Muir in Wisconsin: Winter Mornings Multi-Cache
Muir in Wisconsin: Winter Mornings
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This is a multi-stage cache. WP1 will take you to the location of
the one room school in which John Muir taught while a student at
the University of Wisconsin (Madison). The school in which Muir
taught was constructed of logs and was replaced in 1867 with the
building you see today. In 1940 the school was sold and converted
into a private home. Please be respectful of the current owners.
There is no need to get out of your car at WP1. Read the historical
sign at WP1, there will be two set of dates: the date John Muir
taught at the Lake Harriet School ABCD-EFGH and the date the
school was in operation IJKL-MNOP The coordinates for the
final are 42 55.BL(A + C) 089 28.GL(I + K + O).
The final cache is located less than two miles away in a Town of
Oregon Park. The park is open from sunrise to
sunset. A short amount of bushwhacking is
needed. Suggested parking for the final is 42 55.824 089
28.728
Wisconsin Historical Society Image ID #1946
Used by permission
One winter while a student at the University of Wisconsin
(Madison), John Muir taught at the Lake Harriet School. He disliked
having to trudge out in the cold weather to start a fire so the
frigid school house would be warm by the time the children arrived.
As a young man, Muir was a prolific inventor with many of his
inventions incorporating a clock, typically hand carved out of
hickory wood. Muir modified one of these clocks to solve this
problem. He recorded the story years later in The Story of My
Boyhood and Youth:
". . . after supper one evening I told the head of the family with
whom I was boarding that if he would give me a candle I would go
back to the schoolhouse and make arrangements for lighting the fire
at eight o'clock, without my having to be present until time to
open the school at nine. He said, "Oh, young man, you have some
curious things in the school-room, but I don't think you can do
that." I said, "Oh, yes! It's easy," and in hardly more than an
hour the simple job was completed. I had only to place a
teaspoonful of powdered chlorate of potash and sugar on the
stove-hearth near a few shavings and kindling, and at the required
time make the clock, through a simple arrangement, touch the
inflammable mixture with a drop of sulphuric acid. Every evening
after school was dismissed, I shoveled out what was left of the
fire into the snow, put in a little kindling, filled up the big box
stove with heavy oak wood, placed the lighting arrangement on the
hearth, and set the clock to drop the acid at the hour of eight;
all this requiring only a few minutes. The first morning after I
had made this simple arrangement I invited the doubting farmer to
watch the old squat schoolhouse from a window that overlooked it,
to see if a good smoke did not rise from the stovepipe. Sure
enough, on the minute, he saw a tall column curling gracefully up
through the frosty air, but instead of congratulating me on my
success he solemnly shook his head and said in a hollow, lugubrious
voice, "Young man, you will be setting fire to the schoolhouse."
All winter long that faithful clock fire never failed, and by the
time I got to the schoolhouse the stove was usually red-hot."
This is my first cache.
I hope you enjoy the history and the hunt.
Permission to place this cache has been given by the Town of Oregon
Parks Department
There is an unregistered Geo-Coin for the First to
Find
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)