The Thibodaux Massacre

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The Thibodaux Massacre

The following is excerpted and adapted from The Thibodaux Massacre: Racial Violence and the 1887 Sugar Cane Labor Strike by John DeSantis, Foreword by Burnell Tolbert.

About the Book: “On November 23, 1887, white vigilantes gunned down unarmed black laborers and their families during a spree lasting more than two hours. The violence erupted due to strikes on Louisiana sugar cane plantations. Fear, rumor and white supremacist ideals clashed with an unprecedented labor action to create an epic tragedy. A future member of the U.S. House of Representatives was among the leaders of a mob that routed black men from houses and forced them to a stretch of railroad track, ordering them to run for their lives before gunning them down. According to a witness, the guns firing in the black neighborhoods sounded like a battle. Author and award-winning reporter John DeSantis uses correspondence, interviews and federal records to detail this harrowing true story.”

Thibodaux, Louisiana
November 23, 1887, 7:00 a.m.

Bleeding from his chest and right arm, Jack Conrad squeezed himself under the simple wood-framed house on St. Michael Street as members of the mob, maybe fifty strong, kept on firing, clouding the air with acrid smoke. “I am innocent!” the fifty-three-year-old veteran called out, protesting that he had nothing to do with the strike of sugar laborers, nominally the cause of the violence. He pressed his chest against the cold ground and felt hot blood pooling beneath him. Another ball ripped through Conrad’s flesh, and he pushed his face against the earth and weeds.

Nearly a quarter century had passed since Jack and other members of the Seventy- fifth U.S. Colored Troops stormed Port Hudson, doing a job the white senior officers did not believe possible, wresting the high ground from the Rebels and opening up the Mississippi River for Yankee gunboats. They fought for their own freedom, hoping a better life would result. But the war’s outcome made little difference on the sugar plantations. Now, here he was, cornered like a cur beneath his own home, playing dead while bullets whizzed and hot, spent cartridges plinked onto the dusty street, the scuffed boots of the regulators and the hooves of their cantering, spooked horses a breath away.

“He is dead now!” one of the men called out. “Let us go.”

The voices trailed off as the mob moved on to a house on Narrow Street. More shots rang out amidst wails of women, shouts of men and the unceasing cries of babies. The chronic cough, the one that made Conrad’s war buddies joke that he would die of consumption, had to let loose, scraping exposed shards of shattered collarbone deeper into raw, bleeding flesh.
A pair of arms—Jack wasn’t sure whose—pulled him out from under the house and
carried him inside.

Jack Conrad was one of many people shot in Thibodaux, Louisiana, on November 23, 1887, although he, unlike many other victims, lived to speak of what is now called the Thibodaux Massacre.

White regulators, angered by a month-long strike of mostly black sugar cane workers in two Louisiana parishes, evicted from plantations and taking shelter in Thibodaux, spread terror and death. Some of the perpetrators and their supporters—identified in this book—were from some of the most upstanding families in town. Some of their descendants to this day hold positions of power and esteem. Records disappeared. Nobody was ever held accountable.

Multiple accounts of the day say the shooting went on for nearly three hours throughout the neighborhood east of Morgan’s railroad tracks, called to this day “back-of-town,” then—as now—home to many African American families.

A diluted account of what occurred is contained in a journal kept by the priest of Thibodaux’s Catholic church, the French-speaking Very Reverend Charles Menard. Each year since 1849, when he first arrived in Thibodaux, Père Menard penned a summary of the year, baptisms of children, the burials of the Catholic dead and other events of note.

His journal for 1887 relates that a large tomb was built at the center of the church cemetery for the priests who might wish burial there. It describes in detail the tomb-blessing ceremony, marked by a procession with six banners and ranking church officials. It then makes reference to the strike and the violence, the victims of which most likely were left in little more than shallow graves, with no tombs or markers to note that they had once labored and lived:

There was a strike, directed by the famous Knights of Labor, from the North. It concerned raising the wages of those who work during the sugar cane grinding season. The negroes, the large majority being simple and very ignorant allowed themselves to be led by bad advisors. Some of them went out on strike and wanted to prevent the others from working. There was much concern among the planters who foresaw the possibility of their abundant crop being lost by what could be a very disastrous delay in grinding. They were obliged to find new workers
and to take precautions for their protection against violence from the strikers. Several shots were fired at the non-striking workers during the night and several were slightly wounded. Militia companies were organized. A militia company with a machine gun came from New
Orleans. Thibodaux was flooded with striking negroes, who began to make threats to burn down the place. It became necessary to place guards throughout the town. Everyone armed himself as best he could. On Nov. 23, about 5 o’clock in the morning, a picket of six men stationed on the edge of town was fired upon. Two of them were seriously wounded…
This fusillade angered the other guards who rushed to the scene and began firing on the group of negroes from whence the shots had come. It was every man for himself. A dozen were killed and there were some wounded. The day passed with marches and countermarches to force the
unemployed negroes and those without a domicile to evacuate the town. All left promptly to go to the country. The negroes realizing that they had been tricked and duped went to the plantations and asked for work without conditions. Thus was concluded the famous strike which was bad for both the planters and the workers. Grinding proceeded in calm and peace to the satisfaction of all.


