JOAQUIN MILLER. A Visit to the Old Poet of the Sierras. Hartford Courant, 02 Nov 1911

JOAQUIN MILLER A Visit to the Old Poet of the Sierras. (Omer Holman in Indianapolis News.) Thu, Nov 2, 1911 – 18 · Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut) · Newspapers.com

JOAQUIN MILLER.

A Visit to the Old Poet of the Sierras. 

(Omer Holman in Indianapolis News.)

"Tell the folks back in the good old Hoosier state that I am glad they are alive. Tell them that it depends upon God whether I ever get back to Indiana. I'd love to go back for a while."

So said Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Sierras, as I left him in the doorway of his simple little cottage which nestles beneath a cluster of Japanese cypress and eucalyptus trees, towering high on the Heights, at Fruitvale, Cal. To his left arm clung his wife, while at his right stood gazing lovingly into his handsome face, his daughter, Juanita. It was a picture of happiness and contentment.


Joaquin Miller claims to be a Hoosier-Buckeye, as his birthplace, he says, was on the line dividing Indiana and Ohio. Most of his first ten years he spent in Grant county, near Jalopa, close to where the Mississinewa river battle was fought, between Colonel Campbell and his American soldiers, and the Miami Indians under Chief Meshingomesia, December 21, 1812. Referring to the movement of the Battleground Association regarding the battleground, Joaquin Miller said as he smiled: "That was no battle; it was simply a little scrap in which only twelve were killed and one frozen to death. The battle of Tippecanoe was a real battle."

When I entered the home of the poet I was much impressed with the simplicity of everything. There were no mahogany tables, piano nor fine upholstered furnitures - only plain, clean furnishings, a few small tables and chairs and over in the far corner a high posted brass bed in which the poet lay, for he had not thought it time for him to get up and dress for the day. Shortly before my arrival he had finished two hundred lines of verse. Now he desired luncheon, after which he said he would get up.

Mr. Miller spends about three-fourths of his time in bed. Last spring he became very ill and his life was despaired of. His wife and daughter, who were living in New York city, came West and have been living at the Heights ever since. The daughter, who is 20 years old, is, according to her devoted father, a child of nature, and she loves the Heights. The home in which the family lives is Juanita's, and was dedicated to her by her father, three months ago, when it was completed. I asked the poet whether he had built the cottage and he smilingly replied: "I never could drive two spikes in the same spot." He was too busy entertaining his daughter. They made the plans for the cottage, however, and superintended its construction. The cottage is one of a dozen or more at the Heights. Most of them have been the homes of poets and several are now occupied by California writers and artists.

The Heights, which occupy between seventy and one hundred acres, is about to be sold to the city of Oakland for the purpose of establishing a park and dedicating it to the poet. Mayor Mott and the Oakland council have conferred on the matter and John P. Irish has been delegated to bring it to a close, Joaquin will continue his residence there till his death. Then, according to his oft-repeated request, This body will be cremated on a large stone funeral pyre that stands on one of the barren peaks back of his home. It is his desire that the gentle winds carry his ashes to the blue waters of San Francisco bay, off to the fore of the Heights.

"When I came here," he said, "there was nothing but hillsides covered with sand and rocks. Since then I have planted 100,000 trees and nursed them with a bottle. At first the task was hard, and many a man would have ceased trying, but I do love to win a victory, and I have won. I have earned the rest I am now having. I sleep from 7 p. m, to 7 a. m, undisturbed."

He has luncheon at 1 o'clock, after which it is his desire to be let alone. He attends to his mail, which comes to him by rural route, and then he reads. After an hour or so he dresses, either for a tramp over the hills with his daughter, or for a ride to Oakland. The afternoon I was there he arranged to ride horseback to town with his daughter for the purpose of buying saddles to replace the ones stolen from their home last spring in their absence, when the poet was a hospital patient.

