FOREST AND STREAM 
417 
The Will of Nessmuk—A Human Document 
W HAT may be termed without figure of 
speech a human document, is published 
on this page. It is the will of “Ness¬ 
muk,” written by him in 1884, and which, 
through the courtesy of the attending physician 
of Nessmuk, Dr. C. W. Webb of Wellsboro, 
Pa., has been loaned to Forest and Stream for 
the purpose of reproduction. 
The document is characteristic of the gentle 
figure, the well-beloved author, poet, idealist and 
naturalist, who died without a thought of the 
fame he had achieved through his years of writ¬ 
ing as a woodsman, although there is reason to 
believe that he must have known of the love, 
affection and esteem in which he was held by 
thousands of people who had followed his won¬ 
derfully life-like descriptions of experiences in 
the woods, who had profited by his knowledge 
of woodcraft, and who had been benefitted and 
uplifted by his commonsense teachings. 
A strange character indeed was George W. 
Sears, the Nessmuk of thirty years ago and 
more. The fairy wand of genius had touched 
him lightly but none the less surely, and while 
he was set down by some as eccentric, this per¬ 
haps was because the orbit of his life did not 
center in the grooved, machine-like circle of or¬ 
dinary routine. 
Nessmuk loved Nature as few men ever did. 
He knew her secrets, and while shy almost to 
the degree of personal self-effacement his char¬ 
acter was as strong as his integrity was upright. 
How well he loved the waters and the woods and 
the light of day filtering through the leaves may 
be judged in his expressed wish that his body 
should not be placed underground, but that his 
bones “be preserved where the blessed sunlight 
could sometimes reach them.” 
Writing to Forest and Stream, Dr. Webb 
states that the disposition of Nessmuk’s body 
was not carried out according to his will, one 
reason being that there was no mystery in the 
cause of his death. It was an ordinary case 
of pulmonary tuberculosis, similar to that which 
carried off another great man and writer, Rob¬ 
ert Louis Stevenson. “Another reason,” says 
the doctor, was that I knew the community, 
particularly the widow, would look on the pro¬ 
ceedings with horror. However, I think you 
will admit, after reading the instrument, that a 
was legal and could have been carried out as he 
advised. Anyhow, good lawyers have told 
me so.” 
So Nessmuk sleeps beneath the shades and 
maples in the little cemetery at Wellsboro. Over 
his grave is a modest stone erected by his friends 
to mark his last resting place. Those who knew 
him in person and loved him, and the thousands 
more who knew him through his writings in 
Forest and Stream and his books will find a 
pleasant fancy in thinking that over that spot 
the sun shines a little more brightly, the winds 
whisper more soothingly and the birds sing still 
mo r e sweetly. 
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In the facsimile reproduction of Nessmuk’s will, published herewith, the second paragraph has 
been omitted. This referred particularly and intimately with the symptoms of Nessmuk’s condi¬ 
tion, and is not of present interest. Poor Nessmuk lived for quite a number of years after his 
will was written. It was only his outdoor life for so many years that enabled him to withstand 
the effects of disease on a frail constitution. Think of the cheerful spirit which enabled him to 
write the best outdoor literature ever published, although there was not a day, he says, for forty- 
three years in which he was free from pain! 
