VACATIONING IN MUIR'S BOYHOOD HAUNTS
Holmes, Fred L.
Vacationing in Muir's Boyhood Haunts Old Home North of Portage, Wisconsin, is Nature's Herbarium of Wild Plants and Flowers By FRED L. HOLMES N ATURE'S herbarium of wild plants and flowers still...
...Have the lake and its immediate surroundings changed much since John Muir lived here I questioned, "Not much," and the face of the old man brightened, "The gophers still plunder the fresh fields of planted corn...
...A part of the old barn is still standing...
...In recently reading Emerson's Journals, I was struck and pleased with the fact that he places John Muir in the list of what he called "My Men...
...Around the little glacial lake, which bears his name in Wisconsin, will be found the mystic chords of inspiration that sent him on his great career which has resulted in benefits to all nature lovers and to all generations...
...a section of the house, how veneered with brick, is there...
...the robin in spring sang his "Fear not...
...A thirsty swarm of singing, stinging mosquitos began to interrupt our musings...
...Once when he was in California My affection and admiration for Muir were deep and genuine...
...John was the older and did much of the work...
...Over sandy, weedy hummocks we rushed to get a full view of the basin of water, This was the Eureka for our trampings, Fountain Lake, as it was called when Muir fished, bathed and paddled its surface, now known as either Ennis or Muir Lake, is about a mile long and half as wide...
...from the withering dry stalks at the grassy edge of the lake, which now bears his name, the red-winged blackbird pitched his rich, simple strain of "Baumpalee, Baumpalee...
...It is as John told the story in his book...
...he wrote to me for a plant that grow in the marsh land by the lake and said he had never found it elsewhere on his travels...
...Now Called Muir Lake DOWN the roadway a few rods we came upon an old, unpainted weather-beaten, deserted farm house that was fast falling into ruin...
...John Burroughs' Tribute to Muir...
...His father was a hard taskmaster, After John had left the community and lived in the west, he returned two or three times and always came to visit with me...
...The well is over ninety feet deep and all but ten feet of loose earth on the surface was chiseled by John Muir...
...He met no "mush of concession" when he met Muir...
...From unpublished letter by John Burroughs, November 29, 1916...
...They remain as gardens of wild nature...
...Behind it was the glistening lake...
...In the dooryard of the large farm home at its far end sat an old man, with long grey beard, Had I not known that John Muir was dead I would have mistaken the identity, It was Samuel En-nis, .76, his old Scotch-Irish friend...
...the prairie chickens strolled in family flocks over the freshly plowed ground...
...There is inspiration in a tramping trip to the haunts of John Muir...
...Later we learned, from an aged resident of the neighborhood who knew Muir, and who looked enough like him in physical appearance to be taken as his brother, that the Washington portrait had been in the school "ever since John attended," The schoolhouse is set in a little clearing...
...through solid rock before water was reached...
...Boomp!' from the fence corner...
...Nowhere outside of the unsettled lands of northern Wisconsin will be found such a profusion of trees and flowers as are still luxuriant in the vicinity of Muir's boyhood haunts...
...Muir said Emerson had the "house habit...
...Over this sinuous, sandy trace he had often driven a yoke of oxen, "wise and tame with no other harness than a chain and a crooked piece of wood on their necks," Took Up Homestead WHEN Daniel Muir came with his two sons from Scotland to make a home in this wilderness in 1849, before the other family members came, the land was homesteaded by him from the government, Selection of the spot was determined because of a gushing spring from the hillside above which the rude pioneer home was erected...
...Much of the foliage of the woods have not been trampled under the hoof of cattle nor suffered the constant snipping of the sheep...
...Pushing through a lush of tangled grass, came upon the nest of a red-winged blackbird— and then another, Around about were scores of these songsters deftly balancing themselves on tall, swaying last year's cattails, singing the same notes as when John Muir paused in his labors of clearing the land three-quarters of a century ago to find inspiration in their gleeful music...
...A Riot of Flowers FROM its still shores came a swishing of waters through the weeds...
