In August 1855, James H. Lawrence was a member of one of the first “tourist parties” to visit Yosemite Valley. Lawrence was a prominent resident of Mariposa, the largest city close to Yosemite.  The village was about forty miles from the valley. 

Years later, in 1884, Lawrence recounted his expedition to Yosemite Valley in the October edition of The Overland Monthly magazine.

Lawrence was an early leader in California.  Upon his death on August 3, 1901, his obituary in the Mariposa Gazette stated:  “[James H. Lawrence], a pioneer newspaperman and Democratic party leader, passed away at the McNutt hospital last night. Mr. LAWRENCE came of old Massachusetts Revolutionary stock. When a boy he served in the Mexican war, afterwards coming to California in 1849. He earned an enviable reputation as a lawyer and journalist in the capacity of editor and proprietor of the Mariposa Free Press, which for years held power in eight counties. Always a leader in the Democratic party, he ably represented the Senatorial district of Mariposa, Stanislaus and Merced from 1867 to 1871.”

James H. Lawrence
“Discovery of the Nevada Falls”
Overland Monthly,   October 1884

“…a view of rare and picturesque beauty and grandeur …”

… here we took a rest, little dreaming of the magnificent scene in store for us when we rounded the base of the cliff.

The oft-quoted phrase, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” was never more fully realized. The picture is photographed on the tablets of my memory in indelible colors, and is as fresh and bright to-day as was the first impression twenty-nine years ago. To the tourist who beholds it for the first time, the Nevada Fall, with its weird surroundings, is a view of rare and picturesque beauty and grandeur. The rugged cliffs, the summits fringed with stunted pine and juniper, bounding the cañon on the southern side, the “Cap of Liberty” standing like a huge sentinel overlooking the scene at the north, the foaming caldron at the foot of the fall, the rapids below, the flume where the stream glides noiselessly but with lightning speed over its polished granite bed, making the preparatory run for its plunge over the Vernal Fall, form a combination of rare effects, leaving upon the mind an impression that years cannot efface. But the tourist is in a measure prepared. He has seen the engravings and photographic views, and read descriptions written by visitors who have preceded him. To us it was the opening of a sealed volume. Long we lingered and admiringly gazed upon the grand panorama, till the descending sun admonished us that we had no time to lose in making our way campward.

… A residence of twenty years in Mariposa has given me opportunities of frequent visits to this beautiful valley, which have been improved to the fullest extent, and on several occasions extended to the high Sierras, above and beyond, under circumstances differing very materially from those of the expedition herein outlined. Hence, the improvements in traveling facilities and local accommodations which have opened the gates of this mountain paradise to the outside world are the more fully appreciated; and the day when the iron horse shall be heard snorting and whistling through the cañon of the Merced is looked for as an event of the not distant future. Yet a tinge of sadness comes over me as I travel along the new paths amid the old scenes. The river still meanders its serpentine course, glittering with its ancient radiance as it kisses the sunlight. The majestic water-falls bound from their giddy heights, mocking the thunder in their reckless plunge. The rugged peaks and beetling cliffs, their summits touching the clouds, stand grim and defiant against the march of civilization. But the bed of the valley itself has been roughly handled by the agencies of Nature and Art. The floods have done their work, even to the extent of sweeping away a grove of trees whereon were carved the names of several American citizens—pioneer Californians. Immense slides, avalanches of debris from the mountain sides, have buried many acres of what was once fresh, verdant meadow. Man has not been idle. Dynamite has played its part, and trails have been blasted out, enabling the “Tenderfoot” to reach points once deemed inaccessible to anything but a mountain sheep. The dust of rattling coaches offends the nostrils. The toll-gatherer confronts the wayfaring man, and the camper is abridged of his former vested rights, looked upon as an interloper, and suspected of being “an awful mean man.” Hotels, in some of their features vieing with the more pretentious metropolitan palaces, have multiplied on a scale commensurate with the demands of the traveling public. Healthy, able-bodied tourists, invalid tourists, lame tourists, fat women tourists, tourists of both sexes, all ages, and diversified nationalities, make elaborate annual pilgrim ages to this Pacific Coast Mecca. They bring with them valises, bandboxes, miscellaneous packages, and the traditional horror of the mountain stage driver, the Saratoga trunk…. “There is but one Yosemite!” exclaims an enraptured tourist, as he staggers at description in the shadow of its grandeur. There never will be another as it was when there was no print of hoof nor trace of moccasin track within its lonely precincts. Its pristine loveliness is a thing of the past, with the voices which awoke musical responses from its cliffs and cañons nearly thirty years ago living only in the chambers of memory.

James H. Lawrence – image credits

Overland Monthly reproductions – from University of Pennsylvania online archive of The Overland Monthly

Lawrence photo -  from the San Joaquin Valley Digitization Project -
Leroy Radanovich Collection, San Joaquin Valley & Sierra Foothills Photo Heritage Collection