Game Face: McLean forged global conservation legacy
Updated: Nov 1
This article first appeared as the cover story in the October edition of Today Magazine, our monthly publication
By Bruce William Deckert — Today Magazine • Editor-in-Chief
His name is prominent in Connecticut and U.S. history — yet for some, he might be associated only with two current-day mainstays in the Farmington Valley: the McLean Game Refuge and the McLean Life Plan Community.
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Let’s contemplate George McLean’s legacy and the impact of his life in his home state and nation and beyond.
George Payne McLean served as governor of Connecticut from 1901 to 1903 and was one of the state’s two U.S. senators from 1911 to 1929. A member of the Republican party, he served earlier as a Connecticut state senator and representative. He became a lawyer in 1881 and was a U.S. district attorney for Connecticut from 1892 to 1896.
McLean was born in Simsbury on October 7, 1857. He died at 74 years old on June 6, 1932 — exactly 12 years before D-Day signaled the beginning of the end of World War II — and he is buried in Simsbury Cemetery.
He grew up on a 100-acre family farm that is now largely the site of the Hop Meadow Country Club on Firetown Road in Simsbury. For elementary school, McLean attended a one-room schoolhouse. He graduated from Hartford Public High School in 1877 because Simsbury had no secondary school at that time. Immediately after high school, he worked as a reporter for the Hartford Post newspaper from 1877 to 1879.
“McLean flourished at HPHS,” writes author Will McLean Greeley in his new McLean biography. “At an 1899 reunion of Hartford Public High School ... McLean stated that upon graduating he felt he had learned everything that was knowable and was now prepared to either be president of the United States or the editor of the Hartford Courant.”
Greeley’s book is titled “A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate.” McLean is the author’s great-great-uncle on his father’s side — an uncle of Greeley’s grandfather, whose mother was McLean’s sister.
“George McLean was a surrogate father to my grandfather — his dad died when my grandfather was young,” Greeley tells Today Magazine.
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
The biography traces McLean’s rise from obscurity as a Connecticut farm boy to national prominence. He advised U.S. presidents and inspired constructive change that shaped major American policy.
McLean’s crowning achievement as a senator, says Greeley, was the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. McLean sponsored this legislation, still in effect today, that has likely saved millions of birds and prevented extinctions.
“Senator McLean is an overlooked figure in the conservation movement,” Greeley observes, “and played an important role in the expansion of federal oversight of the environment.”
McLean had close relationships with these five presidents: Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson.
McLean also knew president Herbert Hoover well, Greeley notes, but in Hoover’s capacity as secretary of commerce and other government roles prior to his term as president.
“McLean left the Senate the day that Hoover was inaugurated president in 1929,” Greeley tells Today Magazine, noting that Hoover called McLean’s wife Juliette when McLean died. “So they had a working relationship, but prior to Hoover’s presidency.”
McLean hosted three of those presidents — Coolidge, Taft and Hoover — on his widespread wilderness land that later became the McLean Game Refuge, per the Granby Drummer. Coolidge visited his good friend in Granby for a fishing expedition in May 1932, about a month before McLean’s death.
REFUGE PRIVILEGE
According to the Drummer, a monthly newspaper established in 1970: “Of the thousands of towns in the United States, Granby residents could boast in 1932 that three of the 33 presidents at that time had visited their town, a remarkable distinction.”
Roosevelt and Harding also visited McLean’s wilderness estate, according to a Yale School of Forestry publication. So of the half-dozen presidents McLean knew, only Woodrow Wilson wasn’t a guest at the senator’s countryside property in northern Connecticut.
The game refuge, one of New England’s scenic wonders, remains a significant aspect of McLean’s legacy.
When he died in 1932, his will established a charitable trust, the McLean Fund, that instructed his trustees to undertake beneficial initiatives for Connecticut citizens. One key initiative was to transform his vast real estate possessions into the McLean Game Refuge.
“His will was a lyrically written direction to his trustees to create a balance between his two hard-to-reconcile priorities: recreation and wildlife protection,” says Put Brown, who has served as chairman of the McLean Fund and as a Granby Land Trust board member.
One of McLean’s lyrical statements is as follows — he wanted the refuge to be “a place where some of the things God made may be seen by those who love them as I loved them and who may find in them the peace of mind and body that I have found.”
The game refuge is a 4400-acre wildlife sanctuary encompassing three Farmington Valley towns — mostly Granby and Simsbury, with a smaller section in Canton. The two main entrances are in Granby, with 20 entrances overall.
“I am endlessly amazed by how diverse and beautiful these forestlands are,” says refuge director Connor Hogan, “and I love that I get to explore and document them each day.”
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
He notes that nearly 600 plant species and hundreds of animals call the game refuge home — 1500 species overall. The property’s oldest known tree began growing before 1645, and the tallest trees soar about 150 feet high.
“The McLean Game Refuge is host to ongoing research and conservation projects and is open to the public for passive recreation,” says Heather Ryan, marketing communications specialist for the McLean Life Plan Community, which opened as the McLean Health Center in 1971.
