Benton MacKaye

Why is it that the beauty of nature must be spoiled by Man? Man, though the highest of beings, is, in one [sense], the lowest, never contented until he has spoiled all the beauty of nature in his power by cutting down vegetation, killing animals, and even cutting down hills when he has the power to do so … How much more beautiful the surrounding would be, in every way, if men were not such fools. 

-Benton MacKaye (Anderson, 2002, p. 2)

Emile Benton MacKaye was born into a family deeply burdened with financial troubles on March 6, 1879, the fifth of six children. It was months newborn was named; he was referred to in the interim as "Little Mr. Nemo." Finally given, his name derived from his paternal grandmother's, Emily Benton Steele. His father, Steele MacKaye, struggled as a playwright in New York, and his mother, Mary, stayed at home in Stamford, Connecticut, although she was also occasionally involved in theatre (Anderson, 2002). 

Steele squandered what he earned as a playwright, and the family moved often until William, the second oldest, obtained a modest family estate in the small village of Shirley Center, Massachusetts. In July of 1888, eight-year-old MacKaye moved with his family into "The Cottage." Immediately enamored with the beauty and freedom of the country, MacKaye enjoyed it far more than urban existence. The family cherished this legacy from William, who died of a respiratory disease the following winter. The Shirley Cottage was MacKaye's true home for the remainder of his long life (Anderson, 2002). 

MacKaye was an indifferent student despite his passion for learning. He defined school "as a place that boys like to run away from" (Anderson, 2002, p.18). In 1890, on a family trip to Washington, D.C., he spent many days at the Smithsonian Institution gaining a more valuable education than the one offered in the schoolhouse, he thought. Encouraged by his brothers, MacKaye drew and took notes on the different specimens of birds and other wildlife (Anderson). 

In February 1894, Steele passed away, and with his older brothers away attending college, MacKaye became the man of the household. He wrestled with the emotional turbulence brought on by the loss of the father he had seen so little but also began to think more about the future, considering how to best prepare for the Harvard entrance exams. He enrolled at the Cambridge Latin School in September 1894 and moved in with family friends. MacKaye enjoyed Boston but not his situation at school. By December, he dropped out and decided to prepare for the entrance exams on his own. His determination paid off (Anderson, 2002). 

Seventeen-year-old MacKaye registered at Harvard on October 1, 1896. He was particularly enamored with his earth science courses. His professors, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and William Morris Davis, provided theories, techniques, and perspectives MacKaye carried for the rest of his life. Two of the most influential figures in the emerging conservation movement, John Muir and Gifford Pinchot, visited Harvard during MacKaye's studies. Muir, a writer, mountaineer, and founder of the Sierra Club, and Pinchot, chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry, spoke passionately about the challenges facing the American forests and wild lands. Their enlightened views of the destructive fate of the wilderness moved MacKaye (Anderson, 2002). 

MacKaye's first time atop a mountain during his freshman summer changed the way he responded to the world around him. While others lamented the rapacious logging companies' rapid destruction of the forest around them, MacKaye experienced the undefiled wilderness for the first time. "I felt then how much I resembled in size one of the hairs on the eye tooth of a flea" (p. 37).

Reluctantly, MacKaye moved back to New York after graduation to teach in a position his brother Percy secured for him. But employment opportunities in forestry were limited at the time, and he was uncertain what to do. The forestry profession, however, took root while he tutored in the city. MacKaye returned to Harvard in the fall of 1903 as the first student to ever pursue a graduate degree in forestry. He remained there, as both student and instructor, for the following six and a half years (Anderson, 2002). 

In 1909, MacKaye and Mabel "Lucy" Foster Abbot became secretly engaged. They made an ideal match. For Abbot, a recent Radcliffe graduate intent on becoming a journalist, MacKaye's forestry background and connections with the Forest Service provided a ready subject. As for MacKaye, Abbot could help bring conservation issues into the public eye. Howard Taft taking office in March 1909 proved detrimental to the conservation movement, which had flourished under Theodore Roosevelt's administration. MacKaye and Abbot soon became involved in the controversy of Pinchot's dismissal from the Forest Service.

