PBA Galleries

Oil on canvas. 91x54 cm (35¾x21¼"), in ornate wood frame 112x76 cm (44x30"). Signed C. Jonnewold in lower left.

Rare original painting of this long-vanished piece of Yosemite history, the saw-mill that John Muir helped construct and operate to aid in the construction of the early tourist lodgings in the Yosemite Valley. The artist, American Realist Carl Henrik Jonnevold is an important figure in is own right, recognized for his ability to capture the sublime essence of mountain vistas, seascapes, and National Parks such as Yosemite. Born in Norway in 1856, Jonnevold moved to America in his twenties. He began painting in the Northwest and years later moved to San Francisco where had a studio. But it is the subject matter that makes this particular painting quite special. In 1869, John Muir, vagabond, and of late, high sierra sheepherder, dropped down into Yosemite Valley from Tuolumne Meadows to ‘have a look’ at the magnificent scenery he had been hearing so much about. Setting up camp on the north side of the river directly opposite Yosemite Falls, Muir spent the days sauntering throughout the valley sketching and taking notes, blissfully inspired by all he saw. James Mason Hutchings was owner and operator of the Yosemite Valley Hotel located opposite Yosemite Falls. A steady increase of yearly visitors to the valley had put a strain on existing accommodations, requiring the inn-keeper to make preparations to enlarge his establishment. Back in 1867 he had the good fortune to stumble upon the long abandoned remains of a saw-mill up on Big Oak Flat. With the assistance of his Indian laborers, the machinery was lashed to a string of mules, hauled into the valley and deposited a few hundred yards up Yosemite Creek from its confluence with the Merced river. As happenstance would have it, on this fine July afternoon as the two ‘visionaries’ met for the first , the inn-keeper was in desperate need of a mill-wright. Muir had experience operating a mill and as they made the short walk to the mill, he informed his new employer that he also qualified as a journeyman carpenter.  They shook hands there in the tiny clearing that would be Muir’s home for the next two years, surrounded by oaks and aspens and the powerful staccato of Yosemite Falls.

The valley was littered with fallen trees, victims of the previous winters unprecedented storms. The trees were de-limbed and piled on the uphill side of the mill frame allowing them to be easily swung onto the milling bench. By winter, Muir and the mill were operating at a blistering pace. By spring the first of the two cottages (Rock and River) was ready for visitors. However, before the second was completed in the spring of 1871, Muir and Hutchings parted company. Without a competent operator, the mill fell into disuse. After a few years of neglect and pilferage, it sat an idle skeleton, a relic, entering the realm of folklore where Muir’s loft, laid out in the rafters of the mill, was fondly referred to as the hang nest. There the future author and founder of the Sierra Club entertained visiting professors, scientists, writers and assorted luminaries of the time. Sadly, flood waters took what remained of the old mill around the turn of the century. All we have to remember it by are a few published visitors accounts, two photographic images taken in 1886 by George Fiske and two paintings produced around the same time by Carl Herzog and Carl Jonnevold.