friendship with Galen Clark and John Muir.
Unfortunately, he doesn't give a date of his visit described below.
This might have been in October or November of 1875, or more likely
in the spring of 1876. Note that he describes Anderson as a ship-carpenter,
not a sailor.
The Awakening of the Desert, by Julius C. Birge,
The Gorham Press, Boston, 1912, Chapter 29, pp. 406-407
...It was still later when I first visited Muir's haunts
in the Yosemite [in 1876?]; George Anderson, a Scotch ship-carpenter
had spent the summer in drilling holes into the granite face
of the upper cliff of the great South Dome, driving in it iron
pins with ropes attached. Two or three persons were tempted to
scale with the aid of these ropes the heights, which are
nearly a perpendicular mile above the valley. I, too, was
inclined to make the venture. I proceeded in advance,
followed by Anderson, who had in tow a young San Franciscan
with a connecting rope around the young man's waist. It was a
dizzy but inspiring ascent of my pursuers.
While spending an hour upon the summit, I discovered on
its barren surface, a lady's bracelet. On showing it to Anderson,
he said: "You are the third party who has made this ascent.
I pulled up a young woman recently but she never mentioned
any loss except from nausea[!]". Returning to Merced, I observed
a vigorous young woman wearing a bracelet similar to the
one I had found. The lady proved to be Miss Sally Dutcher of
San Francisco, who admitted the loss and thankfully accepted
the missing ornament. A letter to me from Galen Clark states that
he assisted in Miss Dutcher's ascent, Anderson preceding
with a rope around his waist connecting with Miss Dutcher;
also that she was certainly the first and possibly the last woman
who made the ascent. These ascents are now forbidden, but the
natural attractions of the State of California have drawn to it
a vast revenue from transient nature lovers...
Who was Miss Dutcher?
Very little is known of Miss Dutcher's
life and career. This article adds a few unknown details,
but most information about her life outside a small
window between 1874 and 1880 seems to be lost forever.
Her given name was Sarah, but she preferred Sallie.
She probably was a daughter of Moses A. Dutcher and Sarah Burchall
(or Burchill), and born or baptized in Tasmania, on September 14, 1844.
Moses Dutcher was banished to Australia in 1839 by a British court,
for his participation in an uprising of Canadians
against British rule of Lower Canada, known as the Patriots' War.
Many U.S. citizens participated in this rebellion, and
court documents from the time of his capture, identify
Moses as being from Brownville, New York. However, it is not excluded
that he was a recent immigrant to the area.

Sarah L. Dutcher
In the 1880 Census, Sarah stated that both of her parents were born in England.
According to
Samuel Snow's narrative, published in Cleveland in 1846, when other
rebels were pardoned and returned to their homes "only one, Moses Dutcher,
who married in VDL [Tasmania], seems to have voluntarily stayed in the colony".
A genealogical source shows Moses and Sarah married at All Saints Church
in Swansea, Glamorgan (Tasmania), in 1844. Little Sarah was probably their
first-born. I don't know if there were more children
in Moses and Sarah's family.
How and when has Sarah reached California, remains unknown.
She doesn't appear to be registered in the U.S. Census
of 1870. San Francisco directories show her in the city for the first
time in the edition printed in April of 1874, and her last listing
is in April of 1880. During most of those years she lived
in the Hubbard House (139 Fourth Street, S.F.). While her name in official
documents is usually quoted as Sarah, in the San Francisco directories she
is presented as "Miss Sallie L. Dutcher", or simply, "Miss S. L. Dutcher".
In April 1874 and March 1875,
her occupation is listed as "saleswoman with Carleton E. Watkins".
It appears that her job brought her to
Yosemite in the summer of 1875. Shirley Sargent in her
Pioneers in Petticoats, published in 1966, describes Sarah as
"a San Franciscan who sold Watkins' photographs in the valley". No source for
this statement was given. Her Half Dome ascent took place shortly after her
31st birthday. In April 1876, Sarah's job description in the San Francisco
Directory is "photographic retoucher", but in March 1877 and April 1879,
she is again a "saleswoman with Carleton E. Watkins"
(there was no listing for her in the February 1878 Directory). In
April of 1880 she runs a gallery connected to Watkins, and is listed as
an "agent for Watkins' photographic views, 8 Montgomery [Street], room 1".
Sarah's name is also shown in the Pacific Coast Directory for 1880-81.
Containing Names, Business and Address, published by L. M. McKenney & Co.,
in 1880: "Dutcher Mrs S L, photographic views, 8 Montgomery".
Actually, she was not a 'Mrs' yet.
During the spring and summer of 1880, her newspaper ads have
appeared in several San Francisco papers, for example, in Chronicle
and in Daily Evening Bulletin. Here is an example of the ad from
the San Francisco Chronicle of May 13, 1880, p. 2:
The ads stopped running in August 1880, probably because—as
it will be seen below—Miss Dutcher has found a new and different
interest in her life.
There are some uncorroborated
suggestions in Carleton Watkins' biographies of an alleged
romantic attraction—if not an outright liaison—between
him and Miss Dutcher, in spite of (or perhaps, because of!)
a denial in a letter that Watkins wrote to his wife Frances
shortly after their marriage in 1879. However, before Watkins' marriage,
Sarah did accompany him on one of his photographic trips to California
mountains. Two photos of Sarah from that trip to Calaveras Big Trees were
probably taken in summer of 1878. One of the photos is deposited in the
California Digital Library, and another one, from the same series, taken inside the Pavillion
built on a stump of a tree, is reproduced in
Carleton Watkins. Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum,
Los Angeles, 1997, p. 79. A frequently used close-up of Sarah
(see the upper right corner of this highlighted box)
is actually a detail of a larger photo, which could be found, e.g., in
The Tourist in Yosemite by Stanford E. Demars, University of Utah
Press, 1991, p. 70. Source or author of the photo are
not indicated in the book.
Shirley Sargent in her Pioneers in Petticoats credits this photo
to Carleton Watkins, but doesn't provide any further detail.
In the Census of 1880, taken in June, Sarah is listed as
"Sarah Dutcher, age 33, single, born in Australia from English
parents, working in a 'photograph[ic] gallery', home address 139 Fourth str."
It was by no means unusual for that era
that people would present themselves younger
than they actually were in census data. Sarah's true age at the time of
the census was probably 35, not 33. She was still single,
but that was going to change soon. On December 18, 1880,
she married Frederick Clark, a recently appointed full time employee
of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Evening Bulletin, San Francisco, December 20, 1880, p. 3, col. 4
Marriages
CLARK—DUTCHER—In this city, December 18 [1880], by
Rev. Dr. Scott, Frederick A. Clark, U.S. Geological Survey,
to Sarah L. Dutcher.
Among things that could have brought Sarah and Frederick together,
it is easy to identify two:
They both knew and esteemed Watkins, and they
both shared love for mountains.
Sarah clearly was an adventurous outdoorswoman,
and Frederick, in his capacity of a topographer,
had made trips and climbs all over California and the South West.

Frederick A. Clark, Mt. Shasta,
1870
This was the first marriage for Frederick, born in La Porte, Indiana,
forty years earlier. He worked as surveyor and topographer with
Clarence King, George Wheeler, and Ferdinand Hayden since 1864, and was
briefly in the Army Corps of Engineers in the late seventies, with the rank of Major.
Find more about Frederick Augustus Clark
in the Appendix. We have the following description
of Clark from the time immediately before his marriage to Sarah.
It was written by his assistant, Alonzo Welles (see
Reminiscent ramblings,
by A. M. Welles, Denver, 1905, p. 167):
The Major was a man now approaching middle
age and had spent many years upon the survey
under Hayden, Wheeler and Powell. He
was rather slight in build, though decidedly
erect. He wore a dark moustache and beard of
medium length. The beard was parted in the
middle, after the style of a German field marshal,
and brushed so abruptly apart that each
particular hair occupied a position at absolutely
right angles to its line of natural growth. In
fact, the Major was noticeably a la militaire in
all his movements and appearance, and as it developed
later, in his system of operations also...
When Clarence King became the
Director of the U.S. Geological Survey in mid 1879, he appointed Fred A. Clark
on July 9, 1879, as a topographer at the annual salary of $2,500
[King's salary was $6,000 per year;
from the U.S. Geological Survey Annual Report, 1880].
Clark was then immediately assigned (July 17, 1879) to a two-year
project of topographical survey of Eureka, Nevada.
The Census of 1880 found him still in Eureka, and he is described as
single, age 40, born in Indiana, working as "Topographer USGS".
His wedding to Sarah probably had to wait until that work has
been completed. In a letter from Eureka, Nevada,
of September 30, 1880, Arnold Hague wrote to King: "...The topographical
party, under Mr. F. A. Clark, is well organized, field work is
progressing rapidly, and will be completed, unless the weather proves
exceptionally bad, by the 20th of December [1880]".
[Annual Report, cited above, pp. 31-32]. Apparently, the weather
had cooperated, because Clark's wedding took place two days
before that deadline. There are no
listings of Clark in San Francisco Directories in 1879 or 1880 (or earlier),
but in 1881, he is presented as "Clark Frederick A., topographer [with]
U.S. Geological Survey, 320 California, room 13, r[esidence] Occidental Hotel".
Sarah is not listed; the young bride was perhaps living with him in "Occidental",
or they may have purchased a house somewhere outside of San Francisco.
The San Francisco Directory entry from 1881 is the last
mention of Clark that I know of, for the next seven years. Where was he?
Where was Sarah? Did they have any children? Was Sarah traveling with him
around the country? All those questions remain unanswered.
In 1888, a civil engineer and surveyor with the name Frederick
Clark reappears in San Francisco directories. He has an office
at 420 California, where several other surveyors had their
places of business. Frederick apparently no longer works for the
U.S. Geological Survey, and lists his profession as
"civil engineer". And he is single again!
Did Sarah die in the intervening years,
or did the marriage end with a separation? I couldn't find any clues
in San Francisco newspapers. We only know that
Fred A. Clark and Mary A. Clements were united in matrimony on January 24, 1888.
This was a second marriage for both. Mary was previously married to Robert Clements,
and had a daughter with him: Pearl Clements was born in San Francisco in 1877.
In April of 1897, Fred's description in the San Francisco Directory
is expanded to "Clark, Frederick A Major, civil, hydraulic and
mining engineer and U.S. deputy mineral surveyor, 420 California, room 17".
He would keep that office space until at least 1903. According to
San Francisco Directories, he doesn't have a permanent home in
the City, but lives in various luxury boarding houses, e.g.,
at 980 Pine, 1110 Sacrament, or at 30 Post. In some of the years between
1888 and 1903, his residence is simply listed as "Oakland", where he probably
had a family home. During the 1900 Census, he is indeed registered in Oakland,
at 811 East Twenty-second Street, and he is a widower (again?).
