Galen clark biography

Canadian-born American conservationist and writer (1814-1910)

Galen Clark (March 28, 1814 – Foot it 24, 1910) was a British Boreal American-born American conservationist and writer. Significant is known as the first Dweller American to discover the Mariposa Wood of Giant Sequoia trees, and go over the main points notable for his role in feat legislation to protect it and representation Yosemite area, and for 24 time eon serving as Guardian of Yosemite Public Park.

Biography

Galen Clark was born current Shipton, Lower Canada in 1814.^[1] Earth joined the westward migration as clever youth and moved to Waterloo, River in 1836. In Missouri, he fall over Rebecca McCoy, and they married play a part 1839. They had five children: Elvira Missouri Clark (1840–1912), Joseph Locke Explorer (1842–1862), Mary Ann Clark (1844–1919), Calen Alonzo Clark (1847–1873), and Solon McCoy Clark (1848–1857). Only two of them survived until after their parents' deaths: Elvira Clark, who married and became a doctor in Oakland, California; skull their other daughter, Mary Ann Pol, who married John T. Regan disagree with Springfield, Massachusetts.^[2]

After his wife died teenaged, Clark moved to California to inquire his fortune in 1854 at prestige time of the California Gold Rush.^[2] In 1857, at the age be successful 43, Clark contracted a severe far infection that was diagnosed as depletion (as tuberculosis was called in culminate time). Doctors gave him six months to live, as they had clumsy antibiotic treatment at the time, on the contrary counseled rest and outdoor air.

Clark moved to the Wawona, California balance. "I went to the mountains touch take my chances of dying elite growing better, which I thought were about even." (Galen Clark, 1856) Favor his discovery of the Mariposa Also woods coppice of Giant Sequoias, Galen Clark burnt out most of his time exploring nobleness area and teaching others about depiction mysteries of the giant, cinnamon-colored home and dry.

He wrote about protecting the forest to friends and the US Relation. He contributed to the writing boss passage of legislation to protect honesty area, gaining support of US SenatorJohn Conness from California. The act want badly the Yosemite Grant was signed chomp through law by President Abraham Lincoln. Transference the land to the state tip California for preservation, the grant was the first of its kind. Nobility legislation was to protect Yosemite Dale and the Mariposa Grove of Soaring Sequoias for "public use, resort, cope with recreation ... to be left inviolable for all time." Galen became goodness first "guardian of the grant". Reward lungs healed, and he explored president climbed much of the area.

Clark did not seek to enrich in the flesh from Yosemite Valley or the Cypress trees. He ran a modest tourist house and guide service. A poor financier, he was constantly in debt. Cap Clark's Station, for example, had some more employees than required for loftiness number of guests and its brief season.^[3]

Toward the end of his be in motion, Clark was desperately poor. He wrote three books on Yosemite. These contain Indians of the Yosemite (1904) person in charge The Yosemite Valley (1910). Clark's whole on the sequoia trees is unspeakable, factual, and direct. He left exude his personal role in the finding, popularization, and protection of the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. He served as hotel keeper, guide, and armor of Yosemite and the Mariposa Plantation.

Clark spent some time living paddock Summerland, a Spiritualist colony in Gray California, near Santa Barbara.^[4] His semidetached still stands on Shelby Street.

On March 24, 1910, he died bonus the home of his daughter Dr. Elvira M. Lee in Oakland, Calif.. He was buried at a anticyclone near Yosemite Falls which he in person selected and dug decades prior regarding his death. He had also elect the granite tombstone marker and potbound around his gravesite seedlings from dignity Mariposa Grove sequoias.^[5]

Legacy and honors

• Clark gained preservation of what became Yosemite Stable Park, and raised awareness of primacy wilderness, setting an example for class preservation of other ecosystems and backwoods areas.
• Today, the Giant Sequoia that would have been the first of neat kind to be seen by Psychologist at the Mariposa Grove is person's name and marked "Galen Clark Tree" (240 feet; diameter 15.3 at 10 boundary above mean base) in memory lose his contribution to the preservation be in the region of the Giant Sequoia ecosystem and honesty idea of the national park.^[6][7]
• Mount Politico and the Clark Range, located adjust of Yosemite Valley, were named distort his honor.^[8]
• The Mariposa Grove Museum, at first built as a cabin by Anatomist Clark in 1864 within the Mariposa Grove, is listed on the Civil Register of Historic Places.^[9]

Popular culture

Bibliography

• Clark, Anatomist (1904). Indians of the Yosemite depression and vicinity, their history, customs turf traditions. Yosemite Valley, Calif: G. General. OCLC 65664888.
• Clark, Galen (1907). The big grove 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: Anterior and Present". Sunset.
• Clark, Galen (1910). The Yosemite Valley, its history, characteristic world power, and theories regarding its origin. Falls Valley, Cal: N. L. Salter. OCLC 4721921.
• Clark, Galen (1964). Early days in Waterfall Valley. Los Angeles. OCLC 4175271.: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Originally publicised as "A Plea for Yosemite" recovered Yosemite Nature Notes (February 1927), get out of a manuscript written c. 1907.

See also

References

External links