The mainstream press, just like Père Menard’s journal, did little to relate the true horror of the attack now known as the Thibodaux Massacre,instead perpetuating a belief that it was a regrettable but excusable—even justifiable—indiscretion. His estimate of a dozen killed, like the official acknowledgement of eight dead, is in all probability another understatement. New, credible accounts of the massacre include estimates that the shooting went on for somewhere between two and three hours. Estimates of eight to a dozen dead, given that information—which is consistent with other accounts from totally different sources—are inadequate. Suggestion by historians of thirty or more killed, including estimates as high as sixty, are
likely more accurate.

Details that include identities of some dead, and eyewitness accounts never before publicly seen, lead to three conclusions. One is that, on the morning of November 23, 1887, gangs of white regulators performed the tasks of judge, jury and executioner on the streets and in the homes of black Thibodaux residents, killing as many as sixty people. Another is that no official inquiry into the identities of the killers was ever made. 0The third is that the dead can and do speak, if we do our best to listen.

The 2015 murders of nine innocent people at “Mother” Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and the resulting national dialogue resounded even in extreme south Louisiana. A decision by the New Orleans City Council to order statues of Confederate heroes removed as public nuisances intensified debate, and with my editor, Shell Armstrong, a decision was made to present, as contextually as possible, the story of Thibodaux’s bloody secret on the newspaper’s pages. The article was written and drew attention. I was then contacted by The History Press, who asked if I was interested in writing a book on the subject.

I jumped at the chance but was seized by fear of inadequacy. What could I do, I wondered, other than present what had already been reported except in longer form? What new facts could be plumbed other than what I had already discovered over those twenty years of curiosity and frustration?

When the commitment was made, a key appeared to turn in some metaphysical lock. From the archives of Nicholls State University appeared a long-lost list of eight victims, likely far fewer than the actual death toll but enough to allow further investigation. Reviews of census lists and interviews revealed more information, which led to further research. A trail of historical crumbs led to the pension files of Jack Conrad, a former slave and veteran of the U.S. Colored Troops, who was shot and wounded in the massacre.

The Conrad files presented, for the first time, direct accounts of what occurred in Thibodaux, including confirmation of deaths of unarmed people, from the mouths of black people submitted under oath. This was not because the incident itself had been investigated—it never had—but because of an ancillary inquiry into the related matter of Jack Conrad’s injuries.
In 1890, Congress passed a law that allowed Civil War veterans to file for pensions if they could not work, even if their injuries were not related to the war so long as they came about through no fault of the veteran. Coupled with the newspaper accounts, private correspondences of the day and other materials, the Conrad files confirmed the killing and wounding of innocent people on the basis of race in an atmosphere poisoned by concepts of white superiority and panic fed by rumors, as well as a resulting breakdown of law and humanity. There could be no doubt, after all available facts were taken into consideration, that somewhere in Thibodaux exists an as yet unprocessed crime scene.

Because of the light Jack Conrad’s files shed on this event, his personal story is interwoven throughout this narrative. He is the living, breathing and talking representative of all those whose voices have, until now, been silenced by the shoveling of dirt on unmarked graves or the unseen decay of earthly remains in swamps and woods.

A number of people asked me while I worked on this project why I would wish to bring up such an event now that it had been laid to rest and relegated to the past.

My reply was and is that reparation for a society’s past sins does not always come in the form of financial compensation but, in a very spiritual sense, by the mere telling of truth, the acknowledgement and baring of uncomfortable fact.

Perhaps now, nearly 130 years after this tragedy occurred, the dead can finally rest, and the living can take comfort that through the telling of truth, some measure of justice has been done.

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The Rice Family and Napa’s Hidden History of Resistance

Surviving Parchman Farm: The Ordeal of 1965 (via Crime Capsule)

Sybil Ludington: Revolutionary War Hero

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Sybil Ludington: Revolutionary War Hero

Your town is under invasion. What do you do? Hide? Flee? Not sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington! She rode through forty miles of enemy-infested territory to let her father and his regiment know that the British had laid siege to their home, and weren’t stopping. Every child reads about the heroic tale of Paul Revere and his late night ride, warning of impending British arrival. Here’s a lesser-known story of brave Sybil Ludington, whose heroic journey during the Revolutionary War, like the more famous Revere, aided the Continental Army, and helped suppress the British forces in Colonial America.

War!

Colonists’ appetite for separation from British rule grew over many decades in the late 18th century. As Americans switched loyalties, enemies to the crown mingled with Patriots in small communities, where skirmishes in backyards between revolutionaries and their Royalist neighbors and former friends intensified. A new provincial congress, calling itself the Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York, commissioned Henry Ludington as a colonel, with his own regiment, the Seventh of the Dutchess County militia. Ludington was responsible for the route the British might take to and from Connecticut and the coast on Long Island Sound, keeping order on the Connecticut frontier. And in 1776, Ludington built a gristmill to provide for his growing family.

