James MacNaughton very nearly made it to the year 1906. Through the Christmas holidays, he sat in his apartment in New York with a bad cough. His condition worsened and turned into pneumonia. He went downhill fast, and on December 30, 1905, he died, two days short of the New Year and a month short of his 55th birthday. It was a fitting end to a life of near-greatness.
Born and raised in Albany, he was the son of the dean of Albany Medical College. His mother was the daughter of Archibald McIntyre, owner of the Iron Works and the blast furnace. Not surprisingly, James had all the privileges; he attended a posh private school and then went to college at Yale; he belonged to the best country club, and later joined a bunch of elite societies; when he was just five years out of school, he got a seat on the board of a project that was building an aqueduct to bring clean water from the Catskills all the way down to New York City. Imagine that, the grandson of the guy who trashed the headwaters of the Hudson River being put in charge of bringing fresh water to the most important city in the world, at the mouth of the Hudson.
As the heir to the McIntyre fortune, MacNaughton eventually inherited the responsibility of overseeing it. By the time he got the job, the Works was hardly in business, but the company still controlled more than 100,000 acres of prime Adirondack wilderness. MacNaughton made money selling logging rights, while using the place as his own private entry into the mountains, which his friends could enjoy. When MacNaughton died, control of the land passed to a new company, which was able to find more ore deposits and even built that longed-for railroad up to the mines to make transporting the ore out easier.
But apart from all this, there’s one thing that James MacNaughton is best remembered for. And that is a mountain, named in his honor, which lies just to the west of the range that was named for his grandfather. And this mountain is a curious thing. Think about this. If you were a raindrop, and you fell and landed on the west side of MacNaughton, you would flow downhill to the north, run through a couple of ponds, empty out into the Cold River, roll down to the Raquette River, and eventually make it all the way north to the St. Lawrence, where you would pass Samuel Champlain’s city of Quebec on your way out to the sea. But if you are a raindrop landing on the east side of MacNaughton, you trickle down to the south and enter a brook that takes you to the lake where Mr. Henderson shot himself, and then on down into Henry Hudson’s river, which will take you past New Amsterdam, or New York City, call it what you like.
But here’s something even more distinctive. When Verplanck Colvin and his band of 100 surveyors made their measurements of the Adirondacks, they calculated that MacNaughton stood at 3,976 feet. Or, looked at another way, it was 24 feet shy of 4,000. Later, in the 20th century, a second survey determined that the mountain was, in fact, about 4,000 feet tall. And then a third measurement determined that MacNaughton is exactly 3,983 feet, meaning Colvin and the gang had missed it by only 7 feet.
But who cares? What does 7 feet matter? Why would it make a difference if it was 24 feet taller? A mountain is a mountain is a mountain. Right?
Well, somewhere out in the great beyond, James MacNaughton is probably spinning, and Grandpa McIntyre is laughing his ass off.
***
Herb Clark was born in 1870, just five years after the end of the Civil War, near the western shores of Lake Champlain. He was one of eleven children, and three years after he was born the country sank into a huge depression. Growing up in those conditions in the unforgiving north country was probably pretty brutal.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Herb grew up tough and resilient. In the summer he worked in the family garden, or cut hay, or did other farm jobs for anyone who would hire him. In the wintertime, there might be work in the forests with the logging companies, or in the mills. Herb struggled and survived, with an upbeat attitude and a wicked sense of humor.
By the time Herb was in his forties, the Adirondacks were changing. The creation of the Adirondack preserve, protected by the ‘Forever Wild’ clause, meant that some of the businesses that had been pillaging the area had been shut down, but it also meant the natural beauty of the place was now protected, and many rich families were coming up and building second homes. Maybe not quite on the scale of the old Great Camps exactly, but pretty sweet setups nonetheless, on the prettiest lake shores, and even out on their own private islands.
And that opened up a whole new career for Herb Clark. He became the guy to call whenever you needed some help enjoying the mountains. Wanna go hunting? Herb will take you. Need some firewood brought out to the cabin? Herb will get it done. Wanna get the kids out of your hair for a few days? Buy them some camping gear and fishing rods, and throw them in the boat with Herb. It wasn’t long before he was one of the most well-known and respected guides in the Adirondacks.
Now, to be clear, some of the newbies coming up to the Adirondacks were not entirely welcome. The United States can be a pretty prejudiced place. The Irish Catholics who dug the Erie Canal, and the Chinese who built the railroads, had learned that the hard way. And now, up here in the mountains, it was Jewish folks from New York City who were finding out that nobody wanted them. They tried to buy houses, but no one would sell. They tried to buy land, but it seemed none was ever available.
With one exception. There was one guy who had a lot of land and a lot of debt, and who was willing to sell to anybody. That guy was William West Durant. He was fighting off bankruptcy, so he sold some fine property along one of the prettiest lakes in the Adirondacks to a group of six families from The City. Together they built one of the nicest camps anywhere in the mountains. It was a huge sprawling complex with lots of buildings for everyone to share. And with such a big spread, so far from The City and often empty in the winter, they needed help maintaining it. And so they turned to Herb Clark. He became their Man Friday, Mr. Fix-It and Good Friend all rolled into one. In the off-season, he probably kept an eye on the property. And when summer came, he’d take folks on fun adventures, teach them life lessons, and bring them back in one piece.
