Twenty Charter Member Questions

By Sierra Club Colby Library May 28, 2020

At 11, she was the Sierra Club's youngest charter member.

May 28 is the 128th anniversary of the Sierra Club’s founding in 1892. The 182 people who joined the Club during its first five months were considered charter members and had their names listed in the first issues of the Sierra Club Bulletin. Although many were quite distinguished in their day, few are well-known now.

A little research, though, turns up some interesting facts about those first members. Just for fun, we took 20 of them and turned them into Jeopardy!-style answers and questions. If you know more than a few of these, you are a serious Sierra Club history buff indeed.

(click on the + sign to reveal the question)

At 11 years old, she was the Sierra Club’s youngest charter member (hint: her father served as its first president until his death in 1914).

Who was Wanda Muir?

The English professor who organized the Sierra Club’s founding (John Muir was many things; organized was not one of them) and served as its first secretary. He also showed Oscar Wilde around when the author toured the U.C. Berkeley campus.

Who was William D. Armes?

A reporter for the San Francisco Examiner who, in 1889, was tasked by William Randolph Hearst with the first live capture of a grizzly bear. This bear, called Monarch, was exhibited in Golden Gate Park and served as the model for California's state flag.

Who was Allen Kelly?

A botanist and wine-making expert from Liverpool, England, he was a first cousin of Leslie Bioletti, the elderly barber who cut John Lennon and Paul McCartney's hair when they were kids in Penny Lane (helping to inspire the song of the same name).

Who was Prof. Frederic Bioletti?

A surgeon born near Turin, Italy, who fought with Garibaldi in the Franco-Prussian War. After spending time in South America, he came to San Francisco, made wine, and introduced modern antiseptic surgical practices to the Pacific Coast.

Who was Dr. Paolo de Vecchi?

A Spanish-born civil engineer and architect who directed the construction of the majority of California’s first lighthouses and fog signals.

Who was Eusebius J. Molera?

A Stanford student when he joined the Sierra Club, this enthusiastic birdwatcher refused to relinquish his hobby in death: His headstone is a birdbath.

Who was William W. Price?

One of seven female charter members, as well as one of Marin County's largest landowners, she has been mistaken for a man by some historians because only her surnames appeared on the list of charter members.

Who was Emma Shafter-Howard?

A Berkeley, California, real estate millionaire, bikepacker, and mountaineer, he died while attempting to scale El Capitan, falling 1,500 feet to become the first-ever climbing fatality in Yosemite National Park.

Who was Charles A. Bailey?

The promoter of the Clay Street Hill Railroad (the world's first practical cable car system), he is now regarded as the father of San Francisco’s cable cars and has a plaza named after him in that city’s downtown.

Who was Andrew Smith Hallidie?

San Francisco’s Republican mayor at the time of the founding, he died the following year from sewer gas poisoning after thieves stole pipes from under City Hall, allowing gas to leak into his office.

Who was George H. Sanderson?

A German-American doctor, world-renowned botanist, and expert on butterflies, he fled Prussia after the failed revolution of 1848, survived an attack by pirates in the East Indies, and sported dueling scars.

Who was Hans Hermann Behr?

A millionaire lumberman who adopted "Calico Dorsey," a celebrity mail-carrying border collie that had a song written about him (recorded by Kenny Rogers).

Who was John Sanborn Doe?

A botanist and Civil War veteran who had been imprisoned at Andersonville, he was the first to suggest making the golden poppy California’s state flower in 1903.

Who was Prof. John Gill Lemmon?

A San Francisco lawyer and avid mountaineer who helped scout the John Muir Trail, he joined the Sierra Club at 25, became an honorary vice president 67 years later at 92, and has a Sierra Club lodge named in his honor.

Who was James Sather Hutchinson?

He made more than 100 paintings of Yosemite Valley and is thought to have helped representatives of the Mono, Paiute, and other Indigenous peoples living in Yosemite draft their (ignored) petition to the federal government circa 1891.

Who was Charles Dorman Robinson?

You can see the petition here.

An expert on the flora of Baja California, he married fellow botanist (Mary) Katharine Layne Curran in San Diego, and for their honeymoon they walked back to San Francisco, collecting plants along the way.

Who was Townshend Stith Brandegee?

A geographer and surveyor, he has mountains named after him both on dry land and under the ocean.

Who was Prof. George Davidson?

A fellow Scot and close friend of John Muir, this celebrated landscape artist had thousands of his paintings destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Who was William Keith?

The Sierra Club’s oldest charter member at 78 (he lived to be almost 96), he helped pass legislation to protect Yosemite Valley, and was appointed its first “Guardian.”

Who was Galen Clark?

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