Evolution is the rock upon which Nationalism is founded.(Denver Labor Enquirer)

The movement looking toward the reservation of a tract of timber land near the summit of the Sierra has at last taken definite shape.(Visalia Weekly Delta)

As the final decade of the 19th century began and a springtime optimism prevailed at Advance, hopes for the future of the Kaweah Colony were dependent upon two completely unrelated movements of thought and action.

These movements were kindled by the influential writings of two notable figures. The first was John Muir, a Scottish-born sheepherder, explorer, journalist and essayist, self-taught naturalist, and self-described tramp. He was a man whose name would become synonymous with the Sierra Nevada, the mountains he called the “Range of Light.” The other was Edward Bellamy, a Massachusetts-born son of a Baptist clergyman, a lawyer-turned-journalist who had achieved a modest literary reputation when the publication of his fifth novel brought him sudden and worldwide acclaim.

Muir and Bellamy were two of the most influential writers of the late-19th century, and perhaps nowhere would that influence be as greatly felt or celebrated, realized, and lamented as at the Kaweah Colony. To examine how these writers and the concurrent movements they launched would effect the Colony that summer of 1890 and afterward, it is necessary to double-back in time and bring each up to speed.

EARLY CONSERVATION ATTEMPTS

John Muir first came to the Sierra Nevada in 1869. While Muir spent much of the early 1870s exploring the Yosemite area — his name will forever be associated with Yosemite — his curiosity regarding the Sierra was boundless. By the end of the decade he had explored much of the spectacular mountain range, including Mount Whitney, Kings Canyon, and the vast sequoia groves of Grant Grove and the Giant Forest.

The Big Tree is nature’s forest masterpiece [Muir once wrote] and so far as I know, the greatest of living things. It belongs to an ancient stock, as its remains in old rocks show, and has a strange air of other days about it, a thoroughbred look inherited from the long ago — the auld lang syne of trees.

As pointed out in Lary Dilsaver and William Tweed’s Challenge of the Big Trees, Muir’s newspaper accounts brought about a greater appreciation of the features of the Sierra, and his writings about the sequoias added to the understanding of the Big Trees. “The primary significance of Muir’s visits,” the book proclaims, “would not become apparent for a number of years.”

By 1878, others began writing about the sequoias and lamenting their potential destruction. On October 11, 1878, the new and rather young 21-year-old editor of the Visalia Delta wrote an editorial attacking the cutting of a giant sequoia for exhibition Back East, a destructive practice first exposed and decried by Muir himself. George W. Stewart called for enforcement of state laws to prohibit the cutting of the giant trees. Little came of these pleas.

As the 1870s drew to a close, however, other prominent men had been drawn into what was definitely becoming a popular cause. Prompted by a growing presence of lumbermen in the readily accessible Grant Grove area (then known as the Fresno-Tulare Grove) in January 1880, Tipton Lindsay, receiver at the U.S. Land Office in Visalia, and J.D. Hyde, the land office registrar, were able to convince the land commissioner to withdraw from sale the sections that contained the stately grove. Stewart’s Delta was also recommending some sort of permanent preservation of the grove, and later that year George Stewart was finally able to bend the ear of someone who might really be in a position to effect a permanent solution.

During his 1880 campaign for the U.S. Senate, General John F. Miller came to Visalia and met with the editors of the local newspapers. Stewart was able to brief the senatorial candidate on a broad spectrum of local conservation issues, including the Kings and Kern canyons, Mt. Whitney, and the preservation of the “grand old redwoods.” Miller not only won appointment to the U.S. Senate, but he apparently well-remembered all that Stewart had told him.

On December 31, 1881, Senator Miller introduced a bill in the Senate to set apart a certain tract of land “as a public park and forest reservation for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” The bill was given no serious consideration in the committee on public lands, to which it was referred, simply because of the vast territory it sought to set aside. The proposed park encompassed all of the upper Kern, Kaweah, and Kings rivers’ watersheds — an area covering all of modern-day Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks along with substantial timber belts to the west. It was so extensive that even Stewart stated that “opposition was universal.”

The idea of scenic preservation, which was the original impetus for the earliest national parks, was nothing new. Alfred Runte, in his 1979 book, National Parks: The American Experience, explains that a sense of national pride and monumentalism — a search for cultural identity in a relatively infant culture — as one motivation for preservation. He also notes that there evolved in Congress “a firm (if unwritten) policy that only ‘worthless’ lands might be set aside.” Worthless, that is, in terms of lacking accessible, available natural resources or potential as agricultural land — a criteria many scenic mountain lands easily met. Cultural nationalism could not compete with a national obsession with productivity and the exploitation of any available natural resource.

Even a later awareness about a growing need for wilderness, wildlife, and biological conservation did not change the primary criterion of preservation, Runte noted. National parks must begin and remain worthless to survive. While the forested land outlined in Miller’s bill was far from worthless, compared to agricultural land it was certainly low worth, and the difficulty in accessing its natural resources further kept its relative value in check. Nonetheless, no tract of land as expansive as the one Miller proposed to reserve could be perceived as anything but potentially valuable.

Sequoia National Park historian Douglas Strong, in his 1964 doctoral thesis for Syracuse University, pointed out an ironic source of opposition to Miller’s proposal, which strongly supports the argument for the preservation only of “worthless” lands.

The earliest park proposals attracted little comment [Strong wrote], however, one unusual source of opposition appeared in a San Francisco anti-monopoly weekly periodical entitled Truth. Although not opposing government reservation in principle, Truth condemned the Miller bill for playing into the hands of lumber, railroad and other monopolies. It insisted that the park reservation would withdraw from the people vast supplies of timber and extensive mining districts in Tulare and Fresno counties. Truth could only approve the park if it were restricted to the highest mountain districts where no lumber or mining interest existed.

Truth’s editor, Burnette G. Haskell, could not have known when he wrote that in 1882 just how prescient his opinion would prove. Miller’s bill quickly died, but by the end of the 1880s, Haskell would be keeping a very close eye on the proposals made by men such as John Muir, George Stewart, and the growing forest preservation movement in Tulare County.

BELLAMY’S LOOK BACKWARD

In 1888, with the publication of a work of fiction by Edward Bellamy, Haskell’s attention was drawn to a considerably different kind of movement that sprang up almost overnight. Few books in the history of American literature have had a more stimulating influence on the social thought of the time as Bellamy’s Looking Backward.

In what Bellamy described as a “romance of future happiness posed against present sorrow,” the book tells of a young man, Julian West, who wakes up from a mesmerized sleep and finds himself in the Boston of 2000 A.D. Leaving behind a 19th-century world dominated by the waste, greed, cruelty, and madness of the competitive system, the inadvertent time traveler finds an unrecognizable America in the future. The country operates under a system of state socialism; private property has been abolished, all share equally in the wealth of the country, and all contribute equally — to the best of their capacities — in their service to the industrial army that produces the wealth. Cooperation has replaced competition; acquisitiveness and aggression have disappeared in the tide of plenty for all, and no man seeks to dominate another. The transition, Julian West learns, from the tortured old society to this new utopia was effected painlessly; and the new conditions provide an answer to an ancient question — human nature is essentially good. Society has arrived, in short, at a rational and humane order devoted to the noblest ends of man.

The book had immediate political impact. That same year, 1888, the first Bellamy Club was founded in Boston to propagate the principles of nationalism, as the system of social organization Bellamy’s depiction of the future outlined was quickly labeled. A wave of clubs, more than 150 in less than two years, swept across the nation and gave meteoric rise to the Nationalist movement. To Burnette Haskell, working fervently to publicize, promote, and fund the Kaweah Co-Operative Colony, the Nationalist movement couldn’t have happened at a better time.

Although the Kaweah Colony’s political and social structure was based on another book, Laurence Gronlund’s Co-Operative Commonwealth, Bellamy’s utopian look at the future proved more accessible to the general reading public. Gronlund had provided a blueprint of socialist cooperation, but Bellamy came up with a full-color model, complete with action figures and moving parts. It wasn’t long before Haskell was claiming that the Kaweah Colony was Bellamy’s model realized.

Three early clubs were formed on the West Coast — in Oakland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — before the movement took hold under Haskell’s leadership. These were non-agitating groups that rose spontaneously and, like the club in Boston, were basically reading circles and discussion groups. Although it might be surprising that Haskell, a notorious San Francisco radical, would be drawn to the decidedly milder nationalism, the transition was not merely a sudden opportunistic switch. As Haskell biographer Caroline Medan points out, “He had been evolving toward more moderate types of reform since [his] anarchist period in 1883.” Medan also points out his economic motive. “Haskell already had a cooperative colony of his own,” she reminds us, “and probably saw nationalism as a lucky coincidence which would popularize his project.”

Haskell entered the Nationalist movement via the Oakland Nationalist Club, which met bi-monthly at Hamilton Hall. He brought an appealing oratory style, along with other abilities, which he freely gave to the movement. Medan pointed out that, according to his wife Annie’s diary:

He could gather fifty seamen from the wharf at a half hour’s notice in order to boost a lagging attendance and so keep up the appearance of success; he could frame a resolution or write a stinging letter of protest, circulate a petition, and if necessary sing a duet with his wife.

Working untiringly, he organized the First Nationalist Club of San Francisco, creatively named to compete with the Pacific Nationalist Club, which was actually first and still operating. The club’s objective, as stated in a meeting program, was “Nationalization of land and industry, thereby the promotion of Brotherhood of humanity.” Reformers of all kinds flocked to the meetings — suffragists, grangers, free silver and free tax men — and formed a more practical program of reform than had really been proposed in Looking Backward. At various times the organization advocated for the eight-hour work day, abolition of poll taxes, the direct election of United States senators and presidents, initiative, referendum, recall, free vocational schools, and women’s rights.

In the summer of 1889, as Haskell was forming his own circuit of Nationalist clubs throughout California and the West, he was still busy promoting and administering the Kaweah Colony, which he maintained represented “Bellamy’s plan in action.” The Commonwealth was still, at this time, a monthly journal published from San Francisco, where he maintained his residence with his wife, Annie, and young son Astaroth. He was also still active in various trade unions and organizations, and this period of incredible energy and productivity is testimony to the obsessive nature of his personality.

Haskell brought not only this energy, but showmanship and promotion to the movement. An account of the 3rd Public Reception of the Nationalist Club of San Francisco, held at the Palace Hotel, was printed in The Commonwealth. It was the beginning of the link between Kaweah and nationalism. As the account described:

CONSERVATION HEATS UP

Just as the change in administration and attendant shift in policy prompted the long delayed investigation of the Colony timber claims, it also served to accelerate the conservation movement (the more likely term at the time would be preservation) taking hold in the adjacent Central Valley. By 1889, rumors of withdrawn forest land, particularly in accessible sequoia groves such as the Grant Grove and Converse Basin, being returned to the market was causing great concern. This concern involved more than just Big Trees.

