English-born American author and photographer (1864–1923)
Sidewinder, from California Desert Trails, 1919
Joseph Smeaton Chase (8 April 1864 – 29 March 1923) was an English-born American author, traveler, and photographer. He has become an integral part of California literature: revered for his poignant descriptions of California landscapes. An Englishman who toured the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains in 1915 with his burro, Mesquit, Chase published poetic diary entries detailing his escapades through the Sierra Nevada mountains and California desert.
Life
Chase was born in Islington, now a London borough, in April 1864. He arrived in Southern California in 1890, although information surrounding his motive for doing so is sparse. It is known, however, that he lived on a mountainside and managed to obtain a job tutoring a wealthy rancher's children in the San Gabriel Valley. Chase was drawn to the plants, animals, and Spanish-speaking individuals who resided in California. Subsequently, in 1910 he took a trip with local painter Carl Eytel, travelling on horseback[1] from Los Angeles to Laguna and then down to San Diego.[2] Chase journeyed through the uncouth California land and detailed his escapades in his book California Desert Trails.[3] He was passionate that the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains be preserved as a national park. Chase appeals to readers who appreciate the unspoiled west and California history.
Yosemite Trails: Camp and Pack-train in the Yosemite Region of the Sierra Nevada. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1911. p. 354. OCLC34014279. With illustrations from Chase's photographs – details his route through in the strikingly beautiful Sierra Nevada. He captures the land and the people with such vibrancy that the reader is absorbed by his depictions of majestic California landscapes.[7]
Hotchkiss, C. W. (1911). "Review of Yosemite Trails". Bulletin of the American Geographical Society. 43 (12). New York City: American Geographical Society: 923. doi:10.2307/200470. ISSN0190-5929. JSTOR200470. OCLC484246639. ...Chase writes with a buoyant intensity of appreciation and an exuberant imagination that cannot fail to strike fire from the duller sensibilities of the best of us.
Yosemite Trails: Camp and Pack-train in the Yosemite Region of the Sierra Nevada. Palo Alto, California: Tioga Pub. Co. 1987. p. 354. ISBN0935382585. LCCN87040052. (with introduction to this edition and updated plant list by Carl Sharsmith)
California Coast Trails: a Horseback Ride from Mexico to Oregon. Palo Alto, California: Tioga Pub. Co. 1987. p. 326. ISBN0935382593. LCCN87040051. (with introduction to this edition by John McKinney; updated plant list by Mabel Crittenden)
California Desert Trails. Palo Alto, California: Tioga Pub. Co. 1987. p. 387. ISBN0935382607. LCCN87040050. (with introduction to this edition by Richard Dillon; environmental perspective and updated plant list by Robert L. Moon)
Our Araby: Palm Springs and the Garden of the Sun. Pasadena: Star–News Publishing Co. 1920. pp. 83. ISBN0961872403. LCCN24010428. OCLC6169840. republished 1987 by the Palm Springs Public Library (Electronic copy) One of the first travel books of Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley. Describes the animals, plants, and Native Americans that resided in Palm Springs before it was transformed into a posh resort town.
Wattawa, Gayle (2006). Inlandia: A Literary Journey Through California's Inland Empire. Straight, Susan (Introduction). Santa Clara, CA: Santa Clara University. p. 433. ISBN978-1597140379.
Wild, Peter (1999). The Opal Desert: Explorations of Fantasy and Reality in the American Southwest. Austin: University of Texas Press. p. 219. ISBN0292791283. LCCN99006113. OCLC40762502.
Wild, Peter (2007). News from Palm Springs: The Letters of Carl Eytel, Edmund C. Jaeger, J. Smeaton Chase, Charles Francis Saunders, and Others of the Creative Brotherhood and Its Background. Volumes I and II. Johannesburg, CA: The Shady Myrick Research Project. OCLC163456618.
Wild, Peter (2007). Tipping the Dream: A Brief History of Palm Springs. Johannesburg, CA: The Shady Myrick Research Project. p. 228. ASINB0016L57HS. OCLC152590848.