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On May 28, 1892, the Sierra Club was formed by John Muir and others in San Francisco for conservation of nature. From the article:
"John Muir Biography
Environmental Activist, Journalist (1838–1914)
Naturalist, writer and advocate of U.S. forest conservation, John Muir founded the Sierra Club and helped establish Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks.
Synopsis
John Muir was born April 21, 1838, in Dunbar, Scotland. As early as 1876, he urged the federal government to adopt a forest conservation policy through articles published in popular periodicals. In 1892 he founded the Sierra Club. He served as its first president, a position he held until his death in 1914. He was largely responsible for the establishment of Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks.
Background and Inventions
Born on April 21, 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland, John Muir immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 11 years old. Settling in Wisconsin, Muir contended with a rigid, punishing father who made his son memorize the Bible and maintain a demanding schedule. Yet the boy had a major inclination for learning and creativity, coming up with an array of inventions such as a horse feeder, a table saw, a wooden thermometer and a device that pushed the youngster out of bed in the early morning.
After showing his inventions at the state Fair, Muir attended the University of Wisconsin during the early 1860s. Leaving school in 1863, he took up studying botany and exploring the natural world via foot while taking on jobs to support himself. But in 1867, while working at a factory, he was involved in an accident in which he was blinded for a time. Upon regaining his sight, he fully embraced his devotion to nature and walked from Indiana to Florida, creating detailed sketches of the terrain. He eventually sailed to Cuba, New York and Panama, ultimately making his way to San Francisco. From there he continued his walking explorations.
Esteemed Ecologist and Writer
After first visiting California’s Yosemite Valley in 1868 and taking on work as a shepherd, Muir landed a mill job working with James Mason Hutchings, though the two would later have a falling out. Muir began having his ecology-oriented articles published via newspapers in the early 1870s, with his first printed essay appearing in the New York Tribune. After acute observations, he offered groundbreaking theories about Yosemite’s geological structures being formed by glacial activity, countering previous scientific assertions.
National Parks Champion
Muir became known for his articles that praised the natural world, speaking in poetic, spiritual terms about his affection for the ecology and humanity’s earth connection, garnering a large and varied readership. He also published a grouping of essays pushing for the establishment of Yosemite National Park, which was created in 1890. Muir became a major figure in the creation of parks for the Grand Canyon and Sequoia regions as well.
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike."
Muir co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892, acting as president of the environmental-advocacy organization for more than two decades. In the new century he continued to make history with his 1903 three-night camping trip with Theodore Roosevelt, which helped shape the U.S. president’s own conservationist policies. Muir was also a world-traveler who at age 73 took an extended trip to the Amazon, studying its fauna and topography and being swept away by the region’s beauty. A host of honors and accolades were bestowed upon him during his life.
Death and Legacy
John Muir died on December 24, 1914 in Los Angeles, California from pneumonia. His legacy lived on not only in the establishment of parks and his environmental activism but in the scores upon scores of articles he penned. He was the author of several books as well, including The Mountains of California (1894), Our National Parks (1901), Stickeen: The Story of a Dog (1909) and My First Summer in the Sierra (1911)."
"John Muir Biography
Environmental Activist, Journalist (1838–1914)
Naturalist, writer and advocate of U.S. forest conservation, John Muir founded the Sierra Club and helped establish Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks.
Synopsis
John Muir was born April 21, 1838, in Dunbar, Scotland. As early as 1876, he urged the federal government to adopt a forest conservation policy through articles published in popular periodicals. In 1892 he founded the Sierra Club. He served as its first president, a position he held until his death in 1914. He was largely responsible for the establishment of Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks.
Background and Inventions
Born on April 21, 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland, John Muir immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 11 years old. Settling in Wisconsin, Muir contended with a rigid, punishing father who made his son memorize the Bible and maintain a demanding schedule. Yet the boy had a major inclination for learning and creativity, coming up with an array of inventions such as a horse feeder, a table saw, a wooden thermometer and a device that pushed the youngster out of bed in the early morning.
After showing his inventions at the state Fair, Muir attended the University of Wisconsin during the early 1860s. Leaving school in 1863, he took up studying botany and exploring the natural world via foot while taking on jobs to support himself. But in 1867, while working at a factory, he was involved in an accident in which he was blinded for a time. Upon regaining his sight, he fully embraced his devotion to nature and walked from Indiana to Florida, creating detailed sketches of the terrain. He eventually sailed to Cuba, New York and Panama, ultimately making his way to San Francisco. From there he continued his walking explorations.
Esteemed Ecologist and Writer
After first visiting California’s Yosemite Valley in 1868 and taking on work as a shepherd, Muir landed a mill job working with James Mason Hutchings, though the two would later have a falling out. Muir began having his ecology-oriented articles published via newspapers in the early 1870s, with his first printed essay appearing in the New York Tribune. After acute observations, he offered groundbreaking theories about Yosemite’s geological structures being formed by glacial activity, countering previous scientific assertions.
National Parks Champion
Muir became known for his articles that praised the natural world, speaking in poetic, spiritual terms about his affection for the ecology and humanity’s earth connection, garnering a large and varied readership. He also published a grouping of essays pushing for the establishment of Yosemite National Park, which was created in 1890. Muir became a major figure in the creation of parks for the Grand Canyon and Sequoia regions as well.
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike."
Muir co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892, acting as president of the environmental-advocacy organization for more than two decades. In the new century he continued to make history with his 1903 three-night camping trip with Theodore Roosevelt, which helped shape the U.S. president’s own conservationist policies. Muir was also a world-traveler who at age 73 took an extended trip to the Amazon, studying its fauna and topography and being swept away by the region’s beauty. A host of honors and accolades were bestowed upon him during his life.
Death and Legacy
John Muir died on December 24, 1914 in Los Angeles, California from pneumonia. His legacy lived on not only in the establishment of parks and his environmental activism but in the scores upon scores of articles he penned. He was the author of several books as well, including The Mountains of California (1894), Our National Parks (1901), Stickeen: The Story of a Dog (1909) and My First Summer in the Sierra (1911)."
John Muir
Posted from biography.com
Conservation
Outdoors
World History
American History
National Park Service
Posted 4 y ago
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Short bio produced by the National Parks Service, starring Lee Stetson as Muir.
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on May 28, 1892, the Sierra Club was formed by John Muir and others in San Francisco for conservation of nature.
Biography of John Muir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGOolPB8yO8
Images:
1. (a) John Muir, about 1875. (b) John Muir, about 1902. Photo by Carleton Watkins
2. John Muir with wife Louie and daughters Helen and Wanda on the front steps of the Martinez home. NPS photo. John Muir NHS. JOMU 1732.
3. Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir at Yosemite. Library of Congress.
4. John Muir sits at his desk and writes. The desk is displayed in the 'Scribble Den', which is in the upstairs of the Muir home in Martinez, CA.
Biographies
1. vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx
2. thoughtco.com/john-muir-inspired-the-conservation-movement-1773625]
1. Background from {[https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx]}
John Muir - farmer, inventor, sheepherder, naturalist, explorer, writer, and conservationist - was born on April 21, 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland. Until the age of eleven he attended the local schools of that small coastal town. In 1849, the Muir family emigrated to the United States, settling first at Fountain Lake and then moving to Hickory Hill Farm near Portage, Wisconsin.
Muir's father was a harsh disciplinarian and worked his family from dawn to dusk. Whenever they were allowed a short period away from the plow and hoe, Muir and his younger brother would roam the fields and woods of the rich Wisconsin countryside. John became more and more the loving observer of the natural world. He also became an inventor, a carver of curious but practical mechanisms in wood. He made clocks that kept accurate time and created a wondrous device that tipped him out of bed before dawn.
In 1860, Muir took his inventions to the state fair at Madison, where he won admiration and prizes. Also that year he entered the University of Wisconsin. He made fine grades, but after three years left Madison to travel the northern United States and Canada, odd-jobbing his way through the yet unspoiled land.