His stepdaughter, Pearl, lives with him.
On March 3, 1904, a brief note in the San Francisco Call, p. 14, col. 7,
announces: "Bankrupt Engineer. Frederick A. Clark,
civil engineer, San Francisco, filed a petition in insolvency yesterday in
the United States District Court. He owes $2534 and has no assets".
The Census of 1910 finds him living with Pearl's family in Brooklyn
(she is now Mrs. Lewthwaite). Frederick died on December 13, 1920,
in New York. Pearl's descendants have a family Bible annotated
by Frederick, with many important dates from his life. Perhaps this document
would shed more light on Sarah Dutcher Clark's life and death. I couldn't
get access to that Bible.
1875: John Muir
Ascender: Muir
John Muir was a regular correspondent for the San Francisco
Bulletin in the mid 1870s. His articles
describe his many trips across the Sierra.
No one was more ready and eager to follow Anderson than Muir.
However, in 1875, tensions in the triangle John Muir —
Elvira Hutchings — James Mason Hutchings were at their height
(Elvira was James' much younger wife). Therefore, Muir
voluntary stayed out of Yosemite, until a news finally reached him that
the Hutchings had moved permanently from the Valley to San Francisco (on
November 1). Muir then hastened to the Valley, and in the first days of
November made the climb himself. The first part of Muir's article
describing Anderson's conquest of Half Dome was reproduced earlier on this page.
Here is the second part, talking about Muir's own expedition:
Daily Evening Bulletin,
November 18, 1875, p. 1
South Dome
Its Ascent by George Anderson and John Muir—Hard
Climbing but a Glorious View—Botany of the Dome—Yosemite
in Late Autumn.
(From our special correspondent).
Yosemite Valley, November 10, 1875.
...On my return to the valley the other day I immediately hastened
to the Dome, not only for the pure pleasure climbing in view, but to see what
else I might enjoy and learn. Our first winter storm had bloomed and all
the mountains were mantled in fresh snow. I was therefore little
apprehensive of danger from slipperyness of the rock, Anderson himself
refusing to believe that any one could climb his rope in the condition
it was then in. Moreover, the sky was overcast, and solemn snow-clouds
began to curl and wreath themselves around the summit of the Dome,
and my late experiences on icy Shasta came to mind. But reflecting
that I had matches in my pocket, and that a little firewood might be found,
I concluded that in case of a dark storm the night could be spent on the Dome
without suffering anything worth caring for. I therefore pushed up
alone and gained the top without the slightest difficulty. My first view was
perfectly glorious. A massive cloud of a pure pearl lustre was arched
across the valley, from wall to wall, the one end resting upon El Capitan,
the other on Cathedral Rocks, the brown meadows shadowed beneath, with
short reaches of river shimmering in changeful light. Then, as I stood
on the tremendous verge overlooking Mirror Lake, a flock of smaller
clouds, white as snow, came swiftly from the north, trailing over the dark
forests, and arriving on the brink of the valley descended with
godlike gestures through Indian Canyon and over the Arches and North Dome,
moving rapidly, yet with perfect deliberation...
Notwithstanding the enthusiastic eagerness of tourists to reach
the summit of this Dome the general views of the valley from here
are far less striking than from many other points, chiefly because
of the foreshortening effect produced by looking from so great a height.
North Dome is dwarfed almost beyond recognition. The splendid sculpture
of the arches is scarcely noticed and the walls on both sides seem
comparatively low and sunken. The Dome itself is the most sublime
feature of all Yosemite views, and that is beneath our feet. The view
of Little Yosemite Valley is very fine, though inferior to one
obtained from the base of Starr King; but the summit landscapes
towards Mounts Tyell [Lyell!], Dana and Conness are very effective
and complete. When the sublime ice-floods of the glacial period poured
down the flank of the range over what is now Yosemite Valley, they were
compelled to break through a dam of domes... South Dome was first
to emerge from the icy waste, burnished and glowing like a crystal...
Its entire surface is covered with glacial hieroglyphics whose
interpretation is the great reward of all who devoutly study them.
Before closing this letter I might say a word or two concerning
the botany of the Dome. There are four clumps of pines growing on the
summit representing three species... all three repressed and storm-beaten.
The Alpine spiraea grows here also, and blooms bountely with potentilla,
ivesta[?], erigeron, criogonum, penstemon, solidage, and four or five
species of grasses and sedges, differing in no respect from those on other
summits of the same elevation.
I have always discouraged as much as possible every project
for laddering the South Dome, believing it would be a fine thing to keep
this garden untrodden. Now the pines will be carved with the initials
of Smith and Jones, and the gardens strewn with tin cans and bottles,
but the winter gales will blow most of this rubbish away, and
avalanches may strip off the ladders; and then it is some satisfaction
to feel assured that no lazy person will ever trample these gardens.
When a mountain is climbed it is said to be conquered — as well say
a man is conquered when a fly lights on his head. Blue jays have trodden
the Dome many a day; so have beetles and chipmucks, and Tissiack will
hardly be more conquered, now that man is added to her list of
visitors. His louder scream and heavier scrambling will not stir a
line of her countenance...
J. Muir
Muir's letter was reprinted in other newspapers, e.g., in the
Chicago Daily Tribune, on December 23, 1875, p. 3,
and the St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, on December 21, 1875, p. 3.
Muir also used this text in some of his books later, but he made
slight changes.
For example, while the newspaper report above says
"Anderson himself refusing to believe that any one could climb
his rope in the condition it was then in...", a revised version in
The Yosemite reads "Anderson himself tried to
prevent me from making the attempt..."
It should be noted with sadness, that although Muir had
found some pine trees at Half Dome, the top of the Dome is treeless now,
probably due to human activities.
However, the top is not totally barren.
Some shrub species and several herbaceous plants are still
present.
1876: Second female ascent
Ascenders: Anderson, Lizzie Pershing, James Hutchings, a guide, other people
One of Half Dome ascents in 1876, attracted lots of attention.
The San Francisco Bulletin reprints an account
of the ascent from the Stockton Herald.
San Francisco Bulletin,
June 26, 1876, p. 4
South Dome Ascended.—On the 21st instant a party of
tourists made the ascent of South Dome, in Yosemite Valley;
and what makes the feat more famous, one of the party was
a lady, and what makes it still more interesting to
chronicle, she was a newspaper correspondent. There were four
tourists in the party, all of whose names we were unable to
learn, but the lady's name was Miss Lizzie R. Pershing
[should have been: Lizzie K. Pershing], and she
is a correspondent of the Pittsburgh, Pa., Gazette.
Miss Pershing is the second lady that has ever accomplished
this undertaking, and it is but fair to state that but very few
of the sterner sex have considered the glory of having
climbed the dome a recompense for the dangers to be braved.
After making an extraordinary climb on the ragged mountain side,
the dome itself is reached, the ascent of which requires one
to climb, by the aid of ropes, up an almost perpendicular
wall, without steps or foothold other than nature has made,
a distance of 900 feet. These ropes extend from one staple
in the rock to another, and the distance between the staples
is from ten to fifty feet, according to circumstances.
The fatigue of this perilous undertaking did not seem to seriously
affect this brave little lady, for she returned from the valley
to-day, looking as fresh and fair as if she had not
accomplished a feat that makes her famous.&mdashStockton Herald.
A slightly different account was printed in the Christian Advocate
later in the year:
The Christian Advocate, New York,
September 21, 1876, Vol. 51, No. 38, p. 297
Miss Lizzie K. Pershing, daughter of President Pershing,
of the Pittsburgh Female College, during a visit to California won quite
a reputation as a letter-writer for several leading journals. She has
recently returned home, and it appears that she has attained the title
"Heroine of the South Dome" of the Yosemite Valley, supposed to be six
thousand feet high—a perpendicular wall. For many years persons
have sought unsuccessfully to climb up, until a Scotch sailor succeeded
last October. By drilling holes in the steepest part of the rocks,
and putting iron pegs, and standing on one spike while he drove in
another, he succeeded in getting up the steepest part. He then fastened
a rope around these pegs, and it forms a ladder. By climbing up a long way
on the hands and knees you reach what they call "The Saddle", and from
there go up by a single rope the dizzy height—930 feet; and from
thence the Dome is more easily reached, and you can walk right to its edge,
and look down a straight wall 5,500 feet. This perilous feat was performed
by Miss Pershing.
Lizzie Pershing described her Half Dome climb in a well written
letter
to the Pittsburg Telegraph.
She identifies several people on that trip: James Mason Hutchings,
George Anderson, and an unnamed "guide".
J. M. Hutchings confirms that he was one of the people in
Miss Pershing's party. In his
In the Heart of the Sierras, Chapter 26, he wrote:
"In July, 1876, Miss L. E. Pershing, of Pittsburgh, Pa.
[her initials were actually L. K., and the date was
June 21], the writer [Hutchings],
and three others found their way to the top..."
Who was Miss Pershing?
Lizzie K. Pershing was 24 years old at the time of this ascent.
She was a daughter of Rev. Israel C. Pershing and Charlotte L. Canan
(Pershing), born in Pennsylvania on April 4, 1852. Her father was the
President of the Pittsburgh Female College. The College catalogue lists
Lizzie as a "general assistant" in 1873, and a Vice President in 1884.
I couldn't find anything about her association with the Gazette.
Her story "A trip to the Geysers",
was published in the National Repository, Vol. 1, April 1877,
pp. 315-320. It describes her journey, in the spring of 1876, to the Geysers
in Northern California with one Mrs. Pressall [or Pressell?]. This
story does not mention her Yosemite climb later that year.
She married William C. Anderson,
"of the Pittsburgh bar", in 1884, and used the name
Lizzie Pershing Anderson after that.
William died on November 25, 1910, and Lizzie survived him, but I
don't know how long she lived or where she died.
1876-77: Anderson builds stairway to the clouds... and more!
Seeing all the enthusiasm that his Half Dome ascent has stirred,
Anderson must have began considering ways of turning that
interest into money early on. He first had to upgrade the ropes, and
make them more secure. Hutchings' daughter, Gertrude, about eight or nine
years old at the time, witnessed an early Anderson's attempt to
replace the old ropes. Seventy years later, in a letter to Elizabeth Godfrey,
a Yosemite Museum secretary, Gertrude Hutchings recalled:
...Along the old plank walk between Hutchings'
old corral to Sentinel Bridge,
Anderson stretched five separate strands of baling rope. With another
strand he went along the 975-foot length knotting the five strands together
with a sixth strand and a good sailor's knot a foot apart—a convenient
space for climber to grasp as they made the ascent.
