The first wanderer in what was to become Fresno county, definitely known, is Joe Kinsman. He came around the Horn in the spring of ‘49 with two companions. They landed in San Francisco, mined in the north, worked as far south as the Kings river where, discovering no gold, the two friends left Kinsman for the north again. Kinsman, alone, wandered through he foothills in the region later to be known as Watts valley and Borrough valley; climbed to the top of Table Mountain above Millerton; saw everywhere hundreds of Indians, but no evidence that white men had ever been there. This was in the summer of 1849. After mining four or five years more in the Fresno river region, he settled down in Hooker’s Cove in what is now Madera County, as a squaw man, and lived there until his death in 1917

History of Fresno County and the San Joaquin Valley, pg 18

Lilbourne Alsip Winchell, 1933

Transcribed by Liz Brae 2007