The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 1997
Fall 1997 NEWSLETTER Intimacies of a New England Trip: John Muir's 1898 Excursion by j. Parker Huber (Editor's note: Parker Huber, a regular contributor to these ■pages, here excerpts and discusses a few days of John Muir's life from the pages of Muir's journal of 1898 and from h...
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| Summary: | Fall 1997 NEWSLETTER Intimacies of a New England Trip: John Muir's 1898 Excursion by j. Parker Huber (Editor's note: Parker Huber, a regular contributor to these ■pages, here excerpts and discusses a few days of John Muir's life from the pages of Muir's journal of 1898 and from his letters.) ohn Muir's extensive travels included five trips to New England, finch occurred in 1893,1896,1898,1903 and 1911. His longest fxposure to New England came in late summer and autumn of 1898. This visit had three phases: first an overnight on Cape Cod, which is considered here, followed by a tour of the South; next a week's train crossing of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine followed by a stay in New York; and closing with a weekend in : the Berkshires of western Massachusetts before starting home to ■ Martinez, California. Boston ||1 John Muir arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, at ten a.m. on j Saturday 17 September 1898, completing a ten-day transcontinen- l!§l trip. He had taken the northern route from San Francisco to Cortland, Oregon, to Spokane, Washington. East from there over the Rocky Mountains via the Great Northern Railway. Across the Hfreat Plains where one of the train's engines was replaced by mother and another and another. From St. Paul, Minnesota, he caught a night train to Duluth in time for "the last steamer of the season,, through three of the Great Lakes - Superior, Huron, Erie - arriving after three nights in Buffalo, New York, where he boarded the 7:10 p.m. train for New England, emerging at daylight from Hoosac Mountain tunnel in northwestern Massachusetts. Fifty-four iff ars eadier, July 1844, Thoreau had walked over Hoosac Mountain in the opposite direction on his way west to ascend Saddleback Mountain (now Greylock), which he saw from the West Summit of Hoosac Mountain (2,018') six miles west. Muir's train continued south through Connecticut and Rhode Island.1 New landscapes and people engaged him. His eyes absorbed [Natural wonders. He wrote HI goldenrod all across the continent, great is goldenrod.2 11 This image with others appeared ever so briefly in his journal ■and letters home, despite "the swaying jolting jumbling car.,,3 He may have worked more on his essays on animals and birds of Yose-mite for the Atlantic. He tried to rest. Mostly, he dished out delect-able anecdotes: "I have picked up quite a lot of companions to whom I preach daily, some of them preachers.,,4 Until Buffalo, where he parted, "feeling very weak & sick,,,5 according to his journal. He added in a letter to his daughter that "The horrible food and eternal jolting and carbonic acid upset my stomach.,,6 Dyspepsia was his diagnosis. Dining car menus of the era show the influence of the region crossed, and typically included soup, fish or roast beef, lettuce salad, a choice of vegetables and for dessert, ice cream, cake or pies.7 At the Spaulding Hotel in Duluth, Muir had a beefsteak breakfast.8 Aboard ship, boiled Lake Superior trout, corned beef and cabbage, pork and beans were the fare.9 Always, his elixir of life, tea. From Boston & Providence Railroad Depot on Park Square Muir went directly to the Adams House at 553 Washington Street, four blocks east, presumably by livery. There he took a room for one dollar, bathed, changed clothes and read a message from Charles Sprague Sargent, Director of the Arnold Arboretum.10 Sargent had invited Muir and William M. Canby of Wilmington, Delaware, to see the southern Appalachian forests. The previous summer the trio had traveled to British Columbia and Alaska to view western trees. The summer of 1896, Sargent and Muir had surveyed forests from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean for the National Forestry Commission, which Sargent headed. Sargent dedicated to Canby his just completed volume 12 of The Silva of North America (1891-1902)." He had bestowed the same honor on Muir in the previous volume, which appeared earlier that year. ",. .it made my heart jump with joy as no other honor 1 have received ever did,,, Muir wrote to Sargent.I2 In response, Sargent wrote Muir, declaring, "For if there is any man who loves and knows trees, and knows how to write about them better than anybody else, you are the Fellow.,,13 Cape Cod A weary Muir was moving. The group's destination Sargent had told him: "a spot where you will find a great many