“Parkitecture” 68(2):3-5 by Charles Palmer - Yosemite Online

INSPIRING THE ARTS &
CRAFTS HOME
OLMSTED, MUIR, AND WORCESTER IN YOSEMITE
BY LESLIE M. FREUDENHEIM
Joseph Worcester (1836-1913), reverend of the
Swedenborgian church and the man who gave the
simple Arts & Crafts house in Northern California its
initial impetus, was an architect by avocation, although
he was not credentialed as one. Worcester stands out as
a highly influential proponent of unpretentious Arts &
Crafts houses built of natural materials to harmonize
with nature.
Worcester’s prominent friends included John
Muir, one of the first explorers to walk through the
whole of Yosemite Valley, and possibly Frederick Law
Olmsted, whose visits to Yosemite Valley coincided with
Worcester’s.
It can be said that in Yosemite, Frederick Law Olmsted,
John Muir, and Joseph Worcester found support for
their shared belief that it was worth studying nature and
landscape in order to increase man’s morality, happiness,
and sensitivity to all the arts. Furthermore, all three men
succeeded in convincing numerous others to share their
belief.
Worcester visited Yosemite, as his nephew’s memoir
reveals:
From the Yosemite he had brought back a wonderful collection
of large photographs—“seconds because of some
slight imperfection” as he used to explain, and given to
him perhaps in return for help he had given to the photographer,
or if bought, then only at a very low price. For
during his long stay in the Valley he had been partially
earning his way.
According to Yosemite historian Linda Eade, the wellknown
photographer Carleton Watkins made a second
trip to Yosemite in 1865 (his first was in 1861). No artists
or photographers are known to have been there in
1864 or 1866. Then in 1867 Eadweard Muybridge made
numerous large plates at Yosemite under the HELIOS
trademark. So if Joseph Worcester assisted a photographer
and brought the photographs back to Boston to
show his family, as Alfred mentions, he would most likely
have been in Yosemite and have worked with Watkins in
1865 or with Muybridge in early 1867, since he returned
to Boston to be ordained late in 1867. However, the
details of Worcester’s Yosemite trips and exact arrival
dates in California need to be further investigated.
Worcester’s letters
to Alfred document
two visits to
Mountain House
Ranch in the redwood
hills twentyfive
miles from
San Francisco, and
indicate that his two trips to California, and perhaps to
Yosemite, were four to five years apart.
March 5, 1869
Do you remember when I first met Harry East? Well,
here I am again, some thirty five miles south of San
Francisco up among the Redwood hills.
Not feeling very well as Spring approached [the mention
of Spring approaching suggests he had been in
California before Spring] I wrote down to see if I could be
accommodated for a few days here. A cordial invitation
came back and within twenty-four hours I was on my
way. I have dreamed much of the place since I was here
five years ago, and my dreams fall short of the reality.
This much we can state with certainty: Worcester
made two trips to California, one in 1864 and again in
1868, and two trips to the Mountain House Ranch in
1864 and 1869. It is possible, even likely, considering his
love of nature that he also visited Yosemite at least twice,
but we cannot say so categorically at this time.
Olmsted was in California from 1863 through 1865 and
first visited the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees in Yosemite
in November 1863; in August 1864 he explored the high
country and Yosemite Valley. During his initial visits to
Yosemite, Olmsted reports being enraptured and overwhelmed
by the grand and subtle elements of its beauty:
The root of all my good work is an early respect for,
regard and enjoyment of scenery . . . and extraordinary
opportunities for cultivating susceptibility to the power
of scenery.
Like Worcester, Olmsted had read Ruskin and
also shared Worcester’s interest in Swedenborg.
While in England fifteen years before in August
1850, Olmsted had met James J. G. Wilkinson
6 YOSEMITE ASSOCIATION, SPRING 2006