Galen Clark

Galen Clark was born in Shipton, Lower Canada (now Quebec) in 1814.^[2] He joined the westward migration as a youth and moved to Waterloo, Missouri in 1836.

In Missouri, he met Rebecca McCoy, and they married in 1839. They had five children: Elvira Missouri Clark (1840–1912), Joseph Locke Clark (1842–1862), Mary Ann Clark (1844–1919), Calen Alonzo Clark (1847–1873), and Solon McCoy Clark (1848–1857). Only two survived their parents: Elvira Clark, who married and became a doctor in Oakland, California; and their other daughter, Mary Ann Clark, who married John T. Regan of Springfield, Massachusetts.^[3]

After his wife died young, Clark moved to California to seek his fortune in 1854 at the time of the California Gold Rush.^[3] In 1857, at the age of 43, Clark contracted a severe lung infection that was diagnosed as consumption. Doctors gave him six months to live, as they had no antibiotic treatment at the time, but counseled rest and outdoor air.

Clark moved to the Wawona area. "I went to the mountains to take my chances of dying or growing better, which I thought were about even." (Galen Clark, 1856) In June 1856, Clark and William Mann explored the area above the Wawona valley and documented the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, making Clark one of the first non-indigenous people to visit the grove.^[4] Clark spent subsequent years exploring the area and guiding visitors to the sequoias.

He wrote about protecting the grove to friends and the US Congress. He contributed to the writing and passage of legislation to protect the area, gaining support of US Senator John Conness from California. The act for the Yosemite Grant was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. Ceding the land to the state of California for preservation, the grant was the first of its kind. The legislation was to protect Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias for "public use, resort, and recreation ... to be left inalienable for all time." Clark was appointed the first guardian of the grant by the Yosemite Commission, the state board created to manage Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove.^[1] In 1880 a new California state constitution limiting tenure of office replaced the entire board and Clark with it; he returned as Guardian in 1889 and served until 1896.^[5] His lungs healed, and he explored and climbed much of the area.

Clark did not seek to enrich himself from Yosemite Valley or the Sequoia trees. He ran Clark's Station, a modest hotel and guide service at what is now Wawona, providing meals, shelter, and grazing for travelers on the route between Mariposa and Yosemite Valley. The Ahwahnechee people called the site "Pallahchun," meaning "a good place to stop."^[6] He sold the property in 1874 to relieve his debts; the buyer, Henry Washburn, later renamed the area Wawona.^[6] A poor businessman throughout his life, Clark was constantly in debt. His Clark's Station, for example, had several more employees than required for the number of guests and its short season.^[2]

Toward the end of his life, Clark was desperately poor. He wrote three books on Yosemite. These include Indians of the Yosemite (1904), The Big Trees of California (1907), and The Yosemite Valley (1910), the last delivered to the printer less than two weeks before his death. Clark's book on the sequoia trees is simple, factual, and direct. He left out his personal role in the discovery, popularization, and protection of the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. He served as hotel keeper, guide, and guardian of Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove.

Clark spent some time living in Summerland, a Spiritualist colony in Southern California, near Santa Barbara.^[7] His house still stands on Shelby Street.

On March 24, 1910, he died at the home of his daughter Dr. Elvira M. Lee in Oakland, California. He was buried in the Yosemite Pioneer Cemetery, at a spot he had personally prepared decades earlier: digging the grave, laying broken glass around its edges to deter rodents, planting six sequoias from the Mariposa Grove around it, and carving his own name on a granite boulder as a marker.^[6][2]

Clark's advocacy contributed to federal protection of what became Yosemite National Park and to the broader model of setting aside public land for preservation. The Giant Sequoia that would have been the first of its kind to be seen by Clark at the Mariposa Grove is named and marked "Galen Clark Tree" (240 feet; diameter 15.3 at 10 feet above mean base) in memory of his contribution to the preservation of the Giant Sequoia ecosystem and the idea of the national park.^[8]

• Mount Clark and the Clark Range, located east of Yosemite Valley, were named in his honor.^[9]

The Mariposa Grove Museum, originally built as a cabin by Clark in 1864 within the Mariposa Grove, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[10]

Clark's life and efforts to preserve the Giant Sequoias of Yosemite were depicted in the 1976 feature film Guardian of the Wilderness (also known as Mountain Man).^[11] He was portrayed by Denver Pyle with John Dehner as John Muir and Ford Rainey as Abraham Lincoln.

• Clark, Galen (1904). Indians of the Yosemite valley and vicinity, their history, customs and traditions. Yosemite Valley, Calif: G. Clark. OCLC 65664888.
• Clark, Galen (1907). The Big Trees of California, Their History and Characteristics. Yosemite Valley, Cal: G. Clark [Redondo, Cal: Press of Reflex Pub. Co.] OCLC 344915.
• Clark, Galen (April 1909). "Yosemite: Past and Present". Sunset.
• Clark, Galen (1910). The Yosemite Valley, its history, characteristic features, and theories regarding its origin. Yosemite Valley, Cal: N. L. Salter. OCLC 4721921.
• Clark, Galen (1964). Early days in Yosemite Valley. Los Angeles. OCLC 4175271.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Originally published as "A Plea for Yosemite" in Yosemite Nature Notes (February 1927), from a manuscript written c. 1907.

• History of the Yosemite area