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Part Two of this article

Chronicles of Early Ascents of Half Dome.
Part I: Anderson's Years

1875: Indomitable Scotchman, George Anderson

Ascender: Anderson

For about twenty years, tourists and inhabitants of the Yosemite Valley looked at Half Dome (or "South Dome") and dreamed of scaling it. Finally, in 1875, somebody had enough courage and determination to reach its top. The following article from the San Francisco Bulletin appears to be the earliest newspaper account of Anderson's legendary ascent.

San Francisco Bulletin, October 19, 1875, p. 3

Newspaper article that describes Anderson's first ascent of Half Dome

An Unparalleled Feat.—On Tuesday the 12th instant, the extraordinary feat of ascending the South Dome in the Yosemite Valley was accomplished by a Scot[c]hman by birth and a sailor by profession, named George Anderson. He drilled his way up the south side, about 1,500 feet in two days.

[See Anderson's original bolt and spike found in Yosemite].

John Muir repeated Anderson's feat several weeks later. He described Anderson's and his climbs in an article published in the San Francisco Bulletin, on November 18, 1875. Here are paragraphs from that article related to Anderson's first ascent. (Muir's ascent is fully covered later). Muir also gives credit to John Conway and his sons for an earlier similar but unsuccessful attempt:

Daily Evening Bulletin, November 18, 1875, p. 1

South Dome
Its Ascent by George Anderson and John Muir.
(From our special correspondent).

Yosemite Valley, November 10, 1875.
The Yosemite South Dome is the noblest rock in the Sierra, and George Anderson, an indomitable Scotchman, has made a way to its summit... With the exception of conoidal summit of Mount Starr King, and a few minor spires and pinnacles, the South Dome is the only inaccessible rock of the valley, and its inaccessibility is pronounced in very severe and simple terms, leaving no trace of hope for the climber without artificial means. But longing eyes were none the less fixed on its noble brow, and the Anderson way will be eagerly ascended.

The Dome rises from the level floor of the valley to the height of very nearly a mile... On the east, where it is united with the dividing ridge between the great Tenaya and Nevada canyons, the Dome may be easily approached within six or seven hundred feet of the summit, where it rises in a smooth, graceful curve just a few degrees too steep to climb. Nearly all Sierra rocks are accessible on the eastern or upper side, because the glacial force which eroded them out of the solid acted from this direction[!]; but special conditions in the position and structure of the South Dome prevented the formation of the ordinary low grade, and it is this steep upper portion that the plucky Anderson has overcome. John Conway, a resident of the valley, has a flock of small boys who climb smooth rocks like lizards, and some two years ago he sent them up the dome with a rope, hoping they might be able to fasten it with spikes driven into fissures, and thus reach the top. They took the rope in tow and succeeded in making it fast two or three hundred feet above the point ordinarily reached, but finding the upper portion of the curve impracticable without laboriously drilling into the rock, he called down his lizards, thinking himself fortunate in effecting a safe retreat.

Mr. Anderson began with Conway's old rope, part of which still remains in place, and resolutely drilled his way to the top, inserting eyebolts five or six feet apart, and making his rope fast to each in succession, resting his foot on the last bolt while he drilled for the next above. Occasionally some irregularity in the curve or slight foothold would enable him to climb fifteen or twenty feet independently of the rope, which he would pass and begin drilling again, the whole being accomplished in a few days. From this slender beginning he will now proceed to construct a substantial stairway which he hopes to complete in time for next year's travel; and as he is a man of rare energy the thing will surely be done. Then, all may sing "Excelsior" in perfect safety...

Muir later used this text in at least two of his books, The Mountains of California, 1894, and The Yosemite, 1912. It is interesting to study revisions that he made in the later years. For example, in The Yosemite, Anderson, being dead and all but forgotten, didn't fare well in the edited text. The original sentence (see above), "...and as he [Anderson] is a man of rare energy the thing will surely be done", is now replaced by "...but while busy getting out timber for his stairway and dreaming of the wealth he hoped to gain from tolls, he was taken sick and died all alone in his little cabin". On the other hand, Conway and "his lizards" would get a slightly better treatment. The original text "John Conway, a resident of the valley has a flock of small boys..." is replaced by "John Conway, the master trail-builder of the Valley, and his little sons..." Muir also dropped his speculation about "Sierra rocks being accessible on the eastern or upper side, because of glacial forces", and made other corrections in the later editions of the text.

(Another description of Conway's attempt can be found in Josiah Whitney's The Yosemite Guide-book, 1874 edition).

Here are some other early descriptions of Anderson's first climb:

The earliest book that mentioned (indirectly) Anderson's Half Dome ascent, was apparently Charles Beebe Turrill's first volume of California Notes, printed in San Francisco in 1876. The author states (pp. 215-216) [emphasis mine]:

The grand feature of this section [of Yosemite Valley] is the South, or, as sometimes called, the Half Dome... The shape of the South Dome is such that but one party has ever succeeded in reaching the summit, an undertaking few will care to attempt, and still smaller number can accomplish.

