FRANCIS P. FARQUHAR

1887-1974

Francis P. Farquhar died at his home in Berkeley, California on November 21, 1974. Mountaineer, scholar, writer, book collector, and conservationist, he was a living institution at the hub of an ever expanding circle of mountaineering achievement. Born on December 31, 1887, in Newton, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard University in 1909, he came west. Francis went on the 1911 Sierra Club High Trip and was transformed by his introduction to John Muir’s Range of Light. He spent the rest of his life expressing his dedication to the Sierra Nevada and to all mountains through his mountaineering, his scholarly writings, his efforts to preserve the mountain environment and through his service to the Sierra Club and the American Alpine Club.

He climbed every 14,000 foot peak on the West Coast, including the first ascent with Ansel F. Hall in 1921 of Middle Palisade, the last unclimbed 14,000 peak in California. But his interest in mountains was not restricted to his beloved Sierra. In 1914 he made the first American ascent of one of the high peaks of Mount Olympus and did quite a few climbs in the Canadian Rockies and Selkirks.

It was Francis Farquhar who was responsible for introducing the techniques of modern roped climbing to the young climbers of the Sierra Club when he brought Robert L. M. Underhill to the Sierra in 1931. He had met Underhill on a Harvard Mountaineering Club outing in the Selkirks and, impressed with Bob’s knowledge and technique, Francis persuaded him to come to California to teach a few of the local climbers. Francis participated in the first use of the climbing rope in the Sierra in 1931 on Unicorn Peak in Toulumne Meadows, and he was fond of recalling that another member of that party was a redhaired climber named Marjory Bridge. (Marj also happened to be one of the finest climbers in California but Francis was too modest to mention that!)

Francis and Marjory were married in 1934 in Yosemite National Park and for forty years their home was considered by California mountaineers to be the headquarters of the American Alpine Club, as climbers of all ages constantly gathered there to be reconfirmed in the faith and to obtain a transfusion of inspiration and courage from a seemingly inexhaustible source.

The Farquhar hospitality was legend. Whenever some distinguished or infamous foreign climber was passing through, there would be a gathering at the Farquhars’ house and all the young climbers, who were always invited, had the opportunity to learn what had really happened on some notorious climb. Frequently, as a momento of the occasion, Francis would write and have printed a monograph on some mountaineering subject which would be distributed to the guests. Probably more expeditions, first ascents, and other escapades were hatched in the Farquhar library than in any other incubator of American mountaineering. When two climbers met in some remote mountain area of the world, the password often was, “Remember me? I met you at the Farquhars’.”

From 1926 to 1946 Francis was the editor of the Sierra Club Bulletin and brought to his editorship a knowledge of the Sierra Nevada, a dedication to the English language and a love of typographical excellence that made the bulletin in the words of the British authority Ronald Clark, “that model of all mountaineering periodicals.”

His writings were prodigious. Besides numerous articles in various magazines and journals including the American Alpine Journal, he wrote Place Names of the High Sierra in 1926, edited a new edition of Clarence King’s Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, and through his editing of the letters of William H. Brewer, a companion of Clarence King in the California Geological Survey, produced Up and Down California in 1860-64, one of the classics of California literature. His efforts as a scholar and historian culminated in his definitive, History of the Sierra Nevada, published in 1965.

Francis joined the American Alpine Club in 1919 and one of his favorite stories was that the Secretary of the Club, who lived in Philadelphia, recognized the adequacy of his climbing record, but was a little concerned because Francis lived “so far from the mountains” (i.e. the Alps).

Besides serving as a director of the Sierra Club for 27 years from 1924 to 1951 and twice as its president from 1933-35 and 1948-49, Francis also served the American Alpine Club as western vice president in 1941-43 and as editor of the American Alpine Journal in 1957-1958. In the latter job, he stepped into the breach on short notice and served until Ad Carter was persuaded to take up the editorship. This was typical of Francis. Whenever the sudden need came, you could always count on him to do something about it.

Francis was a pioneer conservationist. He was a close friend of Stephen T. Mather and Horace M. Albright, the co-founders of the National Park Service, and his apartment in San Francisco became the unofficial western headquarters of the National Park Service in the 1920s. He was responsible for the enlargement of Sequoia National Park through his work with Mather and Albright and through his testimony on behalf of the Sierra Club at hearings before Congress.

He was a lover of books and fine printing, and his library of mountaineering books, always accessible to any climber young or old, was one of the largest private collections in the United States. Several years ago he donated the collection to the UCLA library with the instructions that it be made available to climbers. Because of all or his contributions to mountaineering, it is difficult to believe he did anything else, but he did. He was a certified public accountant by profession in the firm of Farquhar and Heimbucher in San Francisco. He served as a member of the California State Board of Accountancy and was a former president of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. He also served as president of the California Historical Society and the California Academy of Sciences.

He received many honors from the organizations he served so well, including the John Muir Award from the Sierra Club and his election to the honorary presidency of that organization. He also was elected an honorary member of the American Alpine Club in 1967 and received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from UCLA.

Francis Farquhar’s written works will serve as a permanent monument, but his real memorial lies in the hearts of all who knew him and were inspired by him. His passing leaves a large void in the ranks of American mountaineering and in the lives of his friends. On the State Capitol in Sacramento are the words “Give me men to match my mountains.” In Francis P. Farquhar, California had found such a man.

Nicholas B. Clinch