Timothy Dwight IV, President of Yale University, along with Williams College President Ebenezer Fitch, climbed Greylock in 1799, probably over a rough route cut by a local pioneer farmer Jeremiah Wilbur (in that time more land had been cleared on the slopes for farming than today). His account in "Travels in New England and New York" describes the experience, although he noted the summit vegetation was so thick he and Fitch had to climb a balsam fir tree to get a better view: