Zenas Leonard: First Eyes on the Sequoias

From this Clearfield County town came Zenas Leonard, a fur trader whose journey west made him the first non-native American on record to lay eyes on the giant sequoia trees of the Sierra Nevada. Born here in eighteen oh nine, Leonard signed on as clerk and official chronicler of the Joseph Reddeford Walker Expedition from eighteen thirty-three to eighteen thirty-four, which set out to find a viable route to the Pacific through the Sierra Nevada. Leonard's journal, published in eighteen thirty-nine, is prized by historians for its detailed and careful descriptions of Western geography, peoples, and landscape, including that first written account of the towering trees he encountered in what is now California. Leonard returned home, settled in Missouri, and died in eighteen fifty-seven, largely unknown outside specialist circles, though his account of the American West remains a primary source.