Irrigation had changed the Central Valley from grazing and bonanza wheat farms to an orchard and irrigated crop economy. Now Valley farmers feared that excessive logging in the adjacent Sierra would adversely effect their much-coveted watershed. Deforestation, they predicted, would accelerate spring thaws, leaving little, if any, runoff for the later summer months. The rate of snowmelt had great impact on water supply as there were no dams and reservoirs on the rivers to control runoff. What was bad for the crops was bad for the entire county, particularly for those with vested interests in land values.

In May1889, the worried farmers petitioned the Land Commissioner urging him not to reverse the withdrawal from entry of the Grant Grove area. Not only did many farmers sign the petition, but also, among others, George Stewart, F.J. Walker, and business partners J.D. Hyde and Daniel K. Zumwalt. Hyde and Zumwalt were engaged in various irrigation projects, and Zumwalt was a land agent and attorney for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He was said to have sold more land in the area during his career than anyone. The reply they received was less than satisfactory. While assuring them that the withdrawal was still in force, Commissioner Stocksledge added ominously that “it must be apparent, however, that a reservation by order of the Commissioner of the Land Office is only temporary.”

In October 1889, a meeting of agriculturists and other interested parties motioned to appoint a Forest Committee to petition the government to create a permanent forest preserve in the area. A petition was prepared and sent to Congress in November, but there was no response. Stewart, a member of the Forest Committee, concluded that the petition had never reached Congress after learning that Representative General William Vandever had introduced a bill in March 1890 to create a national park protecting Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove, a considerable distance to the north. Vandever’s bill (H.R. 8350) did not even mention the groves of Big Trees Stewart’s petition had outlined for preservation “which [made them] think he never received much information regarding the Southern Sierra.”

Also discouraging to Stewart were rumors that the Garfield Grove, one of the last groves of Big Trees with absolutely no claims against it, and other areas were soon to be put back on the market. As spring gave way to summer, Stewart’s Visalia Delta was calling attention to the efforts of lumbermen to obtain the few remaining sequoia groves. According to Stewart, it was then that he and F.J. Walker decided that the only way to save the Big Trees was to create a “National Park” similar to Yellowstone, created in 1872. Walker, who also worked at the Delta, informed Stewart that “he had ample free time and asked how much space could be occupied in the Delta agitating the question.” All the space necessary, for as long as necessary, Stewart replied. Thus began the campaign to create Sequoia National Park.

STEWART’S SEQUOIA: THE GARFIELD GROVE

“Save the Big Trees!” read the headline of an editorial in Stewart’s Visalia Delta on July 10, 1890. Bringing attention to efforts to restore withdrawn timber land to the market that would “result in forever removing from public control the finest body of grand sequoia that exists in the world,” the Delta pointed out that there remained a grove of giant trees “over which the government has an undisputed right of control.” That grove, Stewart explained, lay in Township 18 South, Range 30 East, Mt. Diablo Meridian. Translated, he was describing the Garfield Grove area, located a considerable distance south of the timber claims of the Kaweah Colony.

Stewart and colleague Frank Walker’s campaign to create a national park concentrated on reserving the Garfield Grove area because, as the Delta had stated on July 3, 1890, “nearly all the [other] groves have already passed into private ownership. Certain tracts, like the Giant Forest, that were once on the market and filed on by applicants in good faith, should be restored to the market.” The applicants referred to were, of course, the Kaweah Colonists. As efforts to create a national park intensified, Burnette Haskell certainly took notice and was especially interested and undoubtedly relieved to note the location of the proposed preserve. In fact, The Kaweah Commonwealth reprinted portions of a Delta article that came out on August 21, 1890, addressing that issue with the following:

While it is not claimed that the unbroken area clothed with sequoias is as large on the south fork of the Kaweah as that found in certain other localities, it is nevertheless true that this is by far the finest sequoia forest still under the undisputed control of the government. If it be claimed that the so-called Giant Forest… is still in the hands of the government, the reply is that this vast tract is already claimed by a colony of Socialists who seem to be entitled to their land under existing laws.

In addition to editorializing in the Delta, Stewart and Walker wrote letters to anyone they thought could help. As a result, the Secretary of the Interior John Noble began receiving correspondence from influential people all over the country urging the reservation of sequoia forest land. Many of these, such as New York Tribune editor W.A. Stiles, were undoubtedly writing at the behest of Stewart and Walker. Stiles, in a letter to his former college classmate who had become Secretary of the Interior, stated, “I have received in my capacity as editor… several communications from California relating to a grove of Big Trees in Tulare County.”

On July 28, 1890, as a result of a vigorous letter writing campaign, numerous newspaper editorials, and various petitions (some of which were once thought lost or ignored), General William Vandever, member of Congress for the 6th District of California, introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to reserve a certain tract of land, encompassing two townships containing the Garfield Grove and backcountry to its immediate east. It was virtually just as George Stewart had suggested and outlined.

While an earlier bill introduced by Vandever to reserve the Yosemite Valley and its watershed was languishing, this later Sequoia bill fairly raced through Congress. It was passed by the House on August 23, 1890. The Senate approved the bill on September 8, 1890, and it was promptly sent on to the President for final enactment into law.

THE NATIONALIST DISORDER

While the conservation movement was steadily building in California, urged on by men such as John Muir and George Stewart, nationalism had taken the country by storm. Nationalist clubs had sprung up all over the country, in large cities and small towns, and Kaweah was no exception. Of course, it was natural that Kaweah would support an active Nationalist Club. The philosophies behind both were similar. In fact, the socialist endeavor was actually being referred to in the press as a “Bellamy Colony.”

The Colony’s own newspaper quickly became one part Colony booming sheet and one part Nationalist organ. It ran advertisements for other Nationalist publications in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston and published reprints of Nationalist essays and articles. Throughout the spring of 1890, it printed accounts of the local Nationalist meetings. A typical example ran in the March 1, 1890, issue:

The growth of Nationalism and the network of clubs and newspapers across the country was an obvious source for publicizing the Kaweah Colony. Burnette Haskell took advantage of this, but in his zeal to control the movement he brought on disharmony that was reminiscent of early Kaweah Colony struggles. It showed a pattern Haskell seemed destined to repeat again and again.

A talented motivator and stump-speaker, Haskell organized Nationalist clubs in Ocean View, San Jose, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Fresno. He eventually saw the movement as a viable political party, announcing at one reception that the Nationalists would enter the municipal elections of 1890. That spring, the California Nationalist Convention was held. Its purpose was to unify the clubs by means of a central committee, broaden the clubs’ influence and plan for upcoming elections.

At a meeting of his First Nationalist Club of San Francisco prior to the convention, Haskell failed to gain control of the delegation. Charges of fraud and mismanagement had begun to surface against Haskell, who desired decisive control of the delegation and thus, he hoped, control of the upcoming convention. He instead found the club divided, making a final fight for power inevitable.

When the convention convened in Metropolitan Hall in San Francisco on April 8, 1890, Haskell quickly met opposition on the issue of proxy votes. Several smaller clubs were unable to send delegates, and Haskell presented their proxy votes, backing them up with written permission for each proxy and strong arguments that to deny these proxies was to discriminate against the poor, who could not afford to vote in person.

With Haskell proxies allowed, a subsequent battle ensued over election of a committee chairman, which became deadlocked between Haskell’s choice, W.C. Owen, and a rival’s, T.V. Cator. Again rose the issue of proxy votes. Caroline Medan described the scene in her 1950 biographical thesis on Haskell.

PATTERN AND PROPHECY

This was one more example of Haskell’s peculiar talent for influencing (read “fixing”) elections. Charles Keller had seen that talent in action and, like Cator, was prompted to leave with his followers. Dr. Hubbard had seen it, resulting in his tearful resignation as editor and ultimate sacrifice of his valuable printing press.

The convention’s split and the subsequent press attack was devastating. The San Francisco Star noted that the San Francisco Nationalist movement had early been “seized upon” by Haskell and was from that moment on divided. It went on to call Haskell “one of the most thoroughly untrustworthy persons who ever fooled the unwary public, or made simple-hearted folks believe him a little tin god on wheels.”

Haskell’s First Nationalist Club in San Francisco quickly faced failing attendance. Resignations and disagreement were increasing daily until an especially bitter May 21 meeting. The disintegration was nearly completed. Bellamy nationalism was founded on the precept that human nature, being essentially good, would arrive at a rational and humane order devoted to the noblest ends of man, but Haskell’s ego and incredible drive to dominate insisted on utter control of that process. His impatience served only to hasten the movement’s decline.

Yet despite the decline of the movement in California, on a broader horizon Bellamy’s brand of nationalism continued to influence and incite enthusiasm worldwide and even helped recruit members to Kaweah from as far away as England. Philip Winser’s memoir, which he penned in the 1930s, provides an excellent example of how Nationalism attracted members to Kaweah from so far away.

The eldest son of a dissenting Unitarian family, Philip Winser was struggling to keep the family farm solvent in Kent, England, when, with an ailing father, he came up with a plan to “wind things up, realize everything and pay off.” He made “preparations for the sale [of the farm] and arrangements for migrating” were put into effect. After setting up his mother and remaining family in a house by the sea where they could take in boarders for income, Winser’s personal plans “began to formulate.”

About this time [Winser wrote] Edward Bellamy’s novel Looking Backward was being talked of a lot and I read it. The word, socialism, was not mentioned, but it sketched an idealized society on that order. I had been pondering the anomalies of society and how it was that the hardest workers seemed to get the worst of it, and couldn’t solve the riddle. The answer seemed to come to me in this book, and I made up my mind if ever there should be a community who would try and work things out on those lines, I would endeavor to join them.

Winser stumbled upon his utopia after a Boston cousin sent him literature as to a Bellamy Nationalist club and movement. Included in that literature was an article describing the Kaweah Colony. It was “Bellamy’s dream realized” in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, Winser remembered thinking. Writing to the secretary of the Colony, Winser soon received notice of his acceptance. He promptly remitted the initial $100 and made plans to cross the Atlantic.

SOURCES: In addition to the books cited in the body of the chapter, including John Muir’s Our National Parks; Dilsaver and Tweed’s Challenge of the Big Trees; Alfred Runte’s National Parks: The American Experience (University of Nebraska Press, 1997); and Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward 2000-1887 (including the introduction to the edition published by R.C. Elliott, 1966), this chapter also relied heavily on several primary sources such as the Haskell Papers (Bancroft Library) and the George Stewart Papers (Visalia Public Library). An article from the Pacific Historical Review, 1948, by Ruth R. Lewis entitled “Kaweah An Experiment in Co-Operative Colonization” was consulted, as well as Caroline Medan’s “Burnette Gregor Haskell: A California Radical” thesis; Douglas Strong’s “History of Sequoia National Park” manuscript, and Phil Winser’s unpublished “Memories.” Contemporary newspaper reports from the Visalia Weekly Delta, San Francisco Examiner, and San Francisco Star were additional sources.

