1804-1885
- John Muir had a complex relationship with his father Daniel Muir, who was was a harsh disciplinarian and exceptionally strict parent, even by the standards of the early Victorian years. The young John Muir was forced to long years of toil under his father's hand, until he left the family farm; thereafter his father was never satisfied with his son and his choice of a career a naturalist and writer.
- Daniel Muir was born in 1804 in Manchester, England, to a Scottish father (John Muir I) and his English wife (Sarah Higgs). Orphaned before the year's end, he and his elder sister Mary went to live with relatives in Crawfordjohn parish, Lanarkshire, Scotland. In his late teens he experienced a religious conversion, put aside gaiety and his homemade fiddle, and set off for Glasgow. He joined the British Army and advanced to the rank of sergeant. By 1829 he was in Dunbar recruiting for his regiment. There, he met and married his first wife, Helen Kennedy, and gradually became a prosperous merchant. But after Helen's death, in 1833 he married the woman who would become John Muir's mother, Ann Gilrye. As a metchant he developed an excellent reputation for fair dealing and enterprise, and even served on the town council. Here too his eight children were born excepting the youngest who was born in Wisconsin. One of John Muir's brothers was also named Daniel.
- Daniel Muir had an older sister, Mary, born in 1793, who helped raise young Daniel, and later married Hamilton Blakely (or Blackley). It appears Mary and Hamilton also emigrated from Scotland to the U.S., and later settled near Portage close to her brother Daniel Muir, and had at least one son named Daniel Muir Blackley who was John Muir's first cousin.
- Moving from church to church, Daniel became interested in an American-based sect. His decision to lead his family from a secure and successful position in Dunbar to the uncertainties of the New World was prompted by the Disciples of Christ. In 1849 he uprooted his family and set off, settling in an area of Wisconsin where there were many other Disciples. Never satisfied with any one sect, Daniel eventually took up preaching as an evangelist, traveling from place to place in Wisconsin, Canada, and Arkansas, distributing books and religious tracts.
- Daniel's children bore the brunt of breaking in the land on their first and succeeding farms, as he preferred to read the Bible while supervising their work. Daniel Muir is known as being a hard task-master to his family, in particular John. See Muir's The Story of My Boyhood and Youth.
- Daniel died on October 6, 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, in the home of one of Muir's siblings, Joanna. John was able to reconcile with his father at his death-bed.John Muir wrote an Obituary of his father in 1885.Daniel was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri. A new headstone was installed in 2004. See Daniel Muir Gravesite.
- See also Genealogy of John Muir
- See also John Muir's Dad - Daniel Muir - Fact Sheet from John Muir's Birthplace. (Off-site link)
Image: Daniel Muir, painted from memory after his death by his daughter Mary Muir Hand - from Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir by Linnie Marsh Wolfe, (Alfred A.Knopf, Inc. 1945)