Inventory of the Jonathan Keith Esser Collection, 1893 - 1963
What is this document?
Descriptive Summary
| Abstract: | Pennsylvania forester and coal industry worker Jonathan Keith Esser (1893-1963) graduated from the Biltmore Forest School in 1911. |
| The collection contains letters written by and photographs taken or collected by forester Jonathan Keith Esser. The materials date from 1899 to 1920 (bulk 1910-1911) and primarily document Esser's training while a forestry student under the tutelage of Biltmore Forest School director Carl Alwin Schenck (1868-1955). Esser's correspondence consists of five letters he wrote to his family while on Biltmore Forest School field trips to various forested regions of the United States and Europe in 1910 and 1911. Photographs in the collection document the training Esser received while on said field trips; his work while a member of a U.S. Forest Service reconnaissance team that surveyed forest conditions in the southern Appalachian Mountains region of the United States during 1912; and his experiences while serving in the U.S. Army during the World War I era. | |
| Title: | Jonathan Keith Esser Collection, 1893 - 1963 |
| Creator: | Esser, Jonathan Keith |
| Repository: | Forest History Society Library and Archives |
| Call Number: | 7205 |
| Language of Material: | Material in English |
| Extent: | 6.5 linear feet (4 photo albums, 1 envelope, 1 folder) |
Biographical Note
Pennsylvania forester and coal industry worker Jonathan Keith Esser (1893-1963) graduated from the Biltmore Forest School in 1911.
Born in 1893 in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania (renamed Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, in 1954), J. Keith Esser was the son of Isabelle (Simpson) and George W. Esser, a postmaster and prominent figure in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, politics. Esser's family had strong ties to the local coal business, which eventually would lure Keith back to the region. Keith's older sister, Mary, married Truman "Trot" Dodson II, who owned a nearby coal mine, and for a time Keith's father also owned a coke (coal) business in Wise County, Virginia.
Unlike most of his peers at the Biltmore School who were oriented toward careers in the private sector of the timber industry, Keith was interested in working for the U.S. Forest Service. After completing his year with the Biltmore Forest School in 1911, Keith Esser continued to pursue his interests in forestry for several more years and appears to have met with success in his career ambitions. In the Fall 1911 edition of the Biltmore School's Biltmore Doings alumni notes, the following entry appears, "... and J.K. Esser who have finished their course, have begun their 'apprenticeship' with the Smith-Powers Logging Company of Marshfield [Oregon]. Mr. Esser will enter the Forest Service on the Umpqua Reserve later on." Subsequent editions of the Biltmore alumni newsletter trace several more moves by Esser. The January 1912 issue reports, "J.K. Esser (Biltmore 1911) is working for the Chestnut Blight Commission at Johnstown, Pa.," and the June 1912 issue includes the notation, "The Degree of Bachelor of Forestry was given, upon completion of the statutory conditions, to ... J.K. Esser, employed by the U.S. Forest Service." One of Esser's photo albums also documents this time, as a handwritten caption in the front of the album states, "Note - Photos taken in 1912 on forest reconnaissance work of U.S. Forest Service on lands to be included in the S. Appalachian forest reserves."
After 1912, the path of Keith Esser's life grows less clear. A number of loose photos in this collection depict scenes of World War I-era camps and military maneuvers, but there is no clear sign that Esser saw action overseas. He may have been part of the 20th Engineer Regiment (Forestry) that set up logging operations and sawmills in France to supply the war effort, but this regiment was the largest in the U.S. Army with more than 20,000 men in thirteen battalions, and the collection includes no reference to confirm Esser's role. One photo shows the crippled ship Herbert L. Pratt, which was mined by a German submarine on 3 June 1918 a few miles off the Delaware coast, but whether Esser actually took the photo or made it any farther east than this during the war remains uncertain.
Back in Pennsylvania, J. Keith Esser married Grace Brinton, a native of Milton, Pennsylvania, and the daughter of George Jolley. Grace was seven years the junior of her husband and proceeded to outlive him by more than thirty years. Keith and Grace Esser did not have children and left little record of Keith's post-forestry adult life. A Directory of Alumni of the Biltmore Forest School printed in 1946 includes no mention of J. Keith Esser. Obituaries reporting his death on 16 February 1963 state that Esser was a retired coal company operator who had been active with the Boy Scouts of America, serving as the first scoutmaster in Carbon County. He built a log cabin at Split Rock Lodge and later donated this to the Boy Scouts. His widow, Grace, died in 1996 in a retirement home in Philadelphia, where she had earlier been employed by First Pennsylvania Bank. Both Essers are buried in a family plot at the Mauch Chunk Cemetery in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Collection Overview
This collection contains correspondence and photographs produced by Jonathan Keith Esser (1893-1963) while he was a student on Biltmore Forest School field trips to Germany and various forested regions of United States, including the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast. The correspondence dates from 1910 to 1911 and contains a couple of undated letters. Esser composed one of the letters on 30 October 1910 while in Cadillac, Michigan, and wrote the other letters while in Lindenfels and Darmstadt, Germany, in late 1910 and early 1911. His mother was the recipient of most of the letters, although one of the letters is addressed to Esser's sister, Mary Dodson. In the letters, Esser describes his impressions of Biltmore Forest School director Dr. Carl Alwin Schenck; his perceptions of German society; and his analysis of the forestry operations he observed firsthand in Germany and Michigan.
There are 418 images dating from 1899 to 1920 included in the collection. The images reside in four photo albums and a single envelope in the Forest History Society Archives. Three of the albums contain photographs and postcards documenting Esser's experiences while on Biltmore Forest School field trips to Michigan, North Carolina, the Adirondack region of New York State, and forested areas in Germany, especially the Spessart, Saxony, and Black Forest regions. The fourth album contains images from a U.S. Forest Service reconnaissance survey of the southern Appalachian region of the United States; Keith Esser was a member of the survey team. Photographs housed in the envelope depict World War I-era military training scenes as well as a few images from a Biltmore Forest School field trip. All of the photographs are black-and-white images; a few of the postcards are colorized.
Collection Arrangement
Subject Headings
- Biltmore Forest School -- History
- Esser, Jonathan Keith, 1893-1963
- Foresters -- United States -- Biography
- Forestry schools and education
- Forests and forestry -- Germany -- Black Forest
- Forests and forestry -- Germany -- Saxony
- Forests and forestry -- Germany -- Spessart
- Forests and forestry -- Michigan -- History
- Forests and forestry -- New York (State) -- Adirondack
- Mountains Region -- History
- Forests and forestry -- North Carolina -- History
- Schenck, Carl Alwin, 1868 - 1955
- United States. Forest Service -- Officials and employees
- World War, 1914-1918
Detailed Description of the Collection
1. Correspondence, 1910-1911 and undated.
2. Photographs, 1899-1920 and undated.
Administrative Information
Access Restrictions
No restrictions.
Copyright Notice
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Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Jonathan Keith Esser Collection, Library and Archives, Forest History Society, Durham, NC, USA.
Processing Information
Processed by David G. Havlick, May 2002
Encoded by Amanda Ross, January 2009
Funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission supported the encoding of this finding aid. Support for digitization and outreach provided by the Alvin J. Huss Endowment.