Our First Lumber
Tis but a chip of pine
Picked from a rough sawn board,
Yet many a chip of pine
A story may afford
(The Kaweah Commonwealth, July 26, 1890)

Early in the summer of 1890, the Colony road had reached the pines after nearly four years of grueling work. The heavily timbered land that had long been considered inaccessible was now reachable on an impressive wagon road nearly 20 miles in length that climbed over 5,000 vertical feet. It had been made possible not by huge expenditures of capital, but by the cooperative sweat and labor of Colony members who toiled not for mere wages, but for the common good of the community they had joined. Of course, many had paid dearly to join that community, and continued to pay if not with cold hard cash then with the sweat of their brow. Still, those who joined had nearly all done so believing their cooperative resources would pay dividends to them all.

With the road complete into the timber belt, their most valuable resource was finally accessible. However, there was still much work to be done. A workable mill had to be established, which required equipment and still more labor. Only then could the felling, milling, and transporting of lumber begin, which called for more equipment and some fairly specialized and skilled labor. The Kaweah Colony was fortunate, however, that certain members happened along when they did. Irvin Barnard was one such member.

BARNARD AND HIS AJAX TRACTOR

Irvin Barnard had been a farmer in the coastal town of Ventura, California, before joining the Kaweah Colony. With his arrival as a resident member in 1890, the Colony gained some important assets. For one thing Barnard had considerable capital at hand, for it was he who acquired the lease on a sizable tract of land in the lower North Fork canyon that would eventually become Kaweah Townsite.

He also brought to the Colony a much needed Ajax steam traction engine, which was just the thing needed to power the sawmill they were establishing at the end of the road. Ajax traction engines were sold by A.B. Farquhar of York, Pennsylvania, a manufacturer of farm and sawmill equipment. According to the 1887-1888 catalogue, there were four sizes of Ajax engines — from 8 to 14 horsepower — costing in the range of $1,175 up to $1,625. The number two engine, for instance, was a 10 h.p. unit that would use about 400 pounds of coal and 10 to 12 barrels of water in a day’s operation. It had a 6½-inch diameter cylinder with a 9-inch stroke and operated at 275 rpm. Although these traction engines were equipped with steering gear and could be driven under their own power, they were also supplied with a removable tongue so that when used on a road a team could be used for steering. In this way these portable engines could be pulled by team from job to job.

Getting Barnard’s Ajax to the job site at the end of the Colony’s road to the pines proved to be a considerable and eventful task. It is unclear how Barnard transported the engine the 200 miles from Ventura to Visalia. Freightage via the railroads would have been costly and driving it or pulling by team all that distance an ambitious and time-consuming trip, but Barnard was apparently a man of both means and ambition. In any event, the journey was without mishap until reaching the foothills and a bridge across the South Fork of the Kaweah in the village of Three Rivers, a few miles from the Colony grounds.

Crossing on an old and infirm wooden bridge, the eight-ton Ajax, along with its driver, crashed through into the rushing stream below. The South Fork is not a large tributary — it is the smallest of all of the Kaweah’s forks — so this bridge was low and the fall neither great nor fatal. Barnard suffered only a few bruises, but his vest and a gold watch were swept away in the current and never recovered. The Ajax, fortunately, was recovered. With a great deal of labor and a bit of ingenuity, the huge tractor was pulled out of the stream bed and tangled rubble from the collapsed bridge. Soon, however, Barnard faced the even greater task of crossing the much larger Middle Fork.

Swollen from a heavy spring runoff, the main Middle Fork of the Kaweah had recently taken its toll on a ferry built by the Colony, destroying it against the rocks. When Barnard arrived at the crossing, there was no way to cross, and he suddenly found himself not only stuck on the wrong side of the river, but in the middle of a Colony debate over building either another ferry or a bridge. The ensuing dispute was a prime example of the frustration Colony leaders often faced.

Barnard returned to Visalia, where he brought news of the ferry’s demise and the current situation to Colony Secretary James Martin. In addition to needing to get the Ajax across, the Colony faced a much more urgent need of getting supplies across to a suddenly isolated settlement. With the deep snows in the Sierra that year, the swift-running torrent would likely continue for some time. It would be several weeks before the main fork could safely be forded. A way across was of paramount importance. Martin later recalled that “a short talk with Mr. Barnard convinced me that he was the very man needed to meet the situation.”

Barnard had experience with ferries; he told Martin it was the most practical, least expensive and quickest way of re-establishing connections to the cut-off Colony. He outlined exactly what materials were needed. It was obvious to Martin, a trustee of the Colony, that an immediate decision was needed and in less than two days the materials arrived at the spot on the river where the new ferry would be built. Martin’s unpublished history of the Colony continues the story as he remembered it. He wrote:

In the meantime at the Colony there had been, naturally, much talk with regard to the situation and what was to be done. When the material for a new ferry arrived it appeared to be a shock to a few ardent democrats that a matter of such importance had not been discussed at a special meeting. One member, who assumed to be more or less of an engineer, had induced a few to believe that a suspension bridge could be built of the worn-out wire cables discarded by the street cars in San Francisco, which he thought could be obtained for the proverbial song. It was rather a wild suggestion, but it took with a few because of the idea of economy. They failed to recognize that the hauling and freight on the amount to build a suspension bridge that would stand the strain of four horses and a loaded wagon would amount to much more than the cost of a new ferry. Nor did it occur to them that a bridge built of worn-out cable did not commend itself on the score of safety. And besides, a ferry would have to be built to bring across the river the material necessary for the construction of the tower to carry the cable across, and for supplies to the Colony while the bridge was being built.

There were, perhaps, twenty advocates of the suspension bridge idea who would have liked to take a day or two off to thrash the matter out in a meeting, but when the material arrived on the opposite bank for the ferry the question was settled. Argument was then changed to criticism. It was contended that a ferry was unsafe, and besides, what did Barnard know about ferry construction anyway? Barnard’s reply to this was that he had quite recently fallen through a county bridge with his tractor and that fact had not tended to increase his affection for bridges, especially suspension bridges of amateur construction. “But,” he said, “if it will afford comfort and relief to the timid, my tractor and myself shall be the first to cross on the new ferry; I will drive onto the ferry with a full head of steam and toot the whistle vigorously while crossing.” This was regarded as fool-hardiness by the bridge advocates. The time was set for the crossing, and a small crowd assembled, some of whom rather expected to witness a tragedy. Barnard, however, made the crossing in safety while the echoes rang with a multiplicity of toots.

On June 21, 1890, the Colony newspaper, which had been following the progress of the Ajax, proclaimed, “All engine difficulties are past. The whistle of the engine has been heard at Advance.” The report added that it would remain there “until the return of Comrade Barnard, who will take his son up to the mill site with him and probably leave him in charge of the mill.”

CAULDWELL’S RETURN

When Special Land Agent Andrew Cauldwell filed his investigative report on the Colony in July 1890, his involvement with the case was seemingly over. While the report was generally favorable toward the colonists, he had questioned the legality of the individual claimant’s quitclaim deeds to the Colony. While satisfied that the original intent of the entrymen was to “place their claims in a common pool after they had proved up and paid for their claims, to be worked co-operatively for their joint benefit,” the withdrawal of the land and suspension of the claims changed matters.

Cauldwell’s report explained how Colony leaders nonetheless “instituted and partially carried out the plan of getting quit claim deeds from filers.”

I am satisfied [Cauldwell wrote] that nearly all of those timber entrymen who made these quit claims did so through a misinterpretation of the law, their attorney [Haskell] having advised them that having once tendered their final proof and money in payment they could subsequently deed their equity in the claims to the Colony Company, notwithstanding the fact that the Land Office had refused to receive their proof and money.

His ultimate recommendation was to cancel all the timber claims in the suspended townships without prejudice to any individual claimant “to the end that such as honestly intended to enter said timber lands for their own use and benefit can have an opportunity to make new filings thereon whenever the suspension is removed,” thus opening the door for anyone, be they Colony member or otherwise, to make brand new claims.

This recommendation was never heeded, and a growing conservation movement undoubtedly influenced the decision. In fact, with bills already introduced in Congress to preserve California forest land, Secretary of the Interior John Noble, who was in favor of the movement, ordered the commissioner of the Government Land Office to renew suspensions on the townships containing sequoia trees until a complete report could be rendered concerning the location of the Big Trees. Cauldwell, a temporary employee of the Interior Department, was already familiar with the area and drew the assignment. It probably helped that the congressman for the district and author of two bills to set aside forest reserves, William Vandever, had personally written the Secretary of the Interior asking that Cauldwell be given a permanent appointment, citing the character of his work as evidence of his efficiency and fidelity. Cauldwell returned in August to make a comprehensive report on the location, number, and size of giant sequoias in and around the Giant Forest. This new assignment also marked a dramatic shift in Cauldwell’s attitude toward, and relationship with, the Kaweah Colony.

By August, Barnard’s Ajax had made its way up the Colony road to the timber, and a sawmill had been erected. Production that first summer did not, however, live up to expectations. Burnette Haskell later vented his frustrations concerning the mill’s output when he wrote:

A total of 20,000 feet (at $10 per thousand) was cut during a three month’s run with a mill whose capacity was 3,000 feet a day; the actual cut average 193 feet per day; less than a tenth of what ought to be done, and this mill was not run short-handed. It is true that most of the time it did not run; that loggers were inexpert; that the mill was small and old; that picnics had to be organized; that the men had to come down for “General Meetings,” that this foreman was bad and that foreman was worse; that the timber was small; that the oxen were lame, and a hundred other reasons, but the fact remains that results were not attained.

Haskell was obviously bitter when he wrote this, but even the ceaselessly optimistic Commonwealth hinted at problems at the mill that summer. “Work at the sawmill is progressing fairly this week, considering the lack of help,” they reported, exhibiting a rare instance of qualified negativity. “Comrades Barnard and Shaw have worked like Trojans to prepare the new edger for service. A fine new belt has also been put up, and several other improvements made which will add materially to the capacity of the mill.”

The Commonwealth later tried to put a positive spin on another unforeseen setback. “The oxen recently purchased,” the paper noted, “are recovering strength and flesh in the pines. The exception is one of the weakest, whose neck was broken while grazing too close to a rocky bank.” Nonetheless, logging had begun and the Colony was finally producing lumber — the valuable and vast resource that would sustain their cooperative dream.

