An Homage to Princeton Ecologist Henry Horn

This homage to ecology professor Henry Horn was written after the very moving memorial service for him in the Princeton Chapel nearly six years ago, and has just been rediscovered, sitting patiently in the draft folder.

Though March 14 is memorable as Einstein's birthday, I'll remember it too as the day we lost Henry Horn, the beloved Princeton professor and naturalist whose many-layered ways of studying the natural world and communicating it to his colleagues and the larger community made him unique in all the world.

I knew him primarily from nature walks--those he led in various Princeton preserves and those of mine at Herrontown Woods that he would show up for and add so much to, often with his wife and botanist, Betty. On these occasions, his sonorous voice would convey warmth and clarity as he shared his deep knowledge of geology and forest ecology.

At the May 5 memorial service under the vaulted, ornate canopy of Princeton University Chapel, a colleague called Henry "the heart of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology." For me, he occupied a similar place in the community. Talking to him, I felt no sense that I was on the other side of a wall that some professors construct between themselves and the outside world. I found in Henry Horn no sense of division or Other, no Nassau Street of the mind dividing ivy league from community.

After the service, I mentioned this to one of his younger brothers, and asked how this combining of academic achievement and commonality had come to be. He said that, though later Henry would go to Harvard, their parents had insisted that their children attend public schools, where they were around people of all walks of life. Henry's mother had had a hard life growing up, and there was always something to restore humility when their heads got too big.

At the service, we learned that Henry's father had been a minister, whose various positions had taken the family from Virginia to Georgia for four years before moving north to Boston. I asked him (the younger brother) if the family's southern roots might have something to do with Henry's easy connection with people outside academia. I explained that I had lived in North Carolina for eight years, and had felt in many ways like I had found home. It was the habit of people there to consistently acknowledge the existence, the humanity, of others. Known or stranger, it made no difference. He immediately knew what I was talking about, and said this aspect of the south is not sufficiently appreciated in the north, where people tend to stereotype southern sensibility in negative terms. 

While many scientists studying nature conduct their research in distant locales, Henry found value and meaning in local woods and fields. He was quoted at the service as saying, "You don't need to travel far away to study nature". His treasuring of the local could be considered prescient, given the university's recent efforts to connect more with the community.

Henry was one of the older among nine or so siblings, in a house they filled with the collected gleanings of nature. Most were brothers, but the oldest was a sister who would return from school and share with the others everything she had learned that day. That sharing was described as a university education in and of itself.

Most of us who knew Henry a little or a lot knew him as warm, insightful, infinitely curious about the world, whimsical. It was a surprise, then, to find out that he had a competitive side, and had an inner toughness, as when he stoically endured the brutal welcome dished out by a gang of boys when his family first moved to a neighborhood in Boston. He and his brothers ultimately gained the new neighbors' respect and became friends with some.

As a kid, he had a passion for tinkering with watches and electronic devices, taking them apart and putting them back together again. This tinkering led during his years as an assistant professor to what he would later call his "tenure machine," a device for assessing forest canopy and shade tolerance that led to an influential book that in turn led to his gaining tenure.

His scientific inquiries seem frequently to have led to art, and vice versa. As can be seen in a wonderful video portrait of Henry, entitled Boy Wonder Emeritus, he got ideas for art from the patterns he saw in his photos of canopy, and the carved wooden animals he would pull out of his pocket to use for scale in his nature photography served as ambassadors to help convey science to youth.

He was a force for cohesion on campus, providing advice and constructive feedback to all who sought him out. Resisting the academic temptation to withdraw into this or that silo of specialized study, he showed up for a wide range of talks. He also somehow avoided the human tendency to focus questions or comments on perceived flaws or gaps in a presentation. He instead would ask supportive questions that suggested new avenues of inquiry, and sometimes would even help clarify for a less than articulate speaker what he or she had been trying to say. His aim was to bring out the best in others, not tear them down.

As Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings filled the chapel, above and all around and in our hearts, I wondered if Henry Horn's passing represented also the passing of an era when the work of biologists took them outdoors, rather than into a lab. A colleague of his assured me that much research in the EEB department still takes professors out to the field. 

Thinking of that era, I remembered my own mentor, Herb Wagner at the University of Michigan, 20 years Henry's senior. It was the 1970s, botany classes were overflowing, environmental legislation had bipartisan support. Wagner's office was filled with specimens of plants and butterflies, gathered from near or far. Classical music on the local public radio station would waft out into the hallway, interrupted only by a few minutes of news at the hour. We were still innocent of any awareness of climate change, and populations of invasive species and deer had yet to explode. Distrust of government and scientists had yet to be injected deep into the national psyche.

