The Daytona daily news. [volume] (Daytona, Fla.) 1903-1926, 1921-03-29
Aged Author Died Suddenly
on Train, Returning Home From
a Winter Spent in California
tThe Associates Press.)

NEW YORK, March 29.-John Bur
roughs, famous. naturalist, died at 2
clock this morning on the train at
kingsville, Ohio. He was 81 years
old
Burroughs was on his way home
from California. He had been i'll for
six weeks with an abcess on his chest
and heart, with kidney complications
The end came suddenly, a few min
utes after he had asked, How near
home are we?H
The body will remain on the train
and wall be taken to Poughkeepsie.
Burroughs son. Julian. and a number
Of close friends were to meet the
train at Poughkeepsie. The news
was received here in a telegram to
Dr. Walter Gray Crump. a friend of
Burroughs
Greatest Nature Writer.
John Burroughs Was the venera BILE
dean of nature writers in the United
States. Through a score of books he
shared with countless readers his life
long intimacy with birds. bees. flowers
and the whole out-of-doors. His
highly developed powers OF observa-
tion and the charm of his interpreta-
tions were the marvel OF his critics.
His flowing white beard. his kindly
mein, his whole habit Of life. and his
literary style were rather reminiscent
of that famous New England school
Of essayists a generation or two be-
fore him. His early writing on "Ex-
preston, was at one time widely mis-.
taken for the work of Emerson. a
close reader of whom Burroughs had
been from youth. His later works on
nature suggested something OF Thor
eau. but as critics said. Burroughs
was the more sociable writer.
He learned TO love nature when be
drove cows at his birth place farm
Roxbury. among the Catskills. in New
York state, but anything IKE q lit
sr3Fy composition was a bugbear ia
him IS a youth. The story is told OF
/ how when he was fourteen. in com
mon with the members of his class al
school. he was required twelve lines
Of original composition. He copied
something out of a comic almanac
His theft was detected Again in
/ desperation upon his second trial he
paid Jay Gould, his classmate. sixty
cents Tor a twelve line verse which
be handed in as his own
Born in 1887.
He was born in 1881 In 1853 he
went to Washington with something
Of an inclination to enlist in the
/ Union Army. but he decided TO seeh
a government Office II is related thai
with only a few of his poems as ere
/ dental he walked into the Treasury
( Department and asked for a lob. Il
I Was agreed that his vernal verses
really smel OF the woods. and smack
+ ed OF sincerity He would be safs
man TO watch the treasury vaults He
/ agreed To take the place AT little
deck. facing the huge iron vaul
4 where he kept tabs on those who ven
4 TO handle the S50.000. 600 stored there
Z he began writing of the birds. TO re
lieVe his homesickness. The resul
/ vas his first book Wake Robin
4 Some years later, after work as
4 treasury clerk and a national banl
/ examiner had netted him some say
4 lngs. he bought few acres at Wes
( Park on the Hudson where amonl
the loaded trellises Of vineyard b.
found more pleasure than in II,
( closets OF greenbacks There he re
newed his emotional intercourse witt
Nature. building a real house over
looking the river-just above Pough
lteepsie. When rural civilization
pressed a little close about him. b.
built his "slahsides" cabin a mile o
tWo back in the woods
He did not go al his studies Wit