Muir letters provide new new insight into first environmentalist

AP-San Diego Union Tribune ^ | April 18, 2005 | Ryan J. Foley

[calcowgirl]

MADISON, Wis. – World-famous environmentalist John Muir never forgot the day he got his first lesson in the study of nature on the steps of his University of Wisconsin dormitory.

Almost 50 years later, Muir wrote a letter to thank his old college friend, Wisconsin judge Milton Griswold, for "that wonderful botanical lesson you gave me on the steps of our dormitory, which has never been forgotten and which has influenced all my after life."

The note is part of a rare collection of Muir's letters published online for the first time by the Wisconsin Historical Society. The letters offer new insight into the man considered the first environmentalist and founder of the Sierra Club, the nation's largest grass-roots environmental group.

Spanning more than 50 years of Muir's life, they document in his own words how he evolved from a strict Calvinist at UW to a mountain-climbing, tree-hugging advocate for all things nature. "I have spent last summer in regular course like all the rest, traveling the solitudes in search of wild truth," he wrote in 1877.

Carl Pope, executive director of the San Francisco-based Sierra Club, which now has more than 850,000 members, said the project will give Muir's considerable number of fans easy access to material they have never seen.

"I think this is really wonderful," he said. "It will be interesting to see what's there."

The letters – which went up online this week at http://www.wisconsinhistory.org – were written from 1861 and 1914 to childhood friends in Wisconsin, where Muir spent his adolescent years on a farmstead near Portage before attending UW.

The majority are to Emily Pelton, whom he wrote for more than 50 years at many key points in his life. In them, he describes his first trip into nature across the Mississippi River into Iowa in 1863, his loneliness the day before he left for Canada to dodge the Civil War-era draft and his joy at the birth of his first daughter in 1881.

"She was born three days ago," Muir wrote, "coming in the warm Sundays of the springtime with the full bloom of the fields and the singing of the birds."

The letters – 30 in all, more than 100 pages – have been known to researchers for years and will not change the perception of the private Muir, researchers say, but will allow the rest of the world to read Muir in his own writing.

Muir in 1867 wandered 1,000 miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. He settled down in California, captivated by the beauty of the Sierra Nevada, and began writing about his travels. He inspired politicians – including Theodore Roosevelt – with his love of nature and accounts of destruction of forests by sheep and cattle.

After prodding from Muir, Congress created Yosemite National Park in 1890 and two years later Muir formed the Sierra Club to protect it and "make the mountains glad." Muir worked to create the Grand Canyon National Park and several others and helped preserve the California redwoods.

The collection will be popular with researchers, students and "people who just love the outdoors and are curious to see who was the real John Muir," said Michael Edmonds of the Wisconsin Historical Society. He said only six of the 30 letters have previously been published in their entirety.

This week's launch is timed to coincide with Muir's April 21 birthday – the 167th anniversary of his birth – and Saturday's Earth Day.

"People will be very moved by what they see here as they take the time to do some Muir-like wandering through Muir's own words," said William J. Cronon, a UW-Madison professor who is an expert on environmental history. "His passionate love of nature in America comes through beautifully in these letters."

On the Net:

Wisconsin Historical Society: www.wisconsinhistory.org

Sierra Club: www.sierraclub.org

[ikka]

his loneliness the day before he left for Canada to dodge the Civil War-era draft

The first hippie ?

[vpintheak]

What a coward. I have no respect at all for him, or the cause that so many now cling to. They are all fake cowardly scum that wilt when compared to patriots who sacrificed and did their duty whether they lived or died.