Cauldwell was well aware that the land upon which the colonists logged had not been patented nor deeded to them. It was still technically public land, and he was compelled to warn them against cutting timber upon it, insisting they desist at once. He had personally caught them in the act of “timber trespass” — cutting trees on public land — and at once reported the infraction to the Department of the Interior on August 15, 1890. This, however, was one fact that had no detrimental effect on production at the mill, for the warning was patently ignored. One can easily imagine the negative effect this had on Cauldwell’s relationship with the Colony. Tensions between them grew.

CONSERVATION SUCCESSES

Meanwhile, it should be remembered that Vandever had introduced his bill calling for the reservation of the Garfield Grove area and that it was successfully speeding through Congress. On September 11, 1890, the Visalia Delta, in reporting the rapid progression of Vandever’s Sequoia bill, commented that:

In these days of tardy legislation, it seems wonderful that this bill should be introduced in Congress and passed without opposition, and then taken to the Senate where it is favorably reported by the committee on public lands, then presented to the assembly and passed without debate. The bill will be presented to President Harrison to sign and there is not the least doubt but that our chief magistrate will affix the seal of his approval to the measure. Those who have taken an interest in the successful passage of the bill can well congratulate themselves with their splendid work.

Even The Kaweah Commonwealth saw the rapid passage of the bill, which it must be remembered reserved the Garfield Grove area many miles south of all the Colony claims, as good news. With its passage imminent, they proclaimed that “never were the prospects of Kaweah more bright than today!” and went on to explain that “this news assures the retention of our rights to the Giant Forest, as one National Park is all that is likely to be created for some time to come in this vicinity.” In other words, the Colony cheered the creation of a park reserve as outlined in Vandever’s bill because it didn’t encompass their land. They had dodged the bullet of legislated conservation.

THE YOSEMITE BILL BOMBSHELL

Introduced months before the Sequoia bill, the proposed legislation to create a federal reserve around the state-controlled Yosemite had come about in great part due to the agitation of John Muir and Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of Century Magazine. Envisioned by Muir to protect the vast watersheds surrounding the Yosemite Valley, which was already protected by the State of California, the bill was introduced in March 1890 by Representative Vandever.

Johnson had a great deal of influence in Washington, and even after the bill had been introduced he worked hard to convince the House Committee on Public Lands that it did not go far enough. Armed with a statement and a map from John Muir, who urged that the Yosemite Reservation ought to include the Tuolumne River watershed and the Ritter Range to the east, Johnson lobbied for extension of the boundaries of the proposed reservation. He appeared before the Committee on Public Lands on June 2, 1890, and finally by late September achieved positive results. A second Yosemite bill was substituted and passed through both houses of Congress on September 30, the last day of the session, without the customary bill printing. This new bill provided for a park that was almost township for township like the one Muir had sketched for Johnson. The substitute bill, which became law on October 1, 1890, created a park more than five times the size of the one originally proposed by Vandever. Yosemite became the second national park created in California in less than one week.

The substitute Yosemite bill, introduced in the eleventh hour and rushed into law, created not only a vastly enlarged Yosemite National Park, but with its added sections of text created General Grant National Park and added four townships to the newly created Sequoia National Park.

Section Three of the Yosemite bill, which added to Sequoia National Park an area more than twice that which had so recently been reserved, described the addition only by township, section, and range numbers, so it was unlikely that any of the politicians who passed this bill realized that the area added included the famed Giant Forest and all of the Kaweah Colony timber claims. Nowhere in the text was there any mention of the Sequoia bill passed only a week earlier, nor of the famed Giant Forest, Tulare County, and the Kaweah watershed. With a road newly completed to the timber belt and claims filed on much of the land in question, it would have been hard to label this added land as worthless, which had historically been (and would continue to be) a key factor for consideration of reserving public lands.

Assured by the Committee that it was not “proposed in any manner to interfere with the rights of settlers or claimants,” the bill was read and passed through the House without any debate. In the Senate, the bill was read, and Senator George Edmunds of Vermont complained that it could not be understood and should be printed. Then someone spoke quietly to Edmunds, and he withdrew his objections. The bill passed the Senate without further debate. The one thing these congressmen did understand was that forest preservation had become a popular stance, so with the session nearly over, it is hardly surprising that they took the opportunity to cast their votes to save the Sierra forests.

The establishment of two national parks (and the mysterious enlargement of one) marked the end of the summer of 1890, a time of incredible activity and optimism for the Kaweah Colony. Several elements of Kaweah’s story progressed at once during that exciting spring and summer: the road was finished and a sawmill erected; a community began to flourish at Advance; a Nationalist movement gained momentum and helped attract members to the utopian endeavor; a growing conservation movement took root and began to realize legislative success; a government Land Agent investigated, supported, and ultimately antagonized the Colony; and the driving force behind Kaweah — Burnette Haskell — finally focused his commitment solely on the Colony, moving his family to the Sierra settlement. As summer gave way to fall, all these divergent aspects converged at one place and time. In fact, Haskell and his wife, Annie, arrived at the Colony on the very day the Yosemite bill was signed into law.

It was several weeks before news of the bill’s passage and the enlargement of Sequoia National Park reached California. It would be decades before the mystery surrounding this development came to light.

SOURCES: In addition to contemporary newspaper reports in The Kaweah Commonwealth and the Visalia Weekly Delta, and books such as Dilsaver and Tweed’s Challenge of the Big Trees and John Muir and the Sierra Club Battle for Yosemite by Holway R. Jones (Berkeley, Calif., 1965), other sources for this chapter include “Kaweah Colony Traction Engine” in Los Tulares (No. 31, June 1957), Haskell’s article on Kaweah from Out West magazine, and James J. Martin’s unpublished manuscript “History of the Kaweah Colony” (including drafts and notes, circa 1930, Martin Family papers, Bancroft Library).

We hear today that our whole forest and Avalon are made by Congress into a park. Most of the colonists are sick. (Annie Haskell’s diary, October 21, 1890)

It took three full weeks before news of Sequoia’s sudden enlargement reached those who had done so much toward realizing its establishment. George Stewart’s Visalia Delta reported on October 23, 1890, that it was a “surprise to many to know that the park comprises seven townships instead of two townships and four sections as at first supposed,” although the paper noted it had always been the intention of the originators of the bill, of whom Stewart was certainly one, to secure reservation of a greater area.

The Visalia newspaper undoubtedly spoke for Stewart personally when it explained:

Those who have expressed dissatisfaction at the limited scope of the original Vandever park bill, in that it did not take in enough sequoia forests, cannot attribute it to narrowness in the conception of the originators of the movement. There was little sequoia timber remaining in the possession of the government, and there was no desire to interfere with vested rights or with those who had made application for timber land containing sequoias under the laws of the United States.

VANDALS OF CAPITALISM

As news was so slow in making its way west from the nation’s capital, one might surmise that Andrew Cauldwell’s September 26 report recommending inclusion of Giant Forest and the surrounding townships into the park could hardly have made it all the way from Visalia to Washington in sufficient time to have had a causal effect on the park’s enlargement. Obviously, there were others of influence in the capital who evidently shared Cauldwell’s views, regardless of ever having read his report. But most people in Tulare County were little concerned with just who was responsible for the last-minute expansion of Sequoia — few people except those who were most dramatically effected by the news.

Burnette Haskell certainly had his theories. He claimed the purpose of the bill was “part of a plot to destroy Kaweah.” In the November 1, 1890, issue of the Commonwealth, Haskell explained:

The whole great San Joaquin Valley as a lumber market is in the hands of a gigantic lumber trust who have long watched us with a jealous eye. They well knew that as soon as we began producing lumber it would be sold at reasonable prices to the farmers of the valley and that their own prices would come down. Knowing also that our legal title to our lands was unassailable and seeing that we had at last got to the timber they did what monopoly always does under similar circumstances.

Haskell maintained that said monopolies had “flooded the colony with rumors that this bill takes away our lands.” Of course, Haskell set the picture straight for Commonwealth readers. Aspects of his theory he couldn’t explain — such as how the hated lumber trust had been behind the legislation expanding the park — he ignored. And aspects he disagreed with — such as his assertion that their legal title to the land was “unassailable” — he simply changed. (Title was only unassailable in that there was no title.)

Haskell was able to maintain his optimism and, in fact, presented a good argument for continued optimism. When on October 25, 1890, the Commonwealth finally reported on the California parks bill and Sequoia’s sudden enlargement, Haskell noted that while it “takes a portion of the Colony lands,” it also “reserves the private rights and interests of the settler.” Even the Delta agreed with this when it noted the provision in the bill honoring “any bona fide entry of land made within the limits.” “This is as it should be,” the Delta editorialized, adding that the “rights of all applicants who made their filings in good faith should be respected and protected by the government.” It is obvious the Delta was specifically speaking of the colonists.

Haskell wrote in the Commonwealth, steeling the resolve of the Colony:

Very well, then we propose to stay. Our colonists can rest easy. Our legal rights will be protected. Our homes preserved inviolate. The home of the American citizen is a sacred precinct, not to be invaded by the vandals of capitalism at their pleasure.

KAWEAH ON THE MOVE

The autumn of 1890 was a pivotal time for the Kaweah Colony. In addition to the creation and enlargement of Sequoia National Park and the arrival of the Haskells as permanent residents, the entire settlement was relocated down canyon to Kaweah Townsite.

Until that busy fall, the primary settlement of the Colony had been Advance, originally a road camp about four miles upriver from where road construction began. Perched on a bluff with limited level land available, it was never really thought of as a site of the permanent Colony town. Indeed, most of the time the colonists lived there as mere squatters, although eventually some of the members actually filed homestead claims at and near Advance.

Before mid-1890, the Colony planned on eventually moving to a proposed town site at East Branch (as they called what is now known as Yucca Creek). This area, also known as Avalon by the Colony, was already the center of their agricultural endeavors. They dry-farmed and harvested hay there, had planted several small orchards and had begun work on a ditch and flumes for irrigation. After completing the road to the timber, they even built a spur road down to the confluence of East Branch (Yucca Creek) and the North Fork of the Kaweah River, but just as that road was being completed a change in plans was prompted by the arrival of Comrade Irvin Barnard.

Barnard’s financial assets have already been considered in telling of his Ajax steam engine, and further evidence of his means can be shown in a purchase he made of a 240-acre tract of land at the lower end of the North Fork canyon for $2,000.

The canyon broadens here—with calm incline

The hills up-billow from the oak clad plain;

The river ripples blithely over stones

Or rolls thru pools with soothing undertows.

This was how poetically inclined colonist Will Purdy described the area of the new settlement.

By late September, the big move had begun. The Colony newspaper noted that about 35 persons were already living at Kaweah Townsite. “As a place of residence,” they proclaimed, “it seems to be a favorite.”

