John Muir: Naturalist, Conservationist, Author, and Patron Saint

Who was John Muir?

Born in 1838 in Dunbar Scotland, John Muir immigrated with his family when he was eleven years old to Portage Wisconsin, already able to recite all of the New Testament and most of the Old Testament, in his words, “by heart and by sore flesh.”

Remaining a deeply religious man throughout his life, Muir enrolled at the University of Wisconsin by age 22, where his broad interests of study never earned him a degree, but built within him a solid foundation in botany, geology and the sciences. Nearly blinded by an accident in a wagon wheel factory in 1866, after his sight fully recovered, he saw the world and his purpose in an entirely new light, proclaiming that “God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons.”

Muir’s Conservationist Efforts

For the rest of his life, Muir dedicated himself to his work as a naturalist, writer and early proponent of American conservation. Considered an inspiration for both Scots and Americans alike, as biographer Steven J. Holmes writes, Muir became,

“one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity,”

Muir’s Biographer Steven J. Holmes

while his writings helped shape American’s understanding and relationship with the natural world.

Yosemite Valley

After he built a small cabin in Yosemite Valley, Muir frequently traveled alone into the backcountry, carrying, in his words, “a tin cup, a handful of tea, a loaf of bread, and a copy of Emerson.” Muir soon became a fixture in the valley, where his skills as a guide and his knowledge of natural history made him a rock star of sorts, for visiting celebrities, artists, scientist and politicians who sought out meetings with the now-famed naturalist.

Thanks to his political activism in Washington, D.C., on September 30th of 1890, Congress passed a bill that made Yosemite Valley off-limits to developers or settlers, later preserving the Sequoia National Park thanks to his continued efforts before Congress. Two years later, Muir co-founded the Sierra Club, which continues to this day as one of America’s premier conservation organizations with over 2.4 million members. Before his death from pneumonia in 1914 Los Angeles California, John Muir had published over 300 articles and 12 books, which are still widely read to this day, making John Muir the patron saint of the American Wilderness.