Member

John was born to Chauncey A. and Amy (Kelly) Burroughs on April 3, 1837, in Roxbury, New York. He married Ursula North on September 13, 1857. John, a naturalist, taught school for about eight years before working as a treasury clerk from 1864 to 1873. He then became a national bank examiner, remaining in that position until 1884. He moved to a farm in Esopus, New York, in 1874 and began devoting much of his time away from work to literature and fruit cultivation. He owned a cabin in West Park named "Slabsides" where it is believed that he wrote many of his publications. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John received a LittD degree from Yale in 1910 and a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Colgate in 1911 . Most noteworthy, however, was his work as an author. John wrote many books and poems, with topics varying from Walt Whitman to squirrels to Roosevelt. His publications include: Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person (1867), Wake Robin (1871), Winter Sunshine (1875), Birds and Poets (1877), Locusts and Wild Honey (1879), Pepacton (1881), Fresh Fields (1884), Signs and Seasons (1886), Indoor Studies (1889), Riverby (1894), Whitman, a Study (1896), The Light of Day (1900), Squirrels and Other Fur Bearers (1900), Literary Values (1904), Far and Near (1904), Ways of Nature (1905), Bird and Bough (poems) (1906), Camping and Tramping With Roosevelt (1907), Leaf and Tendril (1908), Time and Change (1912), The Summit of the Years (1913), The Breath of Life (1915), Under the Apple Trees (1916), and Field and Study (1919). John was elected an honorary member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1904. He died on March 29, 1921.