Joaquin Miller's efforts to beautify the Heights have been untiring, and he goes about the farm showing the victories he has won with much pride. A single glance at the adjoining property is enough to convince any one that that was nothing of an encouraging nature for him to begin his battle, except the view obtained while standing on the highest peaks and looking to the fore. The peaks, especially in the fall, are barren, and the broken rocks almost cover the thin soil. Vegetation is burned by the dry season and the burning sun does not encourage one to remain long in the unsheltered region. But the Heights are different.

By never ceasing interest in the ornamentation of the place, the poet has converted the Heights into a spot that causes the visitor to wonder, and even if the man were not there the place would still attract, for nowhere in the land of sunshine and flowers is there such a beautiful landscape.

I took the Diamond Canyon route to the Heights and walked for three miles over a deserted road that in its prime must have been extremely popular with those who cared to drive through beautifully wooded hillsides I and valleys. Nearly every species of vegetation that grows in California may be seen in the canyon, The scrub oaks gracefully spread their long, twisting, heavily foliaged branches over the precipices, and mixed in with the redwoods, eucalyptus, cypress and fir are berry bushes and ferns, making the roadsides for the most part densely shaded. Peace reigned everywhere, and on the way I observed how unafraid the quails were as they stepped along at a lively pace in the middle of the road ahead of me.

[The 'deserted road' may have been what we now call the Bridgeview trail. The 'building in which refreshments were served' below is probably what was called "Hiker's Rest", although it may have had a different name in 1911. The 'roadway,' below sounds a lot like what we call "Bishop's Walk," now. - MF]

A quarter of a mile from the Heights I found a building in which refreshments were served to the thousands of people who annually traverse this highway on the way to pay homage to the poet. After passing a number of cottages I came to rural mail box, upon which was painted, "Joaquin Miller, Rural Route, No. 1, 455."

The altitude here is one thousand, and to the highest peak in the rear of the pretty little home the elevation is one thousand five hundred feet. Leading to the topmost peak, where the poet has erected a twelve-foot pyramid to the memory of Moses, who, he says, may be buried on the Heights for all anyone knows, there is a winding roadway, supported on the outside by a bank or rock, all of which was carried and placed in position by Miller. The roadway winds across the side of the mountain a number of times, on each side being Japanese cypress trees, that add much beauty and comfort on a hot day. Upon these elevations the poet has other monuments and his funeral pyre. Among those who have been remembered are Browning, the poet; John C. Fremont, the pathfinder, and Joaquin Miller's mother, for whom he has a great deal of reverence. As he lay in his bed after I told him that I wished to go up the hill, he said: "Go by mother's grave." When I reached the little burying ground I was much impressed with the beauty spot, which was high up and about forty feet square, surrounded on three sides by cypress trees. There were fourteen little stone encircled mounds, none identified by lettering. However, there were small wooden crosses at the heads of two, and these graves, I learned, contained the bodies of the poet's mother and a daughter. The other graves are the final resting places of friends.

As I stood leaning against the pyramid erected to Moses and gazed forward I felt that his judgment twenty-six years ago, when he picked the Heights for his Eden was certainly excellent. The sunset in the Golden Gate impressed me with its intense beauty and the superb coloring. Immediately before me lay Oakland. Berkeley and Alameda, with the San Francisco Bay between these and San Francisco, and Sausalito. The islands of Alcatraz, the Goat and others dot the bay, while farther on and over the hills to the west spreads the peaceful Pacifie, the glistening waters gently waving farewell to the great yellow globe as it descended on the other side. It was easy to understand why Joaquin Miller desired to commune with nature here.

On the way down my attention was called to other things Joaquin had done to add beauty to his home. Channels and ponds made by him were covered with broad leaves, between which peeeped beautiful water lilies, and on either bank were rows of beautiful roses and plants rarely seen outside of hothouses. Beauty and serenity prevailed everywhere, and I felt that with these surroundings a poet could easily find inspiration.

It is planned soon to build a car line to "The Heights" from Oakland, and there to build monuments for the dead California writers and artists, and cottages for those yet living.