Francis Beidler
Reprinted from the guidebook: "The Francis Beidler Forest in Four Holes Swamp"

His views were formed at an early age. In 1875, when he was 21, Beidler was granted a vacation to explore the West. This was three years after Ferdinand Hayden's second survey of the Yellowstone. In Denver, Beidler heard stories of a strange land of bizarre natural phenomena in Wyoming. So he hired a guide and some pack horses and set out on a 400-mile trek to the northwest. His quest was rewarded by the awesome spectacle of a column of boiling water and steam that shot 200 feet toward the sky, a sight that made his horses bolt in terror. The impact of coming suddenly upon Old Faithful and its steaming spray was something Beidler never got over. Mud geysers, sulfur springs, Yellowstone Lake and Falls were a delight to explore in their pristine condition. It was Beidler's lifelone contention that Yellowstone was the "First Wonder of the World," and his support of conservation was born on that trip.

When Theodore Roosevelt became president and championed reclamation and conservation, he earned Beidler's lifetime admiration and support. This was also true of Gifford Pinchot, whom Beidler admired as a forester and conservationist. In 1907, two years after the incorporation of the National Audubon Society, Beidler went to Europe to study forestry practices in order to apply them to his own holdings in South Carolina. The Francis Beidler tracts were part of his holdings and form the sanctuary you are about to explore.

Francis Beidler stood in the front rank of conservationists more than a century ago, and long before the word and the cause became popular.