things to interest you.,,14 Sargent had enticed Muir to "pass a few days on the end of Cape Cod where my family goes for a few weeks every summer,,, promising seclusion from Boston entertainment as well." (continued on page 3) NEWS NOTES: NEW BOOKS FROM THE JOHN MUIR CENTER The John Muir Center announces the continuation of its series of volumes based on the California History Institute conferences. The Center staff has completed the editing of the most outstanding papers from last year's conference devoted to the work of John Muir. The volume will consist of over one dozen essays, and it will feature an introductory essay written especially for this volume by the well-known Muir scholar, Frank Buske, Professor Emeritus of the University of Alaska. The chapters of the book, tentatively entitled John Muir in Historical Perspective, focus on various aspects of Muir's career. Muir and literature is one example; others are on Muir and various locales, such as Twenty Hill Hollow, the Pacific Northwest, South America and southern Africa and, of course, Yosemite. Other chapters will deal with individuals in Muir's life such as Jeanne Carr, the Strenzels, Josiah Dwight Whitney, Clarence King, C. D. Robinson, and John Swett. A final group of chapters deal with Muir and the environment. A forthcoming issue will provide information on publisher, date of publication and price when these details are set. The John Muir Center is very pleased to announce that later this year a volume containing some of the best presentations made to the 1995 History Institute on the topic of California and the Pacific Rim will be published in England by Routledge Press. Studies in the Economic History of the Pacific Rim contains fourteen chapters, an introductory essay, and has been edited by Professors Sally M. Miller and Dennis 0. Flynn of the University of the Pacific and Professor John Latham of the University of Swansea in Wales. As soon as the date of publication is announced, readers of this newsletter will be informed of the price and how to order their copies. JOHN MUIR EDUCATION DISCUSSION MAILING LIST The John Muir Education Discussion List is sponsored by the Environmental Education Committee of the Sierra Club to host discussions about the life and contributions of the Sierra Club's founder, John Muir. The purpose of the list is to aid Muir researchers, teachers, and enthusiasts. The list is quite new, but you can read the past postings to the Discussion List at: http:// www.sierraclub.org/education/john_muir_education/1997/. New subscribers are welcome. Participants may discuss anything about John Muir. The list covers projects relating to the Sierra Club's John Muir Education Project - the John Muir Day Study Guide, the John Muir Youth Award program, and the John Muir Exhibit World Wide Web site, http://www.sierraclub. org/john_muir_exhibit. Teachers in K-12 or college teaching are especially invited to participate. Anyone, whether or not a Sierra Club member, may subscribe. Here is the basic information about the new list: 1. List Name/Address: CE-EE-JOHN-MUIR-EDUCATION; 2. List Owner's Name: Harold Wood; 3. List Owner's E-mail Address: hwood@lightspeed.net; 4. Sierra Club Sponsoring Entity: Environmental Education Committee; 5. Unmoderated; 6. Archives: Weekly; 7. Review of Archives: Public. More information and discussion list archives will be posted to the Sierra Club's World Wide Web site: http://www.sierraclub.org/education/john_ muir_education/; 8. List Subscription Address: LISTSERV@ LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG; 9. List Subscription Instructions: Send an e-mail message to [cut and paste into your e-mail]: LISTSERV@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG with a one-line command in the message body saying [substitute your first and last name where indicated]: SUBSCRIBE CE-EE-JOHN-MUIR- EDUCATION Yourfirstname Yourlastname. The subject line is irrelevant. We look forward to your participation! For questions, contact: Harold Wood, John Muir Education Project Coordinator, Sierra Club Environmental Education Committee, hwood@lightspeed.net. BACKPACKING FOR ACADEMIC CREDIT Newsletter readers will be interested to learn of the exciting program of wilderness field studies sponsored by the Sierra Institute and scheduled for fall, 1997. As part of the Extension Division of the University of California of Santa Cruz, a two- week backpacking session has been scheduled for September 2- October 17 to explore the ecology of the Sierra. A second session on California wilderness, or nature, philosophy and religion, has been scheduled for September 10 to November 5. Each earns 15 units for enrollees. For detailed information, contact the Sierra Institute, University of California Extension, 740 Front