I was born and spent 11 years of my life in
Dunbar, Scotland before moving to the USA.
It was there, under a towering black locust tree beside North Hall, that i took his first botany lesson. A fellow student of mine plucked a flower from the tree and used it to explain how the grand locust is a member of the pea family, related to the straggling pea plant. Fifty years later, I described the day in my autobiography, "This fine lesson charmed me and sent me flying to the woods and meadows in wild enthusiasm," is what I wrote.
In 1880i married Louisa Wanda Strentzel, whose parents owned a large ranch and fruit orchards in Martinez, California, a small town northeast of San Francisco. For the next ten years i devoted myself to managing the family ranch, consisting of 2,600 acres (11 km²) of orchards and vineyards which became very successful. During this time two of my daughters were born, Wanda and Helen.
The first parks that i set up were Sequoia and Yosemite, but i started the whole National Park movement.
