A Woman's Role in Helping Save Yosemite's Mariposa Grove

By Chris MacDonald

There's a new educational display honoring some who helped save the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. The exhibit at the entrance of the newly-reopened Grove honors President Lincoln and says the Yosemite Grant Act of 1864, which preserved the Grove and Yosemite Valley, was "inspired by advocates such as U.S. Senator John Conness and writer Jessie Benton Fremont."

At the re-opening celebration, Park Superintendent Michael Reynolds proclaimed: "These trees sowed the seeds of the National Park idea," yet few today realize the significant role Jessie played in preserving the Grove (and Valley).

In the late 1850s, the daughter of U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, D-Missouri, and wife of John C. Fremont, the Republican Party's first candidate for President, fell in love with what became the Mariposa Grove (and Yosemite Valley). She later wrote in "Far West Sketches" about the awesome Grove, "...the grandeur of the silent forest...trees rising straight as masts over 100 feet, the golden green canopy... made a cathedral dignity that hushed us." But she was concerned with early signs of loggers cutting down some of the big trees, settlers homesteading and other potential changes that could destroy or privatize the beautiful areas.

So she gathered friends, writers and photographers together in her Bear Valley home (1858-59) and Black Point (San Francisco) residence (1860-61). Some of the guests included famed newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (who would promote the beauty of Yosemite and encourage its preservation), author Richard Henry Dana (who would write about Yosemite), minister and newspaper writer, Thomas Starr King (who would write a series of articles on Yosemite for papers in Boston and elsewhere), Carlton Watkins (who would be the first photographer to document much of Yosemite for the media, Congress and President Lincoln), U.S. Senator Ed Baker (a close friend of Abraham Lincoln) and Galen Clark, who later became Yosemite's first Official Guardian.

"Jessie's role was that of a catalyst and muse, prodding and encouraging (them) to write and speak as she could not in a period where women were expected to inspire rather than create," wrote National Park Historian John Henneberger, former Associate Director of the National Park Service.

Some of her guests actually lobbied Congress, the media as well as President Lincoln to support the legislation of U.S. Senator John Conness (their friend) to save (what became) the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley. The President signed the Yosemite Grant Act in 1864, four years before John Muir came to Yosemite.

Galen Clark, who Muir called "the greatest mountaineer I ever knew," said (in his "Reminiscences") "Mrs. Fremont and Israel Ward Raymond were the most active workers on the Yosemite Park Proposal."

The California State Parks had on its 150th Anniversary website: "Jessie's vital influence helped conserve one of California's greatest resources—Yosemite.

Her perseverance and vision contributed to the creation of the Yosemite Grant….which inspired John Muir to lobby for a National Park."

Victor Knox, Associate Director of the National Park Service, told Congress in 2014 that "Jessie was an important figure in the advocacy for the establishment of the Yosemite Grant."

This humble woman's largely unsung role cannot be underestimated. This was the first time in the World that any national government set aside scenic land, protecting it for future generations and it led to the state and national park movements.

John Poimiroo, an award-winning Sierra Nevada journalist, who worked in Yosemite, wrote in the Mountain Democrat, "If ever California had a heroine that history overlooked, it was Jessie."

From a National Parks Promotion Council newsletter: "Often the role of women in parks has been overlooked….If not for what she did behind the scene, would there be a Yosemite National Park today, would John Muir have been drawn to there because of the attention given to it by its protection, would there have been the foundation necessary to lead to establishing national parks?"