John Muir's Birthplace

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Content updated Mon, 19 Jul 1999 23:16:51 GMT

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Scottish Origins and Emigration

Self-Taught from the Great Book of Nature

The Turning Point

"...so unlike the dismal grammar ashes and cinders so long thrashed into us. Here without knowing it, we were still at school; every wild lesson a love lesson, not whipped but charmed into us. Oh, that glorious Wisconsin wilderness."

John Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913)

From the time of his arrival in Wisconsin, age 11, John Muir received no schooling, but taught himself using books borrowed from neighbouring farmers. His great teacher, however, was the new Eden of his Wisconsin wilderness. Muir drew the distinction between discovery and learning by rote which he described as being:

"simply driven point-blank against our books like soldiers against the enemy."

John Muir, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913)

Muir's innate genius began to manifest itself in his early teens as he designed and bult a series of highly complex and original machines: clocks, barometers and thermometers, all whittled from hickory or pine! Amazed by these creations, his neighbours urged him to display them at the Wisconsin State Fair, in Madison, where they became the talk of the town. The Wisconsin State Journal of 25 September 1860 predicted that:

"few articles will attract as much attention as these products of Mr. Muir's ingenuity."

A local professor saw the ploughboy's inventions and encouraged him to attend the University of Wisconsin, where Muir encountered like-minds for the first time.

The original plans for Muir's precision string-driven things, and a replica water-clock will be on show in the exhibiton.