Who was Sybil?

Sybil was one of twelve Ludington children. Her father Henry Ludington had once served the king as a captain of the Fifth Company of the Second Battalion of the Fredericksburgh Regiment of Militia in Dutchess County before becoming a staunch revolutionary. Sybil was a very capable young woman at sixteen, and was undoubtedly engaged in the revolutionary cause beyond just helping to protect her father (now an enemy of the crown) or attending to household chores. In fact, her upbringing prepared her for a dangerous and important ride on a fateful night in 1777 to summon her father’s troops to defend her home.

Danbury Burned

The Continental army had been using Danbury, Connecticut as a depot for military supplies, and the British knew it. On April 24, 1777, twenty transports and six war vessels left New York Harbor for to Danbury. They would be joined by the Sixty-Fourth Foot grenadier regiment marching for a climatic rendezvous in Danbury. Fortunately, word spread of the British soldiers, and Connecticut revolutionaries resisted along the route of the march. The Connecticut regiment known as the “Gallant Seventeen” ambushed the advancing British column, and killed a number of soldiers. It was not enough.

When rumors spread among the threatened colonists, families were forced to make impossible choices. Many fled. Some hid in barns and forests, and others escaped with all they could gather. Parents chose to flee with their families to safety or defend their homes against the enemy. As British attacked Connecticut, stories spread of young boys being hunted down and killed. All able-bodied Americans were called to the aid of their fellow Patriots.

The two-thousand-man British force took control of Danbury, destroying Patriot military stores. Homes and storehouses were burned to the ground. As Danbury fell, colonial dispatchers rode in all directions seeking help. American troops rallied to a defense of Danbury, but it was too late.

“As the British troops reached a point near the present location of the court-house their artillery was discharged and the heavy balls, six and twelve-pounders, flew screaming up the street, carrying terror to the hearts of the women and children, and dismay to the heads of the homes
thus endangered.” — James Montgomery Bailey, History of Danbury, Conn.

Sybil’s Courage

Before long, a scout roused the Ludington household, and Sybil sped out into the night on her way to rally the Colonel and his regiment. Her approximately fifty-mile horseback ride took her to Cold Spring, south to Shaw’s Pond, now Lake Gleneida at Carmel, then on to Lake Mahopac, Mahopac Falls, Stormville and home. As daring as her act was, Sybil knew the narrow dirt roads of Mahopac and Carmel. Along her route, villagers heard her banging on their shutters and cries for a call to arms. By morning, Colonel Ludington’s regiment was prepared to face the enemy, but the British anticipated the surge of the Americans, and retreated to Fairfield. Ultimately, her ride through the countryside hastened Colonel Ludington getting to Ridgefield, driving the British back to their ships.

Road marker describing Sybil Ludington and her ride
Sybil road marker in Red Mills Park at intersection of 6N and Hill Street in Mahopac Falls, New York. Image sourced from Patriot Hero of the Hudson Valley: The Life & Ride of Sybil Ludington

Lost History

How did such a heroic act by a young woman elude the history books? Even though she was first mentioned in 1880 by a highly respected historian Martha J. Lamb in her History of the City of New York: Its Origin, Rise, and Progress, Sybil Ludington hadn’t broken through into popular historical writings. Sybil’s heroic journey remained family legend until 1907, when two of Henry Ludington’s grandchildren, commissioned research on the Revolutionary War hero, which aroused a boon in public interest and local pride the local hero. Historical groups sought to memorialize the considerable public interest and local pride in Sybil’s achievement — Putnam County, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the New York State Education Department worked to install historical roadside markers. By 1935, the site of Sybil’s home, where she likely began her ride, and her route were clearly marked for the public to enjoy. In 1961, a bronze equestrian statue of Sybil was dedicated in Carmel, New York, Putnam County; and in 1975, she even rode her way onto a U.S. postage stamp.

Postage stamps depicting Sybil's ride
On March 25, 1975, the Daughters of the American Revolution, in collaboration with the United States Postal Service, held a ceremony in Carmel, New York,1 to celebrate the first-day issue of a stamp that honored Sybil Ludington and proclaimed her a “Contributor to the Cause.” Nationwide, seventy-five thousand stamps were sold that day. Image sourced from Patriot Hero of the Hudson Valley: The Life & Ride of Sybil Ludington.

The History and Lore of Fire Island

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The History and Lore of Fire Island

Monsters, pirates, and legends populate the history of New York’s Fire Island. In fact, their stories persist to present day — perhaps because the tales are so larger than life. But what exactly makes this small barrier island at Long Island so welcoming to oversized historical figures? The answer is undoubtedly in its proximity to New York City while maintaining its relative isolation from the rest of the world.

