20 Years Ago in Chapter News

The Double Blaze

Chapter 7: Appalachian Trail History, Part 1

Probably the best history of New England's trails was written by Guy and Laura Waterman in Forest and Crag (AMC Books). This is a must-read for anyone with an interest in hiking that goes beyond just walking around outdoors. Much of what I write here summarizes their chapter, "Trail Builders." Another fine source of information specific to the AT is published by the ATC (Appalachian Trail Conference). Its web page on trail history, has a comprehensive series of articles and is another source of information for this article. Finally, our local Massachusetts Appalachian Trail Management Plan provided much of the local information. This year, the plan is undergoing its first update since 1992. Once it is complete, it will be available online at the Chapter's web page.

As you may be aware, the concept of the AT goes back to Benton MacKaye (rhymes with 'sky') of Shirley, Massachusetts. In an article in the 1929 Journal of the American Institute of Architects he proposed a trail in the mountains that would connect a series of farms and work camps where East Coast city dwellers could get out into the country to the healthy "oxygen of the mountain air along the Appalachian skyline." He believed this rural refuge would restore the health of the sick and redistribute the eastern population from "unhealthy" urban centers to the countryside. He envisioned an extensive cooperative structure where visiting urbanites would come to play and work together, creating a thriving rural society.

The Trail itself, in MacKaye's view, was going to be but one part of a greater plan. He envisioned a footpath modeled on Vermont's Long Trail, but connecting a series of existing trails from Mt. Washington to Mt. Mitchell – the highest peaks in the north and the south. He suggested that this trail be divided into sections (by state) and that "each section should be in the immediate charge of a local group of people." Trails through connecting private agricultural lands could be supported by each state acquiring rights of way. He also anticipated that some sort of "general federated control" would be needed to pull it all together.

The second part of MacKaye's dream was the "Shelter Camp":

They should be located at convenient distances so as to allow a comfortable day's walk between each. They should be equipped always for sleeping and certain of them for serving meals – after the function of the Swiss chalets.

And,

As far as possible the blazing and constructing of the trail and building of camps should be done by volunteer workers. For volunteer "work" is really "play."

Thirdly, there should be "Community Camps" – places along the Trail where private dwellings for small populations would be laid out. (Planning was a big part of MacKaye's world view.) Citizens of these camps would provide workers for efforts in recreation, recuperation, and education.

The fourth and final part of this idea was the "Food and Farm Camps," which would be established in valley lands near the Community Camps.

Their development could provide tangible opportunity for working out by actual experiment a fundamental matter in the problem of living. It would provide one definite avenue of experimenting in getting "back to the land."

Clearly the practical problems in MacKaye's plan would doom it to failure, except in very controlled circumstances. The Appalachian Trail is the only surviving remnant of his proposal, and it would take other, more practical visionaries to actually make a continuous trail a reality. However, MacKaye, writing shortly after World War I, ends his article with a thought that still resonates today: "Militarism has been made colorful in a world of drab. But the care of the countryside, which the scouting life instills, is vital in any real protection of 'home and country.'"

Building the Trail

So, how do we get from a rather romantic vision of country life to smelly hikers walking 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine? The next step was to build the trail, and in 1923, under the auspices of the New York New Jersey Trail Conference, the first official section of the AT was opened in Bear Mountain Park. Not much else was done on the ground until the end of the decade when a retired judge, Arthur Perkins, took over the fledgling Appalachian Trail Conference and the AT project from MacKaye. Perkins' associate, Myron Avery, became interested in the project and changed the world.

Between 1929 and 1934 an aggressive and sometimes abrasive Avery courted existing hiking clubs, formed new ones, and organized volunteers to connect and complete 1,937 miles of footpath, much of which Avery laid out himself.

In 1935, a significant event occurred when the federal government decided to build the Skyline Drive on top of the footpath in Shenandoah National Park. MacKaye was appalled at such urban intrusion into wild lands. The pragmatic Avery – perhaps sensing the need for federal support for a multi-state trail – urged cooperation. With support primarily from New York and New England, Avery's view carried the day, and the ATC supported moving the trail. MacKaye and his allies left the Conference to form The Wilderness Society.

By 1937 the trail was continuous from Maine to Georgia, though not perhaps as we would recognize it today. It passed through many rural communities, often traversed back roads between areas of protected land, and relied heavily on the good will of private landowners who provided a right of way for the trail, often on nothing more than a handshake. The ATC began to be active in calling for preservation and public acquisition of land to protect the footpath.

However, as they say, trouble was brewing. The hurricane of '38 destroyed many miles of trail in New England, another parkway – the Blue Ridge – would force another 120 miles of Trail to be relocated, and war looming on the horizon brought volunteer activity and resources nearly to a halt.

During the war and the country's subsequent recovery, the trail languished as other priorities took over. Myron Avery renewed his efforts to build a corps of local volunteers and restore the footpath. A catalyst to that effort was a returning war veteran, Earl Schaffer. In 1948, he reported to ATC that he had hiked the entire trail in one season. The response from trail managers was mixed. Several thought it was impossible, and it took some time to convince the Conference that the feat had been accomplished. Until Shaffer's effort, no one had seriously considered hiking the Trail from end to end in a single season. His achievement remained a rarity until the backpacking boom of the late '60s and '70s made it a popular counterculture rite of passage.

