by Jeff Woleslagle
While on a tour of Gifford Pinchot’s ancestral summer home, Grey Towers (Milford, PA), I had a moment alone with our guide and asked, “Which room do you think Gifford used to host a medium to communicate with his deceased fiancée?” He looked at me and said, “So you know about that. We don’t think it happened here, but it did happen at his personal residence, and Gifford often wrote of her presence in his journals.”
Gifford Pinchot had a profound, spiritual connection with his first fiancée, Laura Houghteling, after her death from tuberculosis in 1894. Her death deeply affected Pinchot, influencing his spiritual beliefs for decades. Wounded by her passing, he wore nothing but black from head to toe for two years. He also refused to acknowledge that his love was gone from his life. He was adamant that her spirit remained with him, and he was able to commune with her any time he was alone.
The practice of using mediums to communicate with deceased loved ones became popular during the Spiritualist movement of the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. The afterlife, or the “spirit world”, is seen by spiritualists not as a static place, but one in which spirits continue to interact and evolve. These two beliefs—that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans—led spiritualists to the belief that spirits can advise the living on ethical and moral issues. It was especially popular after the Civil War because so many families longed for contact with those who were lost. Medium use became fashionable among both common people and wealthy elites.
For some, Gifford’s diary entries might indicate that he was a grief-stricken and troubled soul, living in a fantasy world, but during these years with Laura, he achieved his greatest and most celebrated accomplishments. He founded the Forest Service, and, at Yale University, the nation’s first forestry school. He became a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt and convinced him to establish the national forest system, which has grown to 191 million acres. He gave the American people an understanding of the importance of conservation and was the first to use this term publicly. He had a large national following who viewed him as a hero, and he maintains that still today.
“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” – Marcus Tullius, Cicero
“And if I can’t be close to you, I’ll settle for the ghost of you” – Justin Bieber, Ghost
Much information for this Forest Friday is credited to James G. Bradley’s, “The Mystery of Gifford Pinchot and Laura Houghteling”.
Photos credited to Wikki Commons and Getty Images