In the seventeenth century, the Dutch settlement of New York and Long Island flourished as sailors, fishermen and traders spread out in all directions from the Hudson River and New York harbor. In fact, the Dutch most likely gave today’s Fire Island Inlet its name — where four small islands are located in the middle of the inlet. In Dutch, the term “Four Islands” (or Fier Eylant) or even “Four Island Inlet” (Fier Eylant Inlaat). Subsequent British settlers no doubt heard “Fire Island.”

The Hapless Pirate

Captain William Kidd didn’t start his esteemed career as a pirate. After his mutinous crew stole his ship in the Caribbean, Kidd went in pursuit of his stolen ship all the way to New York harbor. He dropped anchor there, trying his hand as a married landlubber businessman, but four years later, he decided he had to return to his first love: tracking and killing pirates. With excellent credentials, Kidd was granted a privateering license from the British crown. In 1698, William Kidd and his crew captured the huge and well-armed treasure ship Quedah. The next year, in a strange twist, Kidd and crew were declared pirates by the British government. Fearing capture, Kidd ditched his ship in the West Indies and snuck back to New York in a small boat (along with his loot). Legend has it that Captain Kidd hid his fortune somewhere on Fire Island’s Great South Beach before being apprehended by the British authorities and hanged for his pirating.

“Death of a Once Popular Author”

A portrait of author Herman Melville
Herman Melville. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. Image sourced from Fire Island: Heroes and Villains on Long Island’s Wild Shore.

Herman Melville, the world-renowned author of the masterpiece of English literature Moby-Dick, found solace in his finals years visiting Fire Island. Melville was no stranger to sea life. Eighteen months crewing on the whaler Acushnet gave the author plenty of material for novels such as Moby-Dick, Typee, and his final literary triumph Billy Budd. In fact, it was Fire Island that inspired Melville to write once more about moral issues at sea. His allegory is a tale of good and evil where the ship’s captain struggles with duty and compassion. Herman Melville died in 1891, with Billy Budd unfinished, only to be published decades later. Melville’s literary legacy and debt to Fire Island would lay dormant until the 20th century.

Santa Fly-By

A black and white photo of the Fire Island Lighthouse
The Fire Island Lighthouse. Photo courtesy of Joe Lachat. Image sourced from Fire Island: Heroes and Villains on Long Island’s Wild Shore.

Beginning in the 1920s, Santa would fly over Fire Island lighthouses, delivering gifts for coastal families. But why did Father Christmas single out this seaside community? The Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society knows why, and they make sure to honor this man and his actions every year. The legend goes that Maine floatplane pilot William Wincapaw, an ace in treacherous weather conditions, would often provide transport for the sick or injured in remote locations, where coastal lighthouses illuminated his path. In 1929, as a sign of his appreciation for their help, Captain Wincapaw delivered Christmas gifts on the isolated island, sometimes dropping gifts straight from his plane. The deliveries were so popular that Wincapaw expanded into Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, and brought along his son, Bill Jr. The so-called Flying Santas even dressed the part. Over the years, others would fill the role when needed on the flying sled, and the U.S. Coast Guard alleviated costs by providing aircraft for deliveries. The Flying Santa program continued thanks primarily to the members of the Hull Lifesaving Museum, as the era of the lighthouse keeper slowly diminished. Today, Flying Santa supporters work together as the Friends of Flying Santa, Inc. to ensure there would always be sufficient money to keep the Flying Santa tradition alive.

Robert Moses

Map showing where the Ocean Parkway would be placed.
Map of Moses’s proposed Ocean Parkway extension through Fire Island. Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society. Image sourced from Saving Fire Island from Robert Moses.

With all these colorful heroes, what would Fire Island be without a villain? Enter Robert Moses. Fire Island is thirty-two-miles long and over a half-mile wide, and is a bonafide natural landmark. The barrier island is a rustic landscape and fragile balance of preservation, one that has been enjoyed by generations of New Yorkers for decades. In the post-war years, so-called “master builder” Robert Moses was empowered by elected officials to help create massive public works projects for New York City and State. Following his success with Jones Beach State Park on Long Island in 1929, Moses sought to develop more of the southern coastline. As the president of the Long Island State Park Commission, he was poised to reach further.

Moses and his wife loved Fire Island. In an effort to bring more New Yorkers to its secluded shores, Moses proposed a four-lane highway connecting Ocean Parkway to Montauk Highway in Montauk. Bolstering his pitch, he felt a highway would enhance the barrier island’s strength in protecting against heavy storms, and roadway height could be a deterrent to flooding stormwater. Following negative newspaper editorials, lawmakers reconsidered the concrete solution over new, filled inlets, and rebuilt natural dunes. Grassroots activism triumphed, but Robert Moses wasn’t finished with plans for Fire Island.

A bumper sticker that reads, "I want a Fire Island National Seashore"
Bumper sticker that promoted making Fire Island a national seashore. Karl Grossman Collection. Image sourced from Saving Fire Island from Robert Moses.

