Gifford Pinchot - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

On October 4, 1946, he died aged 81, from leukemia. He was survived by his wife, Cornelia Bryce, and his son Gifford Bryce Pinchot. He is interred at Milford Cemetery, Pike County, Pennsylvania.

Perhaps because of pride in the first Gifford Pinchot's legacy, the Pinchot family has continued to name their sons Gifford, down to Gifford Pinchot IV.

Gifford Pinchot was named for Hudson River School artist Sanford Robinson Gifford

Gifford Senior and his then thirteen-year-old son co-wrote a scientific travel-adventure book, entitled Giff and Stiff in the South Seas, copyright 1933, by the John C. Winston Co. of Philadelphia. Junior Gifford is the actual voice of the adventure, documenting in a young boy's language the scientific studies, observations, and adventures as father, mother, son, and companions sail on the Mary Pinchot from New York to Key West and on to the Galapagos, Marquesas and Society Islands. This Darwin-like odyssey is accompanied by photos of the journey. Although the book is currently out of print, it can be found.

Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington and Gifford Pinchot State Park in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, are named in his honor, as is Pinchot Hall at Penn State University. The Pinchot Sycamore, the largest tree in his native state of Connecticut and second-largest sycamore on the Atlantic coast, still stands in Simsbury, where he was born. The largest Coast Redwood in Muir Woods, California, is also named in his honor, as is Pinchot Pass in the Kings Canyon National Park in California. The house where he was born belonged to his grandfather, Elijah Phelps, and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Grey Towers, the family home outside Milford, is a National Historic Landmark open to the public for tours.

The Pinchot Institute for Conservation is seated in Washington, D.C. Gifford's son, Dr. Gifford Bryce Pinchot, donated Grey Towers National Historic Site to the Forest Service in 1963. President John F. Kennedy accepted this gift from the Pinchot family and then dedicated the Pinchot Institute for Conservation. The Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization as of 1994, and today continues Pinchot's legacy of conservation leadership and sustainability in forestry. They partner with the Pinchot family and the Forest Service, at both the national level and at the Grey Towers National Historic Site Their work can be found at Pinchot.org.

Gifford Pinchot III, grandson of the first Gifford Pinchot, is co-founder and president of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, which offers a Master of Business Administration degree integrating environmental sustainability and social responsibility with innovation and profit.