Old Adam and Sparrow

There is a husk of an old, burned-out Sequoia tree standing next to a
mountain meadow, and within the corpse of that former giant, carved
into the charred wood, is a name and a date which may forever change
our views of the history of this part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

It’s strange, but historians are quite often resistant to change. One
would not think that to be very logical in a profession devoted to the
discovery of the past, yet once a picture of that past has been
developed it is often quite difficult to put forward an alternate
scenario for consideration. It’s as if they think that they have
successfully finished putting together a puzzle which offers a
complete snapshot of a particular time and place and from that point
on It Is Official; they don’t wish to acknowledge even the possibility
that some of the pieces to that puzzle have yet to be found.

If you accept the current doctrine of California history then you
would readily adhere to the belief that explorers did not reach this
part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains – Sequoia and Kings Canyon - until
the early to mid-eighteen hundreds; and before then it was at most
infrequent and sporadic intrusions which were brief in duration and
unimportant from an historical perspective. Viewing history through
that lens you would also adhere to the accepted doctrine that these
mountains remained largely untrodden by even the occasional footfall
of explorers (white explorers of European descent, that is - after
all, Native Americans really didn’t count, did they?), and remained
unexplored until the Gold Rush brought so many untold thousands of
hopeful gold panners and diggers into California that it was then no
longer possible to either keep count of them or keep track of where
they went. Then, and only then according to this doctrine, did this
part of the Sierra Nevada, this part we now know as Kings Canyon and
Sequoia National Parks; only then did it get explored, and exploited,
and settled. Only then did the historians pick up their pens to record
the wonders of the Sequoia trees and the deeds of the men who came
here to gain wealth by harvesting a crop they had never planted. And,
if you adhere to this somewhat narrow minded historical doctrine, then
you are certain that nothing at all of importance happened here before
then, except, of course, that of a well-adjusted culture of Native
Americans living here for centuries in relative tranquility.

And yet …

And yet Britain was sending over shipload after shipload of immigrants
to the New World, almost all of whom settled within a stone’s throw of
the Atlantic Coast and built communities which would later revolt
against their Mother Country (in the lower latitudes, that is. In
Canada they remained loyal to the Crown). The French were also sending
boatloads of immigrants, most of whom landed and settled to the west
and South of the British; their settlements forming the embryo of
conflict between the two European powers. The Spanish were busy
ravaging Mexico in their searches for glittering gold, the fabled
Fountain of Youth, and that elusive Northwest Passage,  and they had
no patience with either the British, the French, or the new Americanos
who thought themselves to be an independent breed of men. The Spanish
steadily expanded their territories into what is now Arizona, New
Mexico, and the southern half of California. The Russians, late into
the Great Game of Empire, stopped Spanish expansion to the north by
settling into northern California and on up into Oregon and then
Alaska. Eventually all of these colonies worked out their futures in
different ways: the thirteen British colonies revolted and gained
independence; Napoleon sold most of the French colonies to the newly
minted country calling itself the United States; the Bear Flag
Revolution brought a lively halt to the presence of Spain and Russia
in California; the brash new U.S. went to war with Mexico and gained
the territories in the southwest; and Seward purchased Alaska from
Russia for the outrageous price of two cents per acre. So the United
States expanded.

Yet still, if one were to steadfastly believe what is written in the
history books, while all of this expansion was taking place still no
one trod this part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains until the gold
seekers came, and after them the lumber men.

But why should we believe that?  True, it was a long trek of three
thousand miles across plains, desert, and mountains for those British
and French colonists if they wanted to get to California. Yet it’s a
certainty that some of them must have made that trek. After all,
that’s what they came to the New World for – to discover a new world.
And the Russians; well, they were eager to establish a presence here,
and not just in settlements like Fort Ross. They were interested in
furs and trade, so they sent people into the mountains to hunt and
trap. And the Spanish? The Spanish felt that California was rightly
their colony. Indeed, they had a better claim than the Russians or
anyone else, save for the indigenous peoples. But no one cared about
indigenous people because they weren’t really considered to be
civilized people deserving of respect.

And yet, despite the accepted fact that several European countries
were settling tens of thousands of immigrants in this land, and
despite the fact that although most of them settled comfortably into
towns, farms, and ranches; there was still the fact that untold
numbers shouldered a pack on their backs and took off into the
wilderness to explore; or perhaps to just to get away from it all. So
why do historians insist that no one came to this part of the Sierras
until it was comfortable for contemporary scribes to get around to
recording their visits? Why do they believe that this part of the
mountains remained sacrosanct? And why do they think we would even
believe something that unbelievable? And believe it in spite of the
evidence?

The evidence …

In the summer of the year 2014 a National Park Ranger did something
that no ranger had apparently thought of doing throughout the past
hundred years. While walking along the Big Stump Trail In Kings Canyon
National Park, Ranger Farrah Keifer paused before the imposing edifice
of Old Adam; a long dead snag of a Sequoia tree which stands alongside
that trail. Old Adam has been dead for hundreds of years; no one is
even certain as to the origin of its name. The remains of the tree
which still stand are scarred by fire; the snag itself is perhaps
forty or so feet in height; the part which remains, although dead for
centuries, tantalizingly hints at its having been one of the largest
Sequoia trees ever to exist. Old Adam is hollow now, having been
struck by lightning ages ago and burned into a scraggly shell, but
Ranger Keifer thought that it just might be worthwhile to wedge
herself through a narrow opening in the tree and she found herself
inside a dark confined space; inside the corpse of this once
impressive monster. Once inside she shined her light around and found
herself standing within the hollow skeleton of a tree which may well
have been over three thousand years old. The charred wood surrounding
her formed a narrow cone rising above; a cone blackened by the fires
of centuries ago. Atop that cone shone daylight; and within that cone
she found history carved; the names of early travelers who came to
this area along with the dates on which they passed; including that of
the very earliest traveler. It was carved into the burned inner lining
of the tree; a piece of history preserved for centuries; history which
still remains unacknowledged by the official historians, perhaps
because it’s not already written in a musty book to which they can
comfortably point. Yet this is the manner in which much of our history
has come down to us – carved into natural objects such as cave rocks,
pyramid walls, or the Rosetta stone. All of these give glimpses of
pieces of history which were previously unknown. So now it is with a
tree called Old Adam and a traveler named Sparrow.