Post-war America saw a boom in suburbia, and Long Island was ground zero for the new experiment in mass single-family home developments. As automobile culture grew in the 1950s, Moses looked for ways to move New Yorkers, and Fire Island seemed perfect for sprawling suburbia. The New York planner got his causeway, even though locals feared large New York City crowds intruding on their day-to-day lives. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Fire Island National Seashore Bill, making thirty-three miles of it a national park. Because of, or perhaps in spite of, Moses’s work against a state park, the existing west end park from 1908 was renamed in his honor. Fire Island would remain environmentally and culturally intact.

The CIA Operative Who Spied On The D.C. Press

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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The CIA Operative Who Spied On The D.C. Press

In the age of Nixon, the Quicksilver Times, also known as the QT, was Washington, DC’s second great underground newspaper.

The paper published from 1969 to 1972, and from almost the first day, the QT was befriended by someone who turned out to be an unwanted guest. Salvatore John “Sal” Ferrera was a Chicago native with Beatles-style hair, a nervous demeanor and a master’s
degree from Loyola University (his thesis was on Marxism).

He was also a CIA spy.

Ferrera supposedly moved to Washington, D.C., to pursue a PhD in political science at George Washington University. “In 1969, I received a phone call from Sal,” reported the QT’s William Blum. “He had heard that I was planning another underground newspaper in Washington, in which he expressed an interest to take part.”

Blum took Ferrera up to the QT house to meet Becker, who was building light tables in preparation for the first issue. They shook hands, and Ferrera became a full-time member.

Blum and Ferrera went to political events, shared meals and hung out together. They even carpooled when substitute teaching at Western High School in Georgetown. “He was my closest friend for a year and a half,” Blum said. No one had any idea Ferrera was an undercover CIA operative.

A black and white Quicksilver Times cover featuring Nixon's face with "Honor Amerika" over his eyes and protesters.
Quicksilver Times, July 3–13, 1970. Courtesy Paul Collinge. Image sourced from Independent Press in D.C. and Virginia: An Underground History.

A CIA priority

Undercover infiltration of New Left organizations was tops on the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA to-do lists — even if the CIA had other things on its mind. A $30 million Consolidated Law Enforcement Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland, offered training in undercover investigations, searches and raids, and development of informants. One course, called “Appraisal of Crowds and Mobs,” offered a “terminal objective” of identifying a crowd by size and type and determining “what, if any corrective, neutralizing, offensive or defensive action” would be required to calm it.

As a result, infiltration of the New Left became pervasive; of the forty substantive witnesses for the prosecution of the Chicago 7 (accused of trying to start a riot at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago), thirty-four were undercover agents. Writer Kirk Sales, in his 1973 book SDS, reported that, in 1969, there were two thousand full-time agents working undercover in the New Left. And according to police authorities quoted in the December 1970 issue of Ramparts magazine, 90 percent of all intelligence gathered on the New Left movement was the work of infiltrators and informants.

Much of Ferrera’s espionage work still remains classified, but it is known through declassified FBI documents and books by Angus Mackenzie and Philip Agee that he also spied on former Republican Karl Hess (who headed that party’s platform committee in 1960 and 1964 for Barry Goldwater) and Youth International Party (yippie) leaders Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. Ferrera made friends with the Chicago 7 defendants and interviewed their lawyers, William Kunstler and Leonard Wingless, providing the CIA with critical intelligence about their trial tactics. Ferrera’s “hip” looks, demeanor and cover as a reporter admitted him inside many antiwar strategy planning sessions.

The spy’s QT cover story

Some QT collective members harbored suspicions of Sal’s lifestyle—he had the latest camera equipment and more money than he should have, but no one pegged him as a plant. “I remember Sal well,” said former member Bob Sumner in 2014. “He was around at least since the move to the new 17th and R collective house.”

“He credited his having the very latest in expensive camera equipment to a trust fund,” said former collective member Stan Flouride in 2014.

“I knew Sal Ferrera, but I don’t know which faces in the office were the FBI,” wrote Susan Tichy, who was not a collective member but just hung out. “In the pre-paranoid days, anyone who happened to be there when a meeting happened was invited to take part.”

John Muir’s 1867 Thousand-Mile Walk to the North Carolina Gulf

Christen Thompson
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John Muir’s 1867 Thousand-Mile Walk to the North Carolina Gulf

The following is an excerpted chapter from High Vistas: An Anthology of Nature Writing from Western North Carolina & the Great Smoky Mountains, recounting John Muir’s 1867 walk from the mountains of western North Carolina to the gulf.

Some of America’s finest explorers and naturalists have made their way into the mountains of Western North Carolina. These number botanists such as William Bartram, André Michaux, John Fraser, John Lyon, Asa Gray and Charles Sprague Sargent; geologists Arnold Guyot and Arthur Keith; ornithologist William Brewster; and twentieth-century writers such as Horace Kephart, Donald Culross Peattie, Roger Tory Peterson and Edwin Way Teale. But none of these—with the possible exceptions of Bartram and Peterson—can rival John Muir’s name recognition. As the founder and first president of the Sierra Club, he was without doubt this country’s most influential conservationist. Muir (1838–1914) was born in Dunbar, Scotland, the son of Daniel Muir, a farmer. The family migrated to a homestead near Portage, Wisconsin, in the late 1840s. Muir Sr. is reputed to have been a harsh disciplinarian who worked his family from dawn to dusk. But in his free time, his son became a keen observer of the natural world.

