Thornton Taft Munger papers

Thornton Taft Munger was born in North Adams, Mass., on October 3, 1883. His father, the Rev. Theodore Thornton Munger, Yale '51, who was a Congregational minister, served as a member of the Yale Corporation from 1887-1905; he had the honorary degree of D.D. from Yale, Illinois College, and Harvard. Munger is the grandson of Ebenezer Munger (B.A. 1814) and Cynthia (Selden) Munger and the great-grandson of Eleazar May (B.A. 1752). A number of his ancestors on the paternal side were early settlers in Guilford, Conn., Nichols Munger and Abraham Cruttenden going there in 1639, James Evarts in 1649, and Jonathan Murray before 1669. Another ancestor was John Eliot, the "Apostle to the Indians," who settled in Roxbury, Mass., in 1631. Through his mother, Eliza Kinsman (Duncan) Munger, who was the daughter of James Henry Duncan, who had degrees from Harvard and Brown and who was a member of Congress, and Mary (Willis) Duncan, Munger traces his descent to Dr. Thomas Leonard, who came to this country in 1653, to Captain John Appleton, who settled in Ipswich, Mass., about 1650, and also to George Duncan, who settled in Londonderry, N.H., in 1719, and John Bell and Elizabeth Todd, who went there in 1720.

Munger was prepared for Yale at the Hillhouse High School in New Haven and at the Hotchkiss School. He took part in Dwight Hall work, and he received a first colloquy appointment in Senior year.

"A year abroad, two in the Forest School in New Haven, and then twenty-two in Portland, Ore., all devoted to my chosen profession, forestry, and all in public service for the United States Forest Service," thus Munger summarizes his history since 1905. He adds, "At first I made technical studies on the national forests, then got into administration work, making and supervising timber sales, organizing timber cruising projects, etc. In 1924 I took the directorship of the Pacific Northwest Forest Experiment Station. This federal research organization conducts studies of forest growth, fire control, methods of reforestation, etc., in Washington and Oregon with a view to promoting better management and protection of forest lands, both private and public."

Munger went abroad after graduation, remaining until March, 1906. He spent some months of this period in Germany, and upon his return to this country he went to Milford, Pa., where he took charge of the field work for the Yale Forest Experiment Station. He received the degree of M.F., cum laude, at Yale in 1908 and shortly afterwards took up his work as a forest assistant in the Forest Service, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. After six weeks there he was sent to Oregon to make a study of forest conditions in the central part of that state, at the end of a few months completing the study and taking up headquarters at Portland. For some years before he was made director of the Pacific Northwest Forest Experiment Station Munger served as assistant chief of forest management in that district. During the war he was in charge of the timber sales department, which had to do in part with disposing of spruce and other Government stumpage for military use.

He wrote several Government bulletins, as well as many technical and trade journal articles and addresses. He taught several short courses on special forestry topics at the University of Washington and at the Oregon Agricultural College, and during the winter of 1916 he was a special lecturer at the Yale Forest School. He served on the executive council of the Society ofAmerican Foresters since 1925. He was vice-president of the Yale Forest School Alumni Association, and he has also been secretary and president of the Oregon Yale Alumni Association and its representative on the Alumni Board. Munger belongs to the University, City, and Multnomah Golf clubs of Portland. He is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Portland, and he served as a deacon from 1920 to 1923 and as an elder from 1923 to 1929. In politics he is a Republican.

His marriage to Mary Erskine, daughter of George Philip Heilman, a graduate of Dartmouth, and Lura C. (Fellows) Heilman, took place on May 18, 1916, at Evansville, Ind. Mrs. Munger attended Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, specializing in social service work. They had had three children, all of whom were born in Portland, Theodore Thornton on January 11, 1920 (died in Portland, March 25, 1922), James Duncan on December 21, 1921, and Osgood Heilman on June 24, 1924.

(Taken from the History of the Class of 1905, Yale College)