This column first appeared in January 2015.
Last week marked the 100th anniversary of the passing of John Muir, the man many consider to be the patron saint of American conservation. When people hear the name John Muir, they may think of tall redwood trees nestled in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas . . . of California. But did you know that John Muir spent some time here in Indianapolis? It was here, while working in a factory near Pogue’s Run, that Muir had an experience that changed his life and set him on the course that made him America’s most beloved naturalist.
John Muir was born on April 21, 1838 in a four-story stone house in Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland. He was the third of eight children. In 1849, Muir’s family emigrated to the United States, settling Fountain Lake Farm near Portage, Wisconsin. In March of 1866, Muir came to Indianapolis to work as a sawyer in a wagon wheel factory; he was paid $22 a week. He spent his spare time tinkering with and improving the machines used in the woodmaking process. Muir spent his days working as a machinist/inventor and his weekends collecting botanical examples while exploring the rich forests in and around the city.
Muir lived in Indianapolis for one-and-a-half years, working at the Osgood and Smith carriage factory located at the intersections of Illinois, Merrill and Russell Streets, between South Street and Pogue’s Run. Osgood, Smith & Co., a hub and spoke manufacturer, was located at 230 South Illinois. During the Civil War, J. R. Osgood and S.E. Smith established the business which produced wagon and carriage materials. In 1870, with Jacob Woodburn of St. Louis, they incorporated the Woodburn Sarven Wheel Company. It became the largest manufacturer of the patented “Sarvin Wheel” in the United States during the late 19th century. Incidentally, James Sarvin, the inventor of the Sarvin Wheel is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery not far from Washington Irving, who Irvington was named after.
According to the Indianapolis city directory of 1867, Muir boarded at 331 South Pennsylvania. He chose Indianapolis as his home, not only because Osgood and Smith allowed him to use his talents in machine invention, but also because the city’s frontier surroundings allowed him to pursue his interests in botany. Muir noted, “Looking over the map I saw that Indianapolis was an important railroad center and probably had manufactories of different sorts in which I could find employment, with the advantage of being in the heart of one of the very richest forest of deciduous hard wood trees on the continent.”
About the factory, Muir later noted, “I greatly enjoyed this mechanical work, began to invent and introduce labor-saving improvements and was so successful that my botanical and geological studies were in danger of being seriously interrupted.” Muir’s employers had suggested a possible partnership in the business to which he replied “that although I liked the inventive work and the earnest rush and roar and whirl of the factory, Nature’s attractions were stronger and I must soon get away.” Indianapolis — at that time considered part of the western frontier — offered Muir the opportunity to tramp the remnants of the great deciduous forest that once covered the entire area.
During his spare time, Muir wandered the fields and woodlands studying the “virgin” plant and tree species found there. He wrote to his sister Sarah in Wisconsin about “the beautiful flowers and trees of God’s own garden, so pure and chaste and lovely,” further claiming that he shed “tears of joy” at his discoveries. Eager to share the beauty he observed, Muir took his Sunday school classes of women and children into the forest to learn from “nature as the best of all possible teachers.”
Muir’s hobby had not yet turned to passion as he noted in an 1866 letter to Sarah when he spoke of the “restless fires” within pushing him towards a career in “noisy commercial centers,” even though those were not his “real wishes.” “[N]ow that I among machines,” he told her, “I begin to feel that I have some talent that way, and so I almost think, unless things change soon, I shall turn my whole mind into that channel.”
As 1867 dawned, Muir found himself on his way to a factory career. He wrote his brother Dan, “I mean now…to give my whole attention to machines because I must[.] I can not get my mind upon anything else…” On March 6, 1867, ironically during a rare total solar eclipse, fate stepped in and John Muir’s life was changed forever. That day, as usual, Muir was working at the wagon wheel factory. He found himself tightening a stubborn new belt on a machine in the workshop. Muir accidentally lost his grip on a sharp metal file he was using to unlace the power belt. The spinning belt caused the file to fly upward and the pointed end struck the edge of the cornea of his right eye. As the white vitreous humor of his eye dripped out, one of his co-workers heard Muir say “My right eye is gone, closed forever on all God’s beauty.”