By 1951, the Trail's discontinuous segments had been reconnected and Avery again declared the Trail whole. However, as the East Coast population boomed, the portions of Trail crossing private lands became increasingly difficult to preserve. Towns and cities were expanding, land was desired for development, and original landowners were selling or changing the use of their properties. The Trail was increasingly being moved off farmlands and onto roads. And those roads were becoming increasingly busy.

The Massachusetts AT

What was going on in Massachusetts during all this time? In Forest and Crag, the Watermans report that in the early '20s Walter Eaton of Sheffield was intrigued enough by MacKaye's proposal that he set out to plan a path that would lead from existing trails on Mt. Everett northeasterly to October Mountain State Forest, similar to the route the AT takes now. At October Mountain, Eaton originally proposed to swing the Trail westward, then climb and traverse the crest of the Taconics northward to Mt. Greylock. Descending Mt. Greylock was to be accomplished along the Bellows Pipe Trail rather than the present route over Fitch, Williams and the north end of Prospect.

After some consideration, he reconsidered and proposed a more easterly route to bring it nearer to towns where more volunteers could be found, and also to provide easier access for day hikes by locals and visitors. This route also took it through more State Forest lands where protection was assured. From this choice one can see how different the goals for the Trail were in its original conception than they are today. I submit if land ownership were not an issue, the AT – if it were constructed in the 1990s – would likely have followed the Taconic Crest in a search for a more backcountry or "wilderness" setting.

Eaton's efforts were mostly theoretical. He did not have Avery's ability to find and energize local volunteers, so his plan languished until 1928 when a county-wide organization – The Berkshire Hills Conference – was founded. In June of 1928, a three-man trail committee was formed: Eaton, representing the southern portion of the county, Archie Sloper of Lanesborough, and Franklin Couch of Dalton. Sloper, being at the time the secretary of the Mount Greylock Commission, would head up the northern area, and Couch would undertake the connection between Greylock and points south.

Couch was a popular figure locally and had a talent for motivating and organizing community volunteer efforts. He was also extremely active in the Boy Scouts among towns in the Dalton area. His Scouts performed much of the early Trail building in the central part of the county in the late '20s and early '30s. Over these years, a nearly complete Massachusetts segment of the AT was constructed. Since the leaders were local, it was relatively easy to obtain permission from landowners for much of the route.

The route is quite similar to the current AT; it stays east – in the Berkshires – rather than west along the Taconics. The Williams College Outing Club and local Williamstown school principal John Clarke did much of the work in the north. Sloper led Boy Scouts in the area south of Greylock, and Couch's Boy Scouts worked in the Dalton area. S. Waldo Bailey of Pittsfield was another active volunteer.

In 1931, as Avery worked up and down the Trail, the Berkshire Chapter of the AMC began to devote more time to trail work. As is still true today, our Chapter had little to do with the Berkshires, being mostly centered in the Pioneer Valley. The Chapter chairs of the early '30s – Partenheimer, Dickson, and Newton – were from Springfield, Northampton, and Holyoke respectively.

Communications between the AMC and Couch's locals were never established, but that didn't stop the "Appies" from getting to work. While Couch laid out a route over Becket Mountain, the Berkshire Chapter blazed a route bypassing Becket directly to Finerty Pond. The Watermans report that Couch's crews unexpectedly found some AMC signs and took them down, believing they had been placed in error.

This ignorance of local activity, combined with Avery's strong- willed single-mindedness, set the scene for ongoing conflict and misunderstanding that lingers to this day. The locals did take a somewhat relaxed attitude to trail work (they knew where it went after all), and did not insist on the high standards of clearing and blazing that Avery and the ATC required.

On one of his two trips through the Berkshires in the '30s, Avery pronounced the locals' efforts "an absolute failure," and worked to move Couch to the sidelines while supporting the Berkshire Chapter's efforts. When Couch wrote to Avery asserting the authority of the Berkshire Hills Conference, Avery wrote a long reply denouncing the efforts of Couch, praising the Chapter and making it clear that ATC would not recognize the efforts of the Berkshire Hills volunteers.

In the face of this opposition and the increasing activity of the Berkshire Chapter, Couch and the other locals seem to have ceased working on the Trail after 1932.

Volunteers under the Chapter's Dickson and Newton completed the clearing of the entire length of the Massachusetts portion of the AT between 1932 and 1935. However, once the "glory work" of clearing the Trail was done, little interest remained among Chapter volunteers in traveling west to maintain what they had done. Although ultimately for the betterment of the Trail, the events of the early '30s leave a lingering local distrust of the AMC's motives to this day.

After the spasm of work by the Chapter in clearing the Trail, by 1936, with no ongoing interest from local volunteers, maintenance virtually ceased and the woods began to take back what had been completed. The ATC reported that no maintenance was done in Massachusetts in 1937 and 1938. In 1937, the Berkshire Eagle commented: "In the first place, the Springfield 'Appies' never should have had cause to feel it incumbent upon them to keep up the trail in Berkshire. Local people should have done it."

Next Time...

At this juncture, we'll leave the rest of this story for the Fall newsletter, covering the period when the AT comes of age, revived by local groups and eventually supported by an act of Congress. In the meantime, there are plenty of opportunities to continue this history of volunteer support. Your AT Committee has work parties nearly every Tuesday and Saturday throughout the summer.