E-News from the
Center for the Forest Preserve
Volume 2, No. 1
January 14, 2005
Arthur Crocker has died
Trustees, Advisors, Colleagues, Special Friends:
Arthur M. Crocker
photo by Ken Rimany
A great Adirondack white pine has fallen. Arthur Masten Crocker, Association Honorary Trustee and a foremost leader in the Adirondack environmental movement since 1964, is dead at age 95. Arthur died on Tuesday, January 11, 2005at his home in Naples, FL. His son, Chester Crocker, called to say: "Arthur died peacefully in his sleep. He won most of his battles, but not the last one. We will miss him." Services will be held in Naples, FLon Jan. 22, 2005.
The last letter I have from Arthur in my files is dated April, 2004. It was to NYS DEC and it read: "I submit the opinion that, according to the decision of the Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals in 1930 in the case of McDonald v. the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, cutting trees to provide trails for Snowmobiles or roads for other all terrain vehicles is unconstitutional." Arthur Crocker never stopped thinking and never stopped writing about the need for wise decisions and decision-making for the Adirondacks.
Arthur Crocker's obituary can be found in the Thursday, January 13 edition of the New York Times. I have not had a chance to find or read it yet, but I wanted to mention some facts, and offer an opinion.
- Arthur Crocker was born in New York City on March 7, 1909. He graduated from Princeton in 1931 and Harvard Business School. He was a Lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve on duty in Iceland and the Pacific during World War II.
- In 2003 Arthur wrote: "Except for the War years and the last two years (2003 and 2002) I have visited the Tahawus Club (Newcomb, NY) every summer since I was two years old. My first ten years, I stayed with my maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Masten. My grandmother was Christine McMartin before marriage, a direct descendant of Duncan McMartin, so the Adirondack roots through her are very strong." As a youngster, Arthur learned to fish in the Adirondack high peaks and learned much else besides from Adirondack guides, friends and writers. He began to learn about man and nature.
- Beginning in the 1950s, Arthur had joined the newly formed Nature Conservancy on Long Island and began to meet and socialize with leading conservationists of the day, and read their books.
- By 1964, Arthur assumed the Presidency of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, taking over his father's seat on the Board. Arthur served this organization for forty years, as President through 1982, as Chairman until 1986, then Chairman Emeritus and finally Honorary Trustee until his death.
- Other organizations with which Arthur joined or participated actively were: The Adirondack Council, the Long Island Nature Conservancy, Planned Parenthood, the Environmental Planning Lobby (now Environmental Advocates).
- His first "challenge" in the early 1960s was to speak at a Scenic Hudson Hearing to oppose the infamous proposal called Storm King Mountain Pumped Storage Project. Scenic Hudson won a great and precedential victory on the Hudson River.
- Right after that, in 1964 he joined a coalition with Dave Newhouse of the ADK, Paul Schaefer of the Association and others to oppose Conservation Commissioner Harold Wilm's plan to permit snowmobiles anywhere on the Forest Preserve. Wilm backed down and authorized snowmobiling only on designated trails.
- By 1966, Arthur and Dave Newhouse formed the Constitutional Council for the Forest Preserve to assure the integrity of the Article 14, Section 1 at the 1967 Constitutional Convention. He and Dave (and David Sive and their associates) succeeded in this.
- Arthur writes: "the high point of my career was probably leading an Association meeting (attended by 600) in the public school at Newcomb in 1969 to protest the Gooley Dam on the Upper Hudson which would have flooded most of the village of Newcomb and Hudson river valley in the central Adirondacks." Gooley Dam was never built.
- Arthur's awareness and growing concerns about the ecological impacts of acid rain dated to the 1950s, decades before it came to public attention. All Arthur writes in his short biography is this: "I made a little noise on the subject." Now for my opinion. No citizen did more to inform the general Adirondack public with regard to the soil and water chemistry and pathways of acid deposition and to ring the alarm about the cascading ecological impacts of acid rain than Arthur Crocker. His pamphlet on the subject, printed as an Association for the Protection of the Adirondack special report in 1979, is still available and instructive. Arthur writes: "I was pleased with Dan Plumley's little organization to fight acid rain and made some noise on the subject, especially after consulting with Gene Likens of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies." US Congressional representatives and Senators and US Presidents can attest that Arthur continued to write publically and privately on this topic into the 21st century.
- Arthur was named as an advisor to the Temporary Study Commission on the Future of the Adirondacks in 1968. As such, he spoke and wrote frequently about the need for an Adirondack Park Agency. The legislative creation of the APA in 1971, and the Private Land Use and Development Plan law of 1973 came about with Arthur's strong backing. Arthur writes in 2003: "Because the tourists, recreationists, and summer residents do not vote in Adirondack elections, we must continue somehow to make the Adirondack Park Agency what Bob Flacke (former Mayor of Lake George Village, former Chairman of the APA and former Commissioner of DEC) had hoped - a forum for decision-making in the Adirondacks. It is only through a strong Adirondack Park Agency working with a dedicated Department of Environmental Conservation that we can take care of the Forest Preserve as planned. That means keeping up the pressure on air pollution and controlling motorized equipment…We need to be an example of wilderness protection to the rest of the United States, if not the world."
- Arthur dreamed of environmental peace and consensus in the Adirondacks and among Adirondackers. In 1995, he wrote to George Canon, Newcomb Supervisor about this, recognizing that nobody residing in the Adirondacks or concerned about them wanted to be "a minority interest." Again, he expressed to Supervisor Canon the hope that the Adirondack Park Agency would help to provide the "arena for decision-making" in the Adirondacks.
- There is a lot more to say about Arthur Crocker. Although his intellect shone through more publicly, he was a deeply spiritual person. I will close with this letter from 1993 and my own observation. Arthur wrote in that letter "It is my belief that the time has come to think about peace in the strife between the Adirondack residents and the various other interests in the Adirondacks, namely the timber companies, the seasonal residents and the users of the Forest Preserve." He went on about how this might come about, concluding "I believe the time is nearly ripe to seek a peacemaker organization." Arthur Crocker was a foremost thinker about the globe we live on, and peace on the globe not just in the Adirondacks. He was his own "peacemaker organization." Nobody who knew Arthur, or collected his writings as I did since 1987 would define Arthur as one-dimensional in his view of Adirondack Park or peace on any of earth's continents. From his early years, Arthur always kept several thoughts in his head at once and took his counsel widely from the people who have walked before or with him. His son, Chester Crocker, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, has written and lectured widely about pathways to peace through negotiation among nations and people. Arthur's peacemaker organization continues through his children, his four grandchildren and everyone and every organization he has touched. I will miss him and miss his many letters, and his wise counsel, and will never forget.
Our great condolences go to Barbara Crocker and the Crocker extended family.
David Gibson, Executive Director