Mabel James

Mabel James

compiled from various resources

Mabel James was the founder of both the Conservation Trail and the Foothills Trail Club.

By all accounts she was a remarkable woman, and a remarkable conservationist. She worked with the Nature Conservancy and with the Buffalo Audubon Society regarding various Nature Sanctuaries including Beaver Meadow in Java. 

She was Born June 14, 1887 on a farm Mansfield, Connecticut but lived most of her life in the Town of Holland.  Much of her childhood was spent outdoors looking at plants and animals.  An avid hiker and while at Holyoke College in Mass she obtained permission to take walks instead of going to gym class.  She became a science and math teacher and it was here that she began introducing her students to her favorite places in the woods and fields.

In 1918 she moved to western New York noticed the difference in plants and this caused her to want to know more about plants and she would walk in the woods to study them.

In 1935 she was a naturalist for the Garden Center Institute of Buffalo and she would take people on Sunday nature trips to Holland.  She would charter a bus for $10.00 a day, filled it with people who were interested in the outdoors and went to Holland to hike.  Each person paid 50 cents for the bus fare; 5 cents for all the coffee they wanted and each brought their own bag lunch.

She then wanted longer – all day – hikes and realized for that she needed foot trails.  She thought of the Long Path in Vermont and wanted to use this as a pattern.  So the trail from Lewiston to Allegany State Park was her dream.   To her delight Art and Olga Rosche were willing to help, along with boy and girl scouts.  Thus the birth of the Conservation Trail.

On May 5, 1962, the first section of the Conservation Trail, Humphries Road to Vermont Street, was dedicated, with 250 people in attendance.  The first sign was uncovered revealing the words: THE CONSERVATION TRAIL, MABEL H. JAMES SECTION.  This dedication took place at the Becker Pond.

In a 1969 interview Mabel James mentioned that “people hike because they have a feeling for beauty and a wonder for the outdoors.  People seem to feel right when they are in the woods or on the trail.  Many people drink in the wonders of nature and it is this “sense of wonder”, the magic to be found outdoors on a hiking trail that was something very precious.”

Mabel passed away on March 18, 1974.