Clarence Petty, conservationist, 104, dies

CANTON, N.Y., Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Clarence Petty, who advocated tirelessly for the preservation of the Adirondack Mountains, died at his Canton, N.Y., home, his family said. He was 104.

Petty was an Adirondack Park ranger and later a link between the New York State Conservation Department (now the Department of Environmental Conservation) and the New York Legislature, The New York Times reported.

He helped establish the Adirondack Council, a non-profit environmental group, and served as its first director.

Petty, who had climbed 46 of the highest peaks in the Adirondacks, savored the wilderness.

"I would be just as pleased if I could stand on the Capitol steps in Albany and look towards Montreal and not see a damn thing except wilderness," Petty said in 2005 when he opposed plans to put more snowmobile trails in Adirondack Park.

Clarence Adelbert Petty was born in Crown Point, N.Y., on Aug. 8, 1905. He graduated from Saranac Lake High School in 1926, then received a bachelor's degree from the State College of Forestry (now the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry) in Syracuse, the Times reported.

Petty worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression, then served as a Navy pilot in the Pacific in World War II.

The former Ferne Hastings, Petty's wife of 56 years, died in 1994.

He is survived by two sons, Ed and Richard; a brother, Archibald; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.