“Originating as a nursing home for women — important to the senator because of the care he oversaw for his elderly mother and aunt — McLean is now a thriving senior living community nestled on 125 wooded acres in Simsbury,” says Ryan.
A key reason McLean appreciated the peace he found in his backcountry property was the stress of his single term as governor of Connecticut.
He achieved tax reform, but he faced draconian opposition in his attempt to reform what Greeley describes as a clearly inequitable system of representation in the state legislature: Every city and town in the state had the same number of representatives, regardless of the municipality’s population.
McLean sought to remedy this by proposing one representative for towns with less than 25,000 residents and increased numerical representation as a municipality’s population increased.
The Hartford Courant praised his proposal, and the New York Tribune commended McLean’s courage to take a stance against fellow Republicans who had opposed representation reform for decades. However, resistance from members of his own party was “constant and vicious,” writes Greeley.
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"I am endlessly amazed by how diverse and beautiful these forestlands are — and I love that I get to explore and document them each day" — Connor Hogan • McLean Game Refuge director
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
Opponents of legislature reform “favored rural towns at the expense of cities and wanted to disenfranchise large cities,” Greeley says, adding that another motive was to limit the rights of black citizens who lived in urban areas. McLean’s common-sense reform proposal died in early 1902.
Reform of the Connecticut General Assembly wouldn’t occur until 1965.
“McLean not only faced opposition from his own party, but leaders of both parties abandoned him,” Greeley says. “This led to a very public nervous breakdown in the spring of 1902.”
Another factor that contributed to the governor’s nervous collapse was his relentless and demanding schedule as the state’s political leader, including incessant requests for speaking engagements.
In the biography, Greeley offers this quote from McLean: “The feeling that I must be everywhere is very complimentary, but my friends must realize that I am only human, and not a very tough one at that.”
After his breakdown experience, he dealt with further depression and discouragement when his term as governor ended in January 1903. As time moved forward, he found a measure of healing and peace at his Holly House home and on his wilderness property that today is the McLean Game Refuge. He also traveled frequently. These out-of-state excursions focused on golf outings, hunting expeditions and visits to luxurious resorts.
McLean’s home from 1896 until he died in 1932 was the stately mansion he built in Simsbury — he called it Holly House because several elegant holly trees grew nearby. Today it’s known as the Governor’s House, a skilled-nursing and short-term rehabilitation facility on Firetown Road. His boyhood home was only a half-mile away.
REST AND RENEWAL
“While golfing and hunting were paths to the outside world and important parts of his emotional and physical recovery,” writes Greeley, “McLean also found rest and renewal in the natural beauty surrounding his home, farm and woodlands.”
Initially he planned to travel for a full year after leaving office, but he adjusted those plans and stayed in Simsbury for weeks and then months “because of the familiar comforts of home.”
In January 1903, McLean bought 70 acres adjacent to Holly House. Over the next five years he purchased 600 more, and by 1908 he had acquired 1600 acres. When he died in 1932, McLean owned over 3000 acres — or 4.7 square miles — and in his will he instructed his trustees to obtain more land and establish the McLean Game Refuge.
“Governor McLean was instrumental in conservation efforts,” says Laura Anderson, director of admissions for the Governor’s House. “His work laid a foundation for sustainable environmental practices, demonstrating a forward-thinking approach to conservation that was ahead of its time.”
McLean enjoyed taking visitors on tours of the land near his Simsbury home. “He was a great outdoors person,” his great-nephew Roland Greeley said. “We’d love to go down and visit him and walk along the brook.”
Frederic C. Walcott, who served Connecticut as a U.S. senator after McLean, noted that the outdoors had healing virtues for his friend. McLean followed a “restorative routine of duck hunting in the fall, golfing in the winter, and summers in Simsbury” until 1905, writes Greeley — but in 1905-06 he experienced three significant losses: the deaths of his aunt Sarah Abernethy, his sister Hannah and his mother Mary.
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
His mother’s death in the autumn of 1906 was a profound loss, according to Greeley, “since they had lived under the same roof for almost all of McLean’s life.”
A few days later, McLean wrote a letter to a close friend, noting that he was with her when she took her last breath. He witnessed his mother call out to God as her life ended and admired her “absolute faith and belief in an overruling Providence.” McLean closed the letter by quoting Mark 9:23 — “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”
McLean had grown up connected to the church, and a probate-case anecdote from his law career is connected directly to Simsbury’s church history.
He represented several adult children who challenged in court the mental competence of their deceased mother — she had given a local church $25,000 but left no inheritance for them. The heirs lost the case, and in 1908 her bequest helped fund a new building for Simsbury United Methodist Church.
In December 1906, a month after McLean’s mother died, he left Connecticut and traveled South, spending the winter golfing in Pinehurst, N.C. McLean returned in late March 1907, and about two weeks later — on April 10, 1907 — he married Juliette Goodrich, his longtime girlfriend.
McLean was 49 years old and she was 42. Greeley writes that the marriage surprised the public along with some extended family, who described the decision as “spur of the moment” — although George and Juliette had known each other for years.
She also grew up in Simsbury, and her family owned a farm only four miles from the McLean farm. Her father Lucius served with McLean in the Connecticut House of Representatives in the mid-1880s, and they worked together on several legislative committees.
