David Moore Barclay II

Barclay—David Moore Barclay II, 86, on November 24, 2021, from complications of pulmonary emboli, at Virtua Mount Holly Hospital in Mount Holly, N.J. David was born on June 6, 1935, to Martha Jane “Patty” Hyde Barclay and William Houston Barclay of Wichita, Kans. He was the youngest of four siblings. At the age of 12, David attended Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school in West Chester, Pa. He excelled at academics and sports, and was elected student body president. At Westtown, David met and fell in love with his