RELATED: Celebrating the History of the Greensboro Sit-ins through Pictures

In 1860, Muir entered the University of Wisconsin, where he made excellent grades; nevertheless, after three years, he left Madison to travel through the Northern United States and Canada, thereby increasing his knowledge of the natural world, especially of plants. Then, in 1867, while working at a carriage parts shop, he suffered a blinding eye injury that changed the course of his life. After miraculously regaining his sight, the rejuvenated young man resolved to turn his attention fulltime to the “University of the Wilderness.” 

Already an accomplished long-distance walker, on September 1, 1867, Muir initiated years of wanderlust with a little stroll from Indianapolis, Indiana, where he was then residing, to Cedar Key, Florida. Traveling light, he carried a small bag that contained a comb, brush, towel, soap, a change of underclothing, a copy of Robert Burns’s poems, Milton’s Paradise Lost, a copy of the New Testament and a notebook, in which he made daily observations and rough pencil sketches of plants and animals. Written on the inside cover of the notebook are the words: “John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe”—his address for the remainder of his life.

The following year, Muir went to California, heading directly from San Francisco to the Sierra Nevada, on foot. He fell in love with the Sierras and was entranced by Yosemite Valley. Accordingly, he campaigned for the establishment of Yosemite National Park, which became a reality in 1890, and two years later he organized the Sierra Club to foster conservation of wild lands. Muir served as the club’s president until his death. During the years 1896 and1897, his influence with President Grover Cleveland helped establish thirteen forest reserves—which evolved into today’s national forests. Along with President Theodore Roosevelt, who became a close friend after camping with him in Yosemite in 1903, Muir fostered the designation of additional national forests, national monuments such as Muir Woods and national parks such as Sequoia.

RELATED: Building an Empire: Restoring the Biltmore Estate

via Library of Congress

His first book, The Mountains of California, was published in 1894. It was followed in his lifetime by others such as Our National Parks (1901), Stickeen (1909), My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) and The Yosemite (1912). Travels in Alaska (1915), The Cruise of the Corwin (1917) and Steep Trails (1918) appeared posthumously. The nature notebook Muir kept during his 1867 walk, ably edited and with an important introduction by William Frederic Bade, was published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1916 as A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. Bade titled the second chapter of the book “The Cumberland Mountains.” Therein, one finds Muir’s all too brief account of his crossing of the far southwestern tip of North Carolina. “Mr. Beale”—the sheriff Muir encountered in Cherokee County—was William Beale. 

Margaret Walker Freel, in Our Heritage: The People of Cherokee County, North Carolina, 1540–1955 (1956), described him as a native of Yorkshire, England, who had attended Oxford University before moving with his family to Murphy in 1855. He served as Cherokee County’s sheriff during the Civil War and for some time afterward, even though “there was feeling that he was in sympathy with the North, and at times he had to go to the mountains for safety.” He was also a schoolteacher, storekeeper, mineralogist and surveyor, “who had the first transit ever brought to the county,” as well as “the first wagon with manufactured wheels and the first lamp which burned kerosene oil.” Such was the background of the local man who befriended John Muir in September 1867, during his long walk from Indianapolis to Cedar Key.

John Muir’s Thousand-Mile Journey

September 18. Up the mountain on the state line. The scenery is far grander than any I ever before beheld. The view extends from the Cumberland Mountains on the north far into Georgia and North Carolina to the south, an area of about five thousand square miles. Such an ocean of wooded, waving, swelling mountain beauty and grandeur is not to be described. Countless forest-clad hills, side by side in rows and groups, seemed to be enjoying the rich sunshine and remaining motionless only because they were so eagerly absorbing it. All were united by curves and slopes of inimitable softness and beauty. Oh, these forest gardens of our Father! What perfection, what divinity, in their architecture! What simplicity and mysterious complexity of detail! Who shall read the teaching of these sylvan pages, the glad brotherhood of rills that sing in the valleys, and all the happy creatures that dwell in them under the tender keeping of a Father’s care?

RELATED: Theodore Roosevelt’s Epic California Camping Trip

September 19. Received another solemn warning of dangers on my way through the mountains. Was told by my worthy entertainer of a wondrous gap in the mountains which he advised me to see. “It is called Track Gap [now Track Rock Gap State Archaeological Area in north Georgia],” said he, “from the great number of tracks in the rocks—bird tracks, bar tracks, hoss tracks, men tracks, all in the solid rock as if it had been mud.” Bidding farewell to my worthy mountaineer and all his comfortable wonders, I pursued my way to the South.

