author
Lafayette Houghton Bunnell
1824–1903
Best remembered for helping name Yosemite Valley, this physician and writer left one of the most influential firsthand accounts of its early non-Native exploration. His memoir blends frontier travel, military history, and a vivid sense of place.
1 Audiobook
Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian War of 1851, Which Led to That Event
by Lafayette Houghton Bunnell
About the author
Born in Rochester, New York, in 1824, Lafayette Houghton Bunnell became a physician, author, and explorer whose name is closely tied to the early written history of Yosemite. He is most widely known for taking part in the 1851 Mariposa Battalion expedition into Yosemite Valley and for later writing Discovery of the Yosemite and the Indian War of 1851.
That book helped shape how generations of readers understood Yosemite’s past. Bunnell is often credited with proposing the name "Yosemite" during the expedition, and his account remains notable as a firsthand narrative from a turning point in California history.
He later served as a surgeon during the Civil War and continued to be remembered for both his medical career and his writing. Today, he stands as a complicated historical figure: important for preserving an early narrative of Yosemite, and also tied to a period of violent conflict and settler expansion that deeply affected Native communities.