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A Vacation among the Sierras (1962),
by Thomas Starr King

About the Author

Rev. Thomas Starr King was born in New York City in 1824. He was a Universalist and a Unitarian minister from Boston who went to San Francisco to become pastor of San Francisco’s First Unitarian Church in 1860. Rev. King was a frail man, but a gifted, strong speaker who was much beloved. That summer he visited Yosemite and wrote a series of eight entertaining letters for the Boston Evening Transcript, and which are reprinted in this book. Many early accounts were either published only locally in California or discredited by Easterners as “humbugs.” However, as Rev. King was a well-known and respected figure in New England and he previously wrote a book on the White Mountains, his word was taken at full value.

Rev. King spoke strongly for keeping California in the Union during the Civil War and had much influence. The lecture circuit exhausted him and he died unexpectedly in 1864 of diphtheria and pneumonia in San Francisco. His statue is one of two representating California in the U.S Capitol.

• More information on Thomas Star King (Unitarian Universalist Association)

Bibliographical Information

A Vacation among the Sierras: Yosemite in 1860 (Book Club of California, 1962), by Thomas Starr King (1824 - 1864). Edited by John Adam Hussey (1913 - 1994). Copyright 1962 by Book Club of California. LCCN 63-005971. xxxiv, 78 pages. Illustrated with photographs, portrait, 23 cm. Bibliography, pp. 66-78. Bound in diagonal-patterned green boards and tan half-cloth with gilt lettering. 400 copies printed. Library of Congress call number F868.Y6 K5. Bibliographies: Howell 50:1369; Rocq. 5151.

Digitized by Dan Anderson, July 2004, from a personal copy. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose, provided this notice is left intact.
    —Dan Anderson, www.yosemite.ca.us

http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/vacation_among_the_sierras/