...and when autumn came with its cold, frosty nights the Canadian gray geese, in long trains, flew honking over the little eyelet of water on their journey to the southward...
...During his work in the fields he became familiar with the habits of birds and animals, the characteristics of flowers and trees, The hawk cir-cled overhead to prey on rabbits and gopheTg...
...the frogs still hold their evening song festival and the partridge drumbs, 'Boomp...
...There is no ridge nor rocks to encumber its shores, which are low and boggy from the decaying marsh grasses, and which shake like jell under the weight of a person ap-proaching the water's edge, A few rods in, where the lake deepens, the circumference is rimmed with pads of green supporting white and yellow water lilie—a scene which the nature vandals have not yet laid to waste...
...The building had since been remodeled, but the surroundings were untouched...
...Fear not...
...Vacationing in Muir's Boyhood Haunts Old Home North of Portage, Wisconsin, is Nature's Herbarium of Wild Plants and Flowers By FRED L. HOLMES N ATURE'S herbarium of wild plants and flowers still unfolds its pages in luxuriant profusion near the Fox River headwaters in Wisconsin, around the boyhood home and haunts of John Muir, It was here in this tangle of foliage and trees that the famous naturalist obtained from a budding, pulsing earth the primal lessons in botany and country lore, which made him later renowned as a naturalist, A quenchless desire of several years to visit this country was gratified one hot day, when a companion of like interests accepted the invitation...
...It often seemed to me that our fierce, over-industrious way of getting grain from the ground was too closely connected with grave-digging...
...The landmarks were still about us as commanding as a guidepost directing traffic...
...there were unevenly arranged clumps of yellow snapdragon" and scores of other blossoming wild plants which Muir must have communed with intimately—but were strangers to me...
...After eight years of labor, when these fields had been improved, John's father sold to David M. Galloway, who had married Sarah Muir...
...From this home, with his bundle of home-whittled inventions, he went to Madison in the early sixties to attend the state fair and exhibit his collection...
...Cheer up...
...My farm of 160 acres was all grubbed out of the wilderness by John Muir," he related, "John was older than I, but I remember him, As a lad, he was always working from early morning until late at night...
...The door stood ajar...
...There had been heavy rainfalls during the spring months and the growth was so abundant as to make progress through the thicket wearisome...
...But Emerson looked upon himself then as an old man, though he was only 68...
...One day he was overcome with choke-damp, but tumbled unconsciously into the bucket and was brought to the surface.'' Many improvements were made after the Muirs sold...
...While we hesitated I visioned Muir's story when as a youthful, sinewy lad he saved himself from drowning in the center of this cool pond...
...It was a road of ten miles northward from Portage, close to the twisting Fox river bed, but the country highway was resplendent with the liveries of the season...
...Muir's Labors Remembered NEVER take a drink of water but I think I of John Muir and what an industrious, ingenious young man he must have been," said Thomas Kearns, the present Hickory Hill farm owner...
...This was no tourist's route of travel...
...There are the lilac bushes which John's sister Sarah planted...
...The fountain is dry now...
...the blackbirds steal the ends of the ears when in the milk...
...It was a task of months...
...Along these paths Muir had trudged many times on his way to town on a mission for supplies...
...Great bunches of painted warrior grew wildly in brilliant exuberance about the yard...
...For him these tiresome, long days of labor to the boy in his teens had later compensations...
...Aside from the meager schooling Muir had obtained in Scotland, he had gone here one winter...
...And then began the task of clearing the land, a toil so irksome and grilling under the stern commands of an exacting father, that in all the years to follow these labors remained both fresh and depressing upon John Muir, "We were all made slaves through the vice of over-industry," he later wrote in his memoirs...
...There were no beds of domesticated flowers, no out-of-doors apparatus for athletie enjoyments, The building looked worn and tired of educational work, Across the highway was a tangle of trees and shrubs...
...Conversation was on one subject...
...Were all these farm lands about cleared by the Muirs...
...Mostly by John and David," was the answer...
