A “California Letter”
appeared in the Ticonderoga Sentinel [Ticonderoga, New York] on June 25,
1891.
“Dear sir: -- As I
have not written to you in some time, I thought I would try again. A great many
of your readers have probably heard of the California Big Trees, but some have
not, and as I have been there, I will try to tell them what I saw. A short time
ago an excursion went to the Big Trees about seventy-five miles from here, in
Santa Cruz Co., and wishing to see them for myself I went too. The first sight
I had of them was on rounding a bend near the grove when we passed the first
one between the fence and the track. It was about eight feet in diameter and
two hundred feet high. On reaching the station we found a large platform and a
small depot. We went down some eight or ten steps and found ourselves in a
large grove of red wood trees, in which the giants were scattered around to the
number of twenty-five or thirty. The first one visited was the Gen’l Fremont,
this was a large tree with a hollow or room about six feet in diameter; in
which Gen. Fremont camped for several days while exploring in California. Next
comes the [T]hree [S]isters, which form a back to an ice-cream, soda water and
coffee saloon, one of the trees was hollow in which a fire was burning to make
coffee, then came the ‘Nine Muses,’ arranged in a circle and composed of nine small
trees supposed to be growing around the site of a former big tree, and between
them a large platform or stand has been erected."
"Then there is the ‘Giant,’ the largest tree in the grove. It is about ten feet in diameter and nearly three hundred feet high, there are cracks in the bark eighteen inches deep and still no wood in sight. Then there is the ‘Duane,’ ‘Gen. Grant,’ ‘Gen. Castro,’ and ‘Prof. Campbell,’ with a hole like a tunnel clear through the roots, about twelve feet. The ‘Prof.,’ with four others on the edge of a circle of old roots that look as if at one time it had been one solid tree, about [seventy-five] feet in diameter on the ground. The tree first mentioned had a marble tablet bolted on the side about ten feet from the ground on which was engraved the name of Daniel Webster, by T.H. Smith, Boston, Mass., 1889. Some mischievous person had drawn out the two lower bolts leaving the tablet hanging by its upper corners, : the bolts of which were nearly out. Several stumps from four to six feet in diameter were leveled off on top to serve as tables for parties attending the picnics. A log thirteen feet long and four and one half-feet in diameter was hollowed out to form a boat in which about sixteen persons could be seated at once. The bark on the largest trees are said to be about two feet thick. Fire has very little, effect on it, only scorching the outside, so one can easily see how they can escape the forest fires and grow so large. Some are said to be over three thousand years old. In three weeks after a fire has run through a grove of red wood and burned the leaves all off and scorched the bark, they will begin to sprout again, and in three months they will be a solid mass of green foliage with leaves something like hemlock only softer. It is very hard to imagine the size of the trees unless you can see one with a tree from eight to twenty inches through standing beside it to compare it with."
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| Author's Personal Collection |
"Then there is the ‘Giant,’ the largest tree in the grove. It is about ten feet in diameter and nearly three hundred feet high, there are cracks in the bark eighteen inches deep and still no wood in sight. Then there is the ‘Duane,’ ‘Gen. Grant,’ ‘Gen. Castro,’ and ‘Prof. Campbell,’ with a hole like a tunnel clear through the roots, about twelve feet. The ‘Prof.,’ with four others on the edge of a circle of old roots that look as if at one time it had been one solid tree, about [seventy-five] feet in diameter on the ground. The tree first mentioned had a marble tablet bolted on the side about ten feet from the ground on which was engraved the name of Daniel Webster, by T.H. Smith, Boston, Mass., 1889. Some mischievous person had drawn out the two lower bolts leaving the tablet hanging by its upper corners, : the bolts of which were nearly out. Several stumps from four to six feet in diameter were leveled off on top to serve as tables for parties attending the picnics. A log thirteen feet long and four and one half-feet in diameter was hollowed out to form a boat in which about sixteen persons could be seated at once. The bark on the largest trees are said to be about two feet thick. Fire has very little, effect on it, only scorching the outside, so one can easily see how they can escape the forest fires and grow so large. Some are said to be over three thousand years old. In three weeks after a fire has run through a grove of red wood and burned the leaves all off and scorched the bark, they will begin to sprout again, and in three months they will be a solid mass of green foliage with leaves something like hemlock only softer. It is very hard to imagine the size of the trees unless you can see one with a tree from eight to twenty inches through standing beside it to compare it with."
"The Sentinel keeps me
pretty well informed about the doings in Ticonderoga and vicinity, and I would
not be without it. Will write again when I have something interesting to write
about, probably the gold mines and miners."
Very respectfully, C.W. Wright.
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