The knotted rope was coiled, tied together put on a pack mule,
and carried to the shoulder of the Dome. Here Anderson shouldered it himself,
packed it to the top of the Dome, unloosed it, fastened one end to an iron
pin in rock on the summit, slid it down, uncoiling and fastening it to
other iron-pin eyebolts he had placed on his first ascent as he went.
Gertrude doesn't specify the year of the rope upgrade, but she
could have been referring to the year 1876.
Her letter is preserved in the Nature Library, Yosemite Museum, Yosemite.
I used the transcription from
The First Ascents of Half Dome by Hank Johnston,
Yosemite (Magazine), Vol. 65, No. 1, Winter 2003
(find the hyperlink below).
Anderson had other ideas too. Several newspaper articles describe him
working on, or thinking about other possibilities. He is incorrectly called
"John Anderson" in some reports.
Cincinnati Commercial, August 24, 1876, p. 4; also
Daily Register, Wheeling, West Virginia, August 26, 1876,
p. 1, and
Daily Alta California, September 9, 1876, p. 1
A Stairway to the Clouds.
John[!] Anderson, the first man to make the ascent of the great South Dome
in the Yosemite Valley, is a quiet young Scotchman, who lives hermit-like
in a small house near the saddle of the dome. Here he dreams
and experiments, coming occasionally down into the valley, where he is
the object of eager curiosity to travelers, who whisper one to another,
"There's Anderson", "There's the sailor who climbed the Dome".
But few travelers have ever ascended to his workshop in the mountains,
and few people know that he is now busily constructing a staircase
of one thousand steps, which he intends shall form an easy pathway
to the clouds. These steps are of wood, riveted together by iron, and will
be fastened by bolts in the rock. Next year, perhaps, tourists can
walk up a thousand-foot stairway, instead of hanging to a thousand-foot
rope. In time, Mr. Anderson hopes to have an elevator running up and down
the chasm, and his ambitions extend even to a train of cars,
which he is now perfecting—cars which will run up a perpendicular
wall.—[Source:] Letter in the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 31, 1876; also
Liberty Tribune, Liberty, Missouri, October 13, 1876, p. 2:
Personal
John[!] Anderson, the first man who ascended the great South Dome
in the Yosemite Valley, lives alone in a small house near the saddle
of the dome. He is hard at work constructing a staircase of a thousand
steps on the dome. He hopes to have an elevator running in time,
and is also working on a model of a steam car that shall carry
passengers up the almost perpendicular wall.
Bulletin, San Francisco, September 6, 1876, p. 1
Summering in the Sierra
(From our own correspondent)
Yosemite Valley, August 28, 1876.
This forenoon I had the pleasure of meeting George Anderson,
the indomitable cragsman, the brave climber, of firm nerve and eye,
who was the first to set foot on the great South Dome.
He has been hard at work all summer hewing timber for a stairway up
the hitherto inaccessible curving summit of the dome, which he hopes
to have completed by the first of June next [1877], so as to be available
for the main flood of next year's travel. It will be about 800 feet in
length, with about thousand steps, securely railed in on both sides.
The side timbers will be eight inches wide by four in thickness, and
firmly bolted on the solid rock. And, inasmuch as the general slope
of the rock on which the stairway will be laid is only about equal to
that of ordinary house stairs, there will be nothing dangerous
in the ascent, nor anything of a clinging, clambering character.
When, however, we take into consideration the fact that the few low
little steps leading to the upper stories of hotels are regarded as
so exhausting as to require the modern cage elevator, the grand old
dome will seem about as inaccessible to most people as before...
...I only want to remark here, that standing on their head is not
the best position from which to see anybody, still I would advise
every one to make the ascent of Tissiack, for not to mention the glorious
circumference of landscapes seen from its summit, the joyous leafy
valley outspread a mile below, and far beyond, alp, and forest,
and rolling granite seas. On these vast aerial thrones one always
receives lasting impressions of an utter isolation from all the known
ways of the world, leaving the soul free to expand and blend with
fountain nature, as if one had died and gone to another star...
John Muir
[In the rest of the article, Muir talks about the first ascent
of Mount Starr King a few days earlier, by by one of his friends.
He only identifies the friend as "Mr. Short",
a San Francisco banker and stockbroker,
but it is clear that he talks about George Bayley (often
spelled 'Bailey'). Muir
concludes: "To Anderson belongs the honor of first standing in the
blue ether above Tissiack; and to the dauntless San Francisco Short
belongs the first footprint on the crown of Starr King". According to
Muir, Bayley was accompanied by a young lawyer allegedly from San Francisco
(E. S. Schuyler). A year later,
on August 23, 1877, unexplainably unaware of the Bayley-Schuyler ascent,
a party consisting of George Anderson, James M. Hutchings, and
John B. Lembert reached the top of Mt. Starr King via Southeast Saddle,
and were dismayed to find a man-made summit cairn there].
Once a Week [Magazine], London, 1877 (unknown volume, p. 96)
A Perilous Ascent.—The most
formidable mountain, perhaps, in the world, the
South Dome of the Yosemite Valley, in California, has not only been climbed by
a Scotchman named Anderson, but it is to be made practicable
for travellers of exceptional nerve by a stair constructed up the back of the
Dome by this enterprising climber. "No description", says a correspondent
at San Francisco, "can convey any adequate idea of this singular
mountain... The walls on either side of the
valley are for five miles a close succession of
bare granite rocks, cut down with smooth face as if by a knife,
and rising sheer from the valley to the average height of 4000 feet.
The fact of a perpendicular wall, three-quarters of a mile high,
of bright grey granite, can scarcely be grasped by the mind, and must be seen
before it can be realized. Imagine the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral
multiplied a hundred times and cloven
in half — the one side a precipice of 6000 feet from top to bottom;
the other side forming a perfect quadrant for 1500 feet from the top,
as smooth and bare and regular as the side of a ball — and some
faint idea can be formed of Anderson's terrible feat".
The Huron Expositor, January 11, 1878
Probably the largest and highest rock in the known world is
the South Dome of Yosemite... No man ever trod the top of this dome
until last year... Last year, however, after thousands of dollars
were spent [in previous attempts?], several persons found their way
to the top of the dome, and this summer two sheep were discovered
browsing on the hitherto inaccessible peak. Mrs. A. J. Murphy,
the widow of a late hotel proprietor in the valley, writes as follows under
date of November 11th [1877?; 1876?]:
"John[!] Anderson is building stairs up the top of the South Dome.
You can go up now by holding on to a rope, but it is quite a tiresome trip.
A few ladies in the valley have made the ascent, and I am sorry I did not
attempt it... Strange to say two sheep found their way to the top
of the South Dome this summer, a dam and her lamb. How they ever got there
is more than any one can tell. They found bunch grass and shoots to eat,
but no water—only the dew that fell on the dome at night. Anderson was
going to carry them up some water
when I left".—[Source: an 1877(?) issue of] Virginia (Nev.)
Enterprise
Similar accounts were printed in
the Daily Democrat, Sedalia, November 28, 1877,
the Daily Star, Marion, Ohio, December 22, 1877,
the Daily Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, December 20, 1877, and
the Wheeling Daily Register, January 1, 1878, p. 3.
The story about a dam and her lamb must have been a practical joke
that Anderson played on unsuspecting valley visitors. However, some small animals
do live at the top of the Dome: lizards, ground squirrels, wood rats, pikas,
and even yellow-bellied marmots made their homes there.
1877: Photographer on the Dome
Ascenders: Anderson, James Hutchings, S. C. Walker (Summer? 1877)
Ascenders: James and Florence Hutchings, Florantha Sproat(?), two other ladies, a man (October 1877)

George Anderson on Half Dome, 1877
In the summer of 1877, the first(?) photographer made it to the top of Half Dome.
It wasn't an easy task to bring heavy photo equipment up the steep incline.
Hutchings and Anderson helped Walker, and Anderson posed on two
overhanging rocks at the top, which are still
favorite attractions for amateur photographers
even today. Here is how Hutchings describes the event, in one of his
typical long sentences:
In the Heart of the Sierras, Chapter 26
...In 1877 Mr. Anderson, after assisting Mr. S. C. Walker, the photographer,
and the writer [Hutchings], to pack up all the photographic apparatus necessary
for taking views from its summit, deliberately placed upon a large flat rock,
projectingly, on the margin of the precipice, and stood upright upon it
while the photograph was taken; one of his feet being over, and beyond the edge
eleven inches, as presented in the accompanying view, taken at that time.
Although unsteadied and unsupported, not a nerve or muscle quivered.
Later that year, Hutchings made yet another trip to the Dome,
this time with his daughter Florence Hutchings, then 13. His mother in law,
Florantha Sproat, and his future wife (second), Augusta Sweetland may have been
in the same party.
In the Heart of the Sierras, Chapter 26
...In October following [1877],
six persons, among them a lady in her sixty-fifth year
[possibly Florantha Sproat], and a young girl,
thirteen years of age (a daughter of the writer)
and two other ladies, climbed it with but little difficulty,
after Anderson had provided the way. Since then very many others have
daringly pulled themselves up; and enjoyed the exceptionally impressive
view obtained thence"...
Photographer Walker's full name
was probably Sela Clarence Walker (see
Biographies of Western Photographers, by Carl Mautz, 1997),
and he worked in Stockton and Yosemite.
He took several pictures of Anderson on Half Dome in 1877. Some of those were
later published as stereoviews, under different labels. According to
Paul A. Hickman, from Arkansas State University,
Walker's negatives were probably used to produce stereoview prints
by M. M. Hazeltine (1877), S. C. Walker & Gustavus Fagersteen,
"Successors to M. M. Hazeltine" (1877-81), and Gustavus Fagersteen
(1881-90). Check this stereoview
from Hazeltine's series "Yosemite Valley, California".
Note that makers of a negatives were rarely credited by publishers of
stereoview prints, and Walker's name does not show up on this photo.
Ascenders: Anderson, John Muir, Thomas Magee [Sr.]
Little is known about this ascent that apparently happened
on July 9, 1877. The only source I have are two short paragraphs in
the Yosemite Tourist and in the San Francisco Chronicle,
published eighteen years later. The Chronicle article,
focused mainly on the Magee-Rawlings 1895 ascent, is presented in
Part Two. There is no mention of
Muir and Anderson in the Chronicle article.
The Tourist, however, lists three ascenders:
Yosemite Tourist, Yosemite Valley, Vol. 6, Tuesday, July 9, 1895
Eighteen years ago today, John Muir, of glacial fame,
Thos. Magee [Sr.], one of well-known pioneers of San Francisco and the late
Geo. G. Anderson, the latter acting as guide, ascended the Half Dome.
