Adirondack Murray, A Biographical Appreciation

835 Broadway, New York: Broadway Publishing Company, 1905 Hard cover, 32 mo, in blue cloth , the titles blocked in gold to the top board and the spine, (8) 84 pp., First Edition in book form. Condition: Very Good. Some water damage to front board, browning to paste-downs. Foxing opposite photograveur illustrations. Otherwise clean. **This is a biographical sketch of the father of the Outdoors Movement, William Henry Harrison Murray (1840-1904), as told by Harry V. Radford , editor and publisher of "Woods and Waters Magazine," in which this was first serialized beginning the Autumn of 1904. (p.3.) Radford describes his friend Murray as "The Great Evangelist of Outdoor Life for the People." This is a psychological look at the forces which shaped the life of an extraordinary man; early poverty, self-sufficiency, the hard farm work from a young age used to pay for his own education; all these character-building ways the young man was led to his later callings as an original thinker, orator, and author. Murray's dalliance with progressive ideas at Boston's Park Street Church, his exploration and settlement in the Adirondacks, marriage and family life, and finally the arc of his various careers as an increasingly progressive voice. **The Author, Harry V. Radford (d. 1914), is described in the pages of Adirondack Life, (C. Jerome," A Legend in his Own Mind," 9/10/2019) as using his friendship with his mentor Murray, his magazine and extensive travels to promote conservation: "He called for more state and national parks, removal of all bounties on wildlife, prohibiting the killing of birds for the feather trade and saving the buffalo. Closer to home, he promoted Adirondack businesses and guides, and campaigned vociferously for closed seasons on bear. His most energetic efforts involved restoration of species that had been depleted or were extinct in the Adirondacks, namely beaver and moose (and elk, in the mistaken notion that they had been indigenous)." Radford and his fellow explorer T. George Street, were murdered in an ill-fated trip into the Arctic Circle in 1914 (as engagingly told in the aforementioned article.). First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good .