Trespassing: An Inquiry Into the Private Ownership of Land

I am a fan of John Hanson Mitchell's writing. I have read most of his books and like his somewhat quirky way of writing and his take on nature and natural history. Trespassing is one of my favorites of his books. It is an interesting discussion of how we can appreciate a place, our neighborhood, a walk we take often, without thinking that what makes or keeps that place, private property, can be altered by the owner and change a place we think of as ours. He introduces us to some of his places and how they have changed or could change. He writes about trespassing on private property (read the book to see how and why!). This book, along with Ceremonial Time and Walking Towards Walden, two of his other wonderful books, form a marvelous trilogy that weave together nature, place, and history.

This book passed a basic test of polemical writing: it inspired me to go out and do what the author strongly suggested the reader do. It was the middle of the night, but I put the book down and went out for a walk in the woods on someone else's property (don't worry they have plenty) so that I could look at the moon and stars and sparkling landscape from a high place.I learned an awful lot about the history of private property from this book. Because the concept of private property is so central to American identity I was left wondering why someone had not presented an environmental history from this perspective before. It is has given me a lens through which to read other books of environmental history.Mitchell is honest about where he stands in the debate about who should be in charge about what should be done with private land. He is an ecocentrist, pure and simple, and doesn't trust individual landowners to "do the right thing" by their land. He allows that one of the chief antagonists in this book, a man named Morrison, actually does take good care of his land, but he makes it clear that he does not want to leave such a precious thing as the land to the chance that the owner may or may not take care of it. In fact, much of the book is an attempt to show us how absurd and artificial the idea of "land ownership" really is.One of the threads in the story is Mitchell's recounting of an attempt at group ownership ("co-ownership") of land. The community that is finally realized falls short of its ideal, but he insists that it is far better than the default condition in modern America. Decide for yourself whether it is a pyrrhic victory.The main thread of the book is the tribal history of his favorite plot of land in Littleton, Mass. As usual, it is a pretty sad story.

John Hanson Mitchell is a graceful stylist who has been hammering away at a host of environmental subjects from the perspective of a single square mile. Trespassing may be his best book yet, and only slightly less ambitious than his monumental tour de force, Ceremonial Time. He takes the theme of ownership of land, one of the most potentially boring subjects around, and turns it into a great nonstop read by focussing on a single five hundred acre tract of land through some three hundred years of history. Some of the characters in this book are right out of Dickens, some of the descriptions of the landscape are out of Conrad, and, as far as I can tell, he's got a great understanding of the whole process of the creation of the American laws that govern the use of land. But you don't have to be interested in environment or legal history to enjoy this. Just read it for the characters. I wept for Sarah Dublet at the end of this book.

John Hanson Mitchell has been ranting on about his beloved square mile of earth, Scratch Flat, for longer than anyone would care to know. His latest book, Trespassing, An Inquiry into the Private Ownership of Land, offers no release from this obsession. Granted, the manner in which we in North America came to actually own land (instead of have use of it, as in England) is, or could be, an interesting subject. But, Mitchell takes us into yet another exploration of the common ground of Scratch Flat, specifically a five hundred acre tract where there used to be an Indian village. Those who know Mitchell's work will find some familiar characters here, namely the 17th century Pawtucket Indian, Sarah Doublet, the wife of Tom Doublet, who Mitchell wrote about in Ceremonial Time, and again in Walking Towards Walden. Enough already. Why should we care what happened to American Indians back in the 17th century. For that matter why should we care about a square mile tract of land, that by Mitchell's own admission is essentially "nowhere and everywhere". We know what he's trying to get at here. Scratch Flat "is and was the world", as he writes in Ceremonial Time, but he's got an odd obsession with time, the preservation of doomed farmland, and especially the fate of the American Indian, a.k.a. "Native" Americans.Trespassing is an attempt to set the historical record straight. According to Mitchell, no one actually "owned" America until the Europeans set foot on these shores. Indians used the land, but they did not have the concept (yet) of ownership. They do now, as Mitchell is willing to point out. In fact his treatment of the modern dilemma of land rich capitalist Indians and the use of casinos to make money is one of the best parts of his book. But it's a departure. Mostly he gives us a detailed accounting of the way of life of his heroine, Sara Doublet, and current, modern day efforts of local folks to save land --- not just on Scratch Flat but elsewhere too. As with his other books, Trespassing is populated with strange eccentric local farmers, ranting landowners, wayward bourgeoisie, and an earnest group called the Friends of Open Space that sets out to save a section of the old Indian village site. Mitchell is a superb stylist and a winner of the coveted John Burroughs Award for his essay "Of Time and the River". That said the book is a good read, but I for one was hoping Mitchell would move further afield and leave old Scratch Flat behind for a change.

John Hanson Mitchell is a nature writer, yet he is without the dead seriousness of many zealous "tree-huggers." His humor is dry and droll -- try his two-page account of the Indian who "discovered" Italy, which has become my favorite read-aloud. More important, his deft style is in the service of an underlying interest in human nature, history (and prehistory) and mythic currents in human life, which peek out from under his strong knowledge of nature and environmental affairs.This book focuses all that and more with great imagination through the lens of a several-square-mile patch of land west of Boston called Neshobah, which was Indian territory until the Europeans arrived, became under them one of the first Indian reservations, became private property and now is partially being restored to common use via various land trusts, bringing a 400-year history full cycle. Captivating, engaging, thought-provoking stuff and a great read.