The Life and Letters of John Muir by William Frederic Badè — John Muir Writings Copyright, 1924, by Houghton Mifflin Company The Life and Letters of John Muir by William Frederic Badè — John Muir Writings Table of Contents John Muir Writings.........................................................................................................................................1 The Life and Letters of...........................................................................................................................1 John Muir...........................................................................................................................................................2 by William Frederic Badè.......................................................................................................................2 1924..................................................................................................................................................2 Contents...................................................................................................................................................2 Illustrations..............................................................................................................................................2 Bibliographic Information......................................................................................................................3 Preface.....................................................................................................................................................3 Volume I..................................................................................................................................................4 Chapter I...................................................................................................................................................4 The Ancestral Background.....................................................................................................................4 Chapter II Life on a Wisconsin Farm 1849-1860.................................................................................14 Chapter III As a Questioner at the Tree of Knowledge........................................................................26 Chapter IV The Sojourn in Canada 1864-1866....................................................................................39 Chapter V From Indiana to California 1866-1868................................................................................51 Chapter VI Following the Sheep 1868-1869........................................................................................58 Chapter VII First Yosemite Years 1869-1870......................................................................................67 Chapter VIII Yosemite, Emerson, and the Sequoias............................................................................81 Chapter IX Persons and Problems I......................................................................................................92 II..........................................................................................................................................................106 Chapter X Yosemite and Beyond 1872-1873.....................................................................................121 Volume II............................................................................................................................................133 Chapter XI On Widening Currents 1873-1875...................................................................................134 Chapter XII “The World Needs the Woods" 1875-1878....................................................................147 Chapter XIII Nevada, Alaska, and a Home 1878-1880......................................................................163 Chapter XIV The Second Alaska Trip and the Search for the Jeannette 1880-1881.........................176 I...........................................................................................................................................................176 II..........................................................................................................................................................184 Chapter XV Winning a Competence 1881-1891................................................................................194 Chapter XVI Trees and Travel 1891-1897.........................................................................................214 Chapter XVII Unto the Last................................................................................................................231 I 1897-1905.........................................................................................................................................231 II 1905-1914........................................................................................................................................247 Chapter XVIII His Public Service......................................................................................................262 i John Muir Writings The Life and Letters of John Muir Writings 1 John Muir by William Frederic Badè 1924 Contents Preface Volume I I. The Ancestral Background II. Life on a Wisconsin Farm 1849-1860 III. As a Questioner at the Tree of Knowledge IV. The Sojourn in Canada 1864-1866 V. From Indiana to California 1866-1868 VI. Following the Sheep 1868-1869 VII. First Yosemite Years 1869-1870 VIII. Yosemite, Emerson, and the Sequoias IX. Persons and Problems X. Yosemite and Beyond 1872-1873 Volume II XI. On Widening Currents 1873-1875 XII. "The World Needs the Woods” 1875-1878 XIII. Nevada, Alaska, and a Home 1878-1880 XIV. The Second Alaska Trip and the Search for the Jeannette 1880-1881 XV. Winning a Competence 1881-1891 XVI. Trees and Travel 1891-1897 Unto the Last XVII. I. 1897-1905 II. 1905-1914 XVIII. His Public Service Illustrations • Sketch of John Muir’s cabin at the base of Yosemite Falls (chapter 7) • Pine-crested summit above Yosemite Valley (chapter 8) • John Muir’s home in a mill in Yosemite Valley (chapter 8) • John Muir 1890 (frontispiece, volume II) • Louie Wanda Strentzel (Mrs. John Muir) (chapter 13) • Self Portrait of John Muir in his letter of Feb. 23, 1887 to Miss Janet Douglass Moores (chapter 15) • The Upper Ranch Home of John Muir about 1890 Wanda Muir on the Porch (chapter 16) John Muir 2 The Life and Letters of John Muir by William Frederic Badè — John Muir Writings • Shishaldin Volcano, Unimak Island, Alaska (chapter 17) • Wapama Falls (1700 feet) in Hetch-Hetch Valley (chapter 17) • Map of Yosemite Valley, 1972. From Samuel Kneeland’s Wonders of Yosemite (Boston, 1872). (Not published in Life and letters). The Life and Letters of John Muir by William Frederic Badè Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company MDCCCCXXIV Copyright, 1924, by Houghton Mifflin Company All Rights Reserved The Riverside Press Cambridge, Masschussetts Printed in the U.S.A. Bibliographic Information Badè, William Frederic (1871-1936). The life and letters of John Muir (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924). 2 v. fronts., ports., illus. 22 cm. LCCN a 25000247. Scanned and converted to HTML by Dan E. Anderson, 1999. [ Forward to Preface ] Preface Twenty years after the first companies of forty-niners arrived in California, a unique type of Argonaut landed in San Francisco, crossed the Coast Range and the San Joaquin plain, and, passing through the gold-diggings, went up the Merced until he reached Yosemite valley. Not the gold of California’s placers and mines, but the plant gold and beauty of her still unwasted mountains and plains, were the lure that drew and held John Muir. Forty-six years later, in the closing days of fateful 1914, this widely traveled explorer and observer of the world we dwell in faced the greatest of all adventures, dying as bravely and cheerfully as he had lived. Not only from his large circle of devoted personal friends, but from among the thousands who had been thrilled by his eloquent pen, arose insistent demands for a fuller presentation of the facts of his life than is available in his incomplete autobiography, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, and in his other published works. When the present writer, at the request of Mr. Muir’s daughters undertook to edit some of his unpublished journals and to prepare his life and letters, he had no adequate conception of the size and complexity of the task. The amount of the manuscript material to be examined made it vastly more time-consuming than was at first anticipated. Illustrations 3 The Life and Letters of John Muir by William Frederic Badè — John Muir Writings Throughout his life John Muir carried on a prolific and wide-ranging correspondence. His own letters were written by hand, and, with the exception of an occasional preliminary draft, he rarely kept copies. In calendaring the many thousands of letters received from his friends, a systematic effort was made to secure from them and their descendants the originals or copies of Muir’s letters for the purposes of this work. The success of this effort was in part thwarted, in part impeded, by the Great War. To the many who responded, the writer expresses his grateful acknowledgments. The Carr series, with some exceptions like the Sequoia letter, was obtained from Mr. George Wharton James, to whose keeping the correspondence had been committed by Mrs. Carr. The preponderance of letters addressed to