Going Afoot: A book on walking.

by Bayard Henderson Christy

“Then interest diminished gradually until each organization furnished but a negligible number of walkers. Followed something in the nature of a renaissance, the two groups consolidated, and the present Fresh Air Club came into being.

“In the early eighties interest in athletics increased, there were organized baseball clubs, tennis clubs, cricket clubs, but for a long period the Fresh Air Club was the only organization devoted to walking, with the exception of the Westchester Walking Club, otherwise known as the Westchester Hare and Hounds (whose members were recruited from the then prosperous but long since defunct Harlem Athletic Club), which rose, flourished, and decayed, leaving its spirit and traditions to be carried by the Fresh Air Club, which in February, 1890, was incorporated.

“What the Appalachian Mountain Club did for New Hampshire the Fresh Air Club did for the country within a fifty-mile radius of New York; there is not a section of northern New Jersey, or of Rockland, Westchester, or Orange County, which has not been explored by some of its members. On Friday of each week during the tramping season ‘Father Bill’ who was official pathfinder, would go over the route of the walk projected for the following Sunday, when necessary blazing a trail, so that the party might proceed without any delay or casting about for the right road, until finally the paths up Storm King, Bear Mountain—there wasn’t any Interstate Park then—Anthony’s Nose, and the highlands of the Hudson became as familiar to him as the path to his own door.…

“Today the Club has about seventy-five members, of whom some forty are active. Its walking season extends from October to December and from March to June, and walks are scheduled for all Sundays and holidays, to a few of which women friends of members are invited. During the winter months skating excursions, when weather conditions are favorable, are substituted for walking. The Fresh Air Club does not seek an increase in membership; in fact, a member remarked to the writer that it did not desire publicity or even a considerable amount of inquiry from would-be candidates for membership. Its bulletin states:

“‘That its constitution, by-laws, and rules have not been, and will not be, published; that it accepts no members who are not good cross-country walkers, and that membership can be obtained only after personal acquaintance and such participation in the excursions of the Club as is needed to prove the candidate’s fitness and ability.… Participation by non-members in the excursions of the Club is by invitation only.’

“As a veracious chronicler it becomes incumbent upon me to here set down that during its long existence of nearly half a century it has exercised practically no influence and has never attained a place in the sun as a constructive factor in the encouragement of general walking, although its object, according to its certificate of incorporation, is the ‘encouragement and promotion of outdoor sport for health and pleasure.’

“The year 1911 was momentous in the history of walking. Outdoor life was enjoying a popular boom; for this condition the motor car and the country club were in large measure responsible. The open-air enthusiast found a ready hearing, his preachments falling upon fertile ground. In this year a little group of about ten walkers organized the Walkers’ Club of America, and almost simultaneously Charles G. Bullard, of the Appalachian Mountain Club, established a New York branch of that organization, the membership being drawn principally from the members of the Boston Club residing in or near this city. Prominent among the organizers of the Walkers’ Club was James H. Hocking, one of the most enthusiastic pedestrians in this country, and one who believes that walking will cure most of the ills to which mind and body are heir. This organization was opposed to hiding its light under a bushel; its conception of its functions was thoroughly democratic; its primary purpose was to induce the largest number of people possible to use their legs in the way that God intended that they should.

“Now, while walking could scarcely be said to be attaining widespread popularity, there was in the ensuing year or two a steady growth in interest. A walking organization was formed by some of the members of the Crescent Athletic Club in conjunction with the Union League Club, also of the ‘city of homes and churches,’ and a programme of Sunday walks was prepared. But it was in 1913 that the actual recrudescence in walking occurred, when the Evening Post and the Times gave considerable space to articles on walking. In the late winter of that year, too, there began to appear inconspicuous paragraphs on the sporting pages of the Monday morning papers to the effect that on the previous day members of the Walkers’ Club had hiked from City Hall to Coney Island, or perhaps from St. George to New Dorp or from Columbus Circle to Hastings.