faculty of
acquiring property than the roaming deer, had pursued the even tenor
of the life in the forest on which he set out. They would have been
surprised to be told that Old Phelps owned more of what makes the value
of the Adirondacks than all of them put together, but it was true. This
woodsman, this trapper, this hunter, this fisherman, this sitter on a
log, and philosopher, was the real proprietor of the region over
which he was ready to guide the stranger. It is true that he had not a
monopoly of its geography or its topography (though his knowledge was
superior in these respects); there were other trappers, and more deadly
hunters, and as intrepid guides: but Old Phelps was the discoverer of
the beauties and sublimities of the mountains; and, when city strangers
broke into the region, he monopolized the appreciation of these delights
and wonders of nature. I suppose that in all that country he alone
had noticed the sunsets, and observed the delightful processes of
the seasons, taken pleasure in the woods for themselves, and climbed
mountains solely for the sake of the prospect. He alone understood what
was meant by "scenery." In the eyes of his neighbors, who did not know
that he was a poet and a philosopher, I dare say he appeared to be
a slack provider, a rather shiftless trapper and fisherman; and his
passionate love of the forest and the mountains, if it was noticed, was
accounted to him for idleness. When the appreciative tourist arrived,
Phelps was ready, as guide, to open to him all the wonders of his
possessions; he, for the first time, found an outlet for his enthusiasm,
and a response to his own passion. It then became known what manner
of man this was who had grown up here in the companionship of forests,
mountains, and wild animals; that these scenes had highly developed in
him the love of beauty, the aesthetic sense, delicacy of appreciation,
refinement of feeling; and that, in his solitary wanderings and musings,
the primitive man, self-taught, had evolved for himself a philosophy and
a system of things. And it was a sufficient system, so long as it was
not disturbed by external skepticism. When the outer world came to
him, perhaps he had about as much to give to it as to receive from it;
probably more, in his own estimation; for there is no conceit like that
of isolation.

Phelps loved his mountains. He was the discoverer of Marcy, and caused
the first trail to be cut to its summit, so that other