As I was leaving, he repeated the warnings of danger ahead, saying that there were agood many people living like wild beasts on whatever they could steal, and that murders were sometimes committed for four or five dollars, and even less. While stopping with him I noticed that a man came regularly after dark to the house for his supper. He was armed with a gun, a pistol, and a long knife. My host told me that this man was at feud with one of his neighbors, and that they were prepared to shoot one another at sight. That neither of them could do anyregular work or sleep in the same place two nights in succession. That they visited houses only for food, and as soon as the one that I saw had got his supper he went out and slept in the woods, without of course making a fire. His enemy did the same. 

My entertainer told me that he was trying to make peace between these two men, because they both were good men, and if they would agree to stop their quarrel, they could then both go to work. Most of the food in this house was coffee without sugar, corn bread, and sometimes bacon. But the coffee was the greatest luxury which these people knew. The only way of obtaining it was by selling skins, or, in particular, “sang,” that is ginseng, which found a market in far-off China.

My path all to-day led me along the leafy banks of the Hiwassee, a most impressive mountain river. Its channel is very rough, as it crosses the edges of upturned rock strata, some of them standing at right angles, or glancing off obliquely to right and left. Thus a multitude of short, resounding cataracts are produced, and the river is restrained from the headlong speed due to its volume and the inclination of its bed.

All the larger streams of uncultivated countries are mysteriously charming and beautiful, whether flowing in mountains or through swamps and plains. Their channels are interestingly sculptured, far more so than the grandest architectural works of man. The finest of the forests are usually found along their banks, and in the multitude of falls and rapids the wilderness finds a voice. Such a river is the Hiwassee, with its surface broken to a thousand sparkling gems, and its forest walls vine-draped and flowery as Eden. And how fine the songs it sings!

In Murphy I was hailed by the sheriff who could not determine by my colors and rigging to what country or craft I belonged. Since the war, every other stranger in these lonely parts is supposed to be a criminal, and all are objects of curiosity or apprehensive concern. After a few minutes’ conversation with this chief man of Murphy I was pronounced harmless, and invited to his house, where for the first time since leaving home I found a house decked with flowers and vines, clean within and without, and stamped with the comforts of culture and refinement in all its arrangements. Striking contrast to the uncouth transitionist establishments from the wigwams of savages to the clumsy but clean log castle of the thrifty pioneer.

September 20. All day among the groves and gorges of Murphy with Mr. Beale. Was shown the site of Camp Butler where General Scott had his headquarters when he removed the Cherokee Indians [in 1838] to a new home in the West. Found a number of rare and strange plants on the rocky banks of the river Hiwassee. In the afternoon, from the summit of a commanding ridge, I obtained a magnificent view of blue, softly curved mountain scenery. Among the trees I saw Ilex [holly] for the first time.

High Vistas: An Anthology of Nature Writing from Western North Carolina & the Great Smoky Mountains,

High Vistas: An Anthology of Nature Writing from Western North Carolina & the Great Smoky Mountains,

By George Ellison

“High Vistas” is the first anthology devoted to nature writings on Western North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains. Each selection features a biographical essay introducing each author from celebrated naturalists John Muir and William Bartram to lesser-known writers whose words deserve to be heard and reveals how he or she went about exploring and depicting the region. Searching for rare wildflowers and elusive birds, scaling vertical cliffs, experimenting with medicinal plants, exploring a vast cavern, enduring horrific thunderstorms and encountering timber wolves, panthers, black bears and giant rattlesnakes are just some of the adventures that unfold in these pages.

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Lost Pittsburgh: Beauty and Baseball at Forbes Field

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Lost Pittsburgh: Beauty and Baseball at Forbes Field

Baseball’s fans and players are waiting for a way to enjoy their favorite game safely in a time of Coronavirus. With solutions still a ways off, there’s never been a better time to be nostalgic.

Forbes Field stood for more than sixty years as the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball club. Opened on June 30, 1909, for a game against the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs, Forbes Field was unique at the time. It was the first ballpark to be constructed out of steel and concrete and featured a two-tiered grandstand (a third tier was added in 1938), luxury suites and ramps to take fans from one level to the next. It cost between $1 million and $2 million to build and could seat twenty-three thousand spectators. But on the warm, sunny afternoon that marked its opening, more than thirty thousand fans crowded into Forbes Field, with people sitting on the outfield walls and standing in the aisles.

Barney Dreyfuss, president of the ball club, called the day “the happiest day of my life,” as he probably felt no small measure of satisfaction. When he bought the land on which the ballpark would stand, critics called his plan “Dreyfuss’s Folly.” Many people felt the site was too far away from downtown Pittsburgh to attract many fans. Dreyfuss, for his part, wanted to move away from the Allegheny River, where Exposition Park, the Pirates’ home, was located, because it often flooded.

Dreyfuss had faith and money, and the land he purchased with the help of Andrew Carnegie was cheap. The inexpensive price allowed him to spend more of his money on the ballpark itself, and he believed that it was only a matter of time before the city would spread out to engulf the neighborhoods surrounding the structure. He was right, and by the time construction began on Forbes Field, there were very few public critics. The ballpark was so successful that, in 1925, its capacity was increased to forty-one thousand.

