When early emigrants poured into California, they were often guided by the published reports of explorer John Charles Frémont. They might have been inspired, however, by Frémont's collaborator, Jessie Benton Frémont who enlivened her husband's reports with editorial skill and a writer's sense of telling detail.
In 1890, Jessie Frémont published a memoir, Far-West Sketches, which was inspired by an 1887 railroad trip to California and features memories of her earlier years here, including this description of an encounter with a giant sequoia.
Sequoiadendron giganteum, "'Grizzly Giant' is one of the main attractions in Mariposa Grove in Yosemite National Park. Note the size of the people at the bottom of the image for scale." photograph by Mike Murphy, August 2005. Larger.
We had thought nothing could be more nobly beautiful than the forest we crossed the day before, but the new day brought us into enchanting natural parks of grassy uplands and fir and hemlock growths in varying stages; the layered boughs, tipped with the lighter green of the spring growth, rested in tent-like spread on soft young grass and wild flowers. It was all gracious and open and smiling with, at times, a break in the trees giving us a glimpse across the valley below of the near Yosemite range. And in the fresh stir of morning air we laughed and sang and "were glad we were alive," when—
"What is that? Is that?" and hush of wonder and awe subdued us.
There, blocking the way as a light-house might, rose the mighty bulk of a tawny-barked tree over thirty feet in diameter. Solid, straight, uprearing its wonderful column unbroken by any limb for a hundred feet.
Standing apart, with natural clearings round about them, and contrasted by the smiling young firs, they were overwhelmingly grand.
The impression was absolutely new—and without comparison.
Ursus arctos horribilis, "Grizzly Bear in autumn in Denali National Park and Preserve," photograph by Jean-Pierre Lavoie, 2004. Larger.
The mighty grizzly bear once roamed California freely, inspiring awe and dread. And no grizzly was feared more than a mother bear protecting her cubs.
Jessie Benton Frémont lived in Bear Valley with her husband, Colonel John C. Frémont in the 1850s. Here, she tells of her excitement—and subsequent fear—after a near run-in with a grizzly bear on an afternoon excursion.
We were growing more and more enthusiastic as glimpses of this rare view came to us. Mr. Fremont told us the distances, which only singularly pure mountain air could have let the eye pierce.
"And the ear too," I said. "We must be three miles from the village and yet how near sounds the barking of that dog."
Dead silence fell on our animated people. They listened as the rough, low bark rose again.
I was surprised and not too pleased to find myself hurried back down the steep, stony peak, with only, "It is too late to finish the climb. We must hurry. Do not speak. Keep all your breath for walking."
It was no dog, but a grizzly bear that made that warning bark. And we were very close to it. The practiced mountain men knew it was not only a bear, but a she-bear with cubs.
Fremont and her entourage escaped, inspiring her story "My Grizzly Bear," which touches on the darker side of early California living.
Contemporary life in crowded California affords dangers to all of us, especially our children, a fact of life that isn't really new.
In the 1850s, Jesse Benton Frémont and her famous husband, the "pathfinder" John C. Frémont, lived for a time near Mariposa, still a wild place. While making her farewells to a group of visiting lawyers, Jesse Frémont was gripped with fear.
"For Heaven's sake scream or cry or call the boy!" one of the lawyers said to me, seeing I could not speak; in rough kindness he grapsed my hands trying to break the silent horror that he saw had mastered me.
"Lost child" is a note of woe anywhere, but here in a wild; wild mountain country with brooks and mill-dams and deep mining-holes, so many pit-falls for the baby feet—he was only three years old—and with rattle-snakes in number, the sun sinking and darkness coming fast on the narrow valley—horror seized me. . . .
Drowned!—Stolen!—Rushing crowds of terrors pictured themselves to me as I ran over rocks and tree roots, frantic, but dumb. "For Heaven's sake scream or cry or call the boy!" one of the lawyers said to me, seeing I could not speak; in rough kindness he grapsed my hands trying to break the silent horror that he saw had mastered me. I saw it growing darker. There was only left a broad red band of sunset at the far end of the valley.
Then a cry, "Look up!" and with a mighty shout all cried, "There he is!" and against the red bar was outlined a horse with its harness knotted up about it, the teamster holding high in his arms my baby. . . .
And then the rain of saving tears came to me. How good the men all were; the kindest gentle words. They carried me to the house, the baby held fast by me—I was too limp and broken-up to move.
Jessie Benton Frémont's Far-West Sketches appeared in 1890 and included memories of her life in California during the 1850s.
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