In November, the Commonwealth gave some idea of the layout of the Kaweah Townsite:

The post office will be located in one third of the annex to the printing office and residents will have to call for their mail. The store building will contain the store, the treasurer’s office and reading room, with shelves for the colony library and files for papers. School will open in the school-tent on the hill south of the printing office. The blacksmith shop was moved to Kaweah where Vulcan Dudley will be nearer the river water that he loves so much.

By late November, the move was mostly complete. The Commonwealth reported that “the new town is growing in rapidity and now looks on both sides of the river somewhat like a country city.” Advance, by that time, had become almost entirely deserted and had “quite a desolate air.”

THEY KEEP CUTTING

After the Colony claims became a part of the new national park, Special Land Agent Cauldwell remained involved in the case and, in fact, matters heated up considerably between this agent of the government and the Kaweah Colony.

On October 25, 1890, Cauldwell reported to the Department of the Interior that the colonists were continuing to cut timber on land now embraced in the forest reserve. In letters dated October 30 and November 10, the honorable William Vandever, according to Cauldwell’s account, directed the Land Office to thoroughly investigate allegations that the Kaweah Co-Operative Colony Company was cutting within the reserve. Vandever allegedly instructed Cauldwell to “warn the trespassers to desist from further cutting and if they fail to do so lay the facts before the U.S. Attorney.” By this time, Cauldwell had already gone to Los Angeles to consult with the U.S. Attorney, W. Cole, and “received from him the necessary instruction on how to proceed should I be ordered to stop the depredations.”

On November 12, Cauldwell received his official orders and paid a visit to James J. Martin. Martin maintained a Colony office in Visalia in the same building, ironically, as the local Land Office. It was there that Cauldwell paid the Colony secretary and trustee a visit, asking if his company intended to continue sawing timber in the park reserve. Martin, a man with an air of distinguished sophistication, didn’t hesitate in answering in the affirmative.

I then and there [Cauldwell wrote] officially notified said James J. Martin, a manager of the Kaweah Colony Company, to desist from cutting of timber on said forest reservation. In reply he said he didn’t think they would, as they were cutting the timber under legal advise.

Martin, in his proper English accent, went on to inform Cauldwell that he could only give a definitive answer after calling a meeting of the trustees.

On November 24, Martin delivered that definitive answer. He informed Agent Cauldwell, in no uncertain terms, that the Colony was cutting timber on one of their own claims, and that they would continue to cut timber upon their claims in the forest reservation until restrained from doing so by force.

ARRESTED!

On December 4, 1890, the Tulare County Times reported that “B.G. Haskell, H.T. Taylor and William Christie were arrested in Kaweah for illegal lumber cutting.” A fourth trustee, James J. Martin, was “picked up” in Visalia. Annie Haskell’s diary provides this firsthand account:

Well, there has been quite a sensation. There were two deputies—and they were very nice. They have all gone to Los Angeles and will have to find bail. Mrs. Taylor felt awfully badly—she was crying and so Lizzie and I tried to comfort [her].  Burnette sent word for me to teach the school in his absence.

After Martin had informed Cauldwell that they would continue to cut until restrained by force, the government agent at once “proceeded to lay the facts before the U.S. Attorney.” Cauldwell’s report for November 26, 1890, shows the vehemence with which he now opposed the Colony:

In my judgment said trustees are the proper ones to proceed against, as the rank and file of the colonists simply obey their orders. It is a socialist organization, in my opinion, under semi-military rule. The majority of its members are un-naturalized foreigners.

These comments were quite in contrast to Cauldwell’s first report filed in July, wherein he claimed the colonists appeared to be “a wonderfully ‘happy family’ of enthusiasts” and that so far as he could observe they were “above the average in intelligence.” Cauldwell also claimed he could not but help “testifying to their industry and perseverance in overcoming almost insurmountable difficulties in building their road.” There is no readily apparent explanation for his drastic change of heart.

In any event, Cauldwell’s new opinion of the Colony and his recommendations to the U.S. Attorney resulted in the arrest of the Colony trustees. After posting bail, they still faced the expense of returning from Los Angeles, 200 miles away, as well as the cost of another future trip south to stand trial. While the other trustees were back in Kaweah well before Christmas, Haskell remained in Los Angeles and, as the holiday season approached, prepared for their impending trial.

In response to her suddenly absent husband’s request, Annie Haskell took charge of the school at Kaweah. The Colony had long been boastful of its school. Although Comrade Vest, who held a certificate in the California Department of Public Schools, failed to have Advance and its neighborhood declared a School District by the state early in 1890, he continued to maintain a school that was “conducted in accordance with the educational system of the state of California.” Vest had demanded legitimacy even if he couldn’t obtain county funds.

When school resumed in September 1890, Vest was pleased to announce that “he now had fifty-two pupils enrolled.” One of those pupils, Will Purdy, remembered fondly a supportive environment maintained at the school:

The wise preceptor, ardent as the rest

Bore the unpoetic name of Vest

His youthful charges openly exprest

For buoyant spirits never were suppressed

But their energies were skillfully directed

Into channels safe that were connected

With useful projects, the constructive kind

that develop both the body and the mind.

But that autumn Vest left Kaweah to take a job in Visalia as a school principal. Superintendent of Education Burnette Haskell had a difficult time keeping the post of Colony teacher filled.

The teachers [Haskell once wrote] found it impossible to enforce discipline when a child, who deemed himself aggrieved, would in the class openly threaten that he would go home and get his father to call a meeting and remove the instructor. The boys and girls alike called the teachers by their first names and came to school or not as they pleased. Complaints made to the parents were of no avail whatever, corporeal punishment of children being a “relic of barbarism.”

Annie, who later would become a career teacher, wasn’t particularly thrilled with teaching at the Colony school that December. In fact, she hated it. She wrote in her diary that the children “behave most abominably and the accommodations are so bad and books so scarce that on the whole I am liable to have a very miserable two weeks of it.” She described the school tent as “cold” although they finally “got a nice stove put in there.” She herself sounded like a schoolgirl when she wrote “oh how glad, glad, glad I was that it is Friday night.” And just before the holiday vacation, her diary exclaimed “Thank Heaven!  School is to end. I do hope I shant have to teach after the holidays.”

CHRISTMAS AT KAWEAH

Annie Haskell wrote in her diary on December 24, 1890:

Christmas Eve. If Burnette were here I should be satisfied. I have just put some candy in the baby’s stocking. I sent down one box for the tree tomorrow eve, and there will be a knife for him. He will fare slimly compared with other Christmases, but he will probably be just as happy.

It was her first Christmas at Kaweah. With her husband away, Annie lamented that for her it would “not be a very merry Christmas.” She had only been at Kaweah for a few months and was finding it difficult to adjust. Still, she admitted in her diary that next day, “Mr. Martin did all in his power to make this a delightful day.”

The Kaweah Commonwealth offered a description of the holiday celebration shared by the community:

Annie hardly felt like tripping the light fantastic, as the saying went, but she did note in her diary how “Roth enjoyed himself to say the least.” Her entry for Christmas Day continued with an account of their first Kaweah Christmas and the wonderful time her five-year-old son enjoyed:

Annie closed her Christmas entry with a reminder of why the holiday season can be so sad for so many. “If Burnette had only been there,” she wrote. “Poor old dear.” For Annie, these feelings of loneliness were an increasingly common refrain. While life went on for her at Kaweah alone, her husband remained in Los Angeles preparing for a trial that could very well determine the fate of the Colony.

SOURCES:  Colony documents used as source material for this chapter include a circular issued by the Board of Trustees on January 24, 1891, entitled “To Whom It May Concern” (Visalia Public Library) and various issues of The Kaweah Commonwealth. Annie Haskell’s diaries, Will Purdy’s “Kaweah: The Saga of the Old Colony,” and Agent Cauldwell’s Report to Commission, General Land Office were also consulted. Other sources were contemporary reports in the Visalia Weekly Delta and Haskell’s 1902 Out West article “Kaweah: How and Why the Colony Died.”

I am not in a good mood. I feel like a powder magazine — awaiting the match. (Annie Haskell’s diary, January 1891)

On April 16, 1891, after deliberating for only 15 minutes, a jury delivered its verdict to the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in the case against the trustees of the Kaweah Co-Operative Colony. Charged with illegally cutting timber on government land, the Colony leaders nervously awaited the jury’s decision.

This was the second important decision for the Colony that month. A few days earlier the Secretary of the Interior ruled regarding their timber claims. Secretary Noble’s decision addressed a provision to the bill that enlarged Sequoia National Park to include the Colony claims. It was a provision on which Burnette Haskell and the colonists pinned their hopes. As they saw it, they were still entitled to their timber claims — existing rights, the provision stated, would be respected. Of course, the claims had been suspended back in 1885 and they never actually received patents on the land, but that was viewed as a mere technicality. The Kaweah Commonwealth assured members that they could rest easy. “Right and Justice will triumph in the end.” But as 1890 came to a close and the colonists could only await decisions out of their control, a sense of impending doom began to infiltrate the Colony. For some, it became a winter of discontent.

ANNIE’S WINTER MELANCHOLY

Annie Haskell was prone to periods of depression, and this tendency was certainly heightened during her first turbulent months at Kaweah. Following her dread of moving there and a brief period of satisfaction at getting to know the community, Annie slipped into a rather deep melancholy that one can certainly sympathize with given her circumstances. First, she had to make the adjustment of living in the spartan pioneer setting of Kaweah after years of life in cosmopolitan San Francisco. Next were the difficulties the Colony faced as a whole, and as always she faced the frustrations of being married to a husband who was, at best, inconsistent in his attentiveness.

Sometimes it seemed like nothing was going her way. She wrote of one day unpacking some boxes she hadn’t realized were there, left out in the rain for some time in which were “some of my treasured possessions — ruined in a thousand pieces… I told baby [Roth, about five years old] I felt as if I could cry — he said ‘well cry then. It don’t annoy me.’”

As winter approached, Annie was disgusted and resigned: “I guess there is no use my trying to care for anything. Nothing cares for me. I am like all women,” she wrote, “always whining.” For a while, when she and Burnette moved into their own house on land he homesteaded just a mile upstream from the new Kaweah Townsite, her depression lifted somewhat. Haskell called their homestead Arcady, and their little house of wood and canvas was complete with a piano, “tho I am sure it is awfully out of tune,” Annie commented. Nonetheless, depression and general ill-health quickly returned.

Haskell’s extended absence exacerbated this depression. He spent a good deal of time in Los Angeles preparing for the impending trial. As legal counsel for the Kaweah Colony he also had to deal with other legal difficulties, which took him to San Francisco to answer a charge of embezzlement by a disgruntled former colonist. Haskell managed to win acquittal of this charge in January 1891.

