Poole's Ferry/Smith's Ferry
Posted by: 
brwhiz
N 36° 35.078 W 119° 27.483
11S E 280088 N 4051608
This E Clampus Vitus marker is a granite monument inscribed on three sides and located in Monument Hill Park.
Waymark Code: WMJDDV
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 11/03/2013
Views: 2
The north side of the monument is inscribed:
Poole's Ferry
Most important of Kings River's
earliest crossings, it was operated
from 1851 - 1857 by William Campbell
and John Poole 3 miles above this point.
The ferry and its trading post served
travelers and miners. In July, 1852, it
became the focus of violence when an
armed party led by Walter Harvey,
Tulare County's first judge, raided a
Choinumni Yokuts Indian Village. Yosemite
discoverer Major James D. Savage, famed
Indian trader and peacemaker, tried to
ease tensions but was shot and killed
by Harvey in an argument at the
trading post on Aug 16, 1852
The south side of the monument is inscribed:
Smith's Ferry
Operated here from 1855-1874 by Mr. & Mrs.
James Smith, the precursor of Reedley's
settlement in 1888. It outlasted other
Kings River ferries since Smith's was the
only boat which could be approached at
high water. His family kept a two story, 11
room hotel on what is now the cemetery's
north end where Smith, who died in 1862,
rests in the oldest grave. His widow sold
the businesses in February 1874. Within
months they closed, victims of the Central
Pacific Railroad's construction west of
here in 1872. Smith, an early-day assembly-
man, is memorialized in the name of a
mountain east of here.
The east side of the monument is inscribed with a drawing of the ferry and the dedication:
Dedicated June 22, 1985
Jim Savage Chapter 1852
E Clampus Vitus