In 1867, while working at a carriage parts shop in Indianapolis, Muir suffered a blinding eye injury that would change his life. When he regained his sight one month later, Muir resolved to turn his eyes to the fields and woods. There began his years of wanderlust. He walked a thousand miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. He sailed to Cuba , and later to Panama, where he crossed the Isthmus and sailed up the West Coast, landing in San Francisco in March, 1868. From that moment on, though he would travel around the world, California became his home.
It was California's Sierra Nevada and Yosemite that truly claimed him. In 1868, he walked across the San Joaquin Valley through waist-high wildflowers and into the high country for the first time. Later he would write: "Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called no the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light...the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain chains I have ever seen." He herded sheep through that first summer and made his home in Yosemite.
By 1871 he had found living glaciers in the Sierra and had conceived his then-controversial theory of the glaciation of Yosemite Valley. He began to be known throughout the country. Famous men of the time - Joseph LeConte, Asa Gray and Ralph Waldo Emerson - made their way to the door of his pine cabin.
Beginning in 1874, a series of articles by Muir entitled "Studies in the Sierra" launched his successful career as a writer. He left the mountains and lived for awhile in Oakland, California. From there he took many trips, including his first to Alaska in 1879, where he discovered Glacier Bay. In 1880, he married Louie Wanda Strentzel and moved to Martinez, California , where they raised their two daughters, Wanda and Helen. Settling down to some measure of domestic life, Muir went into partnership with his father-in-law and managed the family fruit ranch with great success.
But ten years of active ranching did not quell Muir's wanderlust. His travels took him to Alaska many more times, to Australia, South America, Africa, Europe, China, Japan, and of course, again and again to his beloved Sierra Nevada.
In later years he turned more seriously to writing, publishing 300 articles and 10 major books that recounted his travels, expounded his naturalist philosophy, and beckoned everyone to "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings." Muir's love of the high country gave his writings a spiritual quality. His readers, whether they be presidents, congressmen, or plain folks, were inspired and often moved to action by the enthusiasm of Muir's own unbounded love of nature.
Through a series of articles appearing in Century magazine, Muir drew attention to the devastation of mountain meadows and forests by sheep and cattle. With the help of Century's associate editor, Robert Underwood Johnson, Muir worked to remedy this destruction. In 1890, due in large part to the efforts of Muir and Johnson, an act of Congress created Yosemite National Park. Muir was also personally involved in the creation of Sequoia , Mount Rainier , Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon national parks. Muir deservedly is often called the "Father of Our National Park System ".
Johnson and others suggested to Muir that an association be formed to protect the newly created Yosemite National Park from the assaults of stockmen and others who would diminish its boundaries. In 1892, Muir and a number of his supporters founded the Sierra Club to, in Muir's words, "do something for wildness and make the mountains glad." Muir served as the Club's president until his death in 1914.
In 1901, Muir published Our National Parks , the book that brought him to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1903, Roosevelt visited Muir in Yosemite. There, together, beneath the trees, they laid the foundation of Roosevelt's innovative and notable conservation programs.
Muir and the Sierra Club fought many battles to protect Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, the most dramatic being the campaign to prevent the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley within Yosemite National Park. In 1913, after years of effort, the battle was lost and the valley that Muir likened to Yosemite itself was doomed to become a reservoir to supply the water needs of a growing San Francisco. The following year, after a short illness, Muir died in a Los Angeles hospital after visiting his daughter Wanda.
John Muir was perhaps this country's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist. He taught the people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing and protecting our natural heritage. His words have heightened our perception of nature. His personal and determined involvement in the great conservation questions of the day was and remains an inspiration for environmental activists everywhere."
2. Background from {[https://www.thoughtco.com/john-muir-inspired-the-conservation-movement-1773625]}
John Muir, the "Father of the National Park System"
John Muir is a significant figure of the 19th century as he stood opposed to the exploitation of natural resources at a time when many believed the resources of the earth were infinite.
Muir's writings were influential, and as co-founder and first president of the Sierra Club, he was an icon and inspiration to the conservation movement. He is widely remembered as "the father of the National Parks."
As a young man, Muir demonstrated an unusual talent for building and maintaining mechanical devices. And his skill as a machinist might have made a very good living in a rapidly industrializing society.
Yet his love of nature drew him away from workshops and factories. And he would joke about how he gave up pursuing the life of a millionaire to live like a tramp.
Early Life
John Muir was born at Dunbar, Scotland on April 21, 1838. As a small boy, he enjoyed the outdoors, climbing hills and rocks in the rough Scottish countryside.
His family sailed to America in 1849 with no apparent destination in mind but wound up settling on a farm in Wisconsin. Muir’s father was tyrannical and ill-suited to farm life, and young Muir, his brothers and sisters, and his mother did much of the work on the farm.
After receiving some infrequent schooling and educating himself by reading what he could, Muir was able to attend the University of Wisconsin to study science. He gave up college to pursue various jobs which relied on his unusual mechanical aptitude. As a young man, he received recognition for being able to make working clocks out of carved wooden pieces and also inventing various useful gadgets.
Travels to the American South and West
During the Civil War, Muir moved across the border to Canada to avoid being conscripted. His action was not viewed as a terribly controversial maneuver at a time when others could legally buy their way out of the draft.
After the war, Muir moved to Indiana, where he used his mechanical skills in factory work until an accident nearly blinded him.
With his sight mostly restored, he fixated on his love of nature and decided to see more of the United States. In 1867 he embarked on an epic hike from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico. His ultimate goal was to visit South America.
After reaching Florida, Muir became ill in the tropical climate. He abandoned his plan to go to South America, and eventually caught a boat to New York, where he then caught another boat that would take him “around the horn” to California.
John Muir arrived in San Francisco in late March 1868. That spring he walked to the place that would become his spiritual home, California's spectacular Yosemite Valley. The valley, with its dramatic granite cliffs and majestic waterfalls, touched Muir deeply and he found it difficult to leave.
At that time, parts of Yosemite were already protected from development, thanks to the Yosemite Valley Grant Act signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864.
Early tourists were already coming to view the astonishing scenery, and Muir took a job working in a sawmill owned by one of the early innkeepers in the valley. Muir stayed in the vicinity of Yosemite, exploring the area, for most of the next decade.
Settling Down, for a Time
After returning from a trip to Alaska to study glaciers in 1880, Muir married Louie Wanda Strentzel, whose family owned a fruit ranch not far from San Francisco.
Muir began working the ranch, and became reasonably prosperous in the fruit business, thanks to the attention to detail and enormous energy he typically poured into his pursuits. Yet the life of a farmer and businessman didn’t satisfy him.
Muir and his wife had a somewhat unconventional marriage for the time. As she recognized that he was most happy in his travels and explorations, she encouraged him to travel while she remained at home on their ranch with their two daughters. Muir often returned to Yosemite, and also made several more trips to Alaska.
Yosemite National Park
Yellowstone was named the first National Park in the United States in 1872, and Muir and others began to campaign in the 1880s for the same distinction for Yosemite. Muir published a series of magazine articles making his case for further protection of Yosemite.
Congress passed legislation declaring Yosemite a National Park in 1890, thanks in large part to Muir’s advocacy.
The Founding of the Sierra Club
A magazine editor with whom Muir had worked, Robert Underwood Johnson, suggested that some organization should be formed to continue to advocate for Yosemite’s protection. In 1892, Muir and Johnson founded the Sierra Club, and Muir served as its first president.
As Muir put it, the Sierra Club was formed to “do something for wildness and make the mountains glad.” The organization continues at the forefront of the environmental movement today, and Muir, of course, is a powerful symbol of the club’s vision.
Friendships
When the writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Yosemite in 1871, Muir was virtually unknown and still working in a sawmill. The men met and became good friends, and continued corresponding after Emerson returned to Massachusetts.
John Muir gained considerable fame in his life through his writings, and when notable people visited California and specifically Yosemite they often sought his insights.
In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt visited Yosemite and was guided about by Muir. The two men camped under the stars in the Mariposa Grove of giant Sequoia trees, and their campfire conversation helped form Roosevelt's own plans for conserving America's wilderness. The men also posed for an iconic photograph atop Glacier Point.
