Gifford Pinchot:

Walrus of the Forest

By Sandra Weber

Grey Towers National Historic Site is the home

of conservationist Gifford Pinchot,

first chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

How did his childhood influence his love of the outdoors?

Gifford Pinchot wanted to be a forester. He was 

smart, hardworking, and wealthy. He could have 

studied law, medicine, or banking, but he chose 

forestry.

It was an odd choice, since there were no U.S. 

foresters at that time. In the 1870s and 1880s, it was 

thought that American forests were big enough to 

last forever. There seemed to be no need to save trees 

or replant for the future. Wooded hillsides were cut 

bare.

Pinchot realized that America’s forests would not 

last forever, and he worked hard to change what 

was happening. He was so successful that he was 

appointed head of the U.S. Forest Service and was 

often called the Father of Forestry.

Love of the Outdoors

What made Gifford Pinchot so interested in forestry? 

It started with his boyhood love of the outdoors, 

mostly at his family home in Pennsylvania. He liked 

to ice-skate where no one else had skated before. He 

enjoyed walking in snow where only animals had 

traveled. And in the summer, he loved to catch fish in 

places where others had had no luck.

In the late 1870s, when Gifford was 13 years old, his 

parents took him to the Adirondack Mountains in 

northern New York State. Gifford poked about in a 

little brook, hunting for turtles. Instead, he spotted a 

seven-inch trout. He carefully backed away without 

scaring the fish and ran to the hotel.

After finding a rod and line, he went in pursuit 

of bait. Gifford caught a grasshopper, put it on the 

fishing hook, and then dropped it into the pool. 

“The trout was just as eager as the boy,” recalled 

Pinchot. “He bit, I jerked, and the result was wholly 

satisfactory to me, whatever the trout may have 

thought about it.”

Gifford showed his prize to his family. They admired 

it and then cooked it for dinner. A few days later, 

Gifford’s father gave him his first fly rod and taught 

him how to cast. Then he invited his son to come 

along on a trip into the wild woods.

Gifford eagerly joined the excursion. He spent every 

day fishing with his new rod. At night, he enjoyed 

campfire stories, the croaking of bullfrogs, and the 

scream of a panther. “What a thrill!” he wrote. “The 

impression it made upon me was as lasting as a 

footstep in wet cement.”

Reprinted from Highlights for Children, August 2005 • Copyright Highlights for Children, Inc. • www.highlights.com
The trip gave Gifford a taste of wilderness and had 

much to do with making him a forester, he said.

Forests as a Way of Life

Gifford went on to study at Yale College and then at 

forestry schools in Europe. When he returned to the 

United States, landowners hired him to manage their 

large timberlands, making him the first Americanborn professional forester.

Gifford Pinchot often disagreed with others about the 

goal of forestry. Some people wanted to preserve all 

the forests. “They hated to see a tree cut down,” wrote 

Pinchot. “So do I, and the chances are that you do 

too. But you cannot practice Forestry without it.”

Pinchot believed that some forests should be 

preserved for the future but other forests should be 

cut and used to fill practical needs, like supplying 

timber. He realized that the same thinking could be 

applied to rivers, mineral deposits, soil, and wildlife. 

“Conservation” was his name for this idea, and he 

said the goal of conservation was the use of the Earth 

for “the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the 

longest run.”

When New York State governor Theodore Roosevelt 

needed advice about the state’s forests in 1899, he 

called Pinchot. The two men talked forestry, and then 

they enjoyed two of Roosevelt’s favorite activities: 

wrestling and boxing. Roosevelt won the wrestling 

match but was knocked down in the boxing contest. 

Pinchot remarked that he “had the honor of knocking 

the future President of the United States off his very 

solid pins.”

Snowy Woods

After his visit with Roosevelt, Pinchot headed to the 

cold and snowy Adirondack woods. He decided to 

climb Mount Marcy, the highest mountain in New 

York State. Pinchot later called the trip “foolish.” 

The wind was so strong that he had to crawl up the 

icy slopes on his hands and knees. But he pushed on 

and became one of the few men to stand alone atop 

Mount Marcy in winter.

When he returned from the mountaintop, his friend 

looked at him and laughed. Icicles hung about his 

eyelashes, and his beard was coated with ice. His 

friend thought Pinchot looked like a walrus—a 

walrus who loved the forest. 

Chief Forester Pinchot (center) and his forest rangers.

Pinchot’s Home Today

In 1963 Pinchot’s family 

donated Grey Towers to the 

American public and President 

John F. Kennedy dedicated it 

as a conservation leadership 

and resource conference 

center, museum and 

educational facility, managed 

by the U.S. Forest Service and 

partners.

Grey Towers National Historic Site

151 Grey Towers Drive, P.O. Box 188

Milford, PA 18337

570–296–9630

www.fs.fed.us/wo/gt