Mr. Thos. Magee, Jr., then a mere boy, was left at the Anderson cabin,
near the dome, for he was too small to attempt so perilous a feat...
The cabin [was] about a half mile from the dome. In the good old days,
when those so inclined could reach the top of the dome, this cabin was the
starting point. Many, too, would come here and remain over night and
then be ready for the climb in the morning...
John Muir
Chronology shows Muir on an "excursion in Utah as Bulletin
correspondent" in the period "May/July 1877".
In a letter to Jeanne Carr, dated July 23rd, 1877, Muir wrote:
"Dear Mrs. Carr: I made
only a short dash into the dear old
Highlands above Yosemite, but all was so full
of everything I love, every day seemed a measureless
period. I never enjoyed the Tuolumne
cataracts so much; coming out of the sun lands,
the gray salt deserts of Utah, these wild ice
waters sang themselves into my soul more enthusiastically
than ever..." This does not mention Half Dome or Magee,
but it indicates a brief visit to Yosemite after the Utah trip.

Thomas Magee,
around 1900
Thomas Magee Sr. (1840-1902), was a noted
mountaineer in the 1870s and 1880s. During the 1877 ascent, he was
about 37 years old. He is listed in
Hittell's Hand-book of Pacific Coast Travel,
published in 1885, in a section about mountain climbing:
"California has no club of mountain climbers; and a few of her
citizens have had the opportunity, as well as the inclination, to
spend much time in the study of nature at high elevations...
The most noted mountain climber of the State is John Muir;
and among the men who are known to have spent much time
in the mountains for pleasure or study are J. G. Lemmon, botanist,
George Bailey [Bayley], Thomas Magee,
Sydney Smith, Jr., James M. Hutchings,
Galen Clark, George Davidson, A. F. Rodgers, Ebenezer Knowlton and John Swett".
An article in the Scribner's Monthly, Aug 1873, Vol. 6, pp. 441-445,
written by Magee, describes his climb to the top of Mount Shasta.
Thomas was a friend and a frequent
companion of John Muir since they first met
in Yosemite in the summer of 1871. Influenced by Muir, Magee was an early
conservationist (see his article The Preservation of Our Forests,
in Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, Vol. 19, June 1892,
pp. 658-661).
He came to San Francisco in 1859, from Belfast, Ireland
(after a short stay in New York), and began working as a printer.
In 1866, he became editor of Carter's Real Estate Circular.
Eventually, Magee became a real estate dealer himself, and bought
the Circular. He edited it continuously from 1867 until his
death.
A Washington Post biographical note published on November 5, 1899,
for his sixtieth birthday, calls Magee
"the most athletic millionaire on San Francisco's tax list".
Thomas Magee died in Santa Barbara in 1902, and
his four sons took over his real estate business and the Circular.
Ascenders: Henry Crowell, George Worthington
Henry Crowell struggled with a debilitating and life threatening illness
in his youth, and his wealthy family sent him West to travel and gain
strength. In 1874, on one of his trips, he met another young man,
George Worthington, who was also on a quest for health.
For the next three years the lads were to spend much time together.
On their second trip to California, in 1876/1877, they were ready for
a perilous feat: a climb to the summit of Half Dome. An account of
that event was written more than seventy years later, when Henry
and George were already dead. The author of the book "Breakfast Table Autocrat",
Richard Day, must have heavily relied on family stories about
the ascent, and it is no wonder that after that many years,
details got forgotten, imagination was used to fill the gaps,
and accuracy took back seat. Indeed, George and Henry did not need
to bring their own spikes or "clotheslines", because Anderson's
rope was still in place and well maintained in 1877. However, in spite of
such blunders, I believe George and Henry made it to the top, and deserve
to be mentioned in these chronicles.
Breakfast Table Autocrat: The Life Story of Henry
Parsons Crowell,
by Richard Ellsworth Day, Moody press, 1946, pp. 73-74:
...By the middle of May, 1877, [Henry and George] had
equipped for scaling Half Dome in Yosemite Valley.
Stout clotheslines, a bag of rugged spikes,
and a short-hafted sledge apiece, were the chief scaling aids.
It makes one dizzy to think of such simple means for conquering
the cloud-piercing slopes of the great rock. As they rode through
the bee pastures along the Merced River, the
Maricopa Flower Carpet was in full glory. No Persian rug could
vie with it. The boys listened to the muffled roar of the waterfalls,
leaping at a bound for hundreds of feet, fluttering in
the wind like a filmy pennant. They gazed upon the mile-high
eminences along the river, and came to Mirror Lake,
nature's reflecting pool for Half Dome.
On the wind-swept summit of Half Dome, they gazed for a long time at the
vast assembly of granite titans, beginning with Glacier Point on the south
side, hanging dizzily over its three thousand-foot drop. They looked at El
Cajon on the north side with its sheer slope to the valley
floor. In the hotel that night, the mountaineers heard the boys' account
of their venture. They would not believe the tale until the next day they
found the ropes and spikes, like a spider filament soaring
cloudward, just as Crowell and Worthington had left them...
Henry Parsons Crowell (1855-1943), was 22
at the time of his ascent. He would become a successful
businessman (e.g., founder of the Quaker Oats
Company) and a philanthropist. His life is
well
documented on the Web and in books.
George Worthington (1854-19??), was just few months older
than his Half Dome companion, Crowell. One of several children in the family,
he was named after his father, a merchant and banker in Cleveland, Ohio,
who founded the Geo. Worthington Company. He enrolled in Brown University,
but due to frequent absence did not graduate. He was not
particularly interested in his father business.
In 1896, he moved from Cleveland to Old Bennington, Vermont,
where he still lived during the 1930 Census. Date of his
death is unknown to me. His only son,
George Worthington, Jr (sometimes called George Worthington, 3rd),
born in 1890, got his AB from Yale, and then returned to Cleveland
where he re-engaged in the family company.
Ascender: Abbie Crippen
Abigail Crippen may easily have been one of two unidentified women
in the Hutchings party, in October 1877 (see above). However, until there
is a firm proof of that, her separate listing is justified.
She was born in 1860, the eldest of four Crippen sisters,
and raised in the family of her step-father, a hotelkeeper in the Valley,
John Barnard.
In her book Pioneers in Petticoats Shirley Sargent
says "Abbie stood atop Half Dome in 1877, less than two years
after she climbed Mt. Starr King". The problem with that
sentence is the interval of "two years". This is either a typo or an error
in Sargent's book, because the first ascent of Mount Starr King
happened only in 1876, and Abbie was not in that party.
The earliest date when Abbie could have been on Starr King was summer of 1877.
If we add "two years" to that, her Half Dome ascent is shifted to 1879.
I think what Sargent really wanted to say was "Abbie stood atop Half Dome
in 1877, less than two months after she climbed Mt. Starr
King".
Abbie's ascent in the late 1877 (or very early in 1878?) is
confirmed by Walter Gore Marshall, who visited the Valley in June 1878.
In his book, Through America published in 1881, he talks
about a "trophy" that his friend found atop Half Dome,
something that originally had
belonged to Abbie. He introduces her as "Miss Bernard" (should have been
Barnard): "Miss Bernard, [hotel owner's] daughter,
had acquired a reputation as a daring
climber of mountains, for she had been to the top of the South Dome, and
had safely come to the bottom again" (p. 379). He then describes the following
funny episode:
Through America; Or Nine Months in the United States,
by W. G. Marshall, London, 1881, Chapter 19, p. 380:
It was getting late, so that I had begun to be
anxious. [My friend] suddenly burst in upon our party assembled outside
the hotel. He looked wild and scared; his skin was peeled—it was
evident he had not been idle since we had lost sight of him in the
morning. He told
us he had been up the South Dome. "What, up to the top?" we all
exclaimed in one breath. "Yes", was the reply.—But no, we could none
of us believe it, not even Miss Bernard herself, who, already the vanquisher
of that bold, inaccessible-looking mountain, would never believe that it
had been scaled in one day, and that, too, by an Englishman, and all by
himself! Without more ado my friend produced indisputable evidence that he
had actually accomplished the ascent, for he took out from his pocket a
certain curious trophy which he had brought away with him from the summit,
and this was nothing less than a piece of one of Miss Bernard's stockings,
the young lady in question having left behind her, when she was last up
the mountain, a sample of this portion of her wearing apparel, which she
had fastened on to a low stunted pine that grew out of the hard rock at
the very top of the precipice. So my friend had cut off part of the
stocking—six square inches of which he found clinging to
the tree—and brought it down to show the young lady herself, as the
best proof he could give, that he was indeed no gay deceiver...
There will be more about the young Englishman and his day-hike
from the Valley to the top of Half Dome, in the next section.
1878: Englishman, Astronomer, Botanist
Ascender: Arthur Clarke
In May of 1878, Walter G. Marshall left England for a three-months trip
to the United States. One leg of the trip was to be a visit to Yosemite Valley.
Marshall didn't leave alone. With him, aboard the Cunard
steamship "Scythia", and throughout the journey,
was one of his college friends. A book describing Marshall's 1878 trip, as well as his
U.S. visit a year later, was published in 1881, in London, under the title
Through America. Chapters 16-19 in the book describe
the trip from San Francisco to Yosemite from June 20 to June 30, 1878,
and contain a segment that is particularly interesting for this work:
Marshall's friend, who is only identified as "C——",
climbed Half Dome on June 29, 1878.
It took some detective work to establish true identity of
Marshall's climbing friend. In the first chapter of the book,
Marshall introduces him as "my college friend C——",
but he carefully avoids revealing anything else about "C——",
as if the friend had insisted to remain anonymous.
Instead, on hundred pages in the book, he
is simply referred to as "my friend" or "my fellow traveller".
However, towards the end of the book, in a single paragraph that
could have been inserted later, Marshall names (by mistake?) his friend
as "A. N. Clarke".
There is another independent evidence to support that disclosure.
Port records from New York confirm that "W. G. Marshall, age 25,
gentleman", and "A. N. Clarke, age 25, student", shared a cabin in
"Scythia". Marshall had studied at Winchester College, and at Oxford.
I didn't find any student with initials "A. N. Clarke" at Winchester,
but it was easy to find Clarke's record in the
book Alumni Oxonienses: A. N. Clarke, from Leeds,
got his MA at Oxford the same year (1875) as Marshall, and his full
name was Arthur Noble Clarke.