When Muir died in 1914, his obituary in the New York Times noted his friendships with Thomas Edison and President Woodrow Wilson.
Legacy
In the 19th century, many Americans believed natural resources should be consumed with no limits. Muir was utterly opposed to this concept, and his writings presented an eloquent counterpoint to the exploitation of the wilderness.
It's difficult to imagine the modern conservation movement without the influence of Muir. And to this day he casts an enormous shadow over how people live, and conserve, in the modern world."
FYI SSG (Join to see) PO2 (Join to see)1SG Walter Craig SPC Matthew Lamb TSgt David L.PO1 Robert GeorgeSSG Robert Mark Odom COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT John " Mac " McConnellCWO3 (Join to see) PO1 William "Chip" NagelLTC Greg Henning SGT Gregory Lawritson LTC (Join to see)SPC Nancy GreeneSSG Franklin Briant1stsgt Glenn Brackin
Biography of John Muir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGOolPB8yO8
Images:
1. (a) John Muir, about 1875. (b) John Muir, about 1902. Photo by Carleton Watkins
2. John Muir with wife Louie and daughters Helen and Wanda on the front steps of the Martinez home. NPS photo. John Muir NHS. JOMU 1732.
3. Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir at Yosemite. Library of Congress.
4. John Muir sits at his desk and writes. The desk is displayed in the 'Scribble Den', which is in the upstairs of the Muir home in Martinez, CA.
Biographies
1. vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx
2. thoughtco.com/john-muir-inspired-the-conservation-movement-1773625]
1. Background from {[https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx]}
John Muir - farmer, inventor, sheepherder, naturalist, explorer, writer, and conservationist - was born on April 21, 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland. Until the age of eleven he attended the local schools of that small coastal town. In 1849, the Muir family emigrated to the United States, settling first at Fountain Lake and then moving to Hickory Hill Farm near Portage, Wisconsin.
Muir's father was a harsh disciplinarian and worked his family from dawn to dusk. Whenever they were allowed a short period away from the plow and hoe, Muir and his younger brother would roam the fields and woods of the rich Wisconsin countryside. John became more and more the loving observer of the natural world. He also became an inventor, a carver of curious but practical mechanisms in wood. He made clocks that kept accurate time and created a wondrous device that tipped him out of bed before dawn.
In 1860, Muir took his inventions to the state fair at Madison, where he won admiration and prizes. Also that year he entered the University of Wisconsin. He made fine grades, but after three years left Madison to travel the northern United States and Canada, odd-jobbing his way through the yet unspoiled land.
In 1867, while working at a carriage parts shop in Indianapolis, Muir suffered a blinding eye injury that would change his life. When he regained his sight one month later, Muir resolved to turn his eyes to the fields and woods. There began his years of wanderlust. He walked a thousand miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. He sailed to Cuba , and later to Panama, where he crossed the Isthmus and sailed up the West Coast, landing in San Francisco in March, 1868. From that moment on, though he would travel around the world, California became his home.
It was California's Sierra Nevada and Yosemite that truly claimed him. In 1868, he walked across the San Joaquin Valley through waist-high wildflowers and into the high country for the first time. Later he would write: "Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called no the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light...the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain chains I have ever seen." He herded sheep through that first summer and made his home in Yosemite.
By 1871 he had found living glaciers in the Sierra and had conceived his then-controversial theory of the glaciation of Yosemite Valley. He began to be known throughout the country. Famous men of the time - Joseph LeConte, Asa Gray and Ralph Waldo Emerson - made their way to the door of his pine cabin.
Beginning in 1874, a series of articles by Muir entitled "Studies in the Sierra" launched his successful career as a writer. He left the mountains and lived for awhile in Oakland, California. From there he took many trips, including his first to Alaska in 1879, where he discovered Glacier Bay. In 1880, he married Louie Wanda Strentzel and moved to Martinez, California , where they raised their two daughters, Wanda and Helen. Settling down to some measure of domestic life, Muir went into partnership with his father-in-law and managed the family fruit ranch with great success.
But ten years of active ranching did not quell Muir's wanderlust. His travels took him to Alaska many more times, to Australia, South America, Africa, Europe, China, Japan, and of course, again and again to his beloved Sierra Nevada.
In later years he turned more seriously to writing, publishing 300 articles and 10 major books that recounted his travels, expounded his naturalist philosophy, and beckoned everyone to "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings." Muir's love of the high country gave his writings a spiritual quality. His readers, whether they be presidents, congressmen, or plain folks, were inspired and often moved to action by the enthusiasm of Muir's own unbounded love of nature.
Through a series of articles appearing in Century magazine, Muir drew attention to the devastation of mountain meadows and forests by sheep and cattle. With the help of Century's associate editor, Robert Underwood Johnson, Muir worked to remedy this destruction. In 1890, due in large part to the efforts of Muir and Johnson, an act of Congress created Yosemite National Park. Muir was also personally involved in the creation of Sequoia , Mount Rainier , Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon national parks. Muir deservedly is often called the "Father of Our National Park System ".
Johnson and others suggested to Muir that an association be formed to protect the newly created Yosemite National Park from the assaults of stockmen and others who would diminish its boundaries. In 1892, Muir and a number of his supporters founded the Sierra Club to, in Muir's words, "do something for wildness and make the mountains glad." Muir served as the Club's president until his death in 1914.
In 1901, Muir published Our National Parks , the book that brought him to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1903, Roosevelt visited Muir in Yosemite. There, together, beneath the trees, they laid the foundation of Roosevelt's innovative and notable conservation programs.
Muir and the Sierra Club fought many battles to protect Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, the most dramatic being the campaign to prevent the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley within Yosemite National Park. In 1913, after years of effort, the battle was lost and the valley that Muir likened to Yosemite itself was doomed to become a reservoir to supply the water needs of a growing San Francisco. The following year, after a short illness, Muir died in a Los Angeles hospital after visiting his daughter Wanda.
John Muir was perhaps this country's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist. He taught the people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing and protecting our natural heritage. His words have heightened our perception of nature. His personal and determined involvement in the great conservation questions of the day was and remains an inspiration for environmental activists everywhere."
2. Background from {[https://www.thoughtco.com/john-muir-inspired-the-conservation-movement-1773625]}
John Muir, the "Father of the National Park System"
John Muir is a significant figure of the 19th century as he stood opposed to the exploitation of natural resources at a time when many believed the resources of the earth were infinite.
Muir's writings were influential, and as co-founder and first president of the Sierra Club, he was an icon and inspiration to the conservation movement. He is widely remembered as "the father of the National Parks."
As a young man, Muir demonstrated an unusual talent for building and maintaining mechanical devices. And his skill as a machinist might have made a very good living in a rapidly industrializing society.
Yet his love of nature drew him away from workshops and factories. And he would joke about how he gave up pursuing the life of a millionaire to live like a tramp.
Early Life
John Muir was born at Dunbar, Scotland on April 21, 1838. As a small boy, he enjoyed the outdoors, climbing hills and rocks in the rough Scottish countryside.
His family sailed to America in 1849 with no apparent destination in mind but wound up settling on a farm in Wisconsin. Muir’s father was tyrannical and ill-suited to farm life, and young Muir, his brothers and sisters, and his mother did much of the work on the farm.
After receiving some infrequent schooling and educating himself by reading what he could, Muir was able to attend the University of Wisconsin to study science. He gave up college to pursue various jobs which relied on his unusual mechanical aptitude. As a young man, he received recognition for being able to make working clocks out of carved wooden pieces and also inventing various useful gadgets.
Travels to the American South and West
During the Civil War, Muir moved across the border to Canada to avoid being conscripted. His action was not viewed as a terribly controversial maneuver at a time when others could legally buy their way out of the draft.
After the war, Muir moved to Indiana, where he used his mechanical skills in factory work until an accident nearly blinded him.
With his sight mostly restored, he fixated on his love of nature and decided to see more of the United States. In 1867 he embarked on an epic hike from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico. His ultimate goal was to visit South America.
After reaching Florida, Muir became ill in the tropical climate. He abandoned his plan to go to South America, and eventually caught a boat to New York, where he then caught another boat that would take him “around the horn” to California.