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
“His will was a lyrically written direction to his trustees to create a balance between his two hard-to-reconcile priorities: recreation and wildlife protection” — Put Brown • former McLean Fund chairman
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
When McLean became governor in 1901, newspapers reported that Juliette Goodrich was seated in the governor’s private box at his inaugural parade. McLean’s mother kept a detailed diary and recorded Juliette’s numerous visits to Holly House over the years. In 1904 she noted 11 visits Juliette made to McLean’s home, such as the entry on February 3: “We had a nice call from Miss Goodrich.”
Juliette’s mother, Martha Abigail Ensign, was from the family who owned the Ensign-Bickford company in Simsbury. Founded in 1836, Ensign-Bickford is the oldest known business in the Farmington Valley. Today, parent company Ensign-Bickford Industries is based in Denver, while the subsidiary Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense Company is located in Simsbury.
The influential opinions of McLean’s close family members likely impacted his decision to wait so long to marry. Mary McLean Daniells — one of his nieces, his brother Charlie’s daughter — wrote in 1972: “Uncle George’s mother and Aunt Sarah [Abernethy] felt that God hadn’t created a woman good enough to be his wife.”
McLean’s marriage in 1907 represented a culminating development in his quest for healing and peace after his trial-by-fire governor’s term and the passing of three consequential women in his life.
Anyone who has been married realizes that the marriage relationship includes pain as well as love and peace given the reality of two imperfect spouses.
Yet the best marriage gurus agree that when mere humans understand the divine gift and grace of this exclusive relationship, they see more clearly that the pain marriage causes is a necessary corollary to the healing marriage brings — thus making perseverance through marital pits and valleys and dark places a key calling that leads to new marital heights and deeper love and light on the journey.
In 1928, McLean said: “My breakdown in 1902 took six of the best years out of my life and left scars that compelled me to leave many things undone.” However, he entered the legislative arena again and accomplished much in the realm of national politics during his three terms in the U.S. Senate from 1911 to 1929.
FOR THE BIRDS
His foremost achievement was the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 that has likely saved millions of birds. While McLean relished the outdoors and enjoyed hunting and fishing, he was also a longtime advocate of responsible hunting practices.
In 1886 he helped organize the Simsbury Game Club for the protection of game and fish, according to Greeley. Soon after he became a U.S. senator, he pursued legislation to protect birds because of the threat and impact of overhunting.
The period from 1870 to 1900 in America has been called the Age of Extermination due to the widespread slaughter of birds and other wildlife — the passenger pigeon is a quintessential example of a once-abundant species overhunted to extinction. Besides slaughtering fowl for food, hunters killed birds because their feathers were prized as an adornment for women’s hats and clothing, a lucrative business known as the plumage trade. In a Senate speech, McLean spoke of a coat made of hundreds of hummingbird hides that sold for $10,000.
In addition to humane and ethical considerations, plus extinction concerns, McLean championed protection because birds benefited America’s agricultural economy. Since commercial pesticides were introduced much later, insect-eating birds “were considered a farmer’s best line of defense against crop-eating insects,” writes Greeley.
During McLean’s Senate days, a biological survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture determined that insects caused over $800 million in damage to American agriculture annually.
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
SEO keyword: McLean forged global conservation legacy
These stark factors compelled McLean to focus on excessive game-hunting when he entered the Senate in 1911. In May he introduced legislation to protect migratory game birds, but the bill died in committee. Then he proposed a constitutional amendment to safeguard migratory birds, but in 1912 he began crafting new legislation. In January 1913, the Senate passed a bill that protected migratory game birds and insectivorous birds in the United States.
Shortly after the bill became federal law, a California newspaper published a complimentary feature on McLean, calling him the “birdman of the Senate.”
While this was a significant step, McLean questioned the law’s ultimate effectiveness given uncertainty about enforcement and a possible Supreme Court challenge — along with the reality that migrating birds routinely surpass national boundaries. So he concluded that an international treaty was the best long-term protection solution.
In July 1913, the Senate passed McLean’s legislative resolution that empowered the president to pursue an international migratory bird treaty. When World War I began in July 1914, bird-protection negotiations understandably slowed down. However, in July 1917 the Migratory Bird Treaty Act passed the U.S. Senate and then went to the House, where it stalled for almost a full year. In June 1918, the House passed the treaty.
On July 3, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson finally signed the treaty, culminating a painstaking process that required seven years of negotiations, alliance building and diplomatic skill.
George McLean’s legacy of conservation and care is evident in this still-existing act — and has surely been cemented by his bequest that established the McLean Game Refuge and McLean Life Plan Community. Generations of citizens in Connecticut and nationwide have benefited from his foresight and persevering leadership. +
Editor’s Note — Today Magazine requested comment from Simsbury Historical Society president Bob Moody via email and voicemail but hasn’t seen a reply — Today also requested comment from Connecticut governor Ned Lamont via email
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Today Magazine covers community news that matters nationwide while aiming to record Connecticut’s underreported upside — focusing on the heart of the Farmington Valley: Avon, Canton, Farmington, Granby and Simsbury
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