I knew him primarily from nature walks--those he led in various Princeton preserves and those of mine at Herrontown Woods that he would show up for and add so much to, often with his wife and botanist, Betty. On these occasions, his sonorous voice would convey warmth and clarity as he shared his deep knowledge of geology and forest ecology.
At the May 5 memorial service under the vaulted, ornate canopy of Princeton University Chapel, a colleague called Henry "the heart of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology." For me, he occupied a similar place in the community. Talking to him, I felt no sense that I was on the other side of a wall that some professors construct between themselves and the outside world. I found in Henry Horn no sense of division or Other, no Nassau Street of the mind dividing ivy league from community.
After the service, I mentioned this to one of his younger brothers, and asked how this combining of academic achievement and commonality had come to be. He said that, though later Henry would go to Harvard, their parents had insisted that their children attend public schools, where they were around people of all walks of life. Henry's mother had had a hard life growing up, and there was always something to restore humility when their heads got too big.
At the service, we learned that Henry's father had been a minister, whose various positions had taken the family from Virginia to Georgia for four years before moving north to Boston. I asked him (the younger brother) if the family's southern roots might have something to do with Henry's easy connection with people outside academia. I explained that I had lived in North Carolina for eight years, and had felt in many ways like I had found home. It was the habit of people there to consistently acknowledge the existence, the humanity, of others. Known or stranger, it made no difference. He immediately knew what I was talking about, and said this aspect of the south is not sufficiently appreciated in the north, where people tend to stereotype southern sensibility in negative terms.
While many scientists studying nature conduct their research in distant locales, Henry found value and meaning in local woods and fields. He was quoted at the service as saying, "You don't need to travel far away to study nature". His treasuring of the local could be considered prescient, given the university's recent efforts to connect more with the community.
Henry was one of the older among nine or so siblings, in a house they filled with the collected gleanings of nature. Most were brothers, but the oldest was a sister who would return from school and share with the others everything she had learned that day. That sharing was described as a university education in and of itself.
Most of us who knew Henry a little or a lot knew him as warm, insightful, infinitely curious about the world, whimsical. It was a surprise, then, to find out that he had a competitive side, and had an inner toughness, as when he stoically endured the brutal welcome dished out by a gang of boys when his family first moved to a neighborhood in Boston. He and his brothers ultimately gained the new neighbors' respect and became friends with some.
As a kid, he had a passion for tinkering with watches and electronic devices, taking them apart and putting them back together again. This tinkering led during his years as an assistant professor to what he would later call his "tenure machine," a device for assessing forest canopy and shade tolerance that led to an influential book that in turn led to his gaining tenure.
His scientific inquiries seem frequently to have led to art, and vice versa. As can be seen in a wonderful video portrait of Henry, entitled Boy Wonder Emeritus, he got ideas for art from the patterns he saw in his photos of canopy, and the carved wooden animals he would pull out of his pocket to use for scale in his nature photography served as ambassadors to help convey science to youth.
He was a force for cohesion on campus, providing advice and constructive feedback to all who sought him out. Resisting the academic temptation to withdraw into this or that silo of specialized study, he showed up for a wide range of talks. He also somehow avoided the human tendency to focus questions or comments on perceived flaws or gaps in a presentation. He instead would ask supportive questions that suggested new avenues of inquiry, and sometimes would even help clarify for a less than articulate speaker what he or she had been trying to say. His aim was to bring out the best in others, not tear them down.
As Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings filled the chapel, above and all around and in our hearts, I wondered if Henry Horn's passing represented also the passing of an era when the work of biologists took them outdoors, rather than into a lab. A colleague of his assured me that much research in the EEB department still takes professors out to the field.
Having learned about Oswald Veblen, the renowned mathematician and conservationist who preceded Henry Horn at Princeton by sixty years, I can't help but see Henry as Veblenesque in many ways. Both reached beyond academia to connect with the community. Both were deeply drawn to the land. It was Veblen who worked to acquire the land that later became Henry's beloved Institute Woods. Both worked hard to support and advance others' careers. And when they faced physical challenges--for Veblen it was partial blindness, for Henry it was a handicapped child--their response was to invent devices that would help not only in their own situations but for others facing similar challenges.
In 1991, he led the University into a new era of interdisciplinary environmental research as founding director of the Program in Environmental Studies. He transferred to emeritus status in 2011.
“He had an original mind and was so caring. He saw patterns in the natural world that others often overlooked"Henry lives on in many ways, including some online videos:
Henry's nature walks
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2018/07/16/nature-walks-henry-horn
Skunk Cabbage
https://vimeo.com/278156799
Mockingbird
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=632608590467273
Comments on Henry in memorium
https://blogs.princeton.edu/memorial/2019/03/henry-horn/