John Muir arrived in San Francisco in late March 1868. That spring he walked to the place that would become his spiritual home, California's spectacular Yosemite Valley. The valley, with its dramatic granite cliffs and majestic waterfalls, touched Muir deeply and he found it difficult to leave.
At that time, parts of Yosemite were already protected from development, thanks to the Yosemite Valley Grant Act signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864.
Early tourists were already coming to view the astonishing scenery, and Muir took a job working in a sawmill owned by one of the early innkeepers in the valley. Muir stayed in the vicinity of Yosemite, exploring the area, for most of the next decade.
Settling Down, for a Time
After returning from a trip to Alaska to study glaciers in 1880, Muir married Louie Wanda Strentzel, whose family owned a fruit ranch not far from San Francisco.
Muir began working the ranch, and became reasonably prosperous in the fruit business, thanks to the attention to detail and enormous energy he typically poured into his pursuits. Yet the life of a farmer and businessman didn’t satisfy him.
Muir and his wife had a somewhat unconventional marriage for the time. As she recognized that he was most happy in his travels and explorations, she encouraged him to travel while she remained at home on their ranch with their two daughters. Muir often returned to Yosemite, and also made several more trips to Alaska.
Yosemite National Park
Yellowstone was named the first National Park in the United States in 1872, and Muir and others began to campaign in the 1880s for the same distinction for Yosemite. Muir published a series of magazine articles making his case for further protection of Yosemite.
Congress passed legislation declaring Yosemite a National Park in 1890, thanks in large part to Muir’s advocacy.
The Founding of the Sierra Club
A magazine editor with whom Muir had worked, Robert Underwood Johnson, suggested that some organization should be formed to continue to advocate for Yosemite’s protection. In 1892, Muir and Johnson founded the Sierra Club, and Muir served as its first president.
As Muir put it, the Sierra Club was formed to “do something for wildness and make the mountains glad.” The organization continues at the forefront of the environmental movement today, and Muir, of course, is a powerful symbol of the club’s vision.
Friendships
When the writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Yosemite in 1871, Muir was virtually unknown and still working in a sawmill. The men met and became good friends, and continued corresponding after Emerson returned to Massachusetts.
John Muir gained considerable fame in his life through his writings, and when notable people visited California and specifically Yosemite they often sought his insights.
In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt visited Yosemite and was guided about by Muir. The two men camped under the stars in the Mariposa Grove of giant Sequoia trees, and their campfire conversation helped form Roosevelt's own plans for conserving America's wilderness. The men also posed for an iconic photograph atop Glacier Point.
When Muir died in 1914, his obituary in the New York Times noted his friendships with Thomas Edison and President Woodrow Wilson.
Legacy
In the 19th century, many Americans believed natural resources should be consumed with no limits. Muir was utterly opposed to this concept, and his writings presented an eloquent counterpoint to the exploitation of the wilderness.
It's difficult to imagine the modern conservation movement without the influence of Muir. And to this day he casts an enormous shadow over how people live, and conserve, in the modern world."
FYI SSG (Join to see) PO2 (Join to see)1SG Walter Craig SPC Matthew Lamb TSgt David L.PO1 Robert GeorgeSSG Robert Mark Odom COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT John " Mac " McConnellCWO3 (Join to see) PO1 William "Chip" NagelLTC Greg Henning SGT Gregory Lawritson LTC (Join to see)SPC Nancy GreeneSSG Franklin Briant1stsgt Glenn Brackin
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LTC Stephen F.
TOP 20 John Muir Quotes. Wallpapers - https://quotefancy.com/john-muir-quotes “The mountains are calling and I must go.” — John Muir (00:00) “Going to the mo...
TOP 20 John Muir Quotes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOWTSYeyS9Q
Images:
1. Louisa 'Louie' Strentzel Muir. John's wife
2. Wanda Muir-Hannah, eldest daughter of John Muir.
3. Helen Muir Funk. Youngest daughter of John Muir.
4. Dr. John Strentzel. John Muir's father-in-law
Background from {[https://www.nps.gov/jomu/learn/historyculture/people.htm]}
1. John Muir
2. John Muir Quotes
3. Louisa "Louie" Muir
4. Wanda Muir-Hanna - eldest daughter
5. Helen Muir-Funk - youngest daughter
John Muir: A Passion for Nature
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir
A leaf, a flower, a stone - the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Muir shared his love of nature through writing and inspired people to protect our country's wild places, fueling the formation of the National Park Service and the modern conservation movement. Muir loved all things wild and saw humans as one small part of nature. He valued the natural world not only for economic gain, but for its beauty and healing powers. Muir championed the revolutionary idea that wild spaces should be set aside for all to enjoy.
Life in the Wild
"Tracing the ways of glaciers, learning how Nature sculptures mountain-waves in making scenery…beauty that so mysteriously influences every human being, is glorious work." - John Muir
Muir's passion for nature brought him to every continent except Antarctica. He experienced fantastic adventures - climbing a 100-foot tree in a thunderstorm, inching across a narrow ice bridge in Alaska, and spending a night in a blizzard on Mt. Shasta. Muir transformed his adventures into articles and books that sparked peoples' interest in nature.
Muir's grandfather helped kindle Muir's love of nature at an early age by taking him on walks through the Scottish countryside. In 1849, when Muir turned 11, his family moved to Wisconsin and started a farm, where his nature lessons continued. As a young man, Muir studied biology, botany and geology at the University of Wisconsin before venturing to see nature's wonders.
With a plant press in his backpack, Muir walked more than 1,000 miles from Kentucky to the Gulf of Mexico, gathering specimens along the way. His curiosity carried him further to California and Alaska, where he tracked the movements of glaciers. He discovered glaciers in Yosemite and was the first to suggest that ice shaped its valleys.
Sharing a Progressive Vision
"Writing is like the life of a glacier; one eternal grind." - John Muir
Muir's descriptions of glaciers and sequoias brought the beauty of nature to readers nationwide. His ideas on saving land changed how the United States viewed wilderness. As increased settlement ended the western frontier in 1890, people began to worry about using resources wisely.
Muir urged people to write politicians and "make their lives wretched until they do what is right by the woods." In 1890, unchecked grazing, logging and tourism were damaging Yosemite. Muir's articles "The Treasures of Yosemite" and "Features of a Proposed Yosemite National Park" appeared in Century Magazine, which boasted more than one million readers. A month later, Congress designated Yosemite a national park.
Friends and family encouraged Muir to write. He struggled with writing, yet recognized the power of prose and worked tirelessly in his "Scribble Den," his upstairs office in his Martinez home.
Writing for a Cause
John wrote and had published over 300 magazine articles and 12 books. These books and articles bubble over with his love of adventure, nature, wildness and the inter-connectivity of it all. At the time of his death he was working on a book about his travels in Alaska. He had plans and enough material in his notebooks for ten more books.
John Muir Published Books
Words into Action
"The battle for conservation must go on endlessly. It is part of the universal warfare between right and wrong." - John Muir
Muir's popular writings caught the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who invited him camping in Yosemite. Roosevelt left behind reporters and his Secret Service agents for the company of two park rangers, an army packer, John Muir and the wild. They spent three days exploring meadows and waterfalls and three nights discussing conservation around campfires. One night, five inches of snow fell, and the president arose to white flakes on his blankets. Inspired by his trip with Muir, Roosevelt set aside more than 230 million acres of public land - an area bigger than the size of Texas - that included five national parks and 18 national monuments.
Muir's advocacy helped create several national parks, including Sequoia (1890), Mount Rainier (1899) and Grand Canyon (1908). He wrote "only Uncle Sam" could save our country's land for future generations to enjoy, an idea that led to the creation of the National Park Service in 1916.
Muir and other concerned citizens also founded the Sierra Club, a nonprofit organization promoting outdoor recreation and environmental advocacy. With more than one million members, this grassroots group continues Muir's work to this day.
Muir's Conservation Legacy
Thanks to Muir's vision, you can visit over 400 National Park Service sites. Called "America's Best Idea," the United States' unique system of protecting natural and cultural heritage spurred other countries to do the same. Muir's writings and the places he fought to protect continue to inspire people worldwide to discover and connect with nature.
