CHAPTER VI
SIERRA SCENERY AND POLITICS

In the summer and fall of 1864, Olmsted explored the Yosemite region and plunged into the political strife of Mariposa County during the presidential campaign. Three letters describe his mountain expeditions with his family. A letter to Edwin L. Godkin from Clark’s Ranch in the Sierra forest offers a glimpse of Indians outside the white settlements. A letter to his father on August 17 describes Olmsted’s first response to Yosemite Valley. It also gives his father advice on choosing a church architect, in the form of an essay on the responsibilities of an architect to his art and his client. On September 14 Olmsted reports his trip into the High Sierra and ascent of Mount Gibbs with his son John Charles and William Brewer. In a letter to Clarence King of the Yosemite Survey, Olmsted suggests the routes of new access roads for the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grove.

In two letters Olmsted offers advice to Easterners. A request from John Wheeler Harding, a Massachusetts minister wondering whether he should emigrate to California, draws from him a study of the economic foundations of churches and the state of spiritual life in California, with harsh remarks on the failure of Californians to practice Christianity toward the Chinese. To the firm of Ketchum, Son and Company, Olmsted volunteers advice on the prospects for investment in the oil industry just emerging in the state.

Several letters concerning the presidential election show Olmsted’s approach to politics. Two letters to John G. McCullough, attorney general of the state, reveal Olmsted’s response to the threat of insurrection in Mariposa County. In a letter to the editor of the Mariposa Gazette, [240]Olmsted expresses his long-held aversion to political patronage and his firm belief in the right of every man to vote his conscience