Title: August 28, 2024 - Indian Basin Walk
Hike Info : Description : Background : Animals : Flowers and Plants
Type: Hiking
Trail head: Princess Campground
Trail: Indian basin Grove Interpretive Trail
Destination: Loop
Distance: 1.1 miles 1
Elevation Rise: 145'
Descent: 144‘
Maximum Elevation: 5,938'
1Distance and elevation information is from a previous walk done on August 22, 2022.Sherri and I are going on our first meetup hike in a while Not because we have not tried-just not often. Many times the event got canceled. So we are excited to go and to go on a John and Cathy hike. It has been a long time.
This hike is an interpretive trail out of Princess Campground close to Hume Lake. The trail goes through a portion of the Indian Basin Grove which was extensively logged over a hundred years ago. We have done it several times. It is a trail which talks about the logging, the people and the environment of the area. Also the paved part of the trail is made for accessibility.
There are only four parking places, but the camp hosts allows for cars to be parked in a spot which will not be used until the afternoon. Once all are gathered together, about 10, we start off. John had asked if Sherri and I would head up the front of the pack. There were twelve people who walked this.
I set a pace along the lines of a stroll. When we got to areas of interest, then I babbled about its background. You can see some of the stuff which I knew about below. When we go a little ways, the trail splits into two loops. Sherri takes a group along the shorter, paved loop. I take the remaining group around the longer, dirt trail.
Those poor people get punished with my humor. Such as I told them that a group of us once saw a moose out here. Of course there is a bit of disbelief as there are no natural moose in California. They did understand that the reason the moose is not around now is that it melted.
About the time we got back to the cars, the shorter loop people also got back there. We jumble back into the cars, and take off. We stopped at Big Stump to order our pizzas from Bear Mountain Pizza. It is a 35 minute drive down to the restaurant. We all enjoy a time of comradery there before departing for our homes.
Us? We stopped at a furniture store, Designs in Oak, and ordered some furniture. We then make it home about 2:30. Glad we went up there today, even if we will be back up in the same area a couple of days from now.
Background
Princess Campground. This spectacular site has three campground loops - Shining Cloud, Yellow Moon, and Morning Star. It has the greatest number of huge, old Sequoia tree stumps and young Sequoia trees along with a pleasant variety of conifers. Shade is good throughout the campground; privacy between camp sites is fair to good. Princess Campground is in the middle of Indian Basin Grove next to Indian Basin Meadow and Creek. From the Sequoia National Forest web site
Indian Basin Grove Indian Basin Grove is a mid size grove of 448 acres with the popular Princess Campground and Indian Basin interpretive trail within its boundaries. Before the Forest Service acquired the grove in the 1930s the area was privately owned. Between 1901 and 1907 the Sanger Lumber Company removed all the mature trees including the ancient giant sequoias. Lumbermen hauled the trees by cable railways over Converse Mountain and down the backside of the mountain to the historic Converse Mill. Massive, giant sequoia stumps remain as silent reminders of the great trees that once grew here. Young giant sequoias have replaced many of the giants that fell to the saw demonstrating the species resilience. In tree ring studies, the stumps continue to help scientists piece together prehistoric and historic weather patterns, fires and droughts. The grove is easy to reach by car on State Highway 180. It is best to visit in the summer because the road can be snowy and icy in the winter. The grove is about 215 acres with sequoias mainly on the south side of Indian Basin Creek. From the Sequoia National Forest web site
This seems to be one of the lesser known/referenced groves of Sequoias.
Indians gathered at Indian Basin to sell their wares to lumbermen when the area was heavily logged in the 1890's. (Fry and White, 113) Peter Browning, Places Named of the Sierra Nevada
Converse. Once contained a very extensive grove of the finest big trees; now completely destroyed by lumbering.
CHARLES P. CONVERSE Converse , who erected the courthouse , was also the first man to occupy one of its dungeon cells as a prisoner for the homicide of William H. Crowe on election day in September , 1876. The grand jury liberated him on the theory that he had acted in self defense . The homicide historically illustrates the passions that political campaigns aroused in those days . With the exception of William Aldrich , the pick and shovel miner , as the sole Republican for years before and after the war , every other man in the county was either an Andrew Jackson or a Jeff Davis Democrat , excepting a few old - line Whigs , who though their party expired with Daniel Webster , still held to their beliefs and scouted the new Republican doctrines . Thus any political quarrel in the county could only arise in the house of Democracy itself . It arose during the shrievalty campaign of J. S. Ashman and James N. Walker , honest , capable and uncompromising Democrats , and both incum- bents of the office for two terms each .