...Its crystal spring waters spangle and shimmer in the sun as of old, The hills about it and the sloping meadows tell the age-long story of its glacial origin...
...The things in wild life about interested him...
...Hickory Hill Farm RETURNING to the highway, my companion and I started in search of the second home of John Muir...
...It was this visit that thrilled and inspired him about the outside world and sent him in pursuit of education at the University of Wisconsin, which ended in his matriculation as a lifelong scholar in "the University of the Wilderness...
...The Hickory Hill 320-acre farm was brought to a high state of cultivation when owned by the Muirs...
...A few years afterwards the property came into our family and we have lived here since...
...But even to the uninitiated, however, there were thrills at this sight of Nature's gay plumage, A lane bordered on each side by fields of waving, rustling corn led from the lake...
...Muir's nature lore and his striking characteristics were bound to make an impression upon Emerson...
...In the shade of the trees grew sarsaparilla and ginseng...
...He told us on one of his visits a few years ago how he would be let down every morning, to chip away at the hard rocks until noon and then returns to the samee hole for several more hours before he was, hoisted up by his father or brother in the evening...
...John said that he nearly lost his life in digging the well...
...With all the hard work, which he had to do in youth, he found in nature a love which kindled his heart as his own thrilling words of enthusiasm have rekindled the aspirations of millions who have since read the stories of his strange wanderings...
...outside there is an ugly brick chimney between the entrance ways and a huge dinner bell hung in the cupola...
...Muir tried to persuade him to quit his party for a night and go and camp with him in the woods, but Emerson's friends objected...
...He was always making some new discoveries in nature...
...how he broke through the ice in winter or skated on clumsy, home-made runners over its smooth sur-face...
...Together we returned to the lake, "Here are the foundation stones of the house which Daniel Muir built, when he came in 1849," he said, pushing back the matted grass at the" top of a little knoll which overlooked the glacial meadows and the lake, "The house was located on this spot so as to be close to a spring, which was a few rods below in the ravine...
...So great was my hurry that I left without packing a lunch for the long tramp through the woods and fields—not even a packet of raisins, which Muir himself recommended for out-of-door excursions...
...These were the scenes which thrilled the hours of his monotonous days...
...a steel engraving of Washington hung on one wall and a picture of Longfellow on the other...
...It was four miles away and is still known as the "Hickory Hill Farm," a name the Muirs gave because of the grove of hickory-trees growing on the long, serpentine hill, where the farm house was located...
...the basement corner, where John crept every morning at one o'clock to invent thermometers, early rising machines, clocks and locking devices, is pointed out...
...Scenes Are Familiar AS WE neared the scenes so vividly described by him in his nature books and memoirs, there was no need for inquiries...
...He loved a verbal contest, which was, with him, only another form of the trial of grit to which in Ms school days he used to cheerfully submit when two boys, armed with whips, used to stand up before each other and lay on till one of them cried enough...
...The muskrat was still busy, What a paradise this must be for his race and multiplying kin...
...The old buildings burned many years ago and we rebuilt closer to the roadway...
...When in his company I used to chafe a good deal under his biting Scotch wit and love of contradiction...
...From tie narrow grounds about the little white country school house, there was a glimpse of a lake...
...and here an oak which John's axe spared...
...But his heart was all right, only he liked too well to mask its real kindness in this way...
...Cheer up...
...As I had never had that kind of Scotch discipline, I did not keenly enjoy this sort of diversion...
...A journey around the end of the lake added to the wonders, The flaming, spotted Turk's cap was in riotous bloom...
...The one room was less than twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide...
...The meadows and hillsides are gorgeous with colors...
...in said list the first is Thomas Carlyle, whom he first met in 1833, and the last Is John Muir, whom he met in 1871...
...Away from the streets of the world he brooded over nature in boyhood, and when a man became a relentless fighter for national park and wildlife preservation...
...He was a genuine student and lover of nature, and he has brought to us the message of the mountains as no other man has...
Vol. 18 • September 1926 • No. 9
