Earnest Seekers: A journey through 125 years of AMC history, accomplishments, and personalities

AMC Outdoors, January/February 2001

By Marny Ashburne, Madeleine Eno, and Katharine Wroth

Jan. 1, 1876. The light bulb hadn't yet been invented when MIT Professor Edward Pickering sat down to pen an invitation to 50 of his peers, fellow Boston academics and White Mountains vacationers: You are hereby invited with your friends to attend a meeting of those interested in mountain exploration...

Within a few weeks, 34 founding members had created a constitution and held the first meeting of the Appalachian Mountain Club, naming officers and councillors of exploration, art, nomenclature, topography, improvements, and natural history. Unflaggingly confident and famously organized, they met monthly in the Tichnor Mansion at the corner of Boston's Beacon and Park Streets, where they entertained each other with song, papers on topics from barometric pressure to "The Practical Application of Mountain Sketching," and compelling tales of first ascents of Northeast peaks.

Though the White Mountains were already a popular summer destination, members of the new organization were pioneers and explorers. Using excruciatingly detailed notes of each hike, their collective expertise, and the latest technologies — including the inclinometer and pocket sextant — they plotted and drew elaborate first maps of the region. Their methods proved brilliant: In 1960, using aerial photography, members of the Maine Chapter could find no errors in Louis Cutter's 1898 map of the Whites.

1876-1899 Early Days, Early Ideas
AMC members made quick work of mapping the Whites — using a grid system in which they referred to unnamed peaks with such poetic monikers as Q.1.4 or ZB. By 1880 the Department of Exploration was already suggesting travel to remoter regions. Members, who paid dues of $2 per year, made the trip north from Boston via train, and many a "tramp" (hike) then departed from the lovely verandas of grand hotels like the Crawford House.

While the councillors of natural history were urging the not-very-low-impact practice of "collecting" alpine plants and mountain insects, AMC members had other kinds of conservation on their minds. In 1889, thanks to the club's efforts, Massachusetts' Metropolitan Parks Association was formed, and with it came protection of the Middlesex Fells, a beloved stomping ground for Boston-based members. Their scope was far from just local, however. On trips out West, the proper Bostonian scientists were awed by the vistas and shocked by miners' "rough language." Following a visit to Europe, the councillor of improvements proposed constructing a mountain hut between Mounts Adams and Madison, where they could keep "cooking utensils and axe and there is a good supply of fuel at hand." In 1888 Madison Spring Hut was built — with two-foot-thick walls of stone — at a cost of $701.65.

There were various schools of thought on trail building. J. Rayner Edmands, who favored manicured, even paths, considered other area trails a "harrowing experience." Trail signs were mounted on trees, and were useful as long as loggers didn't take the tree. Savvy trailbuilders eventually began to paint trail signs on rocks.

Editor's Note: To learn more about the AMC's first 125 years, visit the links below.

—Marny Ashburne, is Managing Editor of AMC Outdoors. Madeleine Eno is Publisher and Co-Editor. Katharine Wroth is Associate Editor.

Intro and 1876 - 1899  | 1900 - 1939  | 1940 - 1979  | 1980 - 2000