Muir's conservation legacy lives on at the John Muir National Historic Site and in our daily actions. There will always be a need for people to stand up and change their communities for the better.
John Muir and President Roosevelt
In 1903, Roosevelt visited Muir in Yosemite. Guided into the Yosemite wilderness by naturalist John Muir, the president went on a three-day wilderness trip that started at the Mariposa Grove, and included Sentinel Dome, Glacier Point, and Yosemite Valley among other points of interest in Yosemite National Park. Muir seized the opportunity "to do some forest good in talking freely around the campfire," and the President, referring to John Muir, is quoted as saying "Of course of all the people in the world, he was the one with whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite."
Roosevelt and Muir camped the first night, May 15, at the Mariposa Grove under the Grizzly Giant, with the President bedding down in a pile of about 40 wool blankets, and the second night was spent in the vicinity of Sentinel Dome during a snow storm that left five inches of new snow on top of the existing five feet of snow. The third night of camping was at the edge Bridalveil Meadow in Yosemite Valley, where President Roosevelt was Muir's captive audience to hear a convincing plea for Yosemite wilderness and for setting aside other areas in the United States for park purposes. That night, during the campfire discussion, Muir's main focus of conversation was not only the need for forest preservation but also his concern that the California State Grant of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove, surrounded in 1892 by Yosemite National Park, be receded to the United States for inclusion in the park. Roosevelt agreed that two controls made for "triple troubles." Eventually, their discussion prompted the Presidential signature on the Yosemite Recession Bill in June, 1906. This Joint Resolution accepted the recession by the State of California of the Yosemite Valley Grant and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, now the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, which withdrew them from state protection and put them under federal protection, making them part of Yosemite National Park.
"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," said Theodore Roosevelt.
During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt signed into existence five national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and 150 national forests (Source for forgoing: "100th Anniversary of President Theodore Roosevelt and Naturalist John Muir's Visit at Yosemite National Park" - National Park Service Press Release (May 15, 2003).
2. John Muir Quotes
"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." Our National Parks
"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness." Wilderness World of John Muir
"Civilization has not much to brag about. It drives its victims in flocks, repressing the growth of individuality." Son of the Wilderness
"I might have become a millionaire, but I chose to become a tramp!" Son of the Wilderness
"After a whole day in the woods, we are already immortal." John of the Mountains
"Therefore we are all, in some sense, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home." Steep Trails
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike." The Yosemite
"It's always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls." John of the Mountains
"But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks." Steep Trails
"I have always befriended animals and have said many a good word for them. Even to the least-loved mosquitoes I gave many a meal, and told them to go in peace." John of the Mountains
"It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter." Letters to a Friend, July 26, 1868 (about Yosemite)
"Both ocean and sky are already about as rosy as possible the one with stars, the other with dulse, and foam, and wild light." Steep Trails
"It is a vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored and glowing like oak and maple woods in autumn, when the sun gold is richest." Steep Trails (about the Grand Canyon)
"The sun shines not on us but in us." John of the Mountain
"The battle for conservation must go on endlessly. It is part of the universal warfare between right and wrong." Son of the Wilderness
"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out I found, was really going in." John of the Mountains
3. Louisa "Louie" Muir
John Muir's Wife. Louisa Wanda Strentzel was born in Texas in 1847. She came to California in 1849, the same year that John Muir was coming to Wisconsin from Scotland. So much has been made of Muir's life that Louie's life and contributions are hardly known. This brief paper is a tribute to Louie and to the help and support she gave her husband in his work. Louie was a wonderful musician, wife, mother, ranch manager and helpmate. Muir did not relegate Louie to an anonymous life in the background -- this is what she herself preferred. She stayed close to home because she wanted to, preferring not to be away more than a day or two. Certainly she was not inclined to camp out on an Alaskan glacier or even to take a walk in the hills nearby their Alhambra Valley home. Daughter Helen's July, 1963 letter contains a rare look at Louie and forms much of what we know about Louie.
In 1849 the Strentzel family came to San Diego, California by covered wagon and then settled along the Merced River. The family operated an inn and then a farm where Louie's father, John Strentzel, began horticultural experiments. After three years in that area, they moved to Cantilde;ada del Hambre (Valley of Hunger) in 1853 and camped out until their first house could be built. Louie's mother, Louisiana Strentzel, disliked the name of the valley (Spanish soldiers had been unable to find food and nearly starved) and renamed it Alhambra Valley for the popular story published in the mid-1800s by Washington Irving about the Alhambra palace in Spain.
In 1859 Louie's formal education began as a day student at Miss Atkins Young Ladies Seminary across the Bay in Benicia. The Young Ladies Seminary (YLS) opened with 25 students in 1852, founded by local citizens. Miss Mary Atkins became the principal in 1854 and was placed in full control in January 1855. Later in 1855 she paid $2495. for the buildings and property and became owner as well as principal. Mary Atkins was born in Jefferson, Ohio, in 1819 and was an 1845 graduate of Oberlin College. She came to California via Panama in 1853. The seminary was located in an old residence built by a Captain Randall at 153 West I Street between First and Second Streets. Young ladies in search of culture and grace arrived by steamship and horse from various cities in the U.S. including the gold mining towns and from South America, Hawaii, and Mexico. At YLS a neat personal appearance was important notwithstanding the admonition that "no student is to tarry before a mirror for more than three seconds." The 1863 YLS catalog lists departments in English, Language (Latin, French, German, and Spanish) and Fine Arts (Music, Painting, and Drawing). The 1868 commencement audience included Samuel Clemens.
Cyrus Mills, a graduate of the Union Theological Seminary in New York, met Miss Atkins in Hawaii while the latter was on vacation there. Apparently she wanted to sell the school, for Mills inspected the property later and purchased it for $5000. on October 7, 1865. By that time Benicia had four schools: the Episcopal School for Boys, the Catholic School for Girls, C.J. Flatt's Benicia College, and the Young Ladies Seminary. Mills' friend Dr. I.E. Dwinell, pastor of the Sacramento Congregational Church, accompanied Mills on his inspection visit to YLS. In 1880 Dwinell married Louie and John. Mills had purchased property in Alameda County and in 1870 broke ground for Mills College there. In May, 1870 he announced that the next YLS semester would begin August 2 at the new location. Eventually Dr. Dwinell became a trustee of Mills College.
In 1877 Mary Atkins returned to Benicia from Ohio and reopened the old Randall house as a school for girls. This year there were 25 students, the same as when the school first opened in 1852.
Louie Strentzel took the ferry "Carquinez" each day over and back. At the YLS she studied everything from English to Entomology and became a music scholar on the piano. Each day each student was graded, and Louie's report from March 12, 1860, by Mary Atkins, survives. Louie was graded on 22 different subjects and scored a perfect 10 on virtually all of them. Miss Atkins noted that the "Examination passed very creditably. It was an honor to the school."
Among the classical piano pieces Louie learned was Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique. This piece requires considerable musical talent, and we can appreciate the skill on the piano which Louie possessed. If Louie hadn't married Muir, she possibly could have had a career in music had she wanted to. What we know about Louie's music comes from her mother's diary and from some of Louie's sheet music returned to the John Muir National Historic Site by granddaughter Jean Hanna Clark. Louie graduated in May, 1864. A copy of the Strentzel's invitation to the Annual Examination of the Pupils survives.
For the next fifteen years after graduation from YLS in 1864 Louie was at home with her parents. During that period she learned a great deal about fruit ranching, hybridizing, and flowers, and she continued her study of the piano.
Louie first met John Muir on September 15, 1874 at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Carr in Oakland. That same year Dr. Strentzel was organizing the Alhambra Grange, an association of local farmers. In 1876 he built Granger's Wharf and warehouses into the Carquinez Straight portion of the Sacramento River off the Martinez shore. Music was a central theme at the semi-monthly Grange meetings on the first and third Saturdays at 2 pm in the Hall, and Louie played from the Grange song book at those meetings and for her father. One song he particularly liked was named "Hold The Fort." The melody for that song was used in England by the Transport Workers Union and known as "Storm the Fort, Ye Knights of Labor," and by the labor unions in the Eastern US in the 1800s.