Designing Forbes

The architect was Charles Wellford Leavitt Jr., and he brought his experience using streel and concrete on New York’s Belmont and Saratoga horse-racing tracks to bear in following Dreyfuss’s conception of the facility. Fred Clarke, the manager of the Pirates in 1909, added his two cents, and they were valuable: he designed and patented a device that would allow grounds crews to cover the infield with a canvas tarp when it rained.

Forbes Field was a monster of a ballpark. The outfield wall in left field stood 360 feet from home plate—and that was the shortest distance to the stands. The right-field line was 376 feet away; straightaway center was 442 feet away. The farthest point was in left-center field, an astounding 462 feet away. As if that weren’t enough of a challenge for home run hitters, the outfield wall in 1909 was 12 feet high.

Forbes Field’s centerfield wall is virtually all that is left standing. Fans gather there every October to celebrate Pittsburgh’s victory over the New York Yankees in the 1960 World Series. Image sourced from Iconic Pittsburgh.

image from iconic pittsburgh, page 68. caption:

Forbes Field could be a strange place to play baseball. For starters, the infield was rock-hard, and balls could take strange bounces. Bob Prince, the Pirates’ colorful radio announcer from 1948 to 1975, dubbed the ground “alabaster plaster.” Outfielders had their own set of challenges. Near the outfield wall were a flagpole and two light towers; all three were in play. In addition, the Pirates would “store” the pregame batting cage along the wall near the 457-foot sign, with the fencing facing home plate. With all these “distractions,” it is no wonder that the park was famous for triples and inside-the-park home runs—in one game, the Pirates hit eight triples. In more than 4,700 games over sixty years, no pitcher ever threw a no-hitter at Forbes Field.

Frank O’Donnell, native Pittsburgher and amateur baseball historian, explained that the park’s playing field was designed to maximize run production during what was known as the “dead ball” era.

“Players didn’t hit many home runs back then,” O’Donnell said. “Teams played ‘inside baseball’ playing for one run at a time. Larger outfields promoted doubles and triples, and rope was strung in front of the walls in the outfieldif there were large crowds,where fans would pay to stand to watch the game. Owen ‘Chief ’ Wilson, playing for the Pirates in 1912, hit 36 triples—a record that probably never will be broken. Players don’t hit 36 triples in their careers now.”

During a renovation in 1925, when stands were added in right field, the right-field line was reduced to 330 feet and the wall was shortened to 9 feet. Dreyfuss countered this, however, by placing a 28-foot-high screen atop the wall. Outfield dimensions were altered for various reasons over the years, and by the time the park closed in 1970, they ranged from 300 feet down the right-field line to 457 feet in the deepest part of center field.

On the field

In its inaugural season, Forbes Field helped usher in the Pirates’ first World Series win. Pittsburgh would go on to win two more Series there; in 1925, against the Washington Senators; and in 1960, against the New York Yankees. The latter served as a bit of payback for the drubbing the Pirates received from New York in the 1927 Series. The park hosted the All-Star Game in 1944 and 1959, and in 1935, it was the site of Babe Ruth’s last three home runs. His last shot cleared the red slate roof in right field, which stood eighty-six feet high. The feat, which has been matched only seventeen times, is believed to be the longest home run in Forbes Field history.

In addition to the Pirates, the Homestead Grays of the Negro League called Forbes Field home. But the park served as much more than a baseball diamond. The NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers played there from 1933 to 1963 before moving to Pitt Stadium and, then, to Three Rivers Stadium. The Pitt Panthers also played football there from 1909 to 1924, racking up five undefeated seasons in that period. For a short time, it played host to the Pittsburgh Phantoms professional soccer club, and fight fans flocked to the park to watch scores of professional boxing matches over the years.

The ballpark closed after a double-header against the Cubs—who else? The Cubs also were the opponents for the first and last games at old Exposition Park—it was run-down and in need of repair. Bob Prince thought it tragic that the park was closing. He once said that in moving to Three Rivers Stadium, the Pirates “took the players away from the fans.” He believed the park could have been saved. But Forbes Field’s fate had been sealed twelve years earlier, when the University of Pittsburgh bought the property for $2 million—coincidentally, what Dreyfuss had paid for the land and construction of the ballpark. From then on, it was a matter of time before Forbes Field would become only a memory.

Gone, but not forgotten

Not entirely, however. Pieces of Forbes Field survive; home plate can be seen—under glass—on the first floor of Pitt’s Posvar Hall, and sections of the left-center-field wall are still standing. On October 13 every year, a group of fans gather at the wall to listen to a broadcast of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, in which second baseman Bill Mazeroski’s ninth-inning home run lifted the Bucs to victory. The tradition was started by, and nearly died with, Saul Finkelstein, a Squirrel Hill resident who came to the site on that day in 1985, sat by the flagpole and listened to a rebroadcast of the game by himself. He did this for eight years before anyone joined him, but since then, as many as one thousand fans a year have come to honor the 1960 World Series champions.

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