That same month, Annie’s diary reflected her emotional state with a wonderful literary quality and attention to detail reminiscent of a great Victorian novel:

AN UNINFORMED CONGRESS

While the colonists pinned their hopes on Secretary Noble’s upcoming decision regarding their claims, many had to wonder that winter how Congress even came to include that land as part of the new national park. While the bill enlarging Sequoia did provide that the permanent reservation of forest land would in no way affect any bona fide entry of land already made within its limits, it can be argued that Congress had no clear idea that there even were any existing claims. While the supplementary bill was neither debated nor printed, it should be noted that prior to passage of the bills creating national parks in California, Public Land Committee chairman Albert J. Payson had inquired of the Secretary of the Interior whether there were any adverse claims to the land. In an August 18, 1890, letter, Secretary Noble informed the senator that there were none. Had Noble already struck a blow against the Colony?

Milton Greenbaum, in his 1942 M.A. thesis, maintained that Noble’s answer was based on his belief that “an application to purchase under the Timber and Stone Act of 1878 does not effect a segregation of the land covered thereby.” Greenbaum faults the Secretary for never having informed Congress of the existence of Kaweah, its status or accomplishments, basing this assertion on a careful perusal of the Secretary’s outgoing correspondence. But, in defense of the Secretary, one has to ask why he would have informed Congress of the Colony claims when the land on which they had filed was not slated as part of the original Sequoia Park reserve, and the supplementary Yosemite bill, which eventually set aside that land, was not introduced until very late in the session. Therefore, when Noble responded in mid-August that there were no adverse claims on proposed park land, he was telling the truth as things then stood.

This, however, is not to say that he wasn’t keenly aware of the Kaweah colonists. Of course, in the months leading up to the passage of the park bills, Noble’s knowledge of the colonists would have been based primarily on Cauldwell’s first report, as well as that of the first land agent who investigated the Colony, B.F. Allen. Both Allen and Cauldwell had originally commented, in their official reports, that the colonists had made many improvements on the land. Farmland had been cultivated and a newspaper was being published and they both reported the existence of stores and shops and numerous other improvements, not the least of which was 18 miles of first-rate mountain road. But in the months immediately following the park’s establishment, Noble’s perception of the colonists via subsequent reports by Cauldwell would have been shaded considerably darker.

It is hard to pinpoint the exact cause of Cauldwell’s sudden shift in attitude toward the Colony. Perhaps Martin’s challenging response to Cauldwell’s cease-and-desist order contributed to the strained relations. It could have been personal, for there certainly were some abrasive personalities involved. And maybe, as the colonists themselves believed, it was purely political. For whatever reason, by late November, Cauldwell had denounced the colonists bitterly. His contemptuous actions had already contributed to the arrest of the Colony trustees, and in the intervening months before the trial, Cauldwell’s remarks would help to further influence public opinion as well as that of Secretary Noble.

COLONY BUNCO GAME

Cauldwell’s comments seemed designed to arouse prejudice against the Colony. He stated that the trustees were operating a “bunco game par excellence,” which was netting them huge returns. They worked the resident Colony members hard and in return furnished the “poor fools” meager rations and promises. Outside sources contributed “between three thousand and five thousand dollars per month” whereas only two or three hundred was spent on beans, oatmeal, flour, coffee, and tea — the only food they fed their “victims and workers.” The surplus “evidently went into the pockets of the trustees.” Was it any wonder, Cauldwell rhetorically asked, that “they resort to every dishonest means in their power to keep up the delusion?”

The trustees, Cauldwell claimed, also poisoned the minds of newspaper editors throughout the country by means of “bogus letters from imaginary individuals lauding the Colony and condemning the government for attempting to deprive the honest colonists of their timber lands upon which they have made valuable improvements.” The land agent who owed his job to the current Republican administration railed at “all the local Democratic, as well as Farmers’ Alliance, Labor Union and other kindred papers” that helped the Colony leaders “spread abuse and lies” about the government.

Ironically enough, Haskell was at the same time accusing the lumber trusts of using the press to “further influence the public against Kaweah.” An editorial in Haskell’s Commonwealth in December, 1890, noted that:

There have been published all over the land during the past month vicious attacks upon Kaweah Colony and its managers. These have been instigated by capitalistic Herods who seek the young child’s (Kaweah’s) life. These attacks, coming simultaneously from all sides, show a concerted and well laid plan to crush the cooperative movement inaugurated so successfully in our beautiful mountain home.

Several of the large San Francisco dailies, including the Daily Times, the Examiner, and the Chronicle, printed accounts that were less than favorable toward the Colony, but no paper attacked the Kaweah Colony as vehemently as the San Francisco Star, which had once said of Burnette Haskell that he was a “systematic teacher of arson and assassination and this if there can be any excuse for his conduct, it must be that he is mad.” James Martin claimed that the Star was an open enemy of Mr. Haskell and that the editor was “well known in San Francisco as being reckless in his statements.” Whether this was true or not, it is readily apparent that the Star and its editor were certainly ready to do battle with Haskell via the press.

On December 27, 1890, the Star explained to its readers, under the headline “They Fooled The Papers,” that the “almost unequaled capacities for lying, characteristic of one (perhaps more) of the trustees of the Kaweah Joint Stock Colony, continue unimpaired.” The paper pointed out that a recent dispatch in the Examiner to the effect that the government didn’t have a very strong case against the Colony in the Los Angeles trial was the result of lies and bribes. “The purpose evidently was to inspire confidence,” the Star surmised, “so that the remittances would continue to come in, to be appropriated by the sharpers and liars who ran the concern.” The Star proudly pointed out that they published the Examiner’s dispatch with “but one line of comment, as we want to be fair, even in dealing with scoundrels.”

CONTRARY VIEWS

There were, it should be pointed out, individuals in the government who did not favor the way the case against the colonists was being conducted. In December 1890, then acting commissioner of the General Land Office, W.M. Stone, felt hearings should be held on the reasons for the original suspension of the Colony’s filings.

His successor in office, Lewis A. Groff, felt even more strongly about it, viewing the current charges against the Colony as “mere allegations or ex-parte evidence.” In looking at their original filings, Groff felt the colonists had fully complied with all the requirements of the law. The default in carrying the claims to patent, he declared, was due to the failure of the government to fulfill its obligations early enough, noting the suspensions had been in effect for over five years and no proof of fraud had ever been offered.

In a letter dated February 25, 1891, to Secretary Noble, Groff advocated that the colonists be granted a hearing, and if they could establish the legitimacy of their original filings, they should receive a patent to the land or be indemnified by Congress for labor and money expended. When news of Groff’s recommendations reached the Colony, a tangible sense of hope returned. The Kaweah Commonwealth ran headlines proclaiming the “Important Document from Land Commissioner Goff [sic].” “The Commissioner believes,” they reported, “that the Colonists have protected the giant trees, and that they should be allowed to retain the lands they now hold on the reservation [national park].”

The arrival of this news made possible a legitimate recovery of optimism in the Colony just as spring was making its triumphant return to Kaweah. March is the most beautiful month in the Sierra foothills, as spring arrives in a flood of water, sunshine, and wildflowers. And everywhere green! This was just the thing that might bring many of the colonists out of an almost unbearable winter funk due to various community and personal difficulties that had nearly extinguished any glimmer of hopefulness.

Meanwhile, optimism itself was embodied in the person of one new arrival to the Colony. Phil Winser recalled in his memoirs, after becoming a Kaweah Colony member from England, booking passage on the Cunarder Cephalonia from Liverpool to Boston in early 1891:

Winser’s memoir tells how he was met in Boston by his cousin, Harry Talbot, who “was kindness itself.” Talbot invited the newly arrived immigrant to stay and see the sights and they attended a Nationalist club meeting, which led to an interview with Edward Bellamy himself. Winser noted that Bellamy was quite interested in his adventure, but “shook his head at such an experiment being made a success except on a national scale.” This weakened Winser’s faith not one whit. He took a train cross-country, traveling “tourist sleeper and fell easily into its ways, hearing odds and ends of information from fellow occupants.” One fellow urged him to change his destination and get off to join the imminent Oklahoma land rushes. Winser’s memoir continued the account:

AN UNFORTUNATE SITUATION

During the spring, both Annie Haskell and her child fought severe illness. In March, she wrote that the “baby is sick… I have consulted my medical book until I am crazy.” A few days later she reported he was “pretty sick again today” and that it “distresses me more than I can tell. Poor little darling, he takes medicine like a little man.” When Roth finally got better, a relieved Annie wrote “I think he has no more fever… he can walk some now… It is a great strain off my mind.” A few weeks after that she herself became so ill that several entries in her diary read only “sick.” Later on, she was able to elaborate: “I was attacked with that awful, horrible disease — dysentery.” With typical understatement, she simply called it “very unpleasant,” but later the pages of her diary seemed to moan “oh, the misery of it. Some of these days in bed I thought I would never be able to get up again and I didn’t care much.”

Though Annie often complained of various ailments, it would be a mistake to assume that she overplayed her illness or depression, or that she was by nature weak and frail. Her resilient, tough, and amazing strength of character, as well as the rudimentary state of health care in the Colony, are best illustrated in the following passage:

I awoke this morning with a bad tooth ache. Harry [a family friend living at Haskell’s Arcady homestead] tried to cut it out but the pain was too severe. Then I let him knock it out with a nail and hammer, so thank Heaven, this evening I have no toothache!

While Commissioner Groff’s recommendation provided hope for the Colony, Secretary Noble’s decision quickly deflated it. On April 9, 1891, the Tulare County Times reported the bad news. “Secretary of the Interior Noble rejected about forty-three entries of the Kaweah colonists, land embraced in the Sequoia National Park.”

Noble apparently disagreed with the view of his commissioners. He declared that the General Land Office had the right to withdraw the land in question from entry. The Secretary maintained that applications to purchase are not entries of lands, and parties making the same acquire no vested right thereby. Congress still had the power to dispose of the land until the settler had made his final entry. In this case, Congress disposed of the land by establishing a forest reservation before the claimants made final entry. It was an unfortunate situation, Noble admitted, but the colonists had “no vestige of right to the land, and their entries are canceled.”

As Greenbaum pointed out in his “History of the Kaweah Colony,” Noble preferred to take refuge in a technicality in canceling the entries of the colonists. By taking the stand he did, not only were the colonists denied an administrative hearing on the original question of whether their entries were bona fide, but they were unable to take the case to court. They couldn’t appeal Noble’s decision because no hearing had been held. If the colonists sought redress, they would have to get it from Congress.

A few months later, The Kaweah Commonwealth finally admitted the dismal situation into which Noble’s ruling had thrust them:

The adverse decision of Secretary Noble has had a disheartening effect on many of our members, so that just at a time when funds are most necessary, the Trustees are again crippled for lack of funds.

