Mansion_rev8.qxd - National Park Service

eality and psychological presence, especially in recently
settled areas such as Vermont. Nature, at least in its wild
state, was to be conquered and exploited rather than
revered or conserved. It was a common belief in Western
society that nature existed for the benefit of mankind, and
that mankind was called by God to subdue it. 12 And in a
country such as the United States with its overabundance
of natural resources, there was little pressing need to conserve
those resources.
As the nineteenth century progressed, however, industrialization,
specialized agriculture, and more
efficient transportation often transformed
the old fear of wilderness into disregard
for nature except as a commodity
to be exploited for profit. Although
Vermont never witnessed extensive
industrialization, the state’s landscape
was heavily impacted by specialized agriculture,
which resulted in larger farms
requiring extensive tracts of land.
Together with mining and timber harvesting,
specialized agriculture led to extensive
logging, ultimately leading to removal
of nearly two-thirds of the state’s forest
cover. 13 Mount Peg, rising behind
Woodstock’s fashionable brick business
block, was completely cleared by the mid nineteenth century
and displayed signs of serious erosion. [Figure 2.2]
Yet as the wilderness was disappearing, Americans began
to recognize the aesthetic and spiritual value of nature,
especially in the Northeast. It was in this region that the
new industrial economy was generating great wealth,
which for a small segment of society provided the means
and leisure time to appreciate the natural world, albeit an
idealized one. During the mid nineteenth century,
Americans were awakening to the rural and picturesque
qualities of their native lands, qualities that Europeans had
long idealized in painting and landscape design. The
Hudson River School of artists, for example, popularized
nature through paintings of rugged and sublime
landscapes, sometimes incorporating pastoral scenes of
1789–1869
idealized rural life. Frederick Billings would later acquire
examples of their work. [Figure 2.3] In their landscapes,
Americans began to manifest ideals of nature and
countryside by establishing suburban and country estates
designed with idealized rural and picturesque features
such as sweeping lawns, winding drives, and rustic
architecture, as evidenced in the work of Andrew Jackson
Downing and later Frederick Law Olmsted.
For much of the nineteenth century, natural beauty was
believed mainly to be the realm of artists and landscape
Figure 2.3: Asher B. Durand, “Autumn Landscape” (c.1847), a
painting of the Hudson River School acquired by Frederick Billings.
Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park.
gardeners. Few made the connection between landscapes
ravaged by agriculture and logging, such as Woodstock’s
Mount Peg, and neighboring economic and social decline.
By the middle decades of the nineteenth century, however,
George Perkins Marsh was raising such concerns. Building
on his romantic and scientific appreciation of nature
learned as a child in Woodstock, his education and
experiences taught him much about the subject. After
graduating from Dartmouth College, Marsh taught for a
short time, and then returned home to Woodstock for four
years. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1825.
He then moved from Woodstock to Burlington, Vermont,
23