John Muir

John of the Mountains

John Muir was born on April 21, 1838, in Dunbar, Scotland, and died on December 24, 1914. A Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for wilderness preservation in the United States, he became known as “John of the Mountains” and the “Father of the National Parks.” His books, letters, and essays about nature, especially the Sierra Nevada, were read by millions and helped shape American ideas about the natural world.

Muir’s childhood left a deep mark on him. He was the third of eight children of Daniel Muir and Ann Gilrye, and grew up in a strict religious household. By age 11, he had learned to recite all of the New Testament and most of the Old Testament “by heart and by sore flesh.” At the same time, he was restless and drawn outdoors. He wandered the East Lothian coastline and countryside, hunted for birds’ nests, and became interested in natural history and the work of Scottish naturalist Alexander Wilson. He admired Thomas Carlyle and Robert Burns, and carried Burns’s poems during travels in the American wilderness.

In 1849, Muir’s family immigrated to the United States and started a farm near Portage, Wisconsin, called Fountain Lake Farm. At 22, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and paid his own way for several years. A lesson under a black locust tree beside North Hall first stirred his formal interest in botany. He studied chemistry with Professor Ezra Carr, and Carr and his wife Jeanne became lifelong friends. Though Muir never graduated and was listed as an “irregular gent,” he learned enough geology and botany to guide his later work and wanderings.

Writer, advocate, and conservation voice

Muir is best known for his writing and public advocacy on behalf of wild places. His activism helped preserve Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, he published two important articles in The Century Magazine: “The Treasures of the Yosemite” and “Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park.” These writings helped support the push that led the United States Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park. He also co-founded the Sierra Club, which became a prominent American conservation organization.

In later life, Muir devoted most of his time to his wife and to preserving the Western forests. His writing carried a spiritual quality and a strong enthusiasm for nature, and it moved readers, including presidents and congressmen, toward action to protect large natural areas. Biographer Steven J. Holmes wrote that Muir became “one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity,” both political and recreational. His name became widely known in modern environmental consciousness, and he was often quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams.

Muir’s words continue to reach readers because they join close observation with conviction. He wrote as a scientist, a wanderer, a spiritual man, and a citizen trying to save wild places from unchecked materialism. His life connected Scotland and America, childhood memory and public action, solitary study and national policy. On April 21, 2013, Scotland celebrated the first John Muir Day, marking the 175th anniversary of his birth and honoring the conservationist whose writing helped change how many people see their relationship with the natural world.