Marshall briefly describes circumstances related to Clarke's ascent,
then allows Clarke to give a detailed first-person account of the
climb. Here is what Clarke had written:
Through America; Or Nine Months in the United States,
by W. G. Marshall, London, 1881, Chapter 19, pp. 380-383:
[abridged]
Leaving Bernard's [Barnard's Hotel]
on foot at 10 a.m., I reached Snow's at 12.10 p.m.,
had luncheon there, and remained till 1.30. Then, mounting to the top of
the Nevada Fall, I struck off by a trail to the left, which led me over a
shoulder of the great South Dome till I came to the foot of a
conical-shaped rock, called the Little Dome, which I found I was obliged
to climb... This successfully scaled, I had to
descend again... to a dip between the two Domes, the huge granite mass of
the South Dome now looming majestically
above me. The rope of the Scotchman now appeared to view, running down
straight for 960 feet from the top of the curve, close to the vertical
face of the mountain... The sections of this
rope are not all equal, some being not more than twenty feet in length,
while one or two sections near the top of the curve are nearly 100 feet in
length, and, being quite loose, thus oblige one to describe a considerable
arc. Where the sections are short you go up like a monkey, hand over hand,
close to the rock. The lower portion of the precipice was very steep,
having an angle of 10 degrees from the vertical, and this part had to be
ascended
without any rest. From this point the grand curve of the Dome began, the
granite lying here and there in immense overlapping,
concentric slabs—like gigantic armour-plates,
the 'plates' in this case being three to
five feet thick, difficult to climb over, even with the aid of the
rope. Over these I had to scramble as best I could; but there were a few
cracks in the granite which enabled me to obtain an occasional foothold,
and, leaning with my back against the almost vertical wall of rock, rest
awhile and contemplate the view...
The gymnastic performance now began to get easier as to the grade; but
the fatigue caused by the rarity of the air, and the heat of a blazing
Californian sun, glaring as it did directly in my face, caused me to
inwardly rejoice when I reached the summit. That this is a much less
difficult—though not the less dangerous—climb than it looks,
is certain,
and provided the soundness of the rope be guaranteed, a lady can without
difficulty make the ascent. But her chief embarrassment would be the
'monkey' performance, if she went up in ordinary attire.
Having rested for a few moments on the top of a stony couch...
the next thing to do was to quench
thirst, which had become simply unendurable. To this end I made my way to
a small snow-field lying about 200 yards off. Then I devoted an hour to
the view, sitting down on the edge of the precipice and dangling my legs
over, having first lit my pipe that I might enjoy the view the
better...
The descent I found considerably easier than the ascent, for the rope
had now been fully tested, and all that it was necessary to do was to
cling firmly to it, and let myself down hand over hand...
At Snow's... I was given a tallow candle, to light if it should get too dark
during my descent into the valley. But it was not brought into
requisition, for I reached Bernard's[!] at 8.18 p.m., having been away from
the hotel just ten hours and eighteen minutes.
This was an excellent total time for a day hike on foot from the Valley,
considering many stops that Arthur Clarke made along the way.
Read the complete text of his well written and
interesting description.
Arthur Noble Clarke (1851-19??), the eldest son
of Dr. Thomas Clarke ("physician, surgeon, and apothecary"),
born in December 1851 in Leeds, Yorkshire. He had two younger
siblings: George E. and Florence L. Clarke.
He enrolled in Wadham College, Oxford University, in November of 1870,
studied natural sciences, got his BA in 1875, and MA in 1877.
During his visit to Yosemite with Marshall, he was 25 years old.
According to British census data,
in 1881, he was in London, studying medicine.
In the late 1880s, he helped putting together two essays
that his father had written
("The Fate of the Dead", and "What is the soul? And what becomes of it?")
It appears that Arthur was still alive during the 1911 England Census,
living in Eastbourne district in Sussex. I don't have any
information about him after that date.
Ascender: William Pickering
A key to finding this entry was a brief note in the Appalachia,
Boston, Vol. 2, No. 1, June 1879, p. 93. Describing previous year's
proceedings of the Appalachian Mountain Club, the note says: "On
December 11, 1878, at the Seventh Corporate Meeting,
Mr. W. H. Pickering read a paper describing an ascent of the
Half Dome, in the Yosemite Valley, illustrated by views of the Valley
and its special points of interest". It turned out that
this note was referring to
William Pickering, one of founders of the Appalachian Mountain Club,
and later a noted astronomer.
The note was describing his recent trip to Yosemite.
While Pickering's original report is
probably lost, the following autobiographical note in MIT
Technology Review has a few sentences about that climb:
Technology Review, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vol. 18,
Cambridge, 1916, p. 307:
...I had always been fond of mountain climbing, and among
other things ascended the Half Dome in Yosemite Valley by means of a rope.
For 900 feet the ascent had to be made hand over hand, supporting a
considerable portion of my weight at the same time on my feet.
The ascent was continuous, as there were no intermediate ledges on which one
could rest. In fact, the only ledges were inverted!
Comparatively few living persons have
been on the summit, since the rope was removed many years ago.
William Henry Pickering (1858-1938),
was 20, and still a student at MIT in 1878, when he
made the ascent. He stayed at MIT as staff
after graduation in 1879, and later worked at Harvard Observatory and
other places. In his obituary, in
the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 50,
No. 294, pp.122-125, 1938, Leon Campbell wrote: "Professor Pickering was a
great traveler and mountaineer... He not only scaled the heights
of Half Dome in the Yosemite, and El Misti in Peru, but also one hundred
other peaks in various parts of the world". E. P. Maartz, Jr., wrote
in another obituary:
"In 1928 Professor Pickering made a trip to southern
California and this proved to be his last to that region... One thing he
was most eager to do... was to revisit the Yosemite Park. He had been there
once before, fifty years previously in 1878, as a young man of twenty;
and on that occasion had climbed the Half Dome. He was one of the first
men to do this, and one of the very few who climbed the Half Dome
at all before the iron spikes and chain guards were installed...
He was a great climber in his younger days, and was always a lover of
the mountains and the great outdoors..."
(Popular Astronomy, Vol. 46, No. 6, June-July 1938,
pp. 299-309).
Ascender: John Lemmon
John G. Lemmon was a noted California mountaineer, and a self-taught
botanist. His trip to the top of Half Dome is confirmed
by two independent sources, which, when combined, reveal more about his ascent.
Report of the Botanist, J. G. Lemmon, in
Second Biennial Report of the California State Board of Forestry for the Years 1887-1888, Sacrament 1888.
pp. 84-85
...Few have enjoyed what it was the writer's privilege
to experience while exploring the upper heights of Yosemite.
I climbed Anderson's rope
(now both the rope and its intrepid maker in dust)
to the top of South-Half Dome. Exploring its crown we found
an ellipse of table rock about one hundred rods long,
with but one tree maintaining its hold, as by an eagle's
talons, to the wind-swept rock, two miles in vertical
above the sea. Of course, it was the Limber-twig Pine [Pinus flexilis],
over two feet thick at base, but only a few in height,
with willowy branches that receded and swayed, self-protectingly,
with every breeze...
That segment, however, does not tell us anything about the date of the ascent.
After Lemmon's death in 1908, his collection of California plants and
specimens, known as "Lemmon Herbarium", was transferred from Oakland to
Berkeley, and many items were examined and listed in Prof. Smiley's
book about the boreal flora of the Sierra. In the section about
Rosaceae, subsection Holodiscus dumosus (p. 231),
the author talks about various samples of spiraea shrub that he had examined
while preparing the book, among them one specimen
that was collected on the "summit of Half-dome,
Yosemite, by Lemmon, on August 19, 1878".
(See, A report upon the boreal flora of the Sierra Nevada of California,
by Frank Jason Smiley, U. C. Publications in Botany,
Vol. 9, University of California Press, September 1921).
Thus we know that John Lemmon's climb took place in the summer of 1878.
Another confirmation of that date can be found in Lemmon's
interesting biography, in California's Frontier Naturalists, by
Richard G. Beidleman, University of California Press, 2006.
One section of the book is devoted to
"J. G. Lemmon and Wife" (pp. 415-429). Beidleman's research reveals
that in June 1878, Lemmon had arrived to Santa Barbara to
"join a lengthy excursion to Yosemite". The party was to include several
locals including Sarah Plummer, Lemmon's future wife. However,
in the end, "six campers went, but Sarah was too weak to join them".
We don't know who else, besides Lemmon, was in that group of "campers",
nor if any of those people had accompanied Lemmon to the top of the Dome.
John Gill Lemmon, (1832-1908), was born in Michigan,
and arrived to California in 1865, to recover from injuries sustained
during the Civil War. He became interested in botany, and because of his
mountaineering skills, was able to discover many new species of plants
in remote parts of the Sierra. He was 46 years old when he climbed Half Dome.
In 1880, he married Sarah Allen Plummer,
who would accompany him on many trips along the Pacific Coast, in the Sierra,
and in the Rockies. From 1888 to 1892 the couple worked for the
State Board of Forestry, John serving as botanist, and his wife as artist.
In the 1890s, Sarah promoted the bill that eventually made the golden poppy
California's state flower. John died of pneumonia in Oakland, in 1908,
and Sarah died in Stockton in 1923.
They are buried in Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland.
Lady Gordon Cumming, quoted already above, describes technique used
in early Half Dome ascents in a letter
reprinted later in Granite Crags (1884). On Saturday,
May 4, 1878 (Chapter VI, in her book), she wrote [emphasis mine]:
Having thus made the ascent a possibility, Anderson's delight
now is to induce enterprising climbers to draw themselves up by his
rope ferry, the manner of proceeding being to keep one foot on
either side of the rope, and, retaining a good grip of the rope
itself, gradually to haul one's self up to the summit, there remain
for a while lost in wonder at the grand bird's-eye view, and then
climb down backwards.
It is all right
so long as most of the stanchions stand firm and the rope
does not break; but should this simple accident occur, there would not be
the faintest possibility of rescue, wretch who might fall from that
majestic dome. A leap from the summit of St. Paul's would be child's
play in comparison. A man troubled with suicidal mania would find it hard
to look down from a precipice a sheer fall of 5000 feet, and resist
the temptation to cast himself down...
Two months later, on July 12th
(Chapter XIII), she adds:
George Anderson, [who is] regarding
the giant [Half Dome] with all the pride of a conqueror, frequently
invites me to ascend [it] under his able guidance, but which
I consider as a feat too dangerous to compensate for the risk...
And indeed, she left the Valley without ever climbing the Dome.
1879: Brave clergymen
Ascenders: Asa Fiske (twice), John Allis, many others
Congressional tourism is not invention of our days. From June 7
to June 15, 1879, a Yosemite Sabbath-School Assembly was organized,
and newspapers reported huge interest among clergymen for the meeting.
Delegates from 23 states attended.