Having learned about Oswald Veblen, the renowned mathematician and conservationist who preceded Henry Horn at Princeton by sixty years, I can't help but see Henry as Veblenesque in many ways. Both reached beyond academia to connect with the community. Both were deeply drawn to the land. It was Veblen who worked to acquire the land that later became Henry's beloved Institute Woods. Both worked hard to support and advance others' careers. And when they faced physical challenges--for Veblen it was partial blindness, for Henry it was a handicapped child--their response was to invent devices that would help not only in their own situations but for others facing similar challenges.

The Princeton University obituary for Henry serves as a good continuation and elaboration upon what I offer here. A couple quotes:

In 1991, he led the University into a new era of interdisciplinary environmental research as founding director of the Program in Environmental Studies. He transferred to emeritus status in 2011.

“He had an original mind and was so caring. He saw patterns in the natural world that others often overlooked"

Henry lives on in many ways, including some online videos:

Henry's nature walks
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2018/07/16/nature-walks-henry-horn

Skunk Cabbage
https://vimeo.com/278156799

Mockingbird
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=632608590467273

Comments on Henry in memorium
https://blogs.princeton.edu/memorial/2019/03/henry-horn/

Touring a New Preserve in Plainsboro--Bulk Farm Nature Center

My friend James Degnen called me up recently, and with his deep baritone voice invited me to explore the Bulk Farm Nature Center--a new nature preserve in Plainsboro, NJ. A former tree nursery, the preserve has cherry blossoms in the spring, leaf color in the fall, and lovely vistas through the winter. Note: The back portion of the preserve, with trails that reach the Millstone River and a bald eagle nest high in a tree, is closed from January through July, to avoid the bald eagles' nesting activity. 

Acquired in 2008, the property took fifteen years to prepare for public use, opening in September, 2023. Some soil contamination was found, likely requiring a lengthy bureaucratic process of remediation.

Though the 80 acre preserve is easily accessed at 179 Cranbury Neck Road, you'll need to navigate past the unusual name. It's called a Nature Center, but there's no building, and "Bulk" refers not to any particular aspect of the preserve, but instead to the family that once owned the farm. Like those housing developments that are named after whatever natural feature was destroyed during the course of development, this nature preserve may ironically be named after a building demolished after the land was preserved. Similarly, the gravel road bisecting the property is called Homestead Drive, leading presumably to a homestead that no longer exists.

A trail map is available online. 

James explained that the soft gravel of the Homestead Drive is to be avoided in favor of the mowed trails winding back along either side. 

Though lacking any topography, the preserve's trails take you through a varied landscape with broad vistas across meadows. At first, the meadows are solid with goldenrod, but deeper in some of the native grasses--broomsedge (as in "Andropogon Trail") and purple top--become more prevalent. 

The map conveniently marks where benches can be found, built to last well into the next century. 

The groves of nursery trees prove yet again that it's easier to plant a tree than to sell it.

Most trees are small, but somewhere towards the back right of the trail system we encountered an extraordinarily large river birch.

Towards the back of the preserve, you reach a gate that will be closed and locked for the first seven months of the new year. Bald eagles nest in a tree near the river, and are not to be disturbed. 

It not being January yet, we were able to hike all the way to the back of the preserve, and see the very impressive eagle nest. The tree appears to be a red oak fighting a bad case of bacterial leaf scorch. 

Beyond the eagles' nest, the trail ends at a tranquil spot along the Millstone River. James said the water continued to flow through the long drought this fall.

On the way back, James partook of a pet pleasure--releasing milkweed seeds to the wind.

One curious plant you may encounter in the expansive meadows is this shrub with red stems. Though multiflora rose is a highly aggressive, thorny invader of our natural areas, it is sometimes slowed down by a disease that spread to NJ from the midwest. Called rose rosette disease, the disease stunts the leaves of the multiflora rose and turns the stems red, particularly in sunny locations. 

A gray birch's bark doesn't flake like the bark of a white birch. Both of these birch species are native further north.

The hike took about an hour. Thanks to James for making me aware of this new preserve a fifteen minute drive from Princeton. James' rich baritone voice, by the way, is in demand for doing voice-overs, and we collaborated back in 2019 on a film project in which we recast The King's Speech as a call for action on climate change. 

Past adventures up Plainsboro way:

The Plainsboro Preserve is Anything But Plain

Kayaking Up the Mighty Millstone Marsh

And another tree nursery turned nature preserve, in Lawrence Township: 

The Lost Meadows of Maidenhead Meadows