On June 1, 1878, Louie played the piano for the Strentzel family and John, and they all sang several Grange songs. Muir commented to Mrs. Strentzel that they almost made a Granger of him that day, and she recorded that in her diary. But in 1882 Muir stated his opposition to the Grange.
Between 1875 and 1879 Mrs. Jeanne Carr was a frequent visitor to the Strentzels. Mrs. Carr was the wife of one of Muir's professors at the University of Wisconsin and the two corresponded for several decades. She had for years been trying to match up Louie and John, and in 1879 the pressure became intense, with Mrs. Carr working over the two of them separately. Eventually Muir gave in to her perseverance and on June 17, 1879 they became engaged, the day before Muir's first trip to Alaska. On a very stormy April 14, 1880, they were married in the Strentzel's white house with white Astrakan apple blossoms decorating the home. A copy of their Marriage Certificate, signed by Dr. Dwinell and witness Mrs. M.A. Hatch, survives. Dr. Dwinell was known to both families: He founded the Sacramento Literary Institute to which Muir lectured in 1876 and 1879; and he was a good friend of Cyrus Mills who purchased the YLS from Miss Atkins in 1865 and who later founded Mills College in Oakland. Muir would have liked Dwinell because of his literary and scientific interests -- he also founded the Agassiz Institute in 1872 following a visit of Louie Agassiz to Sacramento.
The Muirs' daughter Wanda was born March 25, 1881, and daughter Helen on January 23, 1886. Helen's room overlooked the train track, tunnels, and trestle, on the side of Mt. Wanda. She became fascinated with trains and plastered her room with posters from the train companies, learned the timetables, and watched for expected trains coming around the mountain. Both girls accompanied their father on walks in the nearby hills, and Muir named two of the peaks Mt. Wanda and Mt. Helen.
Eventually the girls wanted music lessons. They were interested in the violin, guitar, and piano and needed to practice. Muir was distracted easily from bookmaking in the upstairs Scribble Den and couldn't stand the sounds of nearby practicing. Eventually he relegated the girls' practicing to the soundproof brick room supporting the water tank at the rear of the house. Later that became known facetiously as the Music Room. Probably Louie couldn't play the piano when he was working, and likely she did most of her playing while he was gone. Also while Muir was gone, Louie managed the fruit ranch very capably, handled the finances and bookkeeping, and even sent checks to cover Muir's hotel bills.
In 1884 Louie accompanied her husband to Yosemite Valley. It was her first and only trip there and was a mistake from the start. She mistook trout for catfish, didn't like hiking about, and saw bears behind every tree. Muir also grumbled about the cost of transporting her several trunks of clothes.
At the end of the '80s when Muir had been home quite a bit of the time, his literary output vanished, and so did his enthusiasm for most everything else. He needed more time in the mountains, away from civilization. Louie recognized this and unselfishly encouraged him to follow his heart. Among her letters which encouraged John back to the mountains is the one from August 9, 1888 letter which he received in Seattle just after a climb of Mt. Rainier:
"Dear John, A ranch that needs and takes the sacrifice of a noble life, or work, ought to be flung away beyond all reach... The Alaska book and the Yosemite book, dear John, must be written, and you need to be your own self, well and strong to make them worthy of you. Ever your wife, Louie." Soon Louie began to sell off the ranch property to lessen the burden.
Louie Muir died on August 6, 1905 and is buried with John, her parents, a brother, a sister and Uncle Henry in the Strentzel/Muir cemetery about a mile from the National Historic Site.
4. Wanda Muir-Hanna - eldest daughter
John Muir's Daughter (1881-1942). Wanda Muir was the eldest of John Muir's two daughters, sister of Helen Muir. Wanda married Thomas Hanna in 1906. She had six children:
John Hanna - lives in Napa, CA (as of 2004)
Ross Hanna - lives in Dixon, CA (as of 2004)
Richard Hanna - deceased 5/9/92.
Strentzel Hanna - deceased.
Bob Hanna - deceased.
Jean Hanna deLipkau Clark - deceased. (Only granddaughter)
5. Helen Muir-Funk - youngest daughter
John Muir's Daughter. The youngest of John Muir's two daughters. Her sister was Wanda Muir Hanna (1881 - 1942). She was born January 23, 1886 in Martinez, California. Because she was often sick with respiratory ailments, the doctors felt that her health would improve in the dryer desert climate of the desert. She lived for a time in Adama, Arizona, and later lived in Daggett, California, eventually at an older age moving to Spokane Washington.
Helen married Buel Alvin Funk in October 1909. Together they had four sons:
Muir Haley Funk - b. February 2, 1911. d. Dec. 28, 1978
Stanley Muir (born Stanley M. Funk) - b. July 17, 1912. d. August 17 1962
John Muir (born Buel Funk) - b. June 28, 1914. d. April 23, 1973
Walter Muir (born Walter Muir Funk) - b. May 27, 1916, d. December 9, 2004
After Funk died in a tragic automobile accident at the age of 47, (1934) Helen and three of her sons changed their name from Funk to Muir - in 1940. The oldest son, Muir Funk, did not because his first name was Muir. Another son, Walter, who died in 2004, told an interviewer that he had every book written by his famous grandfather and many written about him by other authors. He told the interviewer, "The more I study him and the things he did, the more amazed I am. He had the most incredible way of describing things, in words I wouldn't even think of."
Helen died in Spokane, Washington, on June 17, 1964. She is buried next to her husband, Buel Alvin Funk in the Bellevue Memorial Cemetery in Ontario, California.
FYI TSgt George RodriguezSgt Kelli Mays Capt Rich BuckleyMSG Andrew White Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj Robert Thornton SFC (Join to see)SGT Steve McFarland SPC Margaret HigginsPO3 Bob McCord [~655611:spc-douglas-bolton Cynthia CroftCol Carl Whicker CWO3 Dennis M. SFC William Farrell SGT Robert R. SFC Richard Williamson SPC Chris Bayner-Cwik LTC Jeff Shearer SGT Philip Roncari
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOWTSYeyS9Q
Images:
1. Louisa 'Louie' Strentzel Muir. John's wife
2. Wanda Muir-Hannah, eldest daughter of John Muir.
3. Helen Muir Funk. Youngest daughter of John Muir.
4. Dr. John Strentzel. John Muir's father-in-law
Background from {[https://www.nps.gov/jomu/learn/historyculture/people.htm]}
1. John Muir
2. John Muir Quotes
3. Louisa "Louie" Muir
4. Wanda Muir-Hanna - eldest daughter
5. Helen Muir-Funk - youngest daughter
John Muir: A Passion for Nature
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir
A leaf, a flower, a stone - the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Muir shared his love of nature through writing and inspired people to protect our country's wild places, fueling the formation of the National Park Service and the modern conservation movement. Muir loved all things wild and saw humans as one small part of nature. He valued the natural world not only for economic gain, but for its beauty and healing powers. Muir championed the revolutionary idea that wild spaces should be set aside for all to enjoy.
Life in the Wild
"Tracing the ways of glaciers, learning how Nature sculptures mountain-waves in making scenery…beauty that so mysteriously influences every human being, is glorious work." - John Muir
Muir's passion for nature brought him to every continent except Antarctica. He experienced fantastic adventures - climbing a 100-foot tree in a thunderstorm, inching across a narrow ice bridge in Alaska, and spending a night in a blizzard on Mt. Shasta. Muir transformed his adventures into articles and books that sparked peoples' interest in nature.
Muir's grandfather helped kindle Muir's love of nature at an early age by taking him on walks through the Scottish countryside. In 1849, when Muir turned 11, his family moved to Wisconsin and started a farm, where his nature lessons continued. As a young man, Muir studied biology, botany and geology at the University of Wisconsin before venturing to see nature's wonders.
With a plant press in his backpack, Muir walked more than 1,000 miles from Kentucky to the Gulf of Mexico, gathering specimens along the way. His curiosity carried him further to California and Alaska, where he tracked the movements of glaciers. He discovered glaciers in Yosemite and was the first to suggest that ice shaped its valleys.
