User:HiMyNameIsFrancesca/sandbox/James Ashton Allis

James Ashton Allis (January 5, 1881 – December 29, 1970) was an American bank examiner and officer, chairman of the board of Fairfield Aviation, and an outdoorsman and hiker who proposed a trail from the Delaware Water Gap up into New England and then contributed to the early planning and blazing of the Appalachian Trail as well as many other trails in the Northeast U.S.

Trail advocate, planner, and blazer
Allis was President of the Fresh Air Club, an officer and director of many of the trail clubs including the Adirondack Mountain Club, the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Green Mountain Club, and the Appalachian Trail Conference. He was also a member of the Torrey Botanical Society When the Palisades Interstate Park Conference was reconstituted into the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference for the purpose of developing the Appalachian Trail, he served as vice chairman for New York

In 1921, Allis scouted the Arden-Surebridge Trail, originally marked on maps as the Allis Short Trail, which was intended as a shortcut alternative to the Ramapo-Dunderberg trail from Arden to Surebridge Mountain. He also discovered and named the Lemon Squeezer rock formation near the trail's intersection with the Appalachian Trail.

trail planner builder advocate president of the Fresh Air Club Treasurer of the Adirondack Mountain Club, Inc. 1922 https://books.google.com/books?id=U4VIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA26 Mr. Allis had been an of ficer and director of many of the clubs, including the Ap palachian Mountain Club, Green Mountain Club and Appalachian Trail Conference. For many years he was president of the Fresh Air Club. ton Allis, the banker and outdoorsman who had already proposed a trail from the Delaware Water Gap on into New England

The 3.72 mile Allis Trail in Sterling Forest State Park reaches the peak of Sterling Mountain. It connects the Appalachian Trail to the Sterling Ridge Trail and co-aligns with the Highlands Trail. https://parks.ny.gov/recreation/trails/documents/SterlingForestTrialPlan/SterlingForestChapters1-3a.pdf

Allis Skyline Trail Vermont

MONTCLAIR, N.J., Dec. 31 —James Ashton Allis, former banker and chairman of Fair child Engine and Airplane corporation, a founder of the system of hiking trails in the Eastern United States, died Tuesday in a nursing home here. He was 89 years old and lived at 200 Inwood Avenue, Upper Montclair.

Mr. Allis helped lace the Eastern mountains with hiking trails the best known of which is the Appalachian Trail extend ing from Maine to Georgia.

He planned cut and main tained several trails in the early decades of this century. Some bear his name, notably the Allis Skyline Trail in Vermont. ThouSands of people each year hike along the trails, which many hiking clubs on the East Coast now support.

Headed Fresh Air Club

Mr. Allis had been an of ficer and director of many of the clubs, including the Ap palachian Mountain Club, Green Mountain Club and Appalachian Trail Conference. For many years he was president of the Fresh Air Club. He was a member of the

Held Church Offices

Mr. Allis was a former treas urer of the Explorers Club of New York, a fellow of the American Geographical Society and a member of the Society of Colonial Wars. Sons of the Revolution, Vermont Historical Society, New York Botanical Garden and American Library Association.

He had been a vestryman, warden and treasurer of St. James Episcopal Church Upper Montclair. His clubs included the Torrey Botanical and New England Botanical.

Surviving are two sons, Fred erick and Bayard; four grand children and two great‐grand children.

A funeral service will be held at 10 A.M. Saturday in St. James Church

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/01/archives/ime-a-allis-9-ipli14e-exegutiye-i-n-former-bank-officer-j-i.html

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/1262716.0001.001?rgn=main;view=toc THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL While these paths were building, among idealists in this outdoor endeavor, sentiment began to develop for a greater trail-an Appalachian Trail-stretching the entire length of our eastern ridge lands from Maine to Georgia. Professor Monroe started the idea with a plan for a Delaware Water Gap-Hudson Highlands-Berkshire Trail to connect with the Long Trail in Vermont; Mr. Allis, with the co-operation of Albert M. Turner, Field Secretary of the Connecticut State Park and Forest Commission, actually explored and disclosed practical possibilities for such a grand-trunk route and urged its construction at meetings of the New England Trail Conference, which co-ordinates the work of the northeastern trail making agencies and of which, in 1922, Mr. Turner was chairman. Then a greater dreamer still, Benton MacKaye, acting for the committee on community planning of the American Institute of Architects, proposed the Appalachian Trail in full from Mt. Katahdin in Maine to Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina and an extension still further south to the mountains of northern Georgia. He interested the members of the Palisades Interstate Park Conference in the idea, and this federation was reconstituted into the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference for the purpose of developing the Appalachian Trail in these two states. Major Welch is chairman of this conference, and the vice chairman for New York is Mr. J. A. Allis; for New Jersey, C. P. Wilber, State Forester.

FINGER-BOARD-STORM KING TRAIL

J. A. Allis and others started last year the Finger-board Mountain-Storm King Mountain extension of the R-D Trail. LONG-TORNE TRAIL

For the purpose of a direct crossing of the Highlands from Arden to Fort Montgomery, which will be the route of the great Appalachian Trail, the scouts J. A. Allis, W. W. Bell, Charles B. Reid, and C. E. Buckingham, with suggestions from Major Welch, made a short cut from. Long Mountain to Popolopen Tome, which is known as the Long-Tome Trail.

Personal
In 1898 he was graduated from the Westminster School in Simsbury, Connecticut, in 1898. He worked as a bank examiner from 1910 to 1920 and served as a vice president of Grace National Bank in New York City from 1924 to 1951. He was chairman of the board for Fairchild Aviation from 1949 to 1958. If the subject married and produced offspring, describe the marriage and list the immediate offspring.


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