A shock came in the spring of 1910: MacKaye would not be invited to return to Harvard in the fall. While not entirely conclusive, the circumstances surrounding MacKaye's dismissal suggest that his left-wing campus politics and involvement in national conservation affairs may have incited is superiors' decision not to rehire (Anderson, 2002). 

MacKaye's sudden unemployment created a crisis for his entire family–he was the primary supporter of his mother. His sister, Hazel, helped him find work on the forestry textbook he had been intent on writing for several years. He planned the grounds of a Peterborough, New Hampshire estate and used the property as a key case study for his textbook.

MacKaye was defensive and insecure about his writing, but he eventually unveiled the manuscript, titled "A Theory of Forest Management." Finding a publisher was another story, one with a twist. No publisher accepted the book, but Forest Service chief Henry Graves offered MacKaye a job as a "forest examiner" when he saw it. MacKaye's relationship with Abbot, however, was under considerable stress. When he assumed his duties in Washington, D.C. in December 1911, the two went their separate ways (Anderson, 2002). 

Soon, MacKaye's professional, political, and personal lives, once again, tangled inextricably. Involved in a social and political circle with many of the conservative movement's progressive leaders, he met suffrage activist Jessie Hardy "Betty" Stubbs. The couple was married on June 1, 1915. They both remained exceedingly devoted to their respective causes. When MacKaye traveled to different parts of the country to continue his Forest Service fieldwork, his new bride often travelled with him doing suffrage work. They also combined forces in actively opposing World War I.

The marriage came to a tragic end in April of 1921 when Betty committed suicide by jumping into the East River. Her death emotionally plagued MacKaye for the rest of his life. He remained a bachelor and rarely mentioned, even to his closest friends, that he had ever been married (Anderson, 2002). 

Betty's tragic death proved a turning point. Within months of her passing, MacKaye publicly proposed his revolutionary idea for a hiking path along the entire ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains. He sought refuge at the home of Charles Harris Whitaker in New Jersey and outlined the redevelopment of Appalachia. His plans included the trail. He refined his vision into two lengthy memos he wrote during the summer.

A lingering sense of urgency from World War I and the ensuing domestic strife lived in the memos. They included strong calls for action but also contained a strategic plan. He revised these memos into an article entitled "An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning," published in the October 1921 edition of the Journal of the American Institute of Architects. The article proposed that the populous Eastern United States needed wild lands set aside like the ones being created in the West and detailed his plan for the Appalachian Trail (Sutter, 1999). 

Plans soon became hiking boots on the ground. The Committee on Community Planning (CCP) adopted MacKaye's plan as part of its agenda, serving as the trail's major benefactor in its early years. Clarence Stein, then chairman of the CCP, obtained reprints of MacKaye's article, wrote a brief introduction to it, and distributed it to potential supporters. New hiking clubs emerged, and in 1925, converged to form the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC). Work on the trail concluded in 1937, but the hurricane of 1938 and construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway wiped out many sections. The trail was not marked complete again until 1951 (Sutter, 1999). 

In 1935, MacKaye and other prominent wilderness figures, like Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall, established The Wilderness Society, the first national organization dedicated to the preservation of wilderness. They fought several battles and achieved few clear victories in the immediate years. But the group's influence on government policy and public consciousness steadily grew.

By the time, MacKaye was elected vice-president in 1937, The Wilderness Society boasted 576 members. MacKaye served as president from 1945 to 1950, then as honorary president for the rest of his life. MacKaye's experience, ideas, vision, and energy stimulated veterans of the wilderness cause and spurred newcomers to join in (Anderson, 2002). 

MacKaye passed away on December 11, 1975 at the age of 96. His influence lives on (Anderson, 2002). In 1979, the Benton MacKaye Trail Association was formed to enact MacKaye's original plan for the Appalachian Trail. The nearly 300-mile Benton MacKaye Trail, officially completed in 2005, intersects the Appalachian Trail on either end and passes through some of the most remote backcountry in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina (Benton MacKaye Trail Association). 

References

Anderson, Larry. (2002). Benton MacKaye: Conservationist, Planner, and Creator of the Appalachian Trail. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. 

Benton MacKaye Trail Association

Sutter, Paul. (1999, Oct.). "'A Retreat from Profit': Colonization, the Appalachian Trail, and the social roots of Benton MacKaye's wilderness advocacy." Environmental History.