Long before you and I came to Kings Canyon it seems that other people
have paused and stepped inside the snag which is now known as Old
Adam, and some of them have taken the time to engrave a memento of
their passing; a marker stating that they were there inside that tree;
visiting what we now know as a special place within a National Park;
travelers passing through and pausing to mark their presence as they
crossed this part of the mountains long before we and the park even
existed. They were saying “I was here” to anyone who might later find
their carving.

One of those individuals who passed this way went by the name of
Sparrow, and he carved his name inside of Old Adam. “Sparrow - 1758”.
That’s what Ranger Keifer found, along with the names and dates of
other, later, travelers. And it’s the oldest written record indicating
the presence of a person of European descent here in this part of the
Sierra Nevada.

Today people who pass by should probably instead take a picture of
themselves next to the tree to show respect for its fragile condition;
a ‘selfie’, as it is currently known; a photo they can then instantly
send to friends and family all over the world with the mere touch of a
button. But in the year 1758 the only form of selfie available was to
pull one’s knife out of its scabbard and spend several long minutes
carving one’s name into a tree before moving on. The name, one hoped,
would be there forever; or at least for longer than you expected to
live. So when Sparrow came to this part of the Sierra Nevada Mountains
in the year 1758 he sent us a selfie; he carved his name inside of Old
Adam in a place which was protected from the weather – his version of
sending it on to us two and a half centuries later. He added the year
of his visit as a reference point. Then he moved on. We have
absolutely no idea whatsoever who he was, where he was going, or from
where he came.

So, who was Sparrow?

Sparrow could have been one of the British or French settlers, most of
whom were busy building towns and plowing farms while their respective
governments back in the Old World were busy arranging confrontations
with each other and even convincing Native American tribes to fight on
one side or the other. So who would have blamed, or even wondered,
that some of those settlers wandered off to find a better life in the
wilderness to the west? And we know that the British were sending
ships along the California coast as early as 1577 when Sir Francis
Drake sailed by looking for the Northwest Passage. He paused around
San Francisco to leave a brass marker, and it is known that sailors
often rebelled against such long voyages and got themselves into
trouble. When that happened they were usually either executed or
abandoned on the coast; set ashore to live the remainder of their life
alone in a wild land.

The Spanish government was busy sending expeditions up the California
coast to establish a string of missions designed to entrench Spanish
presence in California while enslaving Native Americans for farm labor
and converting them to Christianity to save their souls. It’s not hard
to imagine some of those soldiers or settlers being fed up with the
whole thing and just packing up and moving off to the mountains to
find a better life.

But in fact, an intriguing hint of the possible consequences of that
policy of abandoning unruly sailors on shore showed up in the 1772
journal of the Spanish explorer, Padre Juan Crespi.

Padre Crespi was a Spanish missionary who came to California in 1749.
He was a member of the exploration parties of both Francisco Palou and
Junipero Serra. In 1769 he joined Gaspar de Portola’s expedition and
went north through San Diego and up to Monterey. Crespi’s task on that
expedition was that of official record keeper, and he took meticulous
notes not only on their journey but also of their interactions with
the native peoples whom they encountered. He strove at all times for
accuracy and objectivity, and the details he recorded have proven a
valuable source of information for over two centuries. One of the most
intriguing of those details he noted was when he wrote in 1772 of a
native tribe “who with their beards and light coloring looked like
Spaniards”. Native Californians had very dark skin coloring and did
not grow facial hair. So we must wonder - from where did these light
skinned and bearded natives come? And where else in California might
they have been found?

Who was Sparrow?

The name sounds European or American. The chances are that he was of
British descent, and that he was either a very energetic explorer who
walked West across three thousand miles of wilderness or, more likely,
one who got abandoned in California by his shipmates for inappropriate
conduct. Either way, he made his way into the Sierra Nevada Mountains,
climbed up to the Grant Grove area, and briefly took refuge inside of
an old, burned out tree, and while he was there he took the time to
mark his passage for future generations to note. We don’t know from
which vessel he may have come because the ships who made passage to
the New World in those years did not always leave us records of the
names of all of their passengers and crew. But Sparrow may well have
been on one of them, and he may have come here to these mountains
before moving on. And he left his mark, along with others who
followed, that he was here in Grant Grove long before there even was a
Grant Grove; before there was a Kings Canyon National Park; long
before there was even a United States.

There is a chain which links us all, both through time as well as
geography; a chain which ties us to people in the past who have
survived beyond death because of something they did, or something they
started; something which we now remember as being of significance. Or,
as in the case of this story, something which we didn’t remember;
something of which we weren’t even aware until a name carved into an
old tree came to be noticed after lying hidden for two and a half
centuries, and then it reminded us of this shadowy link with our past
standing patient and unnoticed hidden the mountains; a memento from a
Journeying Man who paused in this Garden of Eden to leave a message
with Adam.

Or perhaps it was a Journeying Woman – Wouldn’t that give all those
feeble old recorders of official history a massive brain fart?