St., Suite 155, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. The Institute has also scheduled a number of field trips for the summer. They include one on the mountain ecology of the High Sierra (June 26-Julyl6) and another on nature philosophy and California's wilderness (July 15-August 18). These may be fully enrolled by now, but contact the Sierra Institute about its waiting list. NEWSLETTER Volume 7, Number 4 Fall 1997 Published quarterly by The John Muir Center for Regional Studies University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 ♦ Staff ♦ Editor Sally M. Miller Center Director R.H. Limbaugh GRAPHICS CONSULTANT BEVERLY DUFFY All photographic reproductions are courtesy of the John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Libraries. Copyright 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust. This Newsletter is printed on recycled paper. page 2 Intimacies of a New England Trip (continued.) Their means of transportation, though undisclosed, was assuredly a train. Their route was from Boston south to New Bedford, then east to Buzzards Bay, crossing Monument River (now Cape Cod Canal), and south along Cape Cod's west coast, a sandy moraine of pitch pines and scrub oaks, cranberry bogs and strawberries, and small villages with glimpses of water. A stretch of the last four miles from Falmouth ran between the ocean with cormorants and skiers and ponds with cattails and reeds, saltspray rose and bittersweet. Fine woods all the way perhaps 90 mfilejs. Many fine residences of rich people seeking summer coolness. Magnificent Asters & goldenrods deep glacial bays, heavy drift Extreme end of Cape sandy Two and a half hours and 72 miles later, they arrived in Woods Hole. The depot is now displaced by a ferry terminal for ■ ■ J (spoliation to the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. gent's home was not far: a mile east past the north end of Little Harbor, then south three-quarters mile down Church Street (which passes over the railroad, now a bicycle path, from Falmouth). • tile it could be a pleasant stroll, the two men laden with baggage likely came by carriage, though Muir had lightened his id in New York. Lost small grip by mistake of a gentleman who left his in exchange. From Church Street a long drive descended to the back of a t-ious home that incorporated the oldest dwelling in the village, . e an inn.16 A veranda extended across the south and west faces of the house. The south side door opened into a reception area with i 'iiing room to the right and parlor to the left, both with shallow brick fireplaces. Beyond the dining room were a commodious ■ 'hen and pantry; beyond the parlor, another entiy way, this one ■ ii stairs to the second-floor bedrooms. They arrived in time for Met Mrs. Sargent & the fine girls & manly boys just getting ready for Harvard. Twenty-five years earlier at Emmanuel Church in Boston on ' November 1873, Charles Sargent, then thirty-two, had married y Allen Robeson, twenty, a woman of refinement, wealth and, • :! | Muir, of Scottish background. Asa Gray of Harvard, who the vious summer had been botanizing in Yosemite Valley with John Muir, attended their wedding. Surely he told them about Muir.17 The Sargents had five children, three daughters and two sons, oldest, Henrietta, twenty-four, was not present, having • • I tied Guy Lowell earlier that year. Muir greeted Molly (Mary) and Alice, twenty and sixteen, respectively. On 25 January 1908, | -ifly would many Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch Potter of Columbia University and reside in New York. Alice remained single and /lived at home in Brookline. Andrew Robeson, twenty-two that ■ ember, and Charles, four years younger, would graduate from ■ i.vardin 1900 and 1902 (as their father had in 1862), and pursue careers in landscape architecture and finance, respectively.18 After graduation, Andrew or "Bobo,,, as he was called, worked in the Boston office of his brother-in-law, Guy Lowell. Muir came to know Andrew best of the family. Five years later, Muir and Andrew and Sargent traveled around the world. From May to December 1903, from Boston to Shanghai, they explored gardens and forests, collecting a trove of seeds, before going their separate ways. The Sargents returned home, where Andrew reported to the press the "incalculable value,, of their study." In his short life, Andrew designed superb gardens on Cape Cod, the North Shore, Islesboro (Maine), and Long Island. He died of pneumonia in 1918 at age forty-two.20 Still sick and unable to eat the fine dinner prepared for me-a miserable trip, Muir closed his diary for this day. His ill health precluded any leisurely feast enlivened by story telling, any strolls along the shore, any engagement with the environment, spirited or