One day, Herb may have taken some of the kids out fishing on his boat. On this particular day, his young passengers were two teenage boys from the Marshall family, the older one named Bob and the younger one named George. And maybe, while they were waiting for the fish to bite, one of the boys may have said, “Hey, Mr. Clark, have you ever climbed up Whiteface Mountain?”
“Nope,” Herb would have said. “Can’t say I know anybody who has.”
To which the other brother may have said, “Well, if we wanted to go up it, do you think you could take us?”
“I ‘spose. Let’s ask your parents.”
Never mind that Herb Clark had never climbed a mountain in his life before. Up here in the north country, if something needs doing you just figure out a way to do it. Those Marshall boys were inexperienced young kids, sure, but if they wanted to get themselves on the top of Whiteface, Herb would find a way to get them up there.
And so he did. On the first day of August, 1918, Herb Clark led Bob and George Marshall, and together they hauled their asses up Whiteface Mountain. When they reached the top, they might have been shocked and disgusted by what they saw, the legacy of destruction of logging operations all around them. That image would stay in the boys’ heads for the rest of their lives. But they would have also seen dozens of beautiful peaks in the distance.
They didn’t go climbing again for a month. But then, just before Labor Day, the three of them took on the biggest and most obvious challenge of all, when they climbed Mount Marcy. And then, on the very next day – with the end of summer upon them – they climbed Algonquin, which had the most beautiful view they had yet seen. That day they also summitted Iroquois Mountain, which had no trail up it and showed no sign of anybody ever having been up there.
Two summers later, when the Marshalls returned to their forest home, and met Mr. Clark, something like the following conversation took place:
Herb: “Why, boys, look at you handsome devils, you have gotten so big!”
George: “Gee, thanks Mr. Clark!”
Bob: “Hey, Mr. Clark, can we ask you a question?”
Herb: “Sure Bob, what’s on your mind?”
Bob: “We have read Verplanck Colvin’s survey of the Adirondacks, that says that there are 42 High Peaks over 4,000 feet tall.”
Herb: “42 mountains. Is that so?”
George: “Yes, sir. And we were wondering, that is, um, we both wanted to ask you if, well …”
Herb: “Don’t tell me. You wanna climb all 42 of them?”
George and Bob: “YES!”
Herb: “Well, no time like the present.”
And that’s how a fifty-something man from the Adirondacks headed into the wilderness, leading two young city kids on the adventure of a lifetime. That year, they knocked off thirteen of the High Peaks. The following summer, they crushed twenty-three more. They climbed mountains that had no trails, and some mountains that had never been climbed at all, with no map, finding their way through using only their wits and a compass. They had to bushwhack, and cut their way through forest so dense that Herb called it ‘cripplebrush.’
Along the way, Herb probably told the boys tales of the north country. He almost certainly told them lots of funny jokes, maybe some that weren’t entirely appropriate. And he definitely taught them love for the mountains, and for nature, and the need to preserve the wild places, ideas which would guide them all their days.
Two summers later, they completed their quest with the ascent of the final two peaks on their list. And then, just for good measure, they looked at modern surveys and discovered that there were four more peaks possibly higher than 4,000 feet. So, just in case, they decided they should climb those too. Which would make a grand total of 46.
It all came down to a day in June 1925. The trio found themselves walking up the final rise of a peak named for the geologist Ebenezer. Herb Clark stepped onto the summit of Emmons Mountain followed by Bob and George Marshall. And as they stood there, looking out over the wilderness, the three of them became the world’s first 46ers.
***
But here’s the thing: part of their quest was a mistake. Different surveys of the Adirondacks show mountains at different heights, and four of the mountains that they climbed are not, in fact, over 4,000 feet. Meanwhile, MacNaughton Mountain, which is probably just short of 4,000 feet, is almost certainly higher than the four shortest mountains which Clark and the Marshalls climbed. But they didn’t know that at the time, and though they climbed it, they didn’t include it on their list.
And here’s another thing: both of the Marshall brothers went on to become leaders in nature conservation. George was a member of the Wilderness Society, and later was a big wheel at the Sierra Club. Bob worked for the forest service and in other government agencies and founded the Wilderness Society, which eventually helped pass the Wilderness Act, a cornerstone for nature preservation. The Bob Marshall Wilderness area in Montana is named for him.
All of which led the next generation of hikers, and those who have followed in their literal footsteps, to honor Clark and the Marshalls by climbing those same 46 peaks that they put on their list. And one of those Adirondack high peaks, in the MacIntyre range, has been named in the Marshall’s honor.
Which ultimately boils down to this: Marshall Mountain, standing at well over 4,000 feet, is named in honor of two giants of the environment, and is most certainly a 46er. The next-door neighbor, MacNaughton Mountain, which tops off just shy of 4,000 feet, and is named for the grandson of a wilderness plunderer, is most definitely not.
Sometimes things work out just the way they should.