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On August
16, 2002, el Río Reyes Trust helped to increase public
awareness of Kings River history by monumenting an important
site on the river. For many of today’s citizens the
river is of so little importance that a bridge across it
is a mere bump in their road to some other place. When the
State of California was barely a year old and the European
settlers and miners needed a land route for their trade
goods between Stockton and the pueblo of Los Angeles, the
Kings River was an obstacle. There were several ferry crossings
across the river but John Poole’s ferry, located about
two miles north of Reedley, was an important stop along
the Stockton-Los Angeles Road. Livestock pulling heavily
loaded wagons endured soft gravel and sand north of Poole’s
location and steep bluffs or swamps to the south. There
is also evidence to suggest that this location was used
as an encampment and primitive trail and trade route by
Native Americans for hundreds of years.
James
Savage, who rode with John C. Fremont during the Bear Flag
Revolt, and later discovered Yosemite Valley, was also a
trader with the local natives. As a trader and agent he
was drawn to Poole’s Ferry and the oak tree used by
Poole as a ferry cable anchor. The giant old oak was known
as a landmark and used as a polling place for the election
to form Tulare County from a portion of Mariposa County.
Several weeks following the election, Savage confronted
the newly elected Tulare County Judge Walter Harvey about
his lack of sympathy for the natives who were being murdered
by the settlers. An argument ensued near the old oak and
on August 16, 1852, Savage died from Harvey’s gunshot.
The
oak tree survived until approximately seven years ago, when
its root system was undermined and it fell into the river.
El Rio Reyes recognized the importance of the tree and ferry
crossing as a vanishing landmark to the river and California’s
history. The dedication occurred on the one hundred fiftieth
anniversary of the murder of James Savage.
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