John Muir. Library of Congress LC-USZ62-7655
John Muir came to the United States from Scotland. He attended the University of Wisconsin for a while, then set off on a walk across the country. He wrote more than 300 articles and 10 books about his travels and his philosophy of nature.
Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, on April 21, 1938. His parents, Daniel Muir and Ann Gilrye, had eight children. John and his next-younger brother, David, ran wild through the countryside. John later wrote, “I loved to wander in the fields to hear the birds sing, and along the seashore to gaze and wonder at the shells and seaweeds, eels and crabs in the pools among the rocks when the tide was low.” His earliest memories were of walks with his grandfather when he was about three. Grandfather also taught him the letters from shop signs across the street. John began school at age three. He was very proud when he finished reading one book and could start another. His father made him memorize hymns and Bible verses and gave him a penny for learning “Rock of Ages.”
At school the children learned to recite the New Testament. If they didn’t learn their lessons, they were whipped. John’s mother served the children oatmeal porridge in wooden bowls for breakfast. At noon they would run home, starving. Lunch was vegetable broth, a small piece of boiled mutton (sheep meat), and a scone.
After school, they had tea, a meal that consisted of a half slice of white bread, a scone, and warm water with a little milk and sugar in it. Their supper in the evening was a boiled potato and a piece of a scone.
John and the other boys collected birds’ nests and eggs. Sometimes they took baby larks and kept them in cages, eventually setting them free. He said later, “Among our best games were running, jumping, wrestling, and scrambling.”
He and David used to play a game they called scootchers after their mother put them to bed. A scootcher was a dare. Sometimes they dared each other to climb out the bedroom window onto the roof. Once David got scared and cried that he couldn’t get back in. John grabbed him by the ankles and yanked him through the bedroom window.
When John was 11, he and David were with their grandparents when their father brought them surprising news. They were leaving for America the next day! Only Sarah, 13, John, 11 and David, 9, would be going with their father. The oldest sister, Margaret, stayed to help her mother with the youngest children, Daniel, Mary, and Anna. They would join the family after their father had built a house in America.
The Muirs settled in the backwoods of Wisconsin, carving a farm out of the wilderness. Life was full of hard work. They spent all the daylight hours clearing the forest, plowing with a team of oxen, and digging a well. There was no time for school in Wisconsin. They worked up to 16 hours a day in the hot summer, much of the time spent hoeing corn.
In winter, they got up at six o’clock, fed the horses and oxen, and brought in wood before breakfast. After they ate, they worked on fencing, chopping trees, and other tasks. If it rained hard or snowed, they worked in the barn. Here they threshed wheat, shelled corn, mended tools, made axe handles and ox yokes, and sprouted potatoes, which they stored in the cellar to be planted in the spring.
John began plowing at the age of 12, as soon as he was tall enough to see over the plow. He didn’t sit on a tractor, as farmers do today when they plow. In John’s time, an ox pulled the plow and the farmer walked behind and guided it. Until they could remove them, they had to plow around the stumps of the trees they had cut. Chopping up the stumps and digging them out was hard work. The only time John remembers not having to plow was when he had pneumonia and lay in the house for weeks, gasping for breath.
Makes sones like John ate for tea as a boy.
Adult supervision required
The Muirs did have some good times, though. Their father had promised to buy the boys a pony when they got to America, and he kept that promise. Jack was a little Indian pony that Mr. Muir bought for $13. He was wild and threw John and David the first few times they tried to ride him. Within a month, though, they were riding him bareback with no halter or bridle.
An ox pulling a plow.
Library of Congress LC-58-12855
John loved to read and wanted to stay up and read after the rest of the family went to bed. His father wouldn’t allow that, but he finally gave John permission to get up as early as he wanted. John began rising at one o’clock. He said, “I had gained five hours, almost half a day! ‘Five hours to myself,’ I said. ‘Five huge, solid hours!’ I can hardly think of any other event of my life, any discovery I ever made that gave birth to joy so … glorious as the possession of these five frosty hours.”
Besides reading, he used some of this newfound time to work on inventions. He invented a thermometer that could react to the body heat of a person standing four feet away. He also invented what he called his “early-rising machine.” It was an alarm clock that would tip his bed up and dump him on the floor!
Muir’s neighbors were impressed by the inventions. When Muir was 19, one of them suggested he take them to the Wisconsin State Fair. So the young man set off for Madison on the train, carrying several of his inventions. The engineer let him ride in the engine and watch how the machinery worked.
He started to buy a ticket to the fair, but when the agent found out he had something to exhibit, he said, “Oh, you don’t need a ticket—come right in!” Muir went to the Fine Arts Hall, where the doorman was very interested in his work. He had brought two clocks and a thermometer.
