George Marston Weed, 1864-1948

Publication Year: 1949.

GEORGE MARSTON WEED 1864-1948

Half a century ago George Weed was one of the most active members of the Appalachian Club. His introduction to the Canadian Rockies he owed to C. S. Thompson. In his first season, 1898, he made the first ascent of Mount Balfour, and three years later added Eiffel, Chancellor and three of the Ten Peaks to his new climbs. In 1902 he was invited to join Norman Collie’s party, which gained important summits along the North Saskatchewan, including Murchison, Howse, Freshfield and Forbes. “The Englishmen were most delightful companions from start to finish,” he wrote to Thompson; “it suited Collie to travel leisurely and to enjoy without too much strenuousness the beauties of the mountains.”

Earlier in 1902 Weed joined the American Alpine Club as an original member, and he was often present at the annual meetings. His subsequent mountaineering was limited, but in 1930 (when he was 66) he and his delightful brother, Judge Alonzo Weed, rode from Lake Louise to the Maligne Lake camp of the Alpine Club of Canada, on the way making a sturdy attempt in stormy weather to secure the first ascent of Mount Weed.

George Marston Weed was born at Bangor, Me., on 14 September 1864, the son of Alonzo Shaw and Esther Ann (Marston) Weed. Graduating from Harvard in 1886, he took his LL.B. at Boston University and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1890. He married Lilia (Atwater) Calhoun in 1903. He died on 30 January 1948, and the Club has lost one of its last original members, a modest sportsman of great charm whose pioneer work in Canada is remembered in the peak that bears his name.*

J. M. T.

*The photograph opposite is by Walter K. Shaw.—Ed.