otherwise. The next day, Sunday 18 September 1898, Muir was still healing. His diary contained only twenty words. As there is nothing about Cape Cod, Muir must have stayed put. At least he could absorb the view of Little Harbor, of spritsails and ferries crossing Vineyard Sound, of Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands, the closest being Nonamesset, two miles distant, and almost touching it, the largest in the chain, Naushon. On one of those Elizabeth Islands, Penikese - which Muir could not see - a co-educational summer school of natural history had been created in 1873 by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, whose glacial theories informed Muir's.21 In August 1872, ill- health had prevented Agassiz from meeting John Muir in California and seeing the Sierra Nevada. Later, in 1893, Muir made a pilgrimage to Agassiz's homeland. In Neuchatel, Switzerland, at whose university Agassiz was professor of natural history from 1832 until his coming to the United States in 1846, Muir observed: "another beautiful & quaint old town on the shore of a lovely lake more than 20 miles long.,,22 Here Agassiz, in a stone shelter dubbed "Hotel des Neuchatelois,, on the great medial moraine of Aar glacier, monitored the motion of the ice. But now a late afternoon train carried Muir and Sargent back to Boston. The family stayed in Woods Hole. The boys did not have to be at Harvard until later in September, and the girls were not in school. In fact, Molly was bound for Europe to join her older sister, Henrietta, in Paris.23 On October 26, Sargent and Muir escorted her to New York where they stayed at the Albermarle Hotel, on Madison Square West, a small but expensive & convenient house, was how Muir described it, where they had a "fine champagne supper" with her suitor, Mr. Jay, with whom they relaxed the next day Sargent teases him by inviting me to ship to see Molly off taking his place in carriage. Amusing half earnest talk with Jay advising him to run away & leave all - ropes would not hold me I said. Meanwhile, back in Boston from Cape Cod on 18 September, Muir had a fine drive in Sargent's cab thru park to Brookline Their route - four westward miles - to Holm Lea, Sargent's home, probably followed the Back Bay Fens and Muddy River greenway created by Frederick Law Olmsted. Since 1883 Olmsted had lived across Warren Street from Sargent at #99. Though Muir and Olmsted had much in common, and it would have been convenient for them to meet here, they never did. Failing memory ■ page 3 Itimacies of a New England Trip (continued.) forced Olmsted's retirement in 1895, at age 73. He was secluded on Deer Island, Maine, until September 1898, when his wife Mary committed him to McLean Asylum in nearby Waverly (Belmont), Massachusetts, where he died 28 August 1903.24 Upon arrival, Muir noted Eat toast & to bed The next day, Muir recuperated at Sargent's. sleeping sauntering reading still sick. Their only visitor was Walter H. Page, whom they telegraphed to come for lunch. Page, 43, had just assumed the editorship of The Atlantic in August. Three years previously, he had come to the magazine as an assistant to the editor, Horace E. Scudder. Serendipity brought Page and Sargent together in February 1897. The editor wanted articles on forests and Sargent knew the perfect person. They both wrote John Muir asking for his blessing.25 Muir agreed to write an article but not immediately. He had a commitment to Harper's for "The National Parks and Forest Reservations,,, which appeared in June. August's Atlantic carried Muir's "The American Forests,,.26 From then on, Muir's work was welcome at The Atlantic. His "Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West,, followed in January 1898, and "Yellowstone National Park,, in April. had good chat. Smartfellow and Allie called on Jane Loring Gray, at 79 Garden Street, a few blocks north, whom he had met with her husband in California in 1877. Jane had been married to Asa almost forty years before he died (1848-1888). Apparently, Muir spent the night with the Pages.29 Seven years later, in spring of 1905, the Pages would be guests of the Muirs in Martinez, California.30 On Tuesday 20 September, Muir and Sargent went South through mid-October. This New England time had renewed Muir's friendship with Sargent, as well as acquainting him with Walter Page and also Cape Cod. More memories of New Engenders and their landscape awaited him. 10. For a photograph of Boston and Providence Railroad Station in Park Square and for construction of South Station see Walter Muir Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History (1959; Harvard University Press, 1975), 102 and 189, respectively. Until South Station was completed in 1900, railroads had various terminals. This Adams House (1883) closed in 1927 and was demolished in 1931. Calvin Coolidge resided here while serving Massachusetts as lieutenant governor and governor. An earlier Adams House occupied this site from 1846 to 1883, the successor of the Lamb Tavern. See John Harris, Historic Walks in Old Boston '.: (1982; The Globe Pequot Press, 1989), 192-193. A closed Paramount Theatre (b. 1932) sits here now in disrepair, two blocks southeast of the Common. ! 