“Did you make these?” asked the man. “They look wonderfully beautiful and novel, and must, I think, prove the most interesting feature of our fair.” The man told him to place them anywhere he liked, even if he had to move other exhibits. Thinking back, Muir said, “They seemed to attract more attention than anything else in the hall. I got lots of praise from the crowd and the newspaper reporters.”
Muir worked a few months in a foundry and machine shop, then decided he wanted to go to college. He enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, which he attended for several years. He worked various jobs to pay for his education. Muir didn’t follow the regular course of study, but took whatever classes he thought would help him.
Muir never graduated. When he was ready, he moved on. He later said, “I was leaving one University for another, the Wisconsin University for the University of the Wilderness.”
Muir worked in a shop in Indianapolis for most of 1866 and 1867. While adjusting a machine with a file, his hand slipped. The point of the file went right into his eye. He lost the sight in that eye, and soon the other one went dark, too. But after a few months, Muir’s sight returned and he vowed he would spend the rest of his life enjoying the sights of nature.
He set off on a thousand-mile walk to Florida, where he came down with malaria. When he recovered, he sailed to Cuba, then to Panama. He crossed the isthmus, the narrow neck of land in Panama where the Panama Canal was later dug, then sailed up the west coast and arrived in California.
While in California, Muir asked someone for the way out of town. The man asked where he wanted to go, and he replied, “To any place that is wild.” He ended up in the Yosemite Valley, where he spent much of the rest of his life.
During his first summer there, he worked as a shepherd, then he ran a sawmill near Yosemite Falls. In his spare time, Muir was always studying nature. He loved the Yosemite area, and wrote, “No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite.” He called it “the grandest of all special temples of Nature.”
While studying nature, Muir came up with some theories about how the area had been developed. He became convinced that glaciers had sculpted the valley and surrounding area. At that time, most scientists believed that the valley had been formed by a catastrophic earthquake. But Louis Agassiz, a leading geologist of the day, agreed with Muir’s theory.
Yosemite Valley.
Library of Congress LC-USZ62-17948
For a while Muir worked as a guide, taking visitors around Yosemite. He was pleased when his idol, Ralph Waldo Emerson, toured the area with him. Emerson tried to talk him into leaving Yosemite—he wanted Muir to teach the world what he had learned there.
Muir decided to stay in the mountains, working, learning. and writing. He finally left Yosemite in 1874 and spent some time in the San Francisco area. He lived with friends in Oakland for a few months while he wrote about Yosemite.
In 1873 and 1874, Muir studied the ecology and distribution of some of the groves of giant sequoias (redwood trees) in Yosemite. The American Association for the Advancement of Science published the paper he wrote describing his findings.
Muir Glacier in Alaska.
Library of Congress LC-USZ62-61822
In 1874, Muir married Louisa Wanda Stent-zel, known as Louie. Her parents owned a large ranch with orchards in Martinez, 35 miles from San Francisco. Muir spent the next several years successfully managing the 2,600 acres of vineyards and orchards. During that time, he and Louie had two daughters, Wanda and Helen.
John’s health began to suffer from overwork, so Louie urged him to return to the hills and find his old self. He started traveling and climbed Mount Rainier. He wrote an article about his climb titled “Ascent of Mount Rainier.” He also took several trips to Alaska. On his first trip there, he discovered Glacier Bay. He continued to travel and to write.
Muir had become convinced that livestock, especially domestic sheep, were a great threat to the Yosemite area. He took Century magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson camping so he could see the damage caused by the sheep. Johnson offered to publish any article Muir wanted to write about the problem. He also used his influence to get a bill introduced in Congress to make the area into a national park. In 1890 Congress protected the area from grazing. Later that year, in large part due to the influence of Muir and Johnson, Congress created Yosemite National Park.
In 1892, Muir and some others created the Sierra Club. He said it was to “do something for wildness and make the mountains glad.”
Muir’s first book, The Mountains of California, was published in 1894. Two years later, he became friends with conservation leader Gifford Pinchot. However, Pinchot issued a statement supporting sheep grazing in forest preserves. At that point, the friendship ended, with Muir saying, “I don’t want anything more to do with you.”
The conservation movement then split into two camps. The preservationists were led by Muir, while Pinchot led the conservationists. Pinchot believed in managing the nation’s national resources for sustainable commercial use. Muir didn’t believe in commercializing nature and thought the land should be preserved for its uplifting and spiritual values.
In 1899 Muir went with railroad executive E. H. Harriman on an exploratory voyage along the Alaska coast. They sailed on a luxurious 250-foot steamer called the George W. Elder. The two men became friends. Later Harriman put political pressure on Congress to pass conservation legislation.
