JOHN BURROUGHS 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



*BY CLIFTON JOHNSON 



In the town of Roxbury, among the 

 western Catskills, was born April 3, 1837, 

 John Burroughs. The house in which he 

 first saw the light was an unpainted, squar- 

 ish structure, only a single story high, with 

 a big chimney in the middle. This house 

 was removed a few years later, and a bet- 

 ter and somewhat larger one, which still 

 stands, was built in its place. The situa- 

 tion is very pleasing. Roundabout is a 

 varied country of heights, dales, woods and 

 pastures, and cultivated fields. The dwell- 

 ing is in a wide upland hollow that falls 

 away to the east and south into a deep 

 valley, beyond which rise line on line of 

 great mounding hills. These turn blue in 

 the distance and look like immense billows 

 rolling in from a distant ocean. 



There were nine children in the Bur- 

 roughs family, and John was one of the 

 younger members of this numerous house- 



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