Converse announcing himself for rotation in office , espoused the cause . of Walker with all energy and activity in a " hot and exciting canvass " not so much between the principals as between " rash and reckless adherents . " Election day passed off quietly with the exception of the presence of armed men in public . The vote was light , and all qualified electors had voted by three o'clock in the afternoon when by common consent the count was started in the courtroom . Converse was in front of Payne's saloon , when a cobble hurled from within by a half drunken fellow passed close to his head . He fired at his assailant , missed aim and ball lodged high in the wall . Crowe , a confederate of the cobble thrower , sneaked up behind Converse and struck . him on the back of the head with slungshot , only the thickness of a felt hat protected the skull from fracture . Stunned by the blow , Converse fell to his knees but arising fired and shot Crowe through the body . Crowe fell on hands and knees ten feet away , and tried to arise , and mutual friends rushed in to aid . In the general melee , John Dwyer , teamster with the original fort garrison and for years later in Fresno the driver of the " sand wagon , " took to his heels to avoid the bullets and in the flight his hat was blown off by a leaden messenger . Con- verse struggled against a throng whom he fought as supposed assailants , but was landed finally on the courthouse steps and by multitude of hands his Samson like strength was overcome . After this tragedy , be became " more uneasy , irresolute and unsettled . " He withdrew into the mountains , south of the Kings River . There he laid claim upon location to " a large amphitheater of forest and chaparral en- circled by mountain ridges . " It bears to this day the name of " Converse Basin , " though he never secured title . It has been ruthlessly denuded of its timber , including Big Trees , in the Millwood lumber mill operations . Upon return to the plains , he professed reformation , was admitted as a member of an orthodox church and publicly baptized in a font excavated for the cere- mony . For a time he discharged faithfully the newly assumed responsi- bilities , regained the confidence of former friends and secured that of new ones . He was in the real estate business , but the old unrest seized him and he drifted to San Francisco , where for ten years or more " his checkered life was spent in desultory endeavors to keep starvation at bay . " He an- nounced himself as a mining expert and engineer . Converse was a striking figure , six feet tall , weighed 200 pounds or more , and in later years was largely developed abdominally . He was a man of great physical strength , and an expert swimmer , a demonstrated accomplishment that is cited to refute the assertion by some that his drowning in San Francisco Bay was accidental . The fact is that he met death in a second attempt at suicide , and when the waters of the bay gave up the corpse it was weighted with rocks , a circumstance that alone effectually disposes of the accidental death claim . He was a sociable companion , but a change came over him after Gaster's disappearance . A shadow seemed to hover over him , say those who had known him in the days of abandon , when he was not always overneat or precise in attire , and yet was remembered for kindly and animated face , topped by a shock of stand - up - straight - in - the - air hair . For one of his physical proportions , Converse was of intense mental and business activity . He was a man of means in his day . Among his activ- ities were the lumbermill at Crane Valley , which after the 1862 flood passed into the hands of George McCullough . The ferry below Millerton , likewise the property on the village side of the river , also went to others . He was known as far back as 1851 , when he and T. C. Stallo were general mer- chants at Coarse Gold . So well established was his reputation for restless- ness and financial improvidence , that despite strong partisanship and posi- tion he was never seriously considered politically . In connection with his Kings River sojourn , he tried to exploit a plan to cut the virgin timber in the basin , float the logs down the stream to railroad connection , and from there out as lumber from the saw mill . Converse was a glib and plausible talker and almost interested capital in the enterprise . Logs had been floated to prove the feasibility of the water transportation . A financial panic came on and capital dropped him . With the building of the railroad , Converse is found on its payroll as a legislative lobbyist and an active partisan of its proposition of a $ 5,000 a mile subsidy for constructing the road through the valley counties . Senator Thomas Fowler made one of his record fights against the measure and the legislature killed it in the end . The closing years of Converse's checkered career were spent in San Francisco as a curbstone broker and mining expert , pursuing such a precarious course that not infrequently he