In the spring of 1878, Lady Constance Frederica Gordon Cumming, of London, then about 40 years old, visited Yosemite. She intended to stay for three days, but ended up being there for three months. A collection of her letters from that trip was published under the title Granite Crags, by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh/London, 1884. Her letter dated "Saturday, 4th May [1878]" talks about Anderson's climb:

Granite Crags, by C. F. Gordon Cumming, Chapter VI

...For many years [Half Dome] was considered altogether inaccessible; but about eighteen months ago [actually, two and a half years ago] it was scaled by an energetic, determined Scotchman, George Anderson by name. He hails from Montrose, but has taken up his abode in this beautiful valley; and now he looks on the Half-Dome with such mingled pride and veneration, that I should think he will never leave it.

It was in 1875 that he determined to reach the summit, if mortal man could accomplish the feat. Climbing goat-like along dizzy ledges, and clinging like a fly to every crevice that could afford him foothold, he reached the point where hitherto the boldest cragsman had been foiled. Here he halted till he had drilled a hole in the rock and securely fixed an iron stanchion with an eye-bolt, through which he passed a strong rope. Then resting on this frail support, he was able to reach farther, and to drill a second hole and fix another eye-bolt. From this point of vantage he could secure a third, carrying the rope through every bolt, and always securing it at the upper end.

Thus step by step he crept upward, till at last he had drilled holes and driven in iron stanchions right up the vast granite slab, securing 1100 feet of rope. Then rounding the mighty shoulder, he stood triumphant on the summit, and there to his amazement he found a level space of about seven acres, where not only grasses have spread a green carpet, but seven gnarled and stunted old pines, of three different kinds, have contrived to take root, and, defying storms and tempests, maintain their existence on this bleak bare summit...

This same text about Anderson and Half Dome also appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, vol. 47, April 1883, pp. 410-423, under the heading of "Early spring in California", but Gordon Cumming's authorship was not indicated in the magazine.

Another note about Anderson's first ascent is from 1879. Presumably, the (anonymous) author gathered the information directly from Anderson:

San Francisco Chronicle, July 27, 1879, p. 1; reprinted in St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 3, 1879, p. 10

...Anderson tried to climb [Half Dome] in his stocking feet, then barefooted, then by wearing bags full of pitch tied around below his knees, then by moccasins with pine pitch on the soles. The latter was the most hopeful, but none effected much, and well was it that he failed, for never could he have retraced his steps, and his life would have had a fearful end. He finally succeeded by using baling-rope of eight thicknesses, together with 40 or 50 strong iron pins, seven inches long, with an eye in each one in which to fasten the rope...

In 1886, James M. Hutchings published his In the Heart of the Sierras. In Chapter 26, he describes Anderson's ascent. Note that this was written about a decade later, and Hutchings wasn't a direct witness of the ascent. In mid October of 1875, he was still in the Eastern Sierra, after a successful climb of Mt. Whitney (and an unsuccessful attempt on Mt. Williamson). However, Hutchings had many opportunities to talk with Anderson in later years. Here is his dramatized report, based probably on some of those conversations:

In the Heart of the Sierras, by James M. Hutchings, Chapter 26

Until the fall of 1875 the storm-beaten summit of this magnificent landmark [Half Dome] was a terra incognita, as it had never been trodden by human feet... This honor was reserved for a brave young Scotchman, a native of Montrose, named George G. Anderson, who, by dint of pluck, skill, unswerving perseverance, and personal daring, climbed to its summit; and was the first that ever successfully scaled it. This was accomplished at 3 o'clock P. M. of October 12, 1875.

The knowledge that the feat of climbing this grand mountain had on several occasions been attempted, but never with success, begat in him an irrepressible determination to succeed in such an enterprise. Imbued with this incentive, he made his way to its base; and, looking up its smooth and steeply inclined surface, at once set about the difficult exploit. Finding that he could not keep from sliding with his boots on, he tried it in his stocking feet; but as this did not secure a triumph, he tried it barefooted, and still was unsuccessful. Then he tied sacking upon his feet and legs, but as these did not secure the desired object, he covered it with pitch, obtained from pine trees near; and although this enabled him to adhere firmly to the smooth granite, and effectually prevented him from slipping, a new difficulty presented itself in the great effort required to unstick himself; and which came near proving fatal several times.

Mortified by the failure of all his plans hitherto, yet in no way discouraged, he procured drills and a hammer, with some iron eye-bolts, and drilled a hole in the solid rock; into this he drove a wooden pin, and then an eye-bolt; and after fastening a rope to the bolt, pulled himself up until he could stand upon it; and thence continued that process until he had finally gained the top—a distance of nine hundred and seventy-five feet! All honor, then, to the intrepid and skillful mountaineer, Geo. G. Anderson, who, defying and overcoming all obstacles, and at the peril of his life, accomplished that in which all others had signally failed; and thus became the first to plant his foot upon the exalted crown of the great Half Dome...

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, The first tourists who made the ascension of the Half Dome.

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. Miss S. L. Dutcher, detail of a larger photo.
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:

Newspaper ad for Miss S. L. Dutcher's photographic gallery

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. In this city, December 18, 1880, by Rev. Dr. Scott, Frederick A. Clark, U.S. Geological Survey, to Sarah L. Dutcher.

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, checking his topographic equipment, Mount Shasta 1870, detail of a larger photo.
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 in 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,
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.
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
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

 

 
Part Two of this article

Half Dome Hike 2006 | Half Dome Hike 2007 | MORE HIKING...