THE JURY’S VERDICT

A few days after Noble’s ruling, the trustees stood trial in Los Angeles for illegally cutting timber on government land. The proceedings were widely reported, detailed accounts appearing in newspapers throughout the state, including the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Herald.

A star witness for the prosecution was none other than Land Agent Andrew Cauldwell. According to the Times, Cauldwell testified “that he had seen trees cut and that defendant Martin had told him that they had a legal right to cut them. [Cauldwell] admitted that defendant Taylor told him they were cutting on the Zobrist claim.” The defense maintained that the trees cut were on Colony-member Zobrist’s homestead claim and were used solely for improvements thereon.

The following day the defense called its first witness, John Zobrist. He testified that in 1888 he homesteaded his claim, laid the foundation for his cabin, and in the following month went to the Land Office in Visalia and attempted to file on the land, but that the registrar refused to allow him to do so, claiming it had been suspended by the commissioner in 1882. The Herald noted that “this is the vital law point of the case; as to whether the commissioner had any legal power to abrogate an act of Congress [the Timber and Stone Act of 1878] and close the land to entry.”

On the final day of the trial, the attorney for the Colony, Henry Dillon, argued at length the points of the Colony’s case, maintaining that the commissioner had no power to suspend; that they were entitled to their homes and had a right to ask the court to interfere in the protections; and finally that they were entitled to take the lumber to support their improvements. The courts refused to consider the issue of whether the colonists had any right to the land — and considering Noble’s recent decision on these grounds, it was obvious the Colony had a slim case in that respect — but were instead trying them on the assumption that the land was government domain, indisputably a part of Sequoia National Park. According to the Herald, “Haskell then addressed the jury, asking them if they could acquit his four confreres, and convict him alone, as he had been their unfortunate legal adviser and they had innocently relied upon his advice.” The court commented on his generous plea and the jury retired to deliberate.

The Visalia Delta was one of many papers that reported “a verdict of guilty was returned.” The four trustees were each fined $301 — Haskell’s plea was ignored, and probably seen by the jury as simply a ploy to save the Colony company money — and they all returned to Kaweah to figure out what to do next.

DAMAGE CONTROL AND SUPPORT FROM AFAR

Commenting on the Secretary of the Interior’s devastating decision concerning the Colony land claims, the Commonwealth reported that “as foreshadowed and expected, Secretary Noble declined to interfere on our behalf and leave our titles to be settled by the courts.” The paper was putting what modern commentators would call a “positive spin” on a truly dismal situation. “All of us understanding the situation,” the paper continued, “feel still more determined than ever to fight to a finish and we have no doubt of final victory. We propose to stay by the ship! What do you say?”

It was already evident, however, that many were choosing not to stay by the ship. Even before Colony timber claims were canceled, a negative population flow was taking place at Kaweah. The Commonwealth reported on the loss of one prominent Kaweah family:

Monday last witnessed quite an exodus, the departure of Mrs. E.C. Miles and family and Mrs. Ting, with their effects. Two four-horse teams were loaded with goods and people, the latter comprising Mrs. Miles, Clara, George, Waldo, Kate, Mable and Benny Miles, Mrs. Peter Ting and baby, and Eliza Williams. Comrade Miles has already been away some weeks, preparing for the reception of his family, who will join the new co-operative colony to be established near Santa Monica.

Even though some comrades had apparently given up on Kaweah, they still held hope for the dream of cooperation.

The establishment of Sequoia and Secretary Noble’s decision undoubtedly hastened this exodus. This was particularly frustrating to Colony leaders, as they now needed membership dues more than ever. With logging operations suspended, no income was generated and expenses, particularly legal fees, were piling up.

To encourage new members, their propaganda tool — The Kaweah Commonwealth — had to paint a positive, hopeful picture. They quit printing notices of members leaving. They were, however, quick to mention new members arriving:

Quite a contingent of the Eastern group arrived in our midst during the week, namely: The Hopping Brothers, F.E. Westervelt, his wife and two children, and Mr. Gowan, his wife and grand-daughter. We were all pleased to see them and bid them welcome to their new home in the hills.

When the Commonwealth did later mention some members who had left, they were not shy about pointing out the failure that consequently beset them:

Some members became dissatisfied and sloughed off to form the Port Angeles colony where interest and profit were allowed; that colony is now dead. Later on, others left Kaweah to start “Esperanza colony,” our institution being too democratic. Esperanza is now no more. Still later, because Kaweah was too “despotic,” others left to form the Santa Monica colony; that enterprise has also departed this life.

After news of the convictions in Los Angeles, Haskell again urged a call to arms via the Commonwealth. After a telegraphic dispatch proclaimed the verdict being “guilty as charged,” the paper urged on readers with typical Haskell prose:

But be brave and stand by the ship! Let those who are loyal to our great purpose quietly but firmly resolve never to give up the fight. After we are convicted, we shall give bonds, appeal and come home. Then wait until the trial of the title in the Equity cases, which alone are the ones that affect our status as settlers.

A Defense Fund had by that time been established to help defer the mounting legal costs. This call was answered in places far and wide, as evidence in the following letter, which appeared in the Commonwealth that spring:

Not more than a year later, Fred Savage began his long journey “around the Horn” to Kaweah. Like his countryman, Phil Winser, Savage seemed to have little doubt that the great experiment would still be flourishing when he arrived.

SOURCES: Numerous contemporary newspaper articles provided source material for this chapter, including The Kaweah Commonwealth; San Francisco Star; Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles Herald and the Visalia Weekly Delta. Phil Winser’s “Memories” manuscript, Annie Haskell’s diaries, and Milton Greenbaum’s “History of the Kaweah Colony” thesis paper (Sequoia National Park library) were also consulted. Information on Fred Savage was provided via an author interview with Kenneth Milton Savage (grandson) in June 1995 in Three Rivers, Calif.

The reign of the Cossack they thought was in Russia, not America; but they had yet much to learn about our capitalist-owned land of the free and the home of the brave. (James J. Martin, ‘History of the Kaweah Colony’)

Even with Secretary Noble’s adverse decision and the conviction of the trustees for illegally cutting timber, the leaders of the Kaweah Colony refused to give up. By late spring they had, however, decided not to continue cutting at the mill site at the end of their road. As the Commonwealth noted on May 28, 1891, the trustees had decided that “it was best not to cut any more lumber on our claims until the civil cases are decided; and this decision cannot be had until September.” The paper went on to explain that to continue cutting would surely provoke “more arrests and persecutions from the Trust using the machinery of the Government.” But that course of inaction left the Colony without any source of income except payments of outside members, which Haskell realized were being adversely affected by what he called “the Associated Press slanders telegraphed throughout the country.”

With nearly 200 people living at the Colony that needed basic supplies and an urgent need for lumber to build homes at the new Kaweah Townsite, the Colony had a pressing need to investigate all their options. They learned that there were 320 acres of fine timber land — also located within the boundaries of the newly created Sequoia National Park, but which had been patented years before to Judge A.J. Atwell — on which a fully equipped mill had been operated in the past. For two years it had not been run on account of the death of the owner, and the estate was currently in probate. As the Commonwealth reported under the headline “Joyful News,” Irvin Barnard managed to obtain a lease “on exceptionally favorable terms the land, mill machinery, etc., complete!”

The inhabitants of this county [the reporter continued] will have their cheap lumber after all; we shall have work and food; and money to fight our cases in Court for our own lands and print and publish a million copies of the history of the outrages we have been subjected to.

Atwell’s Mill was located over 20 miles from Kaweah, on the already existing road to the high alpine valley of Mineral King, which had experienced a brief mining boom in the 1870s. By 1891, the area was beginning to flourish as a summer mountain resort destination. While Mineral King itself was not within the park boundaries, its proximity to national park lands and the already established road and resort status made it a natural choice as the site for the temporary headquarters for the first administrators of Sequoia National Park. When the Kaweah colonists made the decision and arrangements to relocate their lumbering operations to Atwell’s Mill — privately owned land that was within the park boundaries — they were well aware of whose path they would inevitably cross.

CAVALRY TO OVERSEE PARK

In January 1891, newspapers reported that Secretary of Interior Noble had “requested the Secretary of War to station a company of cavalry in the Sequoia National Park and in Yosemite to prevent depredations on the mammoth tree groves.” The Visalia Delta, in an editorial, admitted that “just what their duties will be is not yet known, but they will be required to prevent the destruction of the forest, killing of game, etc.”

Earlier reports had pinpointed one specific threat, “the so-called Bellamy colonists, who have in part perfected a title to the lands on which these trees stand, and have expressed their purpose to hold their claims in spite of all opposition. Another threat were the “hoofed locusts,” as grazing sheep herds were sometimes called. The newly created parks encompassed many summer grazing lands of valley ranchers, much of which were on patented and privately owned land.

The Delta noted that “the Secretary of the Interior has a knotty problem on his hands. He cannot prevent people from occupying their own lands, nor is it reasonable to suppose that they will be prevented from passing to and from the same. What is to be done with these isolated fragments remains to be determined.” One such isolated fragment was Atwell’s Mill, which the Kaweah Colony had leased. This dilemma of dealing with privately owned land within the park boundaries has been a recurring and ever-present one and is still being debated today.

The first person who had to deal with this knotty problem in Sequoia National Park was Captain J.H. Dorst. The Visalia Delta reported that Captain Dorst, “commanding Troop K of the 4^th U.S. Cavalry, who has been selected to take charge of the Sequoia National Park, arrived in Visalia and the following day departed for the mountains to select a temporary camping place for his command.”  The April 16, 1891, issue of the Delta continued, “Different places were examined but the spot that appeared to be most suitable is on the Mineral King road,” at a place known as Red Hill.

As pointed out in Lary M. Dilsaver and William Tweed’s book, Challenge of the Big Trees, Dorst’s first task was “to locate the new Sequoia National Park, and the tiny General Grant National Park as well, and develop plans for policing the tracts.” As the first military superintendent of the state’s first national park, Captain Dorst found himself blazing new procedural trails. “He soon discovered,” Dilsaver and Tweed wrote, “that two roads entered Sequoia — the 1879 wagon road to Mineral King and the recently built Colony Mill road… ending at the now closed mill.” Dorst decided to base his operation in Mineral King, even though the new park did not include the Mineral King valley, because most people entering the park would probably do so via that route. From their temporary camp at Red Hill on the lower stretches of the road, “Dorst sent troops to assist the county in repairing winter damage to the roadway. On June 7, he entered Mineral King valley, although the melting snowpack prevented establishment of a permanent camp there until June 29.

As the Commonwealth reported on May 23, 1891, Dorst’s troops “passed up the canyon on the other side of the main river Sunday. They did not stop at Kaweah.” The paper also noted that even though the Cavalry “has not yet entered the canyon of the North Fork, nor made its appearance at the Colony pinery,” the trustees had already made their decision not to cut any more lumber at the Colony Mill.

