The son of SLC’s sister Pamela, Samuel E. Moffett attended the University of California at Berkeley (1881–82), later receiving A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. He was a reporter, political correspondent, and editorial writer for such newspapers as the Examiner and the Evening Post in San Francisco and the Journal and the World in New York. He was an editor at Collier’s magazine at the time of his death from a stroke, suffered while swimming off the coast of New Jersey.