Joseph LeContewas born in Georgia in 1823. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree in New York and set up a practice in Georgia. But soon thereafter, he discovered that his calling was the field of geology rather than medicine. So he switched his career, studied geology at Harvard, and taught at the University of Georgia.

Following the Civil War, Joseph and his brother moved to California where he helped organize the University of California. LeConte Hall on the University of California, Berkeley campus is named for him. In 1889, Joseph embarked on a five week horseback trip to the Yosemite Valley and the High Sierras. This group, which included John Muir and other University of California faculty, started a campaign to establish today's Yosemite National Park and to promote more recreational uses of the Sierras.  The group was also instrumental in establishing the Sierra Club.  The LeConte Memorial Lodge in Yosemite Valley is the Sierra Club’s headquarters in the park.

In 1897, LeConte was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Among LeConte's publications are: A Journal of Ramblings Through the High Sierra, Elements of Geology, The General Interior Condition of the Earth, The Relation of Philosophy to Psychology, Manual of Arms for the Percussion Musket, and The Relation of Evolution to Religious Thought.

Ironically, in 1901, Joseph LeConte died during a Sierra Club excursion in Yosemite.

Joseph LeConte
A Journal of Ramblings Through the High Sierra of California
Originally published in 1870 in the Sierra Club Bulletin
Visit to Mariposa Grove of Big Trees

July 29, 1870

Started for the Big Trees at 7 A. M. Five of the party walked, and five rode. I preferred riding, and I had no cause to regret it. The trail was very rough, and almost the whole way up-mountain; the distance about six miles, and around the grove two miles, making fourteen miles in all.

The walkers were very much heated and fatigued, and drank too freely of the ice-cold water of the springs. The abundance and excessive coldness of the water seem closely connected with the occurrence of these trees.

My first impressions of the Big Trees were somewhat disappointing; but, as I passed from one to another; as, with upturned face, I looked along their straight, polished shafts, towering to the height of three hundred feet; as I climbed up the sides of their prostrate trunks, and stepped from end to end; as I rode around the standing trees and into their enormous hollows; as we rode through the hollows of some of these prostrate trunks, and even chased one another on horseback through these enormous, hollow cylinders, a sense of their immensity grew upon me.

If they stood by themselves on a plain, they would be more immediately striking. But they are giants among giants. The whole forest is filled with magnificent trees, sugar-pines, yellow pines, and spruce, eight to ten feet in diameter, and two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet high. The  sugar-pine, especially, is a magnificent tree in size, height, and symmetry of form.

Of all the big trees of this grove, and, therefore, of all the trees I have ever seen, the Grizzly Giant impressed me most profoundly; not, indeed, by its tallness or its symmetry, but by the hugeness of its cylindrical trunk, and by a certain gnarled grandeur, a fibrous, sinewy strength, which seems to defy time itself. The others, with their smooth, straight, tapering shafts, towering to the height of three hundred feet, seemed to me the type of youthful vigor and beauty in the plentitude of power and success.

But this, with its large, rough, knobbed, battered trunk, more than thirty feet in diameter--with top broken off and decayed at the height of one hundred and fifty feet--with its great limbs, six to eight feet in diameter, twisted and broken--seemed to me the type of a great life, decaying, but still strong and self-reliant. Perhaps my own bald head and grizzled locks--my own top, with its decaying foliage--made me sympathize with this grizzled giant; but I found the Captain, too, standing with hat in hand, and gazing in silent, bare-headed reverence upon the grand old tree.

We lunched at the Big Trees, rested, examined them three or four hours, and then returned to camp. Then went down to the creek, and enjoyed a delicious swimming-bath. On the way back to camp, stopped at Clark's, and became acquainted with President Mark Hopkins and his family. He goes to Yosemite to-morrow. We will see him again. After supper, the young men, sitting under the tall pines, sang in chorus. The two ladies, already spoken of hearing the music, came down to our camp, sat on the ground, and joined in the song. Cobb's noisy tenor, fuller of spirit than music, Pomroy's bellowing baritone, and, especially, Stone's deep, rich, really fine bass, harmonized very pleasantly with the thin clearness of the feminine voices.

I really enjoyed the song and the scene very greatly. Women's faces and women's voices, after our rough life, and contrasted with our rough forms--ah! how delightful! About 9:30 P. M. they left, and we all turned in for the night. For an hour I lay upon my back, gazing upwards through the tall pines into the dark, starry sky, which seemed almost to rest on their tops, and listening to the solemn murmurings of their leaves, which, in the silent night, seemed like the whisperings of spirits of the air above me.

Joseph LeConte – image credits

LeConte portrait (sepia) – From Sierra Club Collection

LeConte portrait (b&w) – From Sierra Club Collection

Autobiography of Leconte title page – From University of North Carolina, “Documenting the American South” Collection

LeConte Hall, University of California, Berkeley – University of California, Berkeley Collections

LeConte Lodge, Yosemite Valley – From the Sierra Club Collection