This did not mean, however, that the Cavalry and the Colony would not meet. “As the Cavalry did not come to us,” the Commonwealth pointed out, “we have gone to them!”

DISCONCERTING NEIGHBORS

As everyone knows, there is always more than one side to any story. Several sources can be used in trying to reconstruct what happened at Atwell’s Mill when the Colony began lumbering operations and the United States Cavalry tried to stop them. These include “The Atwell Mill Outrage,” from James J. Martin’s unpublished “History of the Kaweah Colony”; personal letters of Burnette G. Haskell; “Memories,” the unpublished memoirs of  Phil Winser, who worked at Atwell’s Mill; and “Cutting Timber at Atwell’s Mill,” a special report to the Secretary of the Interior by Captain J.H. Dorst.

Remembering back to the incident some 40 years later, James Martin’s ire was easily raised. He recalled that he thought “the reign of the Cossack was in Russia, not America; but [we] had yet much to learn about our capitalist-owned land of the free.” Explaining how Irvin Barnard had leased the land and that George Purdy was foreman, Martin pointed out:

They were both veterans, and had fought to preserve the Union. Their patriotic blood boiled when the troops came and ordered them to stop cutting where there was no shadow of doubt as to their rights. Foreman Purdy is reported as saying: “And so this is the Union I fought to preserve; troops are now used to harass law-abiding settlers. No, by the Eternal, I’ll not stop!  I am in my rights here and doing my duty. The country is not at war, and if I am to be stopped it shall be through civil process, not military.”

Irvin Barnard had acquired the lease on Atwell’s Mill on May 20, 1891, which, unlike the Colony Mill, was in close proximity to giant sequoia trees. First owned by Isham Mullenix during the end of the Mineral King mining rush, it was sold to A.J. Atwell in 1885. Because of its remote location, the mill was never profitable. When the Colony acquired it, the county road accessing it was in bad condition and the mill had long lain idle, “but the need for lumber was urgent, and this was the best the situation offered.”

Mineral King, which had become headquarters of Captain Dorst and his Cavalry Troop K, was only a few miles farther up the road from Atwell’s Mill. The Colony and the Cavalry were now neighbors, and Dorst was well aware of the Colony’s presence at, and plans for, Atwell’s Mill.

As early as May 25, Dorst had written to one official asking for specific instructions in connection with his duty in charge of the park. He well anticipated difficulties and mentioned the Atwell sawmill, saying that “arrangements are now being made to commence works at that mill. I shall warn the owners that I cannot allow any timber, big or little, to be cut down, and that I have written for information about the matter.”

Dorst then received further instruction from Special Land Agent Andrew Cauldwell, who had already become quite a thorn in the collective side of the colonists. He told Dorst there was no objection letting the old logs lying about the mill be sawed up, “as they had been cut down some time before the park was established, and were an eyesore anyhow, but pending definite instructions he thought that no timber should be cut.” 

On June 19, 1891, Dorst was riding by the sawmill and noticed that two or three pine or fir trees had been felled. “I inquired for the man in charge,” Dorst recounted, “and was referred to Mr. Purdy. He declined to stop the timber cutting without being restrained by the order of a civil court, and [stated] that he was not under military government.”

DORST’S DILEMMA

Captain Dorst’s first difficulty concerning the cutting of lumber at Atwell’s Mill was determining just what the official government policy was. Agent Cauldwell, it has been noted, had told Dorst that he should allow no lumber to be cut. A few days later, Dorst learned that Cauldwell had received a telegram, dated June 16, from the acting Secretary of the Interior, directing him to suspend action in the case of Atwell’s Mill until the Secretary, who was on summer vacation, could be contacted.

With this knowledge, obtained at Cauldwell’s Visalia office while the Land Agent was away in Yosemite, Dorst headed back to his camp via the Visalia to Three Rivers stage. “Mr. Barnard was one of the passengers,” Dorst recalled. “He spoke to me of my visit to the mill and asked me about it. I told him of the telegram to Mr. Cauldwell and that there would probably be no interference with his cutting timber.” Though both men were probably hopeful that the issue would somehow blow over and resolve itself, they undoubtedly knew better.

Finally, in early July 1891, Dorst received the long-delayed response to his initial request for clarification on the issue. From the Acting Secretary came this reply:

I approve of your action in regard to the saw-mill, but you will communicate with [Land Agent] Cauldwell, now near you, and report if you have any difficulty in the premises. You will prevent, by all means, the destruction of any of these great trees within the lines of your reservation.

As this mentioned only the Big Trees — giant sequoias — Dorst felt that “the claim might be made that it should be construed to mean them only.” None had been cut as yet, and so on July 6, he sent the following telegram to the Secretary:

Letter received. On June 19 found several pines or firs cut down at Atwell’s mill. Parties refused to stop without orders of civil court. Afterwards was telegram to Mr. Cauldwell, dated 16^th, directing suspension of action, case of Atwell’s mill, pending your decision, and have done nothing since. Pines and firs still being cut, but no redwoods. Is this permitted; letter mentions redwoods only?

On July 13, Dorst received the following reply at his camp:

Washington, D.C. July 9, 1891— You will not permit the cutting of any timber within the park until further orders. Chandler, Acting Secretary.

That afternoon, Dorst sent a copy of this telegram to Irvin Barnard, along with a letter stating, “I have the honor to request, therefore, that you will cause the cutting of timber to be discontinued on the tract of land… which you have leased, or claim to control, for I am informed that all that land lies within the limits of the park.” The letter was directed back to Kaweah and into the hands of the Colony legal counsel, Burnette Haskell.

Haskell promptly sent his directions to Barnard. “Do not stop cutting except upon the actual threatening of armed force and the presence of troops sufficient to carry out the threat. Be dignified, cool, respectful, but determined.”

A confrontation was inevitable. Phil Winser, remembering back some 40 years later, recalled the confrontation with “a troop commander with little judgment.” As Winser remembered:

THE WINCHESTER BLUFF

Captain Dorst continued the story from his point of view. “A corporal reported that one or two more trees had been cut at the mill, and I ordered Lieutenant Nolan with ten or eleven men to go up and stop any further cutting.”

By this time, Dorst well knew with whom he was dealing and had concluded that the leaders were looking for an opportunity to claim persecution “and to use the sympathy it would excite to make the public blind to any defects in their claim to the Giant Forest, as well as gain recruits.”

Dorst’s keen assessment was confirmed by James Martin himself, who later wrote that “the attorneys for the colony were hoping the act of restraint by force would actually take place, so that a basis for bringing the case before the Court could be established.”

Lieutenant Nolan was dispatched to execute, if necessary, this restraint by force. He and Dorst had “talked a good deal about what should be done in case the people at the mill compelled us to act against them.” Dorst advised against the exercise of absolute force “except in the last extremity.”  When Nolan arrived at the mill, about 30 men appeared and he was told he would be resisted. Phil Winser’s account details this encounter from the colonists’ point of view:

Pretty soon [the] lieutenant and about ten troopers jingled up and ordered the cutting to cease, the only result being the crash of a nearby tree or two; no reply being made at any time. He must have been an amiable man, reluctant to push things to extremes, a hot-headed one could have made trouble. Ours was straight bluff and the reputed Winchesters hidden in the brush were sheer figments of imagination.

Dorst’s side of the story noted that one of the colonists, “a deputy sheriff by the name of Bellah, told [Lt. Nolan] that he would consider an interference with work as a breach of the peace, and would arrest anyone who attempted it.” Dorst also mentioned that “none of the mill force had arms, at least in sight, but most had axes.”

After Nolan’s encounter, Dorst made the trip up from Red Hill camp. Along the road he met Barnard, who was headed to Visalia to have warrants issued for Nolan’s arrest. They discussed just what would constitute an act of restraint by force. Barnard replied that “laying hands on his men while cutting trees and taking them away would be his idea of force.” Barnard was hopeful that any application of force would be done in a manner as to leave no doubt, in a legal sense, of being defined as such. Dorst was simply eager to resolve the situation.

I reached Nolan’s camp [Dorst wrote], about a half mile from the mill, shortly before midnight. I had been ailing for several days, and had a fever then, and did not feel competent to engage in any business where tact, good judgment, and clearness of mind were necessary. I sent a note to Mr. Purdy, intending to go to the mill after the fever subsided. It kept up and, unwilling to delay any longer, sent Lieutenant Nolan to the mill with two men to find out just how much force they wanted me to use.

The Lieutenant agreed to carry out this plan without further delay. Deputy Sheriff Bellah, whose official sense of duty seems to have been whatever Mr. Barnard dictated, stated that he would not interfere. Accordingly, several men took axes and commenced cutting. By order of the lieutenant, one soldier advanced to one of the men who was cutting, placed his hand on him and ordered him to stop. The man replied “I won’t” and kept on cutting.

After a number of like responses, Nolan decided not to press the matter any further and returned to camp and reported to Dorst. Shortly afterward, Purdy came to Dorst’s camp and stated that “all work had been stopped until Mr. Barnard’s return.” Perhaps the rather histrionic show of physical restraint had some effect after all, although the colonists would never admit as much. Purdy had explained that it was not because of the army’s orders, but that the “events of the past two or three days had caused a good deal of excitement, so much so that [the men] would not work steadily but at every opportunity break up into groups and commence talking.” They were simply too agitated to get any work done.

The next day Dorst received a copy of a telegram recently sent to Cauldwell:

Washington, July 24, 1891— It appears that Atwell’s mill is on patented land. If this is correct instruct Captain Dorst to defer action on all patented land until I can communicate with Secretary. George Chandler, Acting Secretary.

Dorst sent a copy of this telegram to Barnard along with a note stating “In compliance with the foregoing, you are respectfully notified that you will not be interfered with by me in your work at the mill.”

SOURCES: Supplementing the contemporary news reports from The Kaweah Commonwealth, Tulare County Times, and the Visalia Weekly Delta, books such as John Muir’s Our National Parks; Challenge of the Big Trees by Dilsaver and Tweed; and John F. Elliott’s Mineral King Historic District: Contextual History and Description (Mineral King Preservation Society, 1993) served as valuable source material. Firsthand accounts of the incident at Atwell’s Mill were found in Captain J.H. Dorst’s Special Report to the Secretary of the Interior Relative to Cutting Timber at Atwell’s Mill, September 8, 1891 (Sequoia National Park archives); Phil Winser’s “Memories” manuscript; a letter from Burnette Haskell to J.J. Martin, Irvin Barnard, H. Dillon, July 15, 1891 (Haskell Family Papers, Bancroft Library); and James Martin’s unpublished “History of the Kaweah Colony.”