George Frazier Monroe (ca. 1844-1886)

April 01, 2013 
/ Contributed By: Robert J. Chandler

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George Frazier Monroe

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Yosemite stagecoach driver George Frazier Monroe was born in Georgia possibly around 1844.  His father, Louis Augustus Monroe, arrived from Georgia in the Gold Rush and settled as a barber in Mariposa in 1854.  He was also locally known as a civil rights advocate because he promoted the integration of local schools.  George’s mother, Mary, was an Ohioan and thus a free woman of color but it is unclear if Louis had been enslaved.  Although the parents were in California by 1855, young George stayed behind to complete a school year in Washington, D.C., before being brought to Mariposa around the age of 11 by his uncle in 1856.

By 1866 young Monroe began working as a tourist guide at Henry Washburn’s lavish resort hotel, Big Tree Station, at Yosemite.  By 1872, when the hotel could be reached by stagecoach routes maintained by the Southern Pacific Railroad, Monroe became one of the stagecoach drivers.

George Frazier Monroe
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Stage drivers, like airline pilots today, commanded great prestige: upon their skills rested the lives of passengers. Testimonials reveal the fame of George F. Monroe.  As a rule, stagecoach drivers drove only a portion of a route, going back and forth so that they knew all of its idiosyncrasies. The twisty road from Mariposa to Yosemite Valley was Monroe’s segment. Chicago journalist Benjamin Taylor wrote in August 1877 that Monroe was “a born reinsman.”

Of 50 regular drivers he had employed over 40 years, Washburn proclaimed Monroe to be “the greatest of all.” He added, “I always put him on the box when there was a distinguished party to be driven….”  Among Monroe’s famous passengers were Presidents Grant, Garfield, and Hayes and actress Lillie Langtry.

Former President Grant’s trip in 1879 with Monroe was legendary. At 8 a.m. on October 2, Grant, “riding shotgun,” climbed up on the box next to Monroe as the stage traveled the mountainous route.  At Inspiration Point, Monroe and Grant “mutually relaxed and indulged in conversation until the Valley was reached, when Monroe handed the lines and the whip to the General, but maintained his seat and foot at the brake.”

George Monroe died on November 22, 1886 at the age of 42.  Ironically, he was killed as a passenger in a stage when a runaway horse tipped over the coach and Monroe was injured.  Despite his injuries, he helped the driver stop the runaway team but died a few days later.  Monroe’s obituary in the Mariposa Gazette quoted his former employer, Henry Washburn as saying, when Monroe drove, “we knew everything was all right.”

In 1891, the U.S. Army took over management of Yosemite as a National Park and Fort Monroe, named after George Frazier Monroe, became a checkpoint entrance into the facility.

About the Author

Author Profile

Robert J. Chandler graduated from the University of California, Riverside, with a Ph.D. entitled, “The Press and Civil Liberties in California during the Civil War, 1861-1865.” Broadening his interest in California history from politics, civil rights, and journalism to finance, mining, numismatics, philately, commerce, and transportation, he spent 32 years as the senior research historian for Wells Fargo Bank in the History Department. Public speaking and exhibit design came along with the job. He has written a history of California (2004), an Arcadia volume on Wells Fargo (2006), and the University of Oklahoma Press is publishing his study of African American artist Grafton Tyler Brown, a San Francisco lithographer, 1860-1882, and a Pacific Northwest/Yellowstone landscape painter, 1882-1891. He has written over fifty articles, many on Civil War California’s history, including "Friends in Time of Need: Republicans and Black Civil Rights in California during the Civil War Era," Arizona and the West 24 (Winter 1982): 319-40. His writings incorporate his collection of documents and illustrations and some have won awards from Westerners International. For relaxation, he plaques historical sites with the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus.

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Chandler, R. (2013, April 01). George Frazier Monroe (ca. 1844-1886). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/monroe-george-frazier-c-1844-1886/

Source of the Author's Information:

Mariposa Gazette, November 27, 1886; Benjamin Franklin Taylor, Between the Gates (Chicago: S.C. Griggs and Company, 1878); Benjamin C. Truman, “The Passing of a Sierra Knight,” Overland Monthly 42 (July 1903): 32-39, and in Gary F. Kurutz, ed. Knights of the Lash: The Stagecoach Stories of Major Benjamin C. Truman (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 2005).

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