1. William M. Canby (1831-1904) discovered a new species of Hawthorn in Wilmington, Delaware, in October 1898, which Sargent named Crataegus Canbyi Illllh his honor. 1 cannot verify that Muir and Sargent were with him at the time, SlisKthough it is likely. For description of the plant and a biography of Canby, see : Charles S. Sargent The Silva of North America (1902; Peter Smith, 1947), 41- W\MyA). Drawing of plant by Charles Edward Faxton follows on unnumbered page. I2v Letter, John Muir to Charles S.Sargent, 11 May 1898, Martinez, California, (JMP). No copies of The Silva of North America remain in Muir's library at the University of the Pacific. 13.: Letter, Charles S. Sargent to John Muir, 2 June 1898, Jamaica Plain, Massa- yilS.ohusetts, (JMP). Muir reviewed The Silva of North America and sent it to Perry I Bliss, editor of Tlie Atlantic, 4 Park Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 2 March 1||||§903. Bliss replied 19 March that he was pleased. It appeared in The Atlantic, HHfJuty 1903 (9-22), while Muir and Sargent were traveling around the world. See letter, John Muir to Charles S. Sargent, 1 March 1903, Martinez, California, :;;(JMP). 1 ! 1 etter, Charles S. Sargent to John Muir, 13 July 1898, Jamaica Plain, ;::---3Massachusetts, (JMP). IS Letter, Charles S. Sargent to John Muir, 15 June 1898, Jamaica Plain, llllllMassachusetts, (JMP). ;ig|; William B. Bacon and Charles S. Sargent - identified incorrectly as G. S. islia? Sargent - came down by buggy from Barnstable "one summer's day,, - year 3;£::tiot given - and bought property jointly; a toss of the coin decided Sargent would have the house, Bacon, the open point to the south. So relates Winslow IffJIgCarlton in "Bankers' Row,, in Mary Lou Smith, ed., Woods Hole Reflections h (Woods Hole Historical Collection, 1983), 144 and 146. On page 13, an un- jljj dated photograph (probably 1895) shows an earlier form of the Sargent house flfgwith carriage house on a treeless lot with stone walls. Today the house cannot be seen from the road. Page 23 offers a view of Little Harbor in 1896. Carlton recounts the same story in "A Stroll Through Woods Hole in the 'Twenties,, in I Mary Lou Smith, ed., The Book of Falmouth (Falmouth Historical Commission, jjjl 11986), 522. The Sargent House is shown as it appeared in 1895 on page 486 y£;!|captioned "Abner Davis' inn. . .„); a contemporary view is on page 523. rr:M My quay to the Woods Hole Historical Commission led to its discovery that the Charles S. Sargent home had been miscited as G. S. Sargent. Letter, J. fills. Gaines, Archivist, to J. Parker Huber, 12 January 1995, Woods Hole, M\ ^Massachusetts. :: :;; This house is now known as the Rowe House. The current owner, Mrs. f::; William S. Rowe of Cincinnati, Ohio, has been here virtually every summer MS: since her birth in 1918. Her great-grandfather was William B. Bacon (1823- ;:;; 1906). Her grandfather was Robert Bacon (1860-1919; see Dictionary of Sim-American Biography, hereafter DAB), a partner of J.P. Morgan and assistant T;;:: Secretary of State, 1905-1909. Muir and Robert Bacon had Theodore SHBRoosevelt as a mutual friend; Bacon and TR graduated from Harvard in the class of 1880. On 10 October 1883, Bacon married Martha W. Cowdin (1859- '.;! 1940). Their daughter, Martha B. Bacon (1890-1967), on 2 June 1914 married George Whitney (1885-1963), a banker and a president of J. P. Morgan & si-Company. Their daughter, Martha Phyllis Whitney, married William S. Rowe M (1916-1988), also a banker (President of the Fifth Third Bank, Cincinnati, SijOhio) in 1939. After Robert Bacon died, his widow, Mrs. Rowe's grand- :f ipSjnother, bought the Sargent house. : Ki'S. B. Sutton, Charles Sprague Sargent and the Arnold Arboretum (Cambridge, MM; Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970), 20. Sargent's Cape Cod MM\ Connection came as news to Sutton when I spoke with her 29 March 1995. ' DAB, Charles Sprague Sargent; DAB, Guy Lowell, reports marriage in April Iffl|l|898; thanks to Arnorld Arboretum Librarians, Carol David and Rebecca Anderson, my source for dates is Emma Worcester Sargent, arr., Epes Sargent MMCof Gloucester and his Descendants (Houghton Mifflin, 1923), 158. For ;:|sf;;;iAndrew and Charles see Epes Sargent. . 