LOCATING McNEILS MILL-
COUNTY ARCHIVES RESEARCH

A Mariposa researcher contacted me recently regarding a mill site that was mentioned in an ancestors diary- McNeils mill.  She asked me to be on the "look out" for this location.  It was only about two week later when I found this newspaper article on Henry Washburn and the Mann brothers, and found a clue as to the location of McNeils mill. As a researcher, you get very excited to locate these verifications of  information written in a diary in  the 1850's.

The diary was a very recent find by the researcher. It was located in the Amador County Archives online catalog.  A phone request to the archives, and $6.00  for copy fees, was all it took for her to receive a copy of the diary. Give there online catalog a search- use just a year, surname, etc to see how they present their holdings to the public. This diary would probably never have  been found by the researcher if Amador County had not put their holdings online. 
http://www.co.amador.ca.us/depts/archives/

Hope you enjoy this article- I will post the second half next week--------------

OAKLAND TRIBUNE MAGAZINE - March  2, 1924
An Account of the Enterprising Spirit That Operated The First Stage in the Valley
By May S Corcoran

Much has been written about California's stage drivers of the fifties and sixties, kings of the road and fearless faces of mighty responsibilities; but little is told of the thoughtful men of the seventies, who, without state aid, built and financed arteries of civilization that linked together towns and pleasure places in the Sierra.  First among these , perhaps , is Henry Washburn, founder  of Wawona and developer of Yosemite.

To secure the land, to follow the old Mann trail, to (can't read word) where need be, to build hotels, and gather the best horse stock and concord coaches in the country; and, when that was accomplished to maintain harmony between. Old World nobility and drivers of Western democracy, was not an easy task.

Long decades of thought and swift years of action marked its achievement, planted the beautiful Wawona hotel on the south Fork of the Merced river where had been "Galen's Hospice," and cut zigzags from Inspiration Point to the floor of the valley.

Where today broad and square and while until it rises to the inevitable mission arch of California adobes, on a pile of sand partly  overgrown with wild grapes and hidden in places by buckeye trees, near the stream named for Commodore Stockton on the southern line of Fremont's Las Mariposas, stands the one remaining wall of  Seth Washburn's store at Mormon Bar.  Henry Washburn in the fifties watched people passing on the scarcely marked trail to Yosemite. Here in 1857 he heard of three important events that led to the goal of his aspirations.

In April of that year Galen Clark erected a log cabin on the South Fork of the Merced; in the summer, with Milton Mann, he discovered the famous grove of Sequoia Gigantica, or the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees; and in the same season the first two saddle trails, one from Coulterville and one from Mariposa, reached the Valley.  The latter trail showed Henry Washburn his life's work  Its story is briefly told by an entry  in the minutes of the Board of Supervisors of Mariposa county, August 4, 1856.

"On mention of R. M. Daly it is ordered by the Board of Supervisors that Andrew A. Mann, Houston Mann and Milton Mann, partners under the firm name and style of Mann brothers, have permission and authority is hereby granted them.......to make and construct a good trail or toll road suitable to the travel of horses and foot passengers.  Commencing near the Mormon Bar on Mariposa Creek, and thence easterly and to the left of the ranch known as the ranch of McVicar and Company, continuing thence in the same general direction to the intersection of  the wagon road leading to the sawmill of McNeil & Co.  Thence to a ranch in the middle fork of the Chochilla- known as the Potato Ranch.   Thence eastwardly to the south fork of the Chochilla, thence northwardly crossing the divide between the Chochilla and the South Fork of the Merced river.  Thence crossing the heads of Alder creek to the lower end of Yo Hamite valley, thence through the said valley to the upper end thereof near the great Natural Falls.  The entire distance being about forty miles, and the said Mann Brothers..........have authority to collect and receive from travelers over said trail or toll road during the space of twenty years such tolls....the following rates on their trail or  road  leading from Mormon Bar on The Mariposa creek to the Yo Hamite Falls in this county for and during the space of twelve months commencing on the  1st of August, 1856, and ending on the first of August, 1857." 

Mr. Clark located his log cabin, later known as Clark's Ranch, "Galen's Hospice," Clark's Station, The Station and  Wawona.

continued next week................

Best,
Carolyn Feroben
Mariposa County History and Genealogy Research
http://www.mariposaresearch.net