John Muir: His Achievements/Journeys Essay, Research Paper

John Muir: His Achievements/Journeys

John Muir worked at a factory in Canada. He invented time and money

saving machines for the factories. But one day an accident changed his whole

outlook on life. As he was tightening a machine belt with a file, the file flew

out and pierced his right eye. His left eye grew dim to the reaction.

John’s friends and neighbors tried to help him and brought doctors.

Some friends read to him. Children brought him flowers and listened to his

stories. He finally began to regain his sight. His employer, grateful for the

work that he had done for his company, offered John a job as foreman and a

future partnership. But John gave up the chance to be a wealthy business man

because he wanted to use his precious sight to enjoy the creations of nature.

On September 1, 1867, John stepped off a train in Louisville, Kentucky.

The next day he set out on foot to walk from Louisville to Florida, a distance

of 1,000 miles. In Florida, he planned to catch a boat for South America

because he was eager to observe the plants of southern lands. This was known as

the thousand-mile walk. During his journey, he would stop to collect plant

samples and write about his observations in his journal.

John was weak from the trip and thought that he would need much more

energy to travel to South America. He decided to visit Yosemite Valley, where

he would regain his strength. He took up the job as a herder there and began to

explore the area. Then he got a job as guide to the Yosemite. Muir quickly

became an expert on Yosemite. John believed that glaciers had helped in the

formation of the valley. People began to pay attention to his ideas. Some

agreed and some didn’t. John spent years studying glaciers and tracking

glaciers in the Sierra Nevada.

In 1874, Jeanne Carr introduced John Muir to Louie Wanda because she

wanted John to leave his lonely life. John first tramped the wilderness of

California, Nevada, Utah, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska. Then he decided

that he should settle down and went to visit Louie Wanda in the Alhambra Valley.

They got married and had two daughters, Annie and Helen Wanda.

John worked on Louie’s farm for many years, but started to miss the

wilderness. Louie Wanda saw what was happening to John and decided to let him

travel to Alaska. He visited the Alaskan tribes and Glacier Bay. In the next

ten years of visit to Alaska, Muir would track glaciers and observe them.

John Muir will spend the rest of his life writing books about nature and

speak out for nature. He will suffer the lost of his wife and abate his grief

by observing a pertrified forest. John Muir really was a man of the mountains.

I believe that John Muir was a very hard working and determined man.

The fact that he overcomes the struggles of his life to accomplish all that he

did makes him an even more remarkable man. I think that it is great that there

is a man that would speak out for such a wonderful thing like nature in a time

where people didn’t care. He has accomplished so much in his life that I am

surprised that he is not as well-known. He should be written about and taught

about more. John Muir can inspire a person to care more for nature and become

more considerate and passionate to it.

CHILDHOOD

John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, on April 21, 1838. He had two

older sisters named Margaret and Sarah and two younger brothers named David and

Daniel, Jr. and twin sisters named Mary and Annie. They were all born in Dunbar

except a younger sister, Joanna, that was born after they moved to the United

States. John’s father was Daniel Muir and John’s mother was Ann Gilrye Muir.

Daniel was a man of strong feelings. His religious beliefs made him put

aside fun and music thinking that they were the devil’s workshop. He believed

that mealtime was a sacrament and that idle talk and laughing had no place at

the table. John was forced to memorize a passage from the bible every day. He

would be beaten if he did not recite them correctly.

John’s mother was a gentle and kind woman. She had been brought up to

appreciate poetry and art. Her parents had forbidden her to marry Daniel

because they considered him to be too strict and too passionate in his religious

views. But Ann was strong-willed and she loved Daniel.

The life of the Muir’s in Scotland would soon change. Daniel Muir had

become unhappy with the Presbyterian church of his wife’s family so he joined

the Disciples of Christ. A few of his fellow Disciples had begun to form

religious communities in North America. There they had found rich farmland and

a chance for success. On February 18, 1849, Daniel rushed back home and told

them that they would be on their way to America in the morning. The boys were

crazed with excitement, but Grandfather Gilrye told them that they would find a

lot of hard work there.

After a journey of a few months, the Muir family settled in Marquette

County, Wisconsin. Daniel Muir worked the children hard. He had become a

preacher and a strict parent who believed that when he whipped his children, he

was beating the devil out of their souls. While the children planted, hoed,

raked, and harvested, Daniel spent less time on the farm work and more time

studying his bible. When Daniel was away, John and the rest of the family would

joke and sing. The girls could take out their embroidery, which their father

considered frivolous, and John could recite a poem or dance a highland jig.

Since John was the oldest son, he had the hardest work on the farm.

John had to split rails for fences, pry up rocks, and haul wood. When John just

turned twelve, his father sent him out to plow the first fields. The ground had

never been broken, so John had to dig out roots and guide the plow as the oxen

pulled it.

After eight years, the Muir’s farm became drained of nutrients. They

then moved to a place they called Hickory Hill. John had to labor in the fields

again. He had to clear the new land for the crops again. It was very hard work

for a boy and affected John’s health. John learned endurance and developed

strength in the ten plus years of farm work. During that time, he also learned

to respect and love the creatures of the woods and farm. ATTENDING SCHOOL

John and his brothers and sisters did not go to school during their years of

farm work. But John borrowed books from neighbors who kept a small library.

His father saw no reason to read anything else besides the Bible and other

religious text. So he would not allow John to stay up to read after the others

had gone to bed. He did allow John to get up early in the morning to read.

It was too cold to sit still and read in the winter so John began

working in the cellar on ideas for labor-saving machines. His first invention

was a model of a sawmill. Soon he also invented many other things like the

waterwheel, thermometer, clocks, a device for lighting fire, and a machine that

would wake you up. A neighbor encouraged John to take his inventions to Madison

where he could exhibit them at the state’s agricultural fair. His inventions

were a hit at the fair and were written about in the local newspapers. His

family back at home was very happy and proud of him, but his dad warned him to

avoid the “sin of vanity”.

At the fair, John Muir met Jeanne Carr, a woman that would change his

life. Mrs. Carr was impressed with John. Her husband, Dr. Ezra Carr, was a

professor of natural science at the university. John would later enroll into

college and become a very good friend of the Carrs’. John did not immediately

enroll at the university because he had concerns about money. Instead, he

helped build iceboats, addressed advertising circulars, and drove a coach for an

insurance agent. One day he learned that he had enough money to enroll into

college, but he would have a very tight buget. He spent little on clothes and

food.

The next year at the university, John acquired a teaching job in a one-

room school. It was hard to keep up with the teachings and his studies, but the

money helped him considerably. John took chemistry and geology with Dr. Carr

and Latin and Greek classes with Dr. James Davie Butler. Both men opened new

worlds for John.

During John’s college years, the United States was suffering through the

Civil War. Many university students joined the army, but John saw the wounded

from the war and disliked it. He decided to go botanizing in Canada to dodge

the draft. His brother Daniel, Jr. had already gone to Canada, and John planned

to meet him near Niagara Falls in September.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) JOHN MUIR SAVING THE WILDERNESS; Corinne J. Naden and Rose

Blue;The Millbrook Press; 1992

2) JOHN MUIR SON OF THE WILDERNESS; Linnie Wolfe; The Ryerson Press;

1945