158-160 and Harvard College Class SlfRcports and Bibliographic Files, Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, :s;gsi;;Massachusetts. - Boston Evening Record, 29 December 1903, 6. J lis brother Charles S. Sargent died 13 February 1959. New York tobacco tycoon, John Anderson, gave the island and $50,000 for the school. Edward Luire, Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science (1960; Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 380-381. Muir knew of this school. See letter, Kate N. Daggett to John Muir, 19 April 1873, Hot Springs, Arkansas, JMP. 22. Letter, John Muir to Wanda Muir, 25 August 1903, St. Moritz, Switzerland, (JMP). 23. Letter, John Muir to Wanda Muir, 28 October 1898, New York City, (JMP). 24. There is no correspondence between them. No books of Frederick Law Olmsted are in Muir's library. Mary Olmsted continued to live at 99 Warren Street until her death in 1913. Muir does not mention seeing her. See Elizabeth Stevenson, Parkmaker: A Life of Frederick Law Olmsted (McMillan Publishing Co., 1977), 426-427; Laura Wood Roper, Frederick Law Olmsted (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 474-475, 478. 25. Letters, Charles S. Sargent to John Muir, 26 February 1897, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts; Walter H. Page to John Muir, 4 March 1897, Boston, Massachusetts, (JMP). 26. Letter, Charles S. Sargent to John Muir, 22 June 1897, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, (JMP). 27. Letter, John Muir to Wanda Muir, 22 September 1898, Cranberry, North Carolina, (JMP). 28. Letter, John Muir to Walter H. Page, 10 January 1902, Martinez, California, in William F. Bade, Life and Letters of John Muir (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1923), II: 341-343. 29. JMJ; Letter, John Muir to Wanda Muir, 28 October 1898, New York, New York, (JMP). 30. Letters, John Muir to Walter Page, 9 May 1905, Martinez, California; Walter Page to John Muir, 21 December 1905, Englewood, New Jersey, (JMP). In 1899, Page joined the new publishing house of Doubleday, Page & Company in New York. The next year, he founded 77ie World's Work of which he was editor until 1913. (DAB.) B. J. Hendrick, The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page (Doubleday, Page, 1922-1925), 3 volumes. B. J. Hendrick, The Training of an American: The Earlier Life and Letters of Waller H. Page. 1855-1913 (Houghton Mifflin, 1928) contains four of his letters to Muir, 305-307. Walter H. Page, A Publisher's Confession (Doubleday, Page, 1923) does not mention Muir. Ellen B. Ballou, The Building of the House: Houghton Mifflin's Formative Years (Houghton Mifflin, 1970), 457, views Muir in the Atlantic as "One of Page's singular triumphs. page 5 Was John Muir A Deep Ecologist? byMandyDavis (Editor's note: A graduate student in histoiy at University of the Pacific, Mandy Davis presented this paper at the 1996 John Muir Conference). To answer the question posed by this title, one first has to understand what the term "deep ecology,, means. Throughout much of history the pervasive viewpoint has been that humans are at the top of a hierarchy of species and that all of nature exists for human benefit and use. Since the 1960s, this view has been under attack. Radical environmentalists contend that humans are not superior to the rest of nature. According to Arne Naess, who in 1973 coined the term "deep ecology,,, the idea that humans are superior to nature is in keeping with a tradition of dominance of "humans over nonhuman Nature, masculine over the feminine, wealthy and powerful over the poor, with the dominance of the West over non-Westem cultures.,,' Deep ecology claims that there is no separation between any of these and "that all things in the biosphere have an equal right to live and blossom and to reach their own individual forms of unfolding and self-realization. This basic intuition is that all organisms and entities in the ecosphere, as parts of the interrelated whole, are equal in intrinsic worth.,,2 To call John Muir a deep ecologist in a literal sense is of course anachronistic. It presupposes he knew the science of ecology, which was not fully developed in Muir's lifetime. The term ecology, first coined in the 1870s and used to describe the physical environment, expanded in meaning and application only after Muir's death. In 1916 Frederic Clements began to talk of plant formations as systems of organisms which existed independently of humans and human activities. In the 1930s Arthur Tansley claimed that nature was comprised of many interconnected systems made up of both organic and inorganic components.3 Aldo Leopold in that same decade began to develop an "ecological consciousness,,, adding a moral component later articulated in his Sand County Almanac.4 Since then the definition has continued to change. By the 1990s most ecologists had radically shifted