Indiana - John Muir
John Muir lived in Indiana from the spring of 1866 through June, 1867, working in a carriage-parts factory. Although his time in Indianapolis was short, it was profound.
He spent what little free time he had exploring the nearby forests for their botanical treasures.
But most of the time he worked in the factory, devising labor-saving devices and ways to achieve greater efficiency. But one day, the tine end of a file that he was holding to work on a belt of a machine slipped and flew upward, piercing his right eye. His right eye was blinded, and his left eye went dark sympathetically. Over the next six weeks, he spent his time in a darkened room, nursing his eye, and worried that he would never ever see again. During this time, his friends, including Catharine Merrill, entertained him by reading to him on various subjects–such as the wonder of the Yosemite in California. In his blindness, he also contemplated his life, the world, and the environment that was changing in the face of the Industrial Revolution.
When he finally regained his eyesight, he saw the world, and his purpose within it, in a new light. “This affliction has driven me to the sweet fields,” he said. “God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons.”
When he recovered his eyesight, he was forever changed. He 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.”
The accident inspired Muir to travel to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico on his way to South America to emulate the travels of Alexander von Humboldt. But he took a 45 year detour to California and the Yosemite Valley – the rest is history.
John Muir in Indianapolis State Historical Marker
Title: John Muir in Indianapolis
Location: Former site of Osgood, Smith & Co., Illinois & Merrill Streets on grassy triangle, Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana.
Indiana Historical Bureau ID Number: 49.2004.2
Erected 2004 by Indiana Historical Bureau, Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter, and Various Donors.
Side One:
Born 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland, Muir moved to the U.S. with his family, settling in Wisconsin 1849. As a youth, he became interested in nature and mechanical inventions. He attended the University of Wisconsin and was consumed with an interest in botany. In 1866, he came to Indianapolis and worked at a carriage materials factory located here.
Side Two:
Following a severe eye injury, Muir left Indianapolis September 1867 to begin extensive travels, which ended in California March 1868. His deep friendship with Catharine Merrill and others, however, resulted in a lifelong connection with Indianapolis. Muir co-founded the Sierra Club 1892 and was president until he died December 24, 1914.
Historical Background and References:
- Forest and Industry: John Muir in Indianapolis by Nathan Schmidt, in Indiana Magazine of History, Indiana University Press, Volume 119, Number 2, (June 2023), pp. 107-138). A detailed scholarly analysis of John Muir’s time in Indianapolis, exploring his time there working on both mechanical inventions and botanizing, and the life-long friendships he formed, adding to the literature by using Muir’s original unpublished letters from the University of the Pacific’s John Muir Papers.
- John Muir in Indiana 2003, (PDF) by Harold W. Wood, Jr. – required research paper submitted to Indiana Historical Bureau in support of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter request for a commemorative historical plaque in Indianapolis.
- Indiana Historical Bureau – John Muir in Indianapolis (source for annotations below but with outdated links.
- Historical Marker Database, John Muir in Indianapolis (accessed 31 Jan 2023). Includes an interactive map to locate the marker.
- Clio – John Muir in Indianapolis (accessed 31 Jan 2023). Includes audio, a map, Google Street View for the Marker, photos, and an extensive biography.
- The Indianapolis-Yosemite Connection – from HistoricIndianapolis.com (accessed 31 Jan 2023)
- John Muir Remembered in Indiana with New Historical Marker by Lori Hazlett, The Indiana Sierran, (Fall, 2004)
- Weber, Catherine E. Forrest, “A Genius in the Best Sense: John Muir, Earth, and Indianapolis,” (PDF) excerpt from Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History (Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 36-47, Winter 1993). Also available online from OCLC. Courtesy of Indiana Historical Society. A review of Muir’s life, with a focus on his early inventions and his time spent in Indiana, including his friendships with Catharine Moores and her nephew Merrill Moores. Nicely illustrated with Muir portraits and his drawings of inventions. The issue of Traces that includes this article is available as a back issue from the Indiana Historical Society.
Credits: Marker was installed in July, 2004 by Indiana Historical Bureau, with funding from Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter, and Various Donors. Photo courtesy of Indiana Historical Bureau.
Historical Marker Annotations – John Muir In Indianapolis
State Historical Marker References
by Indiana Historical Bureau
Born 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland,1 Muir moved to the U.S. with his family, settling in Wisconsin 1849.2 As a youth, he became interested in nature3 and mechanical inventions.4 He attended the University of Wisconsin5 and was consumed with an interest in botany.6 In 1866, he came to Indianapolis7 and worked at a carriage materials factory located here.8
Following a severe eye injury,9 Muir left Indianapolis September 186710 to begin extensive travels, which ended in California March 1868.11 His deep friendship with Catharine Merrill12 and others, however, resulted in a lifelong connection with Indianapolis.13 Muir co-founded the Sierra Club 1892 and was president until he died December 24, 1914.14
Annotations
1. Chronology of the Life and Legacy of John Muir (accessed June 19, 2003).
2. Chronology Sierra Club Web site. William Frederic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir, 2 vols. (Boston, 1923, 1924; vols. 9 and 10 of The Writings of John Muir, Sierra Edition), 1:36-38.
3. John Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (included in The Writings of John Muir, 10 vols., Sierra Edition, Boston, 1917-1924), 1:3.
4. Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, 1:198, 201, 204-6.