In 1900, Sierra Club secretary Will Colby came up with the idea for a huge outing for the club. The next year 97 people, including Muir and his daughters Wanda and Helen, spent a month in Yosemite Valley. They hiked, climbed mountains, learned about the wilderness, and enjoyed camp-fire entertainment.
One woman who attended wrote, “Muir, the prince of mountain lovers, was guide and apostle, and his gentle, kindly face, genial blue eyes, and quaint, quiet observations on present and past Sierra conditions impressed us unforgettably with the ‘sermons in stone, books in the running brooks,’ he knows so well.” The outing became an annual affair.
Robert Underwood Johnson.
LibraryofCongressLC-UAZ261-1494
In May 1892, John Muir and Robert Underwood Johnson met with a group of people who were interested in promoting recreation in the Yosemite region. They established the Sierra Club with 182 charter members. Muir was elected president and held the office till his death in 1914.
The club’s first project was to fight a proposal to make Yosemite National Park smaller. Throughout the years, the Sierra Club has dedicated itself to exploring and preserving American wildlife and wilderness. It is a nonprofit conservation and outdoors organization.
The current goals of the Sierra Club are to (1) move beyond coal; (2) find clean energy solutions to rebuild and repower America; (3) promote green (environmentally friendly) cars, fuels, and transportation for the 21st century; (4) limit total greenhouse emissions; (5) create resilient habitats; and (6) safeguard communities.
To learn more about the Sierra Club, you can check out their website at www. sierraclub.org.
In this activity, you’ll see how many plants and animals you can find in a square yard of land. If you have a big backyard, you can do it there. If not, go I to a park or nature preserve.
During his later years, Muir became more serious about his writing. In all, he published 300 articles and 10 books. He wrote about his travels and his philosophy of nature. He urged everyone to “climb mountains and get their good tidings.” Readers were often moved by his enthusiasm for nature.
In 1901, Muir’s Our National Parks was published. This book brought him to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1903, Muir had a chance to meet Roosevelt and take him on a trip around Yosemite. He told the president about state mismanagement of the valley and how its resources were being exploited. They camped in the backcountry, talking late into the night. Roosevelt would never forget that trip. He was convinced that the best way to protect the area was through federal management and control.
Roosevelt fought many battles to protect Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In 1905, the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley were added to the national park.
Muir’s wife, Louie, died in 1905. John Muir continued his writing and conservation work. The city of San Francisco needed more water, so city officials proposed damming the Tuolumne River in Hetch Hetchy Valley to create a reservoir.
Muir, who thought the Hetch Hetchy Valley was even more beautiful than Yosemite Valley, was very opposed to the idea. The Sierra Club and Robert Underwood Johnson joined him in fighting against it. After years of debate, Woodrow Wilson, who by then was president, signed the dam bill into law in 1913. Muir was crushed.
John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt.
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John Muir died of pneumonia in a Los Angeles hospital in 1914 at the age of 76. He had been in Los Angeles visiting his daughter Wanda.
Muir was perhaps this country’s most influential and famous conservationist and naturalist. He is often called the “Father of Our National Park System.” He was instrumental in the creation of Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon National Parks. He taught the people of the United States how important it is to experience and protect nature and the environment.
Muir Glacier in Alaska is named for him, as are the John Muir Wilderness, the Muir Woods National Monument, and many schools and parks. An image ofJohn Muir with Half Dome and the California Condor was chosen to appear on the California state quarter, which was minted in 2005.
Muir’s words and deeds have made people more aware of nature. He remains an inspiration for environmental activists today.
Theodore Roosevelt was always interested in nature. After camping in Yosemite with John Muir, the president was convinced that federal control was the best option for protecting our most beautiful and interesting natural areas. He was instrumental in adding Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias to the already-existing Yosemite National Park.
Roosevelt said, “There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias …our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.”
During his presidency, Roosevelt signed legislation to establish five national parks. They were Crater Lake in Oregon, Wind Cave in South Dakota, Sullys Hill in North Dakota (now a game preserve), Mesa Verde in Colorado, and Platt, in Oklahoma (now part of Chickasaw National Recreation area).
In 1906 Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act. It gave the president the right to proclaim historic landmarks and structures as national monuments. Roosevelt named 19 areas as national monuments, including Devils Tower in Wyoming, Montezuma Castle in Arizona, and Petrified Forest, alsoin Arizona.
In recognition of Roosevelt’s influence on the national park system, five are as have been named for him. These include the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in New York City, Sagamore Hill National Historic Site in Oyster Bay, New York, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site in Buffalo, and Theodore Roosevelt Island in Washington, DC.
Roosevelt’s preservation of many unique natural areas in the United States was one of his most significant contributions. National Geographic says, “The area of the United States placed under public protection by Theodore Roosevelt, as National Parks, National Forests, game and bird preserves, and other federal reservations, comes to a total of approximately 230,000,000 acres!”