RICHARD M. HURD

1865-1941

In the death of Richard M. Hurd, the American Alpine Club loses one of its original members (1902). In 1885, when he was barely 20, he ascended Matterhorn, Gross Glockner and Monte Cristallo, two of his guides on the Glockner being afterward killed in the Pallivicini accident on the Glocknerwand in 1886. Hurd, with his father and brother, spent five summers, between 1880 and 1885, in pedestrian tours and climbing, visiting Switzerland, Norway, the Pyrenees, England, Scotland, Wales and Swabia. They belonged to the old school of cross-country travellers, of whom John Ball and Francis Fox Tuckett were earlier exponents, in days before roads became infested by motors. Mr. Hurd described this in a letter published in A. A. J., ii, 511.

Mr. Hurd was born in New York City on June 14th, 1865, son of Melancthon Montgomery and Clara Hatch Hurd, and died there in 1941 at the age of 75. He attended St. Paul’s School, and was graduated from Yale in 1888. After several years in business in Seattle Mr. Hurd returned to New York to become associated with the United States Mortgage and Trust Company. He became president of the Lawyers Mortgage Company in 1901, becoming chairman of the board of the reorganized corporation in 1903. He was the author of “Principles of City Land Values.”

J. M. T.