Just in one train coming from the East, there were "one hundred
and sixty-five of the party who intended visiting the great valley"
(Daily Evening Bulletin, July 4, 1879, p. 4).
The "Union Chapel" in the Valley was dedicated on this occasion.
Galen Clark and John Muir made presentations to the assembly.
Muir's speech about glaciers "inspired the crowded house with
such enthusiasm that more than a hundred climbed the trail to
Upper Yosemite Falls with the lecturer" (Daily Evening Bulletin,
July 12, 1879, p. 2). Some of attendees were even more adventurous:
Daily Evening Bulletin, June 14, 1879, p. 3
Yosemite, June 14th.
...Excursions, semi-scientific and pleasure, are the order of the day.
Rev. A. S. Fiske has led two parties of climbers to the summit of
South Dome. Rev. J. M. Allis of the Occident has also made this ascent...
Fiske and Allis were Presbyterian ministers in San Francisco
at the time of the Assembly. Asa Severance Fiske (1833-1925),
was about 46 years old when he made those two ascents in 1879.
He was born in Ohio, graduated in class of 1855 at Amherst College,
and served as chaplain for the Fourth Minnesota Infantry during the Civil War.
After the War, he held pastorates successively
in Rockville (Connecticut), Rochester (New York), San Francisco, and
Ithaca (New York), until he was eighty-four. He died in New Orleans.
John Mather Allis (1839-1899), was 39 in the summer of 1879.
Born in Quebec, Canada, he left for Troy, N.Y., at the age of 14.
He graduated from Princeton in 1866, and from Union Theological
Seminary in 1869, then served in Albany (New York), Lansing (Mich), and Anaheim (California).
Between 1877 and 1881 he served
at the Larkin Street Church in San Francisco.
After a brief stay in Lafayette (Indiana), he got appointed a foreign
missionary and assigned to Chile, where he died.
Ascenders: Anderson, George Strong
The only source for this entry is a paragraph from the Examiner,
printed sixteen years later. This ascent was perhaps one of Anderson's
attempts to upgrade his system of ropes on the east slope.
San Francisco Chronicle, August 4, 1895. p. 9
...During the intervening eighteen years [since 1877]
several San Franciscans have made
the ascent. In 1879 George H. Strong of San Francisco made the same ascent,
and it was part of the same rope that Mr. Strong and his guide, Anderson,
left on the Half Dome nearly sixteen years ago that young Thomas Magee
found when he went up [recently]... There is no actual record of any ascent
of the Half Dome between that made by Mr. Strong in 1879
and the one made by young Mr. Magee and Mr. Rawlings a few days ago [in 1895]...
We now know that there were at least several additional ascents between 1879 and 1895,
see below, and Part Two of this report.
George Henry Strong (1839-19??), was 40, when he climbed Half Dome
with Anderson. He was
born in Massachusetts, but moved to San Francisco
after graduation. He was a patent attorney (solicitor) in the City,
and an avid sportsman: a member of the oldest boat club in the Bay Area
(Pioneer Rowing Club), and one of founders of the San Francisco Bicycle Club
in 1879. He was a co-author of a biking book, The Cyclists'
Road-book of California: Containing Maps of the Principal
Riding Districts North, East and South from San Francisco, published in
1893. He was also connected with the firm of Dewey & Co., publishers of the
Scientific Press, and a member of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
In his later years, he lived in Oakland, with the family of his daughter
Georgie Strong Hubbard. George Strong died some time after 1927.
1879: Sea of livid flames: Storm atop the Dome
Ascenders: Mary and James Lawrence, James Hutchings, five other ladies and gentlemen
Sound of approaching thunders brings fears into hearts of climbers
atop Half Dome even today. The following is an early
description of a storm that caught a group of people still at the top
of the Dome:
San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, July 27, 1879, p. 1
Perilous Climb of the South Dome of the Yosemite
Terrors of a Summit Storm—A Lake of Fire—Olympian Thunderings...
[A group of climbers find a charming camp-ground
by the side of the Merced, in the Little Yosemite Valley,
two miles up from the Nevada Fall. They climb to
the top of the Cap of Liberty on the first day. Back in camp,
they "rest and skirmish hereabouts for a few days,
every hour's exercise strengthening us for the glorious
journey ahead"]
At 8 a.m. on one of these days we leave camp, pass portions of
the walls of the Little Yosemite that have been polished by glaciers...
We go over these moraines, and en route to the South Dome or
Tissack call at George Anderson's cabin... We ride away up to the base
of the great mountain. Then comes a long, hard hand-and-foot
climb up into the saddle on the eastern wall... There yet remains
nearly 1,000 feet of wall to scale. The only way to accomplish
it is by a rope which is swinging down from out the heavens...
For us to make this ascent is a perilous undertaking, or rather
overtaking. Away we go, not daring to gaze downwards, lest we
lose our senses and be dashed into fragments. Finally we hear
the avant-courier shouting, "Up in a balloon, boys", as he reaches
and drags us up and over the edge, when, blinding our eyes with
our hands, we rush back from the dizzy spot.
All are safely landed before any one turns attention to the
surroundings, for there has been much anxiety. We find eight trees,
four different kinds of pines, on the summit. There are numerous
shrubs and flowers growing in the crevices, while lizards, grasshoppers
and chipmunk tenant this isolated mountain... We count nineteen
immense forest fires away below us... The sheep-herders are thus doing
disastrous work, destroying timber and the beauty of landscape,
and thinning the dense groves that shelter ice fields, making
them become devastating floods upon being exposed to the full glare
of the sun[!]
But what is this? Clouds are gathering about us.
Heaven have mercy on us, for how will we ever descend if a storm
head us off?... Belts of red and golden and dark purple clouds,
indicative of the coming anger of the elements, gather around
the setting sun. But he persistently forces his rays through
them all till every bank of cloud and mountain chain, dome, pinacle,
spire and crest is lighted up with brilliant glare.
All around our very feet, and far about us
as the eye can reach, is a shining sea of livid flames.
Even the deepest black canyons are filled full of a lurid
purplish red... We stand in ineffable terror gazing upon the
fascinating panorama... The thunder renews its crashes from summit to
summit, and re-echoes again and again adown the canyon's depths.
The lightning flashes in livid lines about the cliff-sides through
the flaming atmosphere... Renewing our courage, [we] hurry to the
edge of the precipice, down which we are to swoop through the storm
and perhaps in utter darkness...
The lightning darts its fiery shafts all through the air about
our feet as one after another swings into the perilous hand-clinging
journey on the rope of the 1,000-foot precipice. We literally
ride upon the storm [which has now broken below us], almost
treading upon the lightning and grasping it in our hands...
The rains falls fast, the wall is dripping with trickling water,
the rope-knots are soaking, our naked hands are blistered (for our
gloves were too slippery in the wet), and we only make the landing
in time to save our lives. But what a grand and glorious experience,
and, full of thanksgiving, little reck we the storm as we jog
on our way to the river side [and our camp]...
Also reprinted in St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 3, 1879, p. 10

Mrs. Mary Viola Lawrence.
Drawn in 1896 "from an old
daguerreotype".
This was the last of seven articles about Yosemite
published on Sundays between June 15 and July 27, 1879.
The correspondent, signed only as "Ridinghood", gives her description
of current events in the Valley, including the Sabbath-School Assembly,
as well as her reminiscence of earlier visits. Therefore, it is not
completely excluded that the Half Dome ascent described above,
had happened in an earlier year. The author discloses that
the party consisted of eight people, including several ladies,
led by James Hutchings. We also learn that "Mr. and Mrs. Snow
[of the Snow's House, near the foot of Nevada Fall] were locked
in their chalet all last winter". Based on that information,
perhaps somebody with good knowledge
of the history of the Snow's Hotel could help narrow down the
exact year of the Half Dome excursion described by "Ridinghood".
The author hiding behind this nom de plume was
Mary Viola Lawrence (nee Tingley), wife of
lawyer-politician-editor James Henry Lawrence.
She was columnist and correspondent for several California newspapers,
and an established literary figure. James Mason Hutchings praises her
in his In the Heart of the Sierras as one
"who has done so much by her rich and varied description to bespeak wrapt
attention to the Valley", but he does not mention this trip in his books.
Mary Viola Tingley (cca 1839 - 1931), was a
native of Rushville, Indiana, and came to California in the early fifties.
She began her newspaper career
by commenting San Francisco social matters for the readers
of the Sacramento Union in her popular weekly "Ridinghood Letters".
In 1865, the first anthology of California poetry, Outcroppings,
was published under Bret Harte's name, although those verses
were collected mostly by Mary Tingley. In June 1870, she married
James H. Lawrence (1827-1901),
a California Senator representing Mariposa, Stanislaus
and Merced from 1867 to 1871, and former editor and proprietor of the
Mariposa Free Press. She called him "Ingomar" in her "High Sierra" serial.
They had one daughter, Constance Violet Lawrence, born in 1879.
Eventually, James deserted his wife and daughter,
and their divorce followed, but Mary forgave her husband
and remarried him a week before his death.
Mary continued working for San Francisco
newspapers and the Overland Monthly.
She was a member of the Woman's Press Association,
and a historian of a San Francisco chapter of the Daughters of the
American Revolution. Her book "A Diplomat's Helpmate" (about Rose F. Foote
and her experiences in Korea) was published in 1918.
She died in her daughter's home in San Francisco on April 23, 1931.
1881: Osborne and Gassaway
Ascenders: Anderson(?), Henry Osborne, Frank Gassaway
Henry Z. Osborne described this ascent in a letter to the editor of the
Los Angeles Times, thirty-four years after the actual climb:
Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1915, p. II5
Climbing the Half Dome
Los Angeles, Aug. 16 — To the Editor of the Times: The feat of
seventeen college students, several from this city, accompanied by
the photographer A. C. Pillsbury, of climbing the Half Dome in
the Yosemite Valley [in August 1915]...,
is a very notable achievement in mountain climbing.
But it is not quite accurate to say that "this is the first time on record
that the top of the Dome has been reached by human beings", although it is
probably true it has not been done during the last thirty years.
In the year 1881, when I had less sense and less avoirdupois
than now, accompanied by Frank Gassoway [actually: Gassaway],
a San Francisco newspaper man,
who wrote under the nom de plume "Derick Dodd", I made the ascent of the
Half Dome.
I came into the valley horseback from Mono Lake, crossing by the way of
Mill Creek Canyon, Mt. Dana, Tioga, the Tuolumne meadows and Lake Tenaya,
and meeting Mr. Gassoway in the valley, we agreed together to climb the
Half Dome, or the South Dome, as it is sometimes called.
