The New York State College of Forestry, the first professional school of forestry in North America, opened its doors at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, in the autumn of 1898.[1] After just a few years of operation, it was defunded in 1903, by Governor Benjamin B. Odell, in response to public outcry over the College's controversial forestry practices in the Adirondacks. Less than a decade later, in 1911, the New York State College of Forestry was reestablished at Syracuse University by the New York State Legislature, with a mandate for forest conservation.[2] The institution has continued to evolve and is now part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, while still closely related and immediately adjacent to Syracuse University. Today, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, or SUNY-ESF, is a doctoral-degree granting institution based in Syracuse, New York, with facilities and forest properties in several additional locations in upstate New York; it is commemorating its centennial anniversary.
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The New York State College of Forestry, the first professional school of forestry in North America, was founded at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, "by an act of the New York State Legislature in April 1898".[3] Along with the establishment of the College, the legislature also provided for the purchase of 30,000 acres (120 km2) of forest in the Adirondack mountains, the Axton tract near Upper Saranac Lake, from the Santa Clara Lumber Company, for $165,000.[4] This act came as an enlightened response to the devastation being wrought at the time by indiscriminate logging not only in New York[5], but also in Pennsylvania, Michigan ("the lands that nobody wanted"),[6][7] Wisconsin, and elsewhere.[8]
The good intentions of Cornell, as New York State's land grant college to establish a college of forestry were thwarted by the inept and "clueless" actions of Bernhard Fernow Dean of the College. His clear-cutting of Adirondack Forest Preserve lands, given to him by the state for teaching and experiments, adjacent to a "great camp" Knollwood Club whose members included Louis Marshall, lawyer and framer of the 1895, Article 14 the "Forever Wild" clause in the New York State constitution, and five wealthy Jewish friends. You can begin to imagine the "howl" that went up at Knollwood which was within the view shed of the Axton tract. Dean Fernow dismissed the noise as coming from "those" bankers.[9] The location of their camp on Saranac Lake was dictated by antisemitism of the late 19th century which limited the availability of lands for sale to Jews in the Adirondacks, even to such immensely wealthy Jews as club member Daniel Guggenheim[10][11]A lawsuit was brought against Fernow and Cornell University by Louis Marshall and his Knollwood neighbors for incompetence and malfeasance in managing the Axton forest property.
This was not Cornell University's first venture into forestry. Almost forty years earlier, under the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act, the Federal land grant scrip for New York state of 989,920 acres**,[12][13] was given to Cornell, to the later chagrin of the trustees of Syracuse and New York Universities. As a matter of fact, Genesee College the forerunner of Syracuse University, accepted $25,000 from Ezra Cornell to drop its opposition to the proceeds from the Morrill Land grant going to Cornell University.[14] Ezra Cornell, under advice from lumberman trustee Henry Sage, wisely parlayed the grant into ownership of Wisconsin pine lands that he held until the wanton logging was diminished and the price for lumber increased, providing a substantial endowment for the university.[15] "In Search of Ezra's Pines"[16][17]
Dr. Bernhard Fernow, then chief of the USDA's Division of Forestry, was invited to head the new College. In preparation for assuming this new post, Fernow visited George Vanderbilt's Biltmore Estate, where Dr. Carl Schenck was establishing the Biltmore Forest School. Fernow saw the mission of forestry education as different, if complementary, to that envisioned by Schenk. In subsequent correspondence with Schenck, Fernow wrote that "the Cornell School of Forestry 'shall greatly lack in practical demonstration' and variety of demonstrations", and inquired whether "Cornell students [could] supplement their education by summer courses at Biltmore".[18]
Fernow resigned his Federal appointment in July 1898 to come to Ithaca. "At ten o'clock on the morning of September 22 or 23, 1898, in a classroom in Morrill Hall",[19] classes commenced at the New York College of Forestry, "the first professional school of forestry in North America", according to Professor Ralph Hosmer.[20] Just two years later, in the fall of 1900, the New York State College of Forestry had 24 students; Biltmore nine students in its 12-month program; and Yale's new postgraduate forestry program, seven.[21]
A fruitful marriage or hybridization between German methods[22] (Professor Bernhard Fernow) and American practice of forestry, silviculture[23] came about in the person of Raphael Zon, an emigre' from Simbirsk, Russia. Part of North America's very first graduating class in forestry from the New York State College of Forestry at Cornell in 1901, Zon later became a "giant" among American foresters,[24][25] or as Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard said, the "dean of all foresters of America."[26]
Forestry Quarterly, later to become the Journal of Forestry, was first published in October 1902, at the New York State College of Forestry at Cornell University, under the editorial advisement of a board of faculty and alumni. The affiliation lasted only through the first volume, as publication was disrupted by the closure of the College in 1903. The Quarterly was published independently with a board of editors composed of many prominent figures in American forestry in the early part of the 20th century, including Editor-in-Chief Bernhard Fernow and Carl Schenck, founder of the Biltmore Forest School.
