When the name John D. Rockefeller Sr. captures someone’s attention the mind usually pictures the famous – or infamous depending on one’s view of 19th century capitalism – late oil baron and once world’s richest man.
Someone more versed on his life might recall Rockefeller’s love for the game of golf. However, John D. was also a passionate and prolific tree farmer and landscaper on his 3,000 acre Kykuit estate bordering the Hudson River near Pocantico Hills, in the Westchester County town of Mount Pleasant, NY.
In his 1909 autobiography, Random Reminiscences of Men and Events, Rockefeller described his strong interest in “the making of paths, the planting of trees, and the setting out of little forests of seedlings.” After laying out roads to provide the best views from numerous outlooks of the river and “great sweep of country beyond,” J.D. Rockefeller turned his personal attention and labor to the creation of many miles of walking paths often keeping at it “until I was exhausted.” He took pride in “knowing every foot of the land” and considered “all the old big trees [as] personal friends of mine.”
To John D. “little forests of seedlings” often meant having thousands and ten thousands of evergreens put into seed beds to develop before planting. Always the businessman seeing a way to reap profits, he “made a small fortune out of ourselves by selling to [his] other properties for one to two dollars each tree…which originally cost us only five or ten cents.”
But Rockefeller was not satisfied to raise only tree seedlings and got involved in transplanting large trees of various kinds. He wrote that: “That the pleasure and satisfaction of saving and moving large trees – trees, say, from ten to twenty inches in diameter, or more in some cases – has been for years a source of great interest.”
Using equipment designed by himself and hired laborers Rockefeller took even greater pride in successfully transplanting “trees ninety feet high and many seventy or eighty feet.” A detailed record keeper, he claimed a transplant mortality rate (loss) of only six to seven percent.
While a writer could easily make a case claiming John D. Rockefeller, the oil baron, left behind a record having caused much environmental damage, perhaps his record is best described as a tapestry of bright and dark colors. In retirement and as he approached old age, Rockefeller gave most of his fortune away to create, among other worldwide philanthropic endeavors, the Rockefeller Foundation to establish and assist American institutions in the realm of medicine, public health, science, education and the arts.
It is also fair to point out that his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr, having inherited his father’s love of the outdoors, became an impassioned conservationist. John Jr. played a leading role in the creation and preservation of many national parks including Grant Teton, Acadia, Yosemite, Shenandoah, Mesa Verde and the Great Smoky Mountains.
It is also instructive to consider what so many people from all walks of life often deem important in old age. Perhaps with the uncertainty of what lies ahead, it is simply the beauty of the natural world.
Approaching his years of life, an infirmed John D. Rockefeller relished just being outdoors in the sunshine and was known to remark about simple things like the “beautiful rain we had last night.”
On another occasion he began singing a hymn when encountering an especially brilliant bed of flowers and shrubs. Born in the wooded hills of Richford, Tioga County, NY, John D. Rockefeller Sr.’s story may be a classic case of “taking the boy out of the country but not the country out of the boy.”
Tree lover John D. left this earthly realm on May 23, 1937, at age 97.
You can learn more in my book, The ‘Tree’ of Us: Richford Boys Who Changed the World and What They Left Behind, about Rockefeller and another locally born millionaire of his time who came to value the importance of preserving the natural world. The book also includes my personal journey and an analysis of where we presently stand in our relationship with trees and the gift of a life on this unique planet called Earth.
Illustrations, from above: John D. Rockefeller Sr., 1908 (George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress); the intricate road system on the Rockefeller estate in Forest Hill, Cleveland (Rockefeller Archive Center); and John D. Rockefeller Jr. (second from left) with sons Laurance (looking down), Nelson (center) and companions at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, 1924 from John D. Rockefeller 3rd’s trip scrapbook.
This was a great article for me. I am the arborist for Colonial Williamsburg. I am putting together a story about John d Rockefeller and his love of trees. This story is going along with a 500 white oak planting project that I’m doing to re-establish the white oak around CW. One story we have to go along with your is that trees made him feel small. He would walk down Bassett hall trace and stand under the ‘100+tall pine trees and unwind. Ty for the story.