We rode horseback from the valley to the Saddle, which is 960 feet below
the summit of the Dome, and from that point we climbed the rock by aid of
a rope about a half inch in diameter, which had been placed there by a sailor
named Anderson in the early seventies. He had set iron staples with rings
in the rock about seventy-five feet apart, and the rope was attached
to each of those staples. Many venturesome people climbed the Dome while
this rope was in place. At that time the rope was quite weather-worn
and many of the staples had become loose and detached from the rock.
These rattling on the surface of the granite were very disconcerting
during the climb...
From a distance the Half Dome
looks perfectly smooth and shines like glass in the sun, but in reality
it is of granite of rather coarse texture, and the grain of the rock,
with occasional cracks, give a slight foothold.
This rope, which was regarded as dangerous, was taken down that year,
and no one has ever ascended the Half Dome in the thirty-odd years since,
until the feat of Pillsbury and the students, which was really a very
remarkable one.
On the top of the rock, 9500 feet above the sea level, there is an
acre or so comparatively level, and on this were many bones of sheep,
which had climbed the steep dome, but could not raise sufficient courage
to descend, and died at the top rather than make the attempt.
H. Z. Osborne
Well, Osborne was certainly wrong in one thing: Ascents continued
even after the summer of 1881. It is interesting that Osborne's
climbing partner, Frank Gassaway, made a note about Half Dome in
his book Summer saunterings (1882), but he didn't say explicitely
that he had made the ascent. What looked like a second hand knowledge,
could now be read in a new light in view of that newly found Osborne's letter.
It appears that Osborne and Gassaway were accompanied by Anderson on their
trip. Here is what Gassaway had said about Yosemite:
Summer saunterings, by Frank Harrison Gassaway, San Francisco, 1882, p. 122:
As a standpoint for the landscape viewer, the polished summit of
[Half Dome] is incomparably the finest in the whole range, towering as it does
five thousand feet above the Valley floor and commanding its entire scope,
from east to west. The drawback to its general enjoyment by the tourist is the
undeniably hazardous nature of the present means of ascent, which from
the top of the horse-trail to the apex of the eminence is by means of a rope
nine hundred feet long. This cord lies upon the slippery surface of the granite slope,
the angle never being less than forty degrees. The marvel of the matter is
how this cord was first placed on that air-line trail by the spider-footed
Geo. Anderson, a guide of the greatest strength and most iron nerve.
A man ascending this dizzy slant presents about the relative appearance of
a fly walking up the side of an inverted goblet. Very few visitors care
to attempt it, unless under the supervision of this guide, Anderson, whose
wonderful coolness was acquired as a sailor. The cord itself is hardly
calculated to inspire the fullest confidence, being composed of
seven thicknesses of common, hay-bale-rope. This, however, is knotted every
few inches to assist the hands, besides which the climber can rest at certain
intervals and anoint the soles of his feet with fresh mucilage, a bottle of
which he carries in his vest pocket for the purpose...
Henry Zenas Osborne (1848-1923), was 32 when he made this Half Dome ascent.
He was born in New Lebanon, New York, and came to Bodie, California in 1878,
where he edited and managed the Daily Standard and
founded the Bodie Daily Free Press. He made the trip to Yosemite
during his Bodie years. In 1884, he moved to Los Angeles, and acquired the
Evening Republican and the Evening Express, which he
directed until 1897. A biographical note from 1889 states that
"Mr. Osborne has a family of wife and five children, — four sons and one
daughter, — and a pleasant home in Los Angeles". After 1897,
Osborne pursued a political career, which culminated
in his election as a Republican to Congress in 1916, the post he held
until his death in 1923.
Frank Harrison Gassaway (1848-1923), was only nine months older than Osborne,
and had the same life span as his Yosemite partner. They both died early
in 1923. Frank was 33, and an accomplished
poet and reporter in San Francisco, when he climbed the Dome.
He was born in Maryland or Washington, D.C., and came to
California in or before 1880. By that time, two of
his most popular patriotic poems were already published:
The Pride of Battery B (4th U.S. Light Artillery),
and The Dandy Fifth. In California, he was a regular
correspondent for the San Francisco Evening Post.
He wrote for the Post
a series of semi-humorous, semi-descriptive
letters (a la Mark Twain) about popular California tourist attractions
under pseudonym of "Derrick Dodd". These writings were
collected in the book Summer saunterings in 1882. Later in his life,
Gassaway worked for Hearst's San Francisco Examiner.
With Hearst's support, a collection of his early works
Poems: By Frank Harrison Gassaway were published in New York in 1920.
By that time, patriotic poetry of the Civil War era was quickly
getting out of style. Gassaway died in 1923 (see
his obituary in
the New York Times). [Note: Finding Gassaway's biographical data
was not an easy task, because he was born Francis, then used the name Frank
through most of his life, and was called Franklin at the time of
his death].
1883: More climbs
Ascenders: Henry Hamilton, Christopher Magee(?), Gerald Strickland(?)
I didn't find any direct newspaper report about this ascent,
but an account, written many years later, would suggest that at least
Hamilton, and perhaps Magee and Strickland, climbed Half Dome
in June or early July of 1883.
Foot Prints, by Henry Raymond Hamilton,
Lakeside Press, Chicago, 1927, pp. 121-122
[describing events in early summer of 1883]
[...In the City, I met a man who]
had been to the Orient and the Hawaiian Islands
and had landed at San Francisco to begin his invasion of America.
His name was Count Bologna Strickland; his father was an Englishman and
he had been educated in England. His mother was a
Maltese and his estates were on the island of Malta, from
whence he took his title. We arranged to make a trip together
to the Yosemite Valley, and left San Francisco by
rail for the nearest point to the Valley, which I think was Merced,
from which we staged into the valley, stopping overnight at
the Mariposa Big tree grove.
Our companions on this stage trip were Chris Magee of Pittsburgh,
and his wife and sister. Chris afterwards became the Republican boss of
Western Pennsylvania and had the
free and easy manners of the American politician and also the American
politician's indifference
to titles. The count was very dignified and took himself quite seriously.
We stopped for lunch at a roadside cabin, and after the rest of the party had
embarked, the count was discovered making notes in his memorandum book,
probably for the book he intended writing. Magee electrified him
by calling out,

Chris Magee
"Hurry up there Bologna Sausage, old boy,
we can't hold this bus all day for you." I suppose that he put this in his
notes, too. We were in the valley only one day,
but we saw as much as the ordinary tourist sees in three days,
because we galloped our horses all day long,
from one point to another. We even
climbed to the top of the South Dome, a feat which, according to the guide
book, had never been accomplished. However, a sailor
had managed to scale the height a year or two before, and had left
a rope anchored at various points in the rock.
By putting one's feet against the rock, and going up about 800 feet of rope,
hand over hand, the feat was not so difficult, although it required some
agility. When we got to the top, we climbed down to a ledge on
the vertical wall of the cliff and dropped stones to the floor
of the valley, a straight drop of a mile...
It is not completely clear how many people from Hamilton's party made
it to the Dome ("we[?!] even climbed to the top...").
Date of the visit is not given in the book. The New York Times
lists Count Strickland in New York hotels on June 6, 1883, then again on July 22.
Magee was actively involved in the State Republican Convention, that
began on July 11, 1883 in Harrisburg, Penn.
The Yosemite trip perhaps took place between June 6 and July 11.
Henry Raymond Hamilton (1861-1940), was 22 at the time of this ascent.
He was born in Chicago, and in addition to Foot Prints, he also
published a book about Chicago history: The Epic of Chicago,
in about 1932. Count Gerald Bologna-Strickland (1861-1940), later Lord Strickland,
was also 22 at the time of that trip. He was educated at St. Mary's College,
Oscott, and Trinity College, Cambridge. In later years,
he would serve as Governor of Tasmania, Governor
of Western Australia, Governor of New South Wales,
and as Prime Minister of Malta. I don't know if
he had ever published his notes from the trip to Yosemite.
Christopher Lyman Magee (1848-1901) was the
oldest of the three Yosemite visitors: his age was 35 in 1883.
He would become a noted political figure in Pittsburgh and
Pennsylvania. He unexpectedly died while serving as a state senator, in 1901.
Ascenders: Gleadell, Burns
British The Gentleman's Magazine, published
the story "Yosemite Memories" by W. H. Gleadell in September 1896.
The author remembers his trip from San Francisco to Yosemite
a couple of years earlier, and adds the following description
of his Half Dome ascent:
The Gentleman's Magazine, London, Volume CCLXXXI [281],
September 1896, pp. 245-258
Yosemite Memories, by W. H. Gleadell
...The day was still very young as we galloped down the valley to the Half
Dome trail... Near the foot of Nevada Fall stands
Snow's Hotel and here we dismounted...
At Snow's we stayed long enough to
rest and refresh our horses, then
continued up the trail to the top of the Nevada Fall, and round the base
of a stupendous and isolated mass of rock, nearly perpendicular on all
sides, known as the Cap of Liberty. Here we turned out of the Merced
Gorge into the Little Yosemite Valley, and by the side of a small brook,
the last water we were to see till the same spot was reached on our
return, partook alfresco of the luncheon we had brought with us in our
saddle-bags.
Our Mexican ponies took us to within 1,000 feet
of the summit, the point
at which most of the amateur climbers of the ancient abode of Tesaiyac
finally stop. Comparatively few, we were assured, ever reach the
flag-staff. We had been duly warned before starting of the dangers
attendant on the ascent of the rounded dome itself, and we had to
confess,
as we looked up at the almost perpendicular (about 80 degrees) smooth
granite surface and the solitary rope to which we were to trust our
lives, that it did look somewhat fearful.
The rope, of fifteen strands of a very strong fibre, was securely
fastened at the top of the peak,
and then fixed by iron cleats driven into the face
of the rock at intervals of 100 feet. The ascent is effected by pulling
oneself up this rope hand over hand, at the same time firmly gripping the
granite face of the mountain with one's feet. Despite the assertion of
guide books that the ascent is "hazardous in the extreme", it is not a
difficult feat provided one has a good head and can
rely on one's fingers—for a moment's loss of power or
self-control must mean inevitable destruction. Only two of us,
however, essayed this final portion of the ascent—a
Scotchman, bearing the truly Scottish name of Burns, and the
writer—but I do not think either of us were sorry
when we at last stood on the plateau beside the
flagstaff. This plateau was some ten acres in extent, and surrounded on
all sides, except that by which we had come, by apparently bottomless
abysses, out of which the roaring of distant waters was the only sound
that issued. No sign of life or vegetation was visible anywhere save away
down in the Yosemite Valley, 5,000 feet below, but the panorama was
nevertheless superb. Over intervening canons and gorges the pale majestic
Sierra peaks rose grandly desolate against the cloudless sky, and the
bald granite rocks around us showed almost as white as the
distant snow-capped heights beyond...