5. Muir apparently attended the University for about two and one half years, although Muir says he attended for four years. Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, 1:218-20; Chronology, Sierra Club Web site. In 1864, Muir had traveled to Canada and remained for two years until February 22, 1866 when the factory in Meaford, Ontario where he was working burned down. Chronology, Sierra Club Web site. In September, 1860, Muir had left home taking his inventions, two large clocks and a thermometer, to the State Fair in Madison, Wisconsin. Badè, Life and Letters, 1:77-79; Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, 1:214-15.
6. Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, 1: 223-225.
7. Badè, Life and Letters, 1:152; Chronology, Sierra Club Web site. In an autobiographical narrative, 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.” In Badè, Life and Letters, 1:153. Muir boarded at 331 South Pennsylvania and was listed as a sawyer. Edward’s Annual Directory of the Inhabitants in the City of Indianapolis, 1867 (Indianapolis, 1866), 327.
8. Muir indicated that he worked at a carriage materials factory in Indianapolis. In Badè, 1:153. On April 6, [1867], he requests that letters to him be sent to Osgood, Smith & Co. Muir, Letters to a Friend Written to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, 1866-1879 (Dunwoody, Ga., 1973), 16, 19. Osgood, Smith & Co., a hub and spoke manufacturer, was located at 230 South Illinois. Edwards Annual Directory in the City of Indianapolis in the City of Indianapolis for 1867 (Indianapolis, 1866), 335. In the mid-1860s J. R. Osgood and S.E. Smith established a business, which produced wagon and carriage materials on South Illinois Street. In 1870, with Jacob Woodburn of St. Louis, they incorporated the Woodburn Sarven Wheel Company. It became the largest manufacturer of the patented “Sarven Wheel” in the United States during the late nineteenth century. David J. Bodenhamer and Robert G. Barrows, eds. The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1994), 1451. 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.’ In Badè, 1:153-54.
9. The exact date of the eye injury is not known. Muir 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.” John Muir, “Words from an Old Friend,” in The Man Shakespeare And Other Essays With Impressions and Reminiscences of the Author by Melville B. Anderson, and With Some Words of Appreciation from John Muir, by Catharine Merrill (Indianapolis, 1902), 33. Muir elsewhere describes exactly what he was doing when the injury occurs. Muir, in Badè, 1:154. In an April 6, 1867 letter, he notes, “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.” Muir, Letters to a Friend, 17-18. His good friend Catharine Merrill took charge of his eye injury and employed the best oculist in Indianapolis. Samuel Merrill, “Personal Recollections of John Muir,” Sierra Club Bulletin, 13:1 (February, 1928), 25.
10. He left September 1, 1867 on the thousand-mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico. John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (included in The Writings of John Muir, Sierra Edition), 1:247. In a June 9, 1867 letter, Muir indicates that he plans to leave Indianapolis with Merrill Moores (the 11 year old nephew of Catharine Merrill) to botanize, in Decatur, Illinois and then north to Madison, Wisconsin. Muir, Letters to a Friend, 24-25. In August 1867, Muir returned to Indianapolis. Muir, ibid., 31.
11. Muir sailed March 6, 1868 from New York City to Panama and from there to San Francisco where he arrived March 27. Badè, 1:174-77; Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk, 396, indicates “We reached San Francisco about the first of April.”
12. “Miss Merrill was the first friend I found in Indiana, and one of the kindest, wisest, and most helpful of my life. . . . . I was blind for months. . . . She. . . . procured the services of the best oculist and the children she knew I loved. And when at last after long months of kindness and skill she [Catharine Merrill] saw me out in Heaven’s sunshine again, . . . her joy was as great as my own.” Muir, “Words from an Old Friend,” 32-33; Samuel Merrill, “Personal Recollections,” 25. Catharine Merrill, born 1824, was the daughter of State Treasurer, Samuel Merrill. She taught school in the back parlor of her home (57), was a nurse in the Civil War (306, 307), wrote The Indiana Soldier in the War of the Union (323), and was a professor at North Western Christian University (338). She was the aunt of Merrill Moores, who accompanied John Muir on some of his excursions (343, 344, 354). Katharine Merrill Graydon, collected and arranged, Catharine Merrill, Life and Letters (Greenfield, Ind.), 1934.
13. There are communications to, from, and about Muir in Graydon, Catharine Merrill. One letter July 2, 1896 indicates that Muir visited with Catharine during a trip to Indianapolis. Badè discovered that Muir had left some of his belongings at the home of Julia M. Moores went he left Indianapolis on his thousand-mile walk. Badè traced the belongings to Moores’ son’s home in Indianapolis and found Muir’s herbarium gathered 1864-1867, which gave important clues to Muir’s travels 1864-1867. Badè, 1:117… On February 5, 1880, Muir writes to Katharine Merrill Graydon: “I mean to come see you all in a year or two . . . to see you all in your new developments. The sweet underbrush of girls – Moores, Merrills, Graydons, etc. – was very refreshing and pleasant to me all my Indiana days. . . . Going to Indianapolis is one of the brightest of my hopes. It seems but yesterday since I left you all. . . . I will be so happy to see you again, not to renew my acquaintance, for that has not been for a moment interrupted but to know you better in your new growth.” Badè, 2:128. There are additional letters quoted in Badè, 2.
14. Chronology, Sierra Club Web site.