The fledgling college of forestry soon became mired in controversy, however. Just a few years later in 1903, Governor Benjamin B. Odell vetoed funding for it, together with some harsh words due to the outcry over a pending lawsuit: the People of New York State vs the Brooklyn Cooperage Company and Cornell University. In his veto message, Governor Odell said: "The operations of the College of Forestry have been subjected to grave criticism, as they have practically denuded the forest lands of the State without compensating benefits. I deem it wise therefore to withhold approval of this item until a more scientific and more reasonable method is pursued in the forestry of the lands now under the control of Cornell University."[27]
On that night in May 1903 when the telegram arrived announcing Governor Odell's veto of the annual appropriation for the College of Forestry, Dean Fernow was at a dance. Despite the bad news, the dance went on. Fernow and the forestry students offered to carry on the school. However, Cornell's Board of Trustees and President Schurman (despite Bailey's urgings to the contrary) decided to close the doors of the Forestry College. In June, 1903, instruction in the College ceased and the faculty was dismissed.[33]
Forestry continued at Cornell,[34] with Dean Liberty Hyde Bailey adding a Department of Forestry to of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University in 1910-11. Walter Mulford, of the University of Michigan, was appointed as department chair.[35] At Dean Bailey's request, in 1911, the New York Legislature appropriated $100,000 to construct a building to house the Forestry Department on the Cornell campus; the building was later named Fernow Hall.
In 1914, noted forester Ralph Hosmer, a 1902 graduate of the Yale School of Forestry and contemporary of Gifford Pinchot, replaced Mulford as Professor and head of the Department of Forestry at the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, a position he held until his retirement in June 1942.[36]
The New York State College of Forestry was reestablished in 1911 at Syracuse University[37], through a special bill signed by New York's Governor John Alden Dix. After the Cornell/ Axton debacle, Louis Marshall, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and a prime mover for the establishment of the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve (New York), understood that a "proper" College of Forestry was needed in New York state. In 1910, Marshall became a Syracuse University Trustee and confided in Syracuse University Chancellor James R. Day his desire to have a forestry school at the University. Marshall was designated by his fellow trustees to lobby Governor Charles E. Hughes towards such an end:
By 1911, Marshall's efforts resulted in passage of New York State Senate Bill No. 18, "An Act to establish a State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, and making appropriation therefor", to establish and fund the school.[39] The bill was signed by Governor Dix,[40] and the College "incorporated by Chapter 851 of the Laws of 1911".[41] Marshall was elected president of the newly reestablished college's board of trustees, a position he held until his death in 1929.
The first dean of the College at Syracuse University, from 1911โ12, was William L. Bray, Ph.D. University of Chicago[42], botanist, plant ecologist, biogeographer and Professor of Botany at Syracuse University.[43][44] In 1911, in addition to assuming the deanship of forestry he organized the Agricultural Division at Syracuse University.
Bray's successor, from 1912โ20, was Dr. Hugh P. Baker, a graduate of Yale's School of Forestry (M.F., 1904) and the University of Munich (Ph.D., Economics, 1910). Baker previously had worked with the United States Bureau of Forestry and Forest Service (1901โ04), and before coming to Syracuse had been Professor of Forestry at the Pennsylvania State College.[45]
In 1913, funds for construction of Bray Hall, the first campus building, were still languishing in the state capital. Louis Marshall, as President of the College's Board of Trustees, wanted action, so two years after the appropriation bill was first signed by Governor Dix, Marshall went to the newly-elected Governor William Sulzer, who reportedly had wanted to further delay signing the $250,000 appropriation.[46] It is reputed that Marshall handed him a pen and said, "Sign it." Governor Sulzer complied.[47]
By 1913, according to Marshall, the college had "160 students, representing 46 counties of [New York] State. It has developed a faculty of eight trained men, all of whom are graduates of forest schools of high standing.... Dr. Hugh P. Baker, who is the Dean of the College ... has received applications from over eight hundred prospective students."[48] Graduate courses at the College were authorized in 1918.[49]
This is what ESF president Dr. Cornelius B. Murphy, Jr. had to say at the re-dedication of Marshall Hall on January 19, 2001: "Louis Marshall is largely the reason that everyone from the college is here today. Louis Marshall was recruited by Chancellor Day in 1910 to make the concept of the 'forestry college' at Syracuse University a reality. Louis was tenacious, prodding both the Governor and the Legislature to take action. Louis Marshall... lobbied for the $250,000 appropriation to make a building a reality. I think that it is safe to say that Louis Marshall was our father, our first leader and our first forester. Today we rededicate this building to his memory and accomplishments." The re-dedication events included the unveiling of two bronze plaques: one in honor of Louis Marshall and the other in honor of his son, ESF alumnus, Bob Marshall.[50]
As Dean of the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, Nelson Courtlandt Brown, secured the gift of the Charles Lathrop Pack[51] Demonstration Forest, soon to be followed by a 15,000 acre Archer Milton Huntington and Anna Hyatt Huntington Wildlife Forest[52][53] in Newcomb, New York. Brown subsequently secured the state appropriation for Marshall Hall, which offered greater teaching and laboratory space. Brown also procured increases in state appropriations for teaching salaries, as well as a grant of $10,000 for forest investigations.[54]
Samuel N. Spring was appointed dean of the New York State College of Forestry in Syracuse, NY in February 1933, succeeding Baker. Spring served as Dean of the College of Forestry until his retirement in May 1944.
Among the salient differences between the forestry programs at Cornell and Syracuse were the wood utilization, wood chemistry and pulp & paper majors at the latter.
In 1948, with the formation of the State University of New York, the State College of Forestry became a specialized college within the multi-campus SUNY system. The college's name was changed to State University College of Forestry at Syracuse University. In 1972, with burgeoning public interest in environmental education, the College's name was changed again, to the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF). Today, the college retains a close relationship with Syracuse University, but is autonomous, unlike some other state-supported colleges at private institutions in New York state. ESF students not only take courses, enroll in concurrent degree programs, and enjoy other benefits of the college's association with Syracuse University, but also may take courses at Cornell's state-funded colleges, and at the SUNY Upstate Medical University.
According to Greene and Barron, "By 1960, the college had become the largest forestry school in the country, with an enrollment exceeding seven hundred students".[55]