For some twenty minutes we stood on this awe-inspiring spot, and then
commenced the return journey. This had to be performed backwards, so that
fully an hour and a half had elapsed before we again rejoined our friends
and ponies.
The sun was getting very low when we once more reached Snow's,
and by the time we entered
the wood again we found it necessary to dismount and lead
our ponies as best we could through the darkness, and many tumbles and
bruises were ours before we emerged from the forest on to the floor of
the valley... A smart gallop to finish, and we were again
at the door of our hotel,
having been some twelve hours in the saddle, pleased with ourselves
and grateful for all the beauty and majestic grandeur we had seen.
The text was also reprinted in the Eclectic Magazine,
Vol. 64, December 1896, pp. 837-846.
The author does not identify a date of the trip directly,
other than saying that it started "on a lovely September afternoon"
(no year!), but he left several clues in the text that
can unmistakenly determine the year. He lists other West Coast
visitors at the time of his trip,
among them a group "entertained by the American Bar
Association", and another one organized by "Mr. Villard of the Northern
Pacific Railroad", consisting of "the present
Lord Chief Justice of England, and a number of other leading
lights of the British Bar and Parliament". He also talks about
a recent Yosemite stage robbery. All those events happened
in the late August or early September of 1883.
William Henry Gleadell (1864-1941),
was about 19 at the time of his ascent. From an interesting
biographical note
written by his son, we learn that William came to California (and
back to Brittain) aboard the White Star Line clipper, Hoghton Tower
(sometimes called "Houghton Tower").
This information can furhter narrow down the date of his Yosemite visit.
Indeed,
San Francisco newspapers
show Hoghton Tower arriving
to San Francisco on August 31, 1883 ("from Liverpool, via Bahia [Brazil],
175 days on sea"). Gleadell was author of several other essays
in British journals (one, for example, about San Francisco
Chinatown), and several letters to The Times editor.
He fought and was seriously injured in WWI,
survived the most intensive period of daylight bombing of London
in 1940/1941, and died "very peacefully, at a London nursing home,
after a long illness" (The Times) on May 27, 1941.
A good example of how a family tradition could take a life
of its own, while not always being easily reconcilable with facts,
is a comment in Gleadell's biography quoted above:
"He shipped [in Hoghton Tower]
as one of five apprentices, including one called Shackleton;
all five swore they would never go to sea again. Many years later my
father took me, while passing through New York, to hear a lecture by Sir
Ernest Shackleton on his polar explorations and it was a thrill for me
to go back stage and meet the great man". In fact, while
Gleadell's journey in Hoghton Tower happened in 1883/1884,
Shackleton, who was ten years younger than Gleadell, first went to
sea much later, and spent four years aboard Hoghton Tower
from 1890 to 1894. They simply could not have been apprentices on the ship
at the same time.
1884: Anderson dies
Anderson never succeeded in building a wooden stairway, let alone an "elevator"
to the top of Half Dome. Whatever progress he made in summers, heavy winter
snows and avalanches would sweep away. Eventually, he gave up, and focused
on building a better access trail to the "saddle", just below the ropes section.
Some of that work was financed by the Government. Sections of Anderson's
access trail are still in use.
And then everything came to an abrupt stop. Steve Harrison, in his George Anderson, First Up the Dome, in
Yosemite Nature Notes, Vol 46, No. 2, 1977, writes: "In the spring of 1884,
while painting Adolph Sinning's cottage in Yosemite Valley, Anderson contracted
pneumonia and died May 8 at George Fiske's house". The Stockton Independent
printed a note about Anderson's death, but stated that he had died on May 10.
Independent's account was copied by other newspapers:
Mariposa Gazette, May 24, 1884
Death of a celebrity.
The Stockton Independent says: "George Anderson, a native of Melrose,
Scotland, aged 47, and for a long time a resident in Yo Semite Valley,
died there on the 10th inst., of acute pneumonia. He was a man of
pluck and daring, being the first to climb South Dome, and it was to his skill
and perseverance that it's ascent was made possible to others.
He was latterly engaged in building a wide passageway from the floor
of the Valley up to the Vernal and Nevada Falls, which, being cut in the side
of the granite walls, required blasting most of the way".
Anderson's grave is in the Yosemite Cemetery, in the Valley.
Other early ascents, for which dates could not be established
Many other tourists made it to Half Dome in the summer
seasons of 1876-1883, either directly guided by
Anderson, or by using his system of ropes and pins.
We can only guess
the number of successful ascents during the years in which
Anderson has kept his route in working order (apparently,
up to 1882 or 1883). Hutchings estimates that
almost 18,000 people had visited the Valley from 1876 to 1883,
or—on average—some 2000 visitors per year
(deduced from his In the Heart of the Sierras, Chapter 10).
Hittel, in his Hand-book of Pacific Coast Travel, published
in 1885, states that (p. 158) "Out of 100 tourists who visit the Yosemite,
80 go to Glacier Point, as many to the Nevada Fall, 20 to Eagle Point,
10 to Cloud's Rest, and 3 to the top of the Half Dome".
This estimate, combined with Hutchings' numbers, would suggest some
sixty Half Dome ascents per year during
Anderson's era (compare this to
as many as 1,000 hikers per day atop the Dome
on a typical summer weekend in 2008).
There are other, more conservative estimates. For example,
in an article about Half Dome from 1901, we find the sentence:
"Some years ago an old sailor was engaged for several summmers
drilling rings into the rock... and by means
of the rope venturesome stocking-footed climbers,
to the number of about fifty,
including several women, made their way over the shelf of rock..."
(The Atlanta Constitution, March 24, 1901, p. A5)
Unfortunately, names of climbers or dates of those ascents
were not recorder in newspapers that I can reach.
Some addditional information could probably be found
in the Snow's Hotel register,
now preserved in the Yosemite Museum, but I don't have access to that
document. The hotel, called "Casa Nevada" stood for many years just below
Nevada Falls, and many Half Dome visitors would sign their names
on the way up to the Dome, or down from the top.
In a few cases, we know names
of early ascenders, but dates of their trips could not be established
with certainty:
Ascenders: Anderson, Julius Birge, a young San Franciscan (1875 or 1876?)
Birge's book The Awakening of the Desert was already
quoted above.
He must have made it to the top shortly after Sarah Dutcher's ascent,
because he found her bracelet on the summit plateau. However, it is not
clear if this was in 1875 or later.
Ascender: Fannie Crippen
After their father's death, four Crippen sisters were
adopted and raised by their step-father, a hotelkeeper in the Valley,
John Barnard. We already met the eldest sister
Abbie Crippen and talked about her
Half Dome ascent in 1877.
Shirley Sargent in her Pioneers in Petticoats
also adds that Abbie's sister Fannie Crippen, born in 1866,
made it to the top with another party, but no date is given: "When
Fannie climbed Half Dome with three other daredevil souls, they scorned
the usual route and started at Mirror Lake, scrambling up to the
dome's face, then skirting easterly around the back, and up the cable.
Their shoes wore out before they reached home". No source for
this (quite confusing) description was given in Sargent's book.
Ascender: Henry Herbert
The only account of this ascent is a biographical note
in the list of elected representatives,
A Souvenir of New Hampshire Legislators,
for the year 1897, pp. 72-73. Date of the climb is not given
(emphasis mine):
Henry William Herbert, [representing Rumney],
Democrat, a member of the Committee on Industrial School, was born at
Rumney, October 2, 1842. He was educated in the common schools and at
Boscawen Academy. He enlisted in the 6th N. H. Regiment, but being under
age and unable to obtain his father's consent, he could not enter the
service. He entered a broker's office in Boston and remained there
during the war. He then returned to Rumney and followed the occupation
of farming until 1871, at which time he was appointed station agent on
the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad at that place, which position
he held until January 1, 1887. Mr. Herbert has traveled quite
extensively in Canada and throughout the United States, and is
one of the very few persons who ever stood on the
summit of the South Dome in the Yosemite Valley.
He was a Representative in 1894, and has been
Chairman of the Rumney Board of Selectmen for five years; Tax Collector
five years, and Deputy Sheriff two years.
Ascender: Mary Adair(?)
Under the title "The Pioneer Adair Family of Mariposa", a
mariposaresearch.net
Web page, gives the following brief biography of Mary E. Adair: "She
became a teacher and taught school in Yosemite. She was also an artist
and painted many pictures of Yosemite. She was the first woman
to climb Half Dome..." We know that Mary was not
the first woman to climb Half Dome, but we don't know the date
of her possible ascent. It appears that Mary didn't teach in Yosemite
before 1880, but she may have been teaching in nearby communities
in the late 1870s. Shirley Sargent has a full-page photo in her
Petticoats (p. 43), with description: "Yosemite schoolhouse
and pupils with schoolmarm Mary Adair about 1881", but she doesn't mention
Mary's Half Dome climb.
Ascender: Stegman(?)
On January 21, 1938, the Oakland Tribune printed an
obituary of a man named Stegman. It reads:
"Veteran miner Stegman dies in Berkeley.
A man who boasted he was the second man
ever to climb Half Dome in Yosemite died in
a nursing home here yesterday after a short illness. Stegman died after
a rigorous career of mining and exploring
over the North American continent, in which he touched Alaska,
Washington, Oregon and most of the California
mining country. His father was the first intendent of
Yosemite after it became a National Park, he often told his nephews and nieces.
It was while the elder Stegman was in that capacity that the son followed
a guide's trial made up the granite side of
the famous Sierra cliff the previous day. He came to live in Oakland
in 1928, and was never married. A number of nieces and nephews survive".
The only Stegman that I could find in early Yosemite history was
Henry Stegman, who was Wells Fargo's first recorded agent in the Valley.
He was appointed in 1879 and relinquished the job in 1886.
He also served as a postmaster in the Valley (around 1882). It doesn't
look likely that Stegman was in Yosemite in 1875, and there are
no other confirmations of Stegman's son ascent.
Adventurous ascents continued between 1884 and 1919
The second part of this article covers
years between 1884 and 1919.
In 1919, Hall McAllister (through the Sierra Club) installed two steel cables
attached to support pipes, which are basically still in use
(though upgraded several times since).
Other online resources about early Half Dome ascents:
James Mason Hutchings, In the Heart of the Sierras,
Chapter 26
Steve Harrison, George Anderson, First Up the Dome,
Yosemite Nature Notes, Volume 46, No. 2, 1977
Hank Johnston, The First Ascents of Half Dome [pdf file], Yosemite (Magazine), Volume 65, No. 1, Winter 2003, pp. 7-9