Muir and my father were but boys of a larger growth, for many a time we would stop at the top of a mile-long snowfield and start boulders and big rocks rolling down the snow-yes, and all yell with delight when a particularly big one would race on ahead of a smaller one, or throw an immense spray of snow when it struck a boulder, a stump or a fallen tree. We either travelled on ridges or hogsbacks everywhere, when possible, or kept them in sight, in the sane way that, we later learned, Indians, experienced woodsmen and hunters always do. With my brother Tom we had, a few years before, spent a summer vacation at Summit Soda Springs, from which these peaks were visible, and we had longed to go to the top of each of them. That trip will never he forgotten nor my disappointment that no tiise was taken to climb to the actual summits of Tinker's Knob and Anderson's Peak which were on our route and close to which we passed. We made this wonderful tramp with, comfort and in just about the time he had estimated. Muir never got us into brush fields or impossible spots. In later years, and after sssny rouph experiences in the fountains, we look back and marvel that, without maps or anything but his knowledge of the mountain ranges to guide him, Mr. Muir's Scotch soul by repeating for his Bruce's address to his Army before the Battle of Bannockburn part of which is still remembered: "Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, when Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed Or to victorie! Now's the day, and now's the hour Sea the front o'battle lower See approach proud Edward's power - Chains and slaveries!" One of the summer trips which stands out in my memory was a three-day tramp from Summit Station on the Southern Pacific, over the mountains to Lake Tahoe. The Scotch are a hardy race, it must have been about this time that I delighted Mr. On their return they told us that they had had a swim in Emerald Bay, had then rolled around in the snow, like a couple of boys, and after another splash in the lakes, rowed back to McKinney's. Muir and my father rowed nine miles in a big whitehall boat to Emerald Bay. On one of these winter trips we stayed at McKinney's, which was the only place on the Lake kept open during the winter. This was usually in March, which was selected as the time when the heavy storms were over and before the snow began to thaw in the Spring. They taught us to use skis and many a time we made the trip with them from Truckee to Tahoe and back in the snow. ![]() Muir on trips to Yosemite and to Lake Tahoe, not only in summer, but in winter also. When my brothers and I were old enough, we were taken by my father and Mr. It was run by weights, and not only told the time of day, but many other things as well. ![]() Muir explained to me the marvellous clock he had made when a student at the University of Wisconsin. Bade's wonderful volumes, "The Life and Letters of John Muir". Muir wrote many of his letters now in Dr. This is the 1419 Taylor Street, address from which Mr. His reply was, "Yes, and by any chance are you Thomas Magee's son?" I said yes and that many a time, in the days before the telephone, I had gone to his father's home on Taylor Street, near Washington, with notes for Mr. ![]() Frank Swett of Berkeley, I at once asked him whether by any chance he was John Swett's son. This reminds me that, as was the almost universal custom, they addressed each other by their last names, although on the basis of close personal friendship, they might have been expected to speak to each other by their first names. My father said, "No, Muir, this sign will be changed to read 'Willie Magee and Father'". My reply was, "The real estate business with my father." "Oh," he said, "then your father will have the sign on his office changed from Thomas Magee to 'Thomas Magee & Son'". At a dinner at our home he asked as what I was going to do when I grew up. It was the beginning of a life-long friendship of these men, whose love of the mountains drew them together on trips in and about Yosemite, the Lake Tahoe region, throughout California and to Washington State and Alaska, on many of which say brothers ard I were included. This began when they met in Yosemite Valley in the Summer of 1871, while my father and mother were there. Magee Very happy personal recollections of John Muir are mine because there was a warm and intimate friendship and companionship between him and my father. Magee [Published in Sierra Club Bulletin 21 (Feb 1936) 25-34 PERSONAL RECOLLECTION OF JOHN MUIR By William A.
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