from the original premise of order and predictability to the theory of a chaotic universe where nature is unpredictable and erratic.5 Along with changes in definition there have been corresponding changes in the meaning of the human-nature relationship. George P. Marsh, believing in a natural balance between humans and nature, was one of the first to warn that Americans were progressively destroying that balance.6 The accelerated place of industrialization late in the 19th century led to decreasing supplies of natural resources, which in rum led to the conservation movement. However, even as the movement was being formed, it was already splintering into a fight between utilitarian conservationists, who advocated "wise use,, of all resources, and preservationists, who wanted to save uniquely beautiful wilderness areas for their "contrast value,, and as havens from the stresses of civilization. John Muir's battle to save Hetch Hetchy is the classic example of this conflict. Deep ecologists have two grounds for adopting Muir as a patron saint. One is his belief in an ethic which "assigns inviolable rights to everything that lived, and at the same time denied that any being was made primarily for the sake of humanity.,,7 The other is his assertion of cosmic unity, incapsulated in his famous aphorism that if". .we try to pick out anything in Nature, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.,,8 Both of these views, broadened and integrated into a holistic philosophy, are bedrock principles of deep ecology today. But were Muir's religious views compatible with modem biocentric thinking? Muir believed in the sacredness, not necessarily the equality, of all life. Though he belonged to no formal church and held no formal creed, he retained a religious intensity in his demeanor, as Edwin Teale described: The forests and the mountains formed his temple. His approach to all nature was worshipful. He saw everything evolving yet everything the direct handiwork of God. A spiritual and religious exaltation enveloped his experiences with nature. And he came down from the mountains like some bearded prophet to preach of the beauty and healing he had found in this natural temple where he worshipped.9 Nature for Muir was a Divine gift, with humans the beneficiary. As R. H. Limbaugh has written, "To him, pristine wilderness, the sublime expression of the ultimate good, restored the human spirit and stimulated man's creative powers. .thus Muir found intellectual and spiritual reasons for saving wild nature: it benefitted man in nonmaterial ways.,,10 This viewpoint is essentially anthropocentric. Even while defending the ethic that all life forms have inherent worth, Muir did not claim that preservation was essential for biotic diversity, or the health of the land, or "any other reason that could be considered part of the basic arsenal of modem ecological science.,," Even his concern for the watersheds in the Sierra was basically a concern for the agricultural interests in the valley. Muir believed that nature and Christian scripture were complementary. That was not a new idea in Christian history, as Dennis Williams has noted. "Muir was not unique in envisioning a reciprocal relationship between natural revelation and scriptural revelation; in fact it was a concept that ran throughout Old Testament revelation and was a component of Jesus' parabolic sermons and of Paul's Gospel to the Romans found in his epistle to Christians in that city.,,12 Medieval Christianity also produced thinkers who held ideas of an "organic wholeness and biocentric equality,,, to use today's terminology. Lynn White, Jr. described Saint Francis of Assisi as a Christian theologian who "tried to depose man from his monarchy over creation and set up a democracy of all God's creatures.,,13 Central to Muir's theology was the belief that he experienced God directly, an idea perfectly in tune with traditional Christian dogma. Yet Muir rejected the dogmas of denominational Christianity. He was a reformer, a mystic more comfortable with the spirituality of the early church than with its materialistic later manifestations.14 Muir also believed in divine purpose. He saw changes in the wilderness as a sign of God's continuous creation, giving these changes purpose and direction. "How lavish is Nature,,, he wrote, "building, pulling down, creating, destroying, chasing every material particle from form to form, ever changing. .„" His own life was shaped by the same process. After the accident in which he almost lost his eye, Muir made his momentous decision to go south, heading for the woods. He could find no joy apart from wild nature, and https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1050/thumbnail.jpg |
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