was on the verge of starvation . To hail a former Fresno acquaintance was like clutching at the straw by the drowning man , for it meant a temporary loan , never to be repaid , to hold off the gaunt wolf of hunger . A perfunctory coroner's inquest with no relatives or acquaintances attending , and with no effort at a positive identification of the barely recognizable remains has left a doubt on which has been impinged a far fetched belief , entertained by some , that he returned to his native state and there ended his days a charge on the bounty of an old negro " mammy " in Georgia . This is manifestly incorrect for well is it remembered that A. H. Statham financed Converse to go to Georgia to claim an inheritance . It was thought he had been rid of for good and always , but the surprise was when he returned to close a subsequent precarious career in San Francisco . Extraordinary physical energies and activities , excellent intellectual abilities and fine social qualities were combined in a strange make up , with many elements of goodness that would have made him a useful and influen- tial citizen , had he not lacked the regulating balance wheel of rigid principle , or perhaps if his lot had not been cast among the turbulent and restless scenes of early California life . Converse and Gaster are in unmarked graves , yet singularly on the present site of Millerton stand , side by side , only two structures of the days when they lived , monuments to their memory - the courthouse that Converse built and the adobe saloon where Folsom & Gaster held forth , and Payne after them . Payne was shot in the leg in May , 1873 , and bled to death at Tripp & Payne's store on the Tollhouse road to Humphrey & Mock's mill . It was a wanton act , claimed to have been an accidental shot after target pastime by John Williams , a negro , who in December , was sent to the penitentiary for two years for manslaughter . Payne had sold his saloon to retire from business , and was buried at the fort .
Charles Converse took up timberlands here in the ’70s. He had come to California in 1849, and was in the vicinity of Millerton about 1852. He ran a ferry across the San Joaquin at what is now Friant until 1869. Built the first jail in Fresno County, and was the first person confined in it. (L. A. Winchell, George W. Stewart.) Place Names of the High Sierra (1926) by Francis P. Farquhar
There is a sign on the Indian Basin Grove Interpretive Trail which has information on Converse. It also talks about his wife who eventually divorced him.
From the Family Search site: When Charles Portor Converse was born on 13 November 1829, in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan Territory, United States, his father, Elijah Damon Converse, was 39 and his mother, Rebecca Abbott, was 37. He married Eunice Charlotte Henderson on 21 February 1869, in Fresno, California, United States. They were the parents of at least 2 sons. He lived in Columbus, Franklin, Ohio, United States in 1850 and Fresno, California, United States in 1880. He died on 21 December 1904, in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States, at the age of 75, and was buried in Oakland, Alameda, California, United States.
From Fresno County's write-up on Lost Lake:In 1852, Charles Converse established the Converse Ferry near the north end of the present campground. Converse would go on to design and construct the first Fresno County Courthouse that is located at Millerton Lake. Converse Ferry would change names several times before being named the community of Friant.
Forty - two years a bachelor , the marriage of Dr. Leach in 1872 to Mrs. Mathilda Converse , former wife of C. P. Converse , was an event as fortuitous as was his decision to remain in Fresno when he had resolved to return east . He was a boarder with Mrs. Converse . She had decided to give up catering to boarders and not knowing where to find a home table he proposed marriage and was accepted . The Leach residence in Fresno City was for years on K street ( officially designated Van Ness Avenue ) on the location now occupied by the Sequoia Hotel .
Hoist. There is a sign on the Indian Basin Grove Interpretive Trail which talks about a Roy Rob Hoist. Hoist operated a mechanical donkey used to drag the Sequoias to a flume so they could go down and be cut. I am assuming that Roy Rob Hoist is who this ridge is named after.
Within the Centennial of the Sequoia National Forest there is a paragraph which says: Hoists were used, along with log chutes, to transport logs to mills, rough sawn lumber to the drying yards, and to the flumes. Converse Hoist was located on Hoist Ridge. Remnants of the hoists, such as the Rob Roy hoist, and evidence of the chutes can be seen today in some areas. This indicates there may not have been a connection with the name of Roy Rob. But it does indicate that Hoist Ridge was named after the hoist which moved the logs along the ridge.
Animals
 |
| Lorquin's Admiral |
Flowers and Plants
 |
| California Goldenrod |
No comments:
Post a Comment