The dues of the Club are $1.00 a year; the membership exceeds 600. There are several sections or branches, each of which has charge of the construction and maintenance of a section of the Long Trail.
The Burlington Section in the course of the year holds a number of outings in the vicinity of Burlington, and conducts two or three trips into the mountains. On Washington’s Birthday, each year it makes a trip, either to Mount Mansfield or to the Couching Lion.
The New York Section, organized in 1916, has 212 members. It conducts many half-day, full-day, and week-end outings in the vicinity of New York City, and an occasional excursion to the Green Mountains. During the year 1918-1919, in addition to the activities indicated, it gave three social reunions with camp fire suppers, four illustrated lectures, conducted a pilgrimage to the home of John Burroughs, and held a membership dinner at a New York hotel.
For information regarding the Long Trail, advice about shelters, for maps, and for suggestions regarding particular hikes, write to the Corresponding Secretary, 6 Masonic Temple, Burlington, Vt.
The American Alpine Club
The American Alpine Club requires the highest qualifications for membership of any walking club. Its one hundred members come from all parts of the country. An annual dinner is given in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. The address of the secretary is 2029 Q St., Washington, D. C.
Walking Clubs of New York
Mr. Albert Handy is the historian of the walking clubs of New York, and his account of them is, with his generous permission, here given. It appeared first in the New York Evening Post Saturday Magazine, for May 6, 1916, and has been revised for the purposes of this handbook.
“The first walking club in America of which any record is found was the little Alpine Club organized by some of the professors at Williamstown, Mass., which came into being about 1863 and went out of being a few years later. But before its demise Mr. and Mrs. Henry E. Buermeyer and William B. (better known as ‘Father Bill’) Curtiss had formed the habit of exploring the wilds of Staten Island or the highlands of the Hudson—there were no developments then, and it was a wilderness—on Sundays. ‘Father Bill’ Curtis was the premier athlete of America and the founder of the New York Athletic Club. Mrs. Buermeyer was one of the first women to ride a bicycle in this country, and Mr. Buermeyer was a noted swimmer.
“This little group constituted the beginnings of the Fresh Air Club, which is today the oldest walking club in New York, and which can alone contest the claim of the Appalachian Mountain Club to the premiership of the United States. Shortly after its foundation the winged-foot organization sent a score of its members on these walks and Mrs. Buermeyer dropped out. Later some members of the old American Athletic Club, in conjunction with others from the Manhattan Athletic Club, developed a walking cult, and for a time pedestrianism seemed destined to become a popular pastime. In this group was E. Berry Wall, whose name is associated with dancing rather than athletics in the minds of the majority of New Yorkers.