"When One Door Closes, Another Opens"
1863: As the Civil War heated up President Lincoln called for the draft. In Madison, Wisconsin a 25 year old student at the University of Wisconsin looked at his options. He was draft eligible and would soon join the thousands of young men assembling at Camp Randall. However, John Muir detested the killing of anything. As a young boy in his native Scotland he couldn’t stand to see an animal or bird injured. He even sympathized with fish caught for sport. With barely a goodbye, John left the University and disappeared into the Canadian woods. He had little more than the shirt on his back. He was not the first nor yet the last to “dodge the draft.”
He returned when the war ended, having developed substantial survival skills which would stand him in good stead. But it was his remarkable mechanical skills that landed him a job working in a carriage wheel factory in Indianapolis, Indiana.
At this point in his life John Muir was 29 years old and possessed a demeanor which we might call “bohemian.” There was nothing to suggest that this bearded woodsman would achieve world-wide fame and become the close friend of President Teddy Roosevelt and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In addition John would play a major role in establishing the National Park System and the Sierra Club. His “conservation of nature” ethic profoundly influences us to this very day.
What Happened?
1867: On the evening of March 6, John was working late. A problem with the leather belts that ran the factory machines had drawn his attention. The belts loosened with use and had to be constantly adjusted. Working on the belt lacings, his sharp metal tool slipped and struck his right eye. Stunned, he walked to the window. He could feel the jelly from his eye on his cheek and his fingers. The sight in that eye was gone. Profoundly shaken, he staggered home and went to bed. And worse, shortly thereafter he began to lose the vision in his good left eye. It was the onset of Sympathetic Ophthalmia, the dreaded, poorly understood inflammatory reaction in both eyes that follows a penetrating injury to one eye. The family physician prepared him for total blindness, a future without vision. A second consultant offered some hope and sent the totally distraught young man to bed in a dark room with patches on both eyes.
Fortunately, the vision in his left eye gradually returned. But it is certain that John Muir was not the same man. Feeling somewhat responsible, the owners of the factory offered John a partnership. It was an amazing opportunity for a young man. Before making a decision he went for a long walk in the woods he loved so well. It was during this walk that he looked at the trees, the sunlight, the sky, the birds and all the natural wonders he had thought were lost to him forever. He decided on a different path. He would see as many of the works of nature as he could. Later in life he would write, “I could have been a millionaire but chose to be a tramp instead!”
He set out on his famous ‘thousand mile walk” hiking from Indiana to Florida. Walking through the south after the Civil War was a dangerous business. With only a comb, a piece of soap, a change of socks and little else, he was largely ignored by the roving robbers. He had less than they.
John’s goal was to go to Cuba, then Brazil, where he planned to raft down the Amazon. Had he done so he probably would have disappeared without a trace. Fortunately, for the second time in his life a medical crisis intervened. He was struck down with malaria. During his recovery he had several days to consider his future. He decided to go to California. It was there, in the indescribable beauty of the Yosemite Valley that John Muir found himself and the fame he never sought.