A humble tribute for a humble man — a sign naming an underpass in his honor — was unveiled on Oct. 8.

Over 100 people attended a ceremony to honor John Wolcott, a founder of Save the Pine Bush who led hikes in the globally rare pine barrens for 40 years.

Wolcott died on Aug. 17, 2023, a month before his 91st birthday.

The sign, which says “John Wolcott Pine Bush Hikers’ Underpass,” will be displayed on the Thruway underpass for County Route 155. The underpass connects walkers and wildlife to the Pine Bush Preserve.

“When the bridge on Route 155 over the Thruway was damaged in the late 1990s, John kept telling me that we need an underpass for hikers and walkers — and it should be done during the bridge repair,” recalled Lynne Jackson, another founder of Save the Pine Bush.

The grassroots not-for-profit group was founded in 1978 to save the barrens, undervalued at the time, from encroaching development.

Jackson said Wolcott first visited the pine bush at the age of 3 “and never stopped advocating for its preservation.”

Christopher Hawver, the executive director of the Pine Bush Commission, said that, without Wolcott and the other dedicated members of the advocacy group, “There wouldn’t be the Pine Bush Preserve that we have today … 

“Who would have thought 50 years ago that we’d have over 3,400 acres protected in this preserve?” asked Hawver, continuing, “Who would have thought that we could restore a globally rare pine barren with prescribed fire in Albany, Guilderland, and Colonie — in an urban environment?

“Who would have thought that the endangered Karner blue butterfly on the brink of extinction could be recovered from a few hundred individuals to tens of thousands today? And who would have thought that the Thruway Authority would create an underpass just for visitors to enjoy the Pine Bush?”

Hawver answered his soaring series of questions: “John and Save the Pine Bush did. They always kept the vision. Thank you for never giving up,” he said.

Later in the ceremony, Guilderland supervisor Peter Barber commended Jackson and other Save the Pine Bush members for their dogged pursuit currently to preserve the barrens as the town updates its land-use plan.

Jackson continued her narrative by saying she got fed up with Wolcott continually lamenting the Thruway Authority not having an underpass so one day she told him, “John, just call up the Thruway Authority.”

And he did.

The engineer he caught on a break talked with him all afternoon. Although the engineers were sympathetic to his plea, they said it was too late; the steel had already been cut.

But one of the engineers then found a way, said Jackson, concluding her narrative to applause: “We owe a big thank-you to the engineers of the New York State Thruway Authority.”

She wasn’t yet finished though. Ever the advocate, Jackson went on, “So one more thing: The pine-bush ecosystem is not saved yet. There are still over 2,000 privately held acres in the pine bush under threat of development. We really need to carry on the work that John started and work for more preservation.”

“John the man”

Jerry Riverstone, a longtime pine-bush advocate, noted the red-tailed hawk flying over the pitch pines as Jacson spoke and said, “I don’t know if you believe in reincarnation, but if so, that’s John — checking this out, listening … on the edge … He’s kind of above, looking around.”

Riverstone went on to limn “John the man.”

“He knew his values,” Riverstone said. “He cared about nature. He cared about history. He cared about the people in his neighborhood.”

Wolcott had grown up in Albany’s Arbor Hill “from very humble beginnings,” Riverstone said.

Wolcott cared about making the pine bush accessible to people without cars so all of the hikes he led started at the SUNY Circle so that “people could hop on a bus and we could carpool from there.”

He went on about Wolcott’s values, “John really gave up a lot. He never went for prestige. He never went for status. He never went for high income. And he often had to kind of speak truth to power, which sometimes meant local government, state government, developers.

“But just over and over again, he was willing to stand up and speak for what he believed in even when he got persecuted at times.”

Riverstone said that another important aspect of Wolcott was “he was really driven by wonder. He never lost his childhood spirit. So, even when he was bogged down by so many things he cared about being destroyed around him … we’d come out here and he’d be like, ‘Oh my God, Jerry, look at that … there’s a Kerner blue butterfly just hatched.’”

Riverstone also said the modest tribute to Wolcott — a sign posted in a place with deafening highway noise — was perfect.

“The symbolic value I would say is like John was kind of the underground … and this trail we can walk on out there, you get to work on dirt that people walked on in colonial times and in pre-colonial times.”

He concluded of the tribute, “It’s something humble and it’s kind of radical like that underground that John really was.”

“A call to action”

Senator Patricia Fahy, who sponsored the project, said she was constantly pushing to get “under-resourced schools or families” out to the pine bush preserve so she was pleased to learn from Riverstone about Wolcott’s push for inclusiveness.

Fahy said to applause that Hawver had just handed her a list of all the Albany schools and programs that had been to the preserve this year.

In her opening comments, Fahy had said, “So much of the divisiveness in the country and the ugliness in the country is that we are so forgetting our history.”

She said her heart was warmed by reading about Wolcott’s work as “an activist, a historian, a researcher, a teacher, a tireless defender of open space and historic memory.”

Fahy described the underpass as “a connection between the trails, the neighborhoods, and the ecosystems as well as history.”

She also said, “So naming this after him is really a call to action because each of us, each generation really does inherit this responsibility to protect the land, to protect the memory and the community.”

Fahy noted how important Wolcott’s varied work is — mapping for The Altamont Enterprise the 1600s Dutch barns in Guilderland, working to preserve the Schoolcraft House in Guilderland and the Bozenkill Preserve in Altamont — at a time when some are “trying to abolish our history.”

Albany County Legislator Danielle Gillespie, as she stood before what is now the Pine Bush Discovery Center but was built for the State Employees Federal Credit Union, recalled working in the SEFCU building many years ago.

“I saw the protesters and they had their butterfly suits on,” she said.

SEFCU had illegally built in the preserve and eventually a trade was worked out.

“They were upset with the building,” Gillespie recalled, “but it opened up a new window for me. It exposed me to the pine bush. I got to benefit from the trails.”

During the pandemic, she said, “The pine bush saved our lives when society basically shut down and there were no social interactions. It was our reconnection to the trails, the ability to walk, learn, to make hiking and activity a teachable moment for my children who’ve gone through the Albany city schools.”

She praised Fahy for working with the county government and praised Wolcott for “his advocacy and his commitment to reconnecting us with our environment.”

She concluded of Wolcott, “He protected the pine bush for those that cannot speak for themselves — the native vegetation, species, trees, birds, native creatures, insects, and our great-great-grandchildren.”

Wolcott’s wife of nearly half a century, Linda Becker, had the last words. 

“John did a lot,” she said. “But all of you did something too. And I want to thank everyone here for doing what you’ve done and how you’ve accomplished so much.”