Robert Aquinas McNally

In summer 1871, when John Muir was a 33-year-old living in Yosemite and making pocket money by showing tourists the valley’s sights and spectacles, he took on Clinton L. Merriam as a client. The naturalist soon learned that Merriam was a man of some standing, a former Wall Street broker who had turned his financial success into a seat in the House of Representatives. Merriam’s political career, however, interested Muir far less than the New Yorker’s enthusiasm for geology.