Muir later wrote that “While at work in a mill my right eye was pierced by a file, and then came the darkest time of my life.” Within a few hours the left eye also failed and Muir was entirely blind (possibly as a result of a sympathetic reaction). A doctor’s examination assured him that his vision in the left eye would quickly return, and that he would regain most of his vision in the right eye, all of which proved to be true over the coming days and weeks. But not before he was confined to a darkened room for six weeks, where Muir worried whether he would ever see again.
In an April 6, 1867 letter, Muir writes, “The eye is pierced just where the cornea meets the sclerotic coating. . . Sight was completely gone from the injured eye for the first few days . . . but I was surprised to find that on the fourth or fifth day I could see a little with it. Sight continued to increase for a few days. . . I can see sufficiently well with it to avoid the furniture, etc., in walking through a room. Can almost, in full light, recognize some of my friends but cannot distinguish one letter from another of common type.”
During his recovery he was offered control of a new machine shop for Osgood and Smith, but Muir’s mind was only on nature. “I wish to try some cloudy day to walk to the woods,” he wrote to a friend, “where I am sure some of Spring’s fresh born is waiting.” When he finally regained his sight, “he saw the world—and his purpose—in a new light”. Muir later wrote, “This affliction has driven me to the sweet fields. God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons.” From that point on, he was determined to “be true to [himself]” and follow his dream of exploration and study of plants. Muir wrote, “I bade adieu to all my mechanical inventions, determined to devote the rest of my life to the study of the inventions of God.”
When Muir returned to the fields a month after his accident, the direction of his life was decided: he chose nature over machines by resigning from Osgood and Smith. On September 1, 1867, he began his famous “thousand-mile walk,” from Jeffersonville, Indiana, to Cedar Keys, Florida. It took him just under two months and became the first of Muir’s many long walks through wilderness areas of North and South Americas and the subject of his book “A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf” (1916).
Muir’s 1,000 mile walk from Indiana to Florida’s Gulf of Mexico had no specific route chosen, except to go by the “wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find.” When Muir arrived at Cedar Keys, presumably short of cash, he began working for Hodgson’s sawmill. However, three days after starting work, Muir almost died of a malaria. In early January 1868, Muir climbed onto the roof of the Hodgson house to watch the sunset. There he saw a ship, the Island Belle, and learned it would soon be sailing for Cuba. Muir booked passage on the ship, and once in Havana, he spent his hours studying shells and flowers and visiting the botanical garden in the city. Afterwards, he sailed to New York and booked passage to California to begin his ascent into history.
Muir’s letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. He founded The Sierra Club, America’s oldest and most prominent conservation organization. His name adorns the 211-mile John Muir hiking trail in the Sierra Nevadas, Muir Woods National Monument and Muir Beach near San Francisco as well as John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir and Muir Glacier to name but a few. He is today referred to as the “Father of the National Parks,” credited with establishing Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks.
Muir was an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals, making his name “almost ubiquitous” in the modern environmental consciousness. Muir exemplified “the archetype of our oneness with the earth” whose mission was “…saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism.”
Muir’s one-and-a-half years in Indianapolis, while admittedly brief, were largely ignored and absent from his later writings. This despite the fact that his mechanical mishap here actually ended up being the turning point in his life. If not for the carriage factory accident, Muir would have undoubtedly lived a life devoted to machines and his love of nature would have remained a simple hobby. To recognize John Muir’s Indianapolis turning point, thanks in large part to the efforts of the Hoosier chapter of Muir’s Sierra Club, an Indiana Historical Marker was erected near Pogue’s Run at the site of the Osgood, Smith & Company factory, where Muir worked. Stop by and give the Muir marker a look sometime.
Al Hunter is the author of “Haunted Indianapolis” and “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide.” and the co-author of the “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Osborn H. Oldroyd: Keeper of the Lincoln Flame”, “Thursdays with Doc. Recollections on Springfield & Lincoln” and “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