Sharing a Progressive Vision
"Writing is like the life of a glacier; one eternal grind." - John Muir
Muir's descriptions of glaciers and sequoias brought the beauty of nature to readers nationwide. His ideas on saving land changed how the United States viewed wilderness. As increased settlement ended the western frontier in 1890, people began to worry about using resources wisely.
Muir urged people to write politicians and "make their lives wretched until they do what is right by the woods." In 1890, unchecked grazing, logging and tourism were damaging Yosemite. Muir's articles "The Treasures of Yosemite" and "Features of a Proposed Yosemite National Park" appeared in Century Magazine, which boasted more than one million readers. A month later, Congress designated Yosemite a national park.
Friends and family encouraged Muir to write. He struggled with writing, yet recognized the power of prose and worked tirelessly in his "Scribble Den," his upstairs office in his Martinez home.
Writing for a Cause
John wrote and had published over 300 magazine articles and 12 books. These books and articles bubble over with his love of adventure, nature, wildness and the inter-connectivity of it all. At the time of his death he was working on a book about his travels in Alaska. He had plans and enough material in his notebooks for ten more books.
John Muir Published Books
Words into Action
"The battle for conservation must go on endlessly. It is part of the universal warfare between right and wrong." - John Muir
Muir's popular writings caught the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who invited him camping in Yosemite. Roosevelt left behind reporters and his Secret Service agents for the company of two park rangers, an army packer, John Muir and the wild. They spent three days exploring meadows and waterfalls and three nights discussing conservation around campfires. One night, five inches of snow fell, and the president arose to white flakes on his blankets. Inspired by his trip with Muir, Roosevelt set aside more than 230 million acres of public land - an area bigger than the size of Texas - that included five national parks and 18 national monuments.
Muir's advocacy helped create several national parks, including Sequoia (1890), Mount Rainier (1899) and Grand Canyon (1908). He wrote "only Uncle Sam" could save our country's land for future generations to enjoy, an idea that led to the creation of the National Park Service in 1916.
Muir and other concerned citizens also founded the Sierra Club, a nonprofit organization promoting outdoor recreation and environmental advocacy. With more than one million members, this grassroots group continues Muir's work to this day.
Muir's Conservation Legacy
Thanks to Muir's vision, you can visit over 400 National Park Service sites. Called "America's Best Idea," the United States' unique system of protecting natural and cultural heritage spurred other countries to do the same. Muir's writings and the places he fought to protect continue to inspire people worldwide to discover and connect with nature.
Muir's conservation legacy lives on at the John Muir National Historic Site and in our daily actions. There will always be a need for people to stand up and change their communities for the better.
John Muir and President Roosevelt
In 1903, Roosevelt visited Muir in Yosemite. Guided into the Yosemite wilderness by naturalist John Muir, the president went on a three-day wilderness trip that started at the Mariposa Grove, and included Sentinel Dome, Glacier Point, and Yosemite Valley among other points of interest in Yosemite National Park. Muir seized the opportunity "to do some forest good in talking freely around the campfire," and the President, referring to John Muir, is quoted as saying "Of course of all the people in the world, he was the one with whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite."
Roosevelt and Muir camped the first night, May 15, at the Mariposa Grove under the Grizzly Giant, with the President bedding down in a pile of about 40 wool blankets, and the second night was spent in the vicinity of Sentinel Dome during a snow storm that left five inches of new snow on top of the existing five feet of snow. The third night of camping was at the edge Bridalveil Meadow in Yosemite Valley, where President Roosevelt was Muir's captive audience to hear a convincing plea for Yosemite wilderness and for setting aside other areas in the United States for park purposes. That night, during the campfire discussion, Muir's main focus of conversation was not only the need for forest preservation but also his concern that the California State Grant of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove, surrounded in 1892 by Yosemite National Park, be receded to the United States for inclusion in the park. Roosevelt agreed that two controls made for "triple troubles." Eventually, their discussion prompted the Presidential signature on the Yosemite Recession Bill in June, 1906. This Joint Resolution accepted the recession by the State of California of the Yosemite Valley Grant and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, now the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, which withdrew them from state protection and put them under federal protection, making them part of Yosemite National Park.
"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," said Theodore Roosevelt.
During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt signed into existence five national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and 150 national forests (Source for forgoing: "100th Anniversary of President Theodore Roosevelt and Naturalist John Muir's Visit at Yosemite National Park" - National Park Service Press Release (May 15, 2003).
2. John Muir Quotes
"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." Our National Parks
"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness." Wilderness World of John Muir
"Civilization has not much to brag about. It drives its victims in flocks, repressing the growth of individuality." Son of the Wilderness
"I might have become a millionaire, but I chose to become a tramp!" Son of the Wilderness
"After a whole day in the woods, we are already immortal." John of the Mountains
"Therefore we are all, in some sense, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home." Steep Trails
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike." The Yosemite
"It's always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls." John of the Mountains
"But in every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks." Steep Trails
"I have always befriended animals and have said many a good word for them. Even to the least-loved mosquitoes I gave many a meal, and told them to go in peace." John of the Mountains
"It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter." Letters to a Friend, July 26, 1868 (about Yosemite)
"Both ocean and sky are already about as rosy as possible the one with stars, the other with dulse, and foam, and wild light." Steep Trails
"It is a vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored and glowing like oak and maple woods in autumn, when the sun gold is richest." Steep Trails (about the Grand Canyon)
"The sun shines not on us but in us." John of the Mountain
"The battle for conservation must go on endlessly. It is part of the universal warfare between right and wrong." Son of the Wilderness
"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out I found, was really going in." John of the Mountains
3. Louisa "Louie" Muir
John Muir's Wife. Louisa Wanda Strentzel was born in Texas in 1847. She came to California in 1849, the same year that John Muir was coming to Wisconsin from Scotland. So much has been made of Muir's life that Louie's life and contributions are hardly known. This brief paper is a tribute to Louie and to the help and support she gave her husband in his work. Louie was a wonderful musician, wife, mother, ranch manager and helpmate. Muir did not relegate Louie to an anonymous life in the background -- this is what she herself preferred. She stayed close to home because she wanted to, preferring not to be away more than a day or two. Certainly she was not inclined to camp out on an Alaskan glacier or even to take a walk in the hills nearby their Alhambra Valley home. Daughter Helen's July, 1963 letter contains a rare look at Louie and forms much of what we know about Louie.
In 1849 the Strentzel family came to San Diego, California by covered wagon and then settled along the Merced River. The family operated an inn and then a farm where Louie's father, John Strentzel, began horticultural experiments. After three years in that area, they moved to Cantilde;ada del Hambre (Valley of Hunger) in 1853 and camped out until their first house could be built. Louie's mother, Louisiana Strentzel, disliked the name of the valley (Spanish soldiers had been unable to find food and nearly starved) and renamed it Alhambra Valley for the popular story published in the mid-1800s by Washington Irving about the Alhambra palace in Spain.
In 1859 Louie's formal education began as a day student at Miss Atkins Young Ladies Seminary across the Bay in Benicia. The Young Ladies Seminary (YLS) opened with 25 students in 1852, founded by local citizens. Miss Mary Atkins became the principal in 1854 and was placed in full control in January 1855. Later in 1855 she paid $2495. for the buildings and property and became owner as well as principal. Mary Atkins was born in Jefferson, Ohio, in 1819 and was an 1845 graduate of Oberlin College. She came to California via Panama in 1853. The seminary was located in an old residence built by a Captain Randall at 153 West I Street between First and Second Streets. Young ladies in search of culture and grace arrived by steamship and horse from various cities in the U.S. including the gold mining towns and from South America, Hawaii, and Mexico. At YLS a neat personal appearance was important notwithstanding the admonition that "no student is to tarry before a mirror for more than three seconds." The 1863 YLS catalog lists departments in English, Language (Latin, French, German, and Spanish) and Fine Arts (Music, Painting, and Drawing). The 1868 commencement audience included Samuel Clemens.
Cyrus Mills, a graduate of the Union Theological Seminary in New York, met Miss Atkins in Hawaii while the latter was on vacation there. Apparently she wanted to sell the school, for Mills inspected the property later and purchased it for $5000. on October 7, 1865. By that time Benicia had four schools: the Episcopal School for Boys, the Catholic School for Girls, C.J. Flatt's Benicia College, and the Young Ladies Seminary. Mills' friend Dr. I.E. Dwinell, pastor of the Sacramento Congregational Church, accompanied Mills on his inspection visit to YLS. In 1880 Dwinell married Louie and John. Mills had purchased property in Alameda County and in 1870 broke ground for Mills College there. In May, 1870 he announced that the next YLS semester would begin August 2 at the new location. Eventually Dr. Dwinell became a trustee of Mills College.
In 1877 Mary Atkins returned to Benicia from Ohio and reopened the old Randall house as a school for girls. This year there were 25 students, the same as when the school first opened in 1852.
Louie Strentzel took the ferry "Carquinez" each day over and back. At the YLS she studied everything from English to Entomology and became a music scholar on the piano. Each day each student was graded, and Louie's report from March 12, 1860, by Mary Atkins, survives. Louie was graded on 22 different subjects and scored a perfect 10 on virtually all of them. Miss Atkins noted that the "Examination passed very creditably. It was an honor to the school."
Among the classical piano pieces Louie learned was Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique. This piece requires considerable musical talent, and we can appreciate the skill on the piano which Louie possessed. If Louie hadn't married Muir, she possibly could have had a career in music had she wanted to. What we know about Louie's music comes from her mother's diary and from some of Louie's sheet music returned to the John Muir National Historic Site by granddaughter Jean Hanna Clark. Louie graduated in May, 1864. A copy of the Strentzel's invitation to the Annual Examination of the Pupils survives.
For the next fifteen years after graduation from YLS in 1864 Louie was at home with her parents. During that period she learned a great deal about fruit ranching, hybridizing, and flowers, and she continued her study of the piano.
Louie first met John Muir on September 15, 1874 at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Carr in Oakland. That same year Dr. Strentzel was organizing the Alhambra Grange, an association of local farmers. In 1876 he built Granger's Wharf and warehouses into the Carquinez Straight portion of the Sacramento River off the Martinez shore. Music was a central theme at the semi-monthly Grange meetings on the first and third Saturdays at 2 pm in the Hall, and Louie played from the Grange song book at those meetings and for her father. One song he particularly liked was named "Hold The Fort." The melody for that song was used in England by the Transport Workers Union and known as "Storm the Fort, Ye Knights of Labor," and by the labor unions in the Eastern US in the 1800s.
On June 1, 1878, Louie played the piano for the Strentzel family and John, and they all sang several Grange songs. Muir commented to Mrs. Strentzel that they almost made a Granger of him that day, and she recorded that in her diary. But in 1882 Muir stated his opposition to the Grange.
Between 1875 and 1879 Mrs. Jeanne Carr was a frequent visitor to the Strentzels. Mrs. Carr was the wife of one of Muir's professors at the University of Wisconsin and the two corresponded for several decades. She had for years been trying to match up Louie and John, and in 1879 the pressure became intense, with Mrs. Carr working over the two of them separately. Eventually Muir gave in to her perseverance and on June 17, 1879 they became engaged, the day before Muir's first trip to Alaska. On a very stormy April 14, 1880, they were married in the Strentzel's white house with white Astrakan apple blossoms decorating the home. A copy of their Marriage Certificate, signed by Dr. Dwinell and witness Mrs. M.A. Hatch, survives. Dr. Dwinell was known to both families: He founded the Sacramento Literary Institute to which Muir lectured in 1876 and 1879; and he was a good friend of Cyrus Mills who purchased the YLS from Miss Atkins in 1865 and who later founded Mills College in Oakland. Muir would have liked Dwinell because of his literary and scientific interests -- he also founded the Agassiz Institute in 1872 following a visit of Louie Agassiz to Sacramento.
The Muirs' daughter Wanda was born March 25, 1881, and daughter Helen on January 23, 1886. Helen's room overlooked the train track, tunnels, and trestle, on the side of Mt. Wanda. She became fascinated with trains and plastered her room with posters from the train companies, learned the timetables, and watched for expected trains coming around the mountain. Both girls accompanied their father on walks in the nearby hills, and Muir named two of the peaks Mt. Wanda and Mt. Helen.
Eventually the girls wanted music lessons. They were interested in the violin, guitar, and piano and needed to practice. Muir was distracted easily from bookmaking in the upstairs Scribble Den and couldn't stand the sounds of nearby practicing. Eventually he relegated the girls' practicing to the soundproof brick room supporting the water tank at the rear of the house. Later that became known facetiously as the Music Room. Probably Louie couldn't play the piano when he was working, and likely she did most of her playing while he was gone. Also while Muir was gone, Louie managed the fruit ranch very capably, handled the finances and bookkeeping, and even sent checks to cover Muir's hotel bills.
In 1884 Louie accompanied her husband to Yosemite Valley. It was her first and only trip there and was a mistake from the start. She mistook trout for catfish, didn't like hiking about, and saw bears behind every tree. Muir also grumbled about the cost of transporting her several trunks of clothes.
At the end of the '80s when Muir had been home quite a bit of the time, his literary output vanished, and so did his enthusiasm for most everything else. He needed more time in the mountains, away from civilization. Louie recognized this and unselfishly encouraged him to follow his heart. Among her letters which encouraged John back to the mountains is the one from August 9, 1888 letter which he received in Seattle just after a climb of Mt. Rainier:
"Dear John, A ranch that needs and takes the sacrifice of a noble life, or work, ought to be flung away beyond all reach... The Alaska book and the Yosemite book, dear John, must be written, and you need to be your own self, well and strong to make them worthy of you. Ever your wife, Louie." Soon Louie began to sell off the ranch property to lessen the burden.
Louie Muir died on August 6, 1905 and is buried with John, her parents, a brother, a sister and Uncle Henry in the Strentzel/Muir cemetery about a mile from the National Historic Site.
4. Wanda Muir-Hanna - eldest daughter
John Muir's Daughter (1881-1942). Wanda Muir was the eldest of John Muir's two daughters, sister of Helen Muir. Wanda married Thomas Hanna in 1906. She had six children:
John Hanna - lives in Napa, CA (as of 2004)
Ross Hanna - lives in Dixon, CA (as of 2004)
Richard Hanna - deceased 5/9/92.
Strentzel Hanna - deceased.
Bob Hanna - deceased.
Jean Hanna deLipkau Clark - deceased. (Only granddaughter)
5. Helen Muir-Funk - youngest daughter
John Muir's Daughter. The youngest of John Muir's two daughters. Her sister was Wanda Muir Hanna (1881 - 1942). She was born January 23, 1886 in Martinez, California. Because she was often sick with respiratory ailments, the doctors felt that her health would improve in the dryer desert climate of the desert. She lived for a time in Adama, Arizona, and later lived in Daggett, California, eventually at an older age moving to Spokane Washington.
Helen married Buel Alvin Funk in October 1909. Together they had four sons:
Muir Haley Funk - b. February 2, 1911. d. Dec. 28, 1978
Stanley Muir (born Stanley M. Funk) - b. July 17, 1912. d. August 17 1962
John Muir (born Buel Funk) - b. June 28, 1914. d. April 23, 1973
Walter Muir (born Walter Muir Funk) - b. May 27, 1916, d. December 9, 2004
After Funk died in a tragic automobile accident at the age of 47, (1934) Helen and three of her sons changed their name from Funk to Muir - in 1940. The oldest son, Muir Funk, did not because his first name was Muir. Another son, Walter, who died in 2004, told an interviewer that he had every book written by his famous grandfather and many written about him by other authors. He told the interviewer, "The more I study him and the things he did, the more amazed I am. He had the most incredible way of describing things, in words I wouldn't even think of."
Helen died in Spokane, Washington, on June 17, 1964. She is buried next to her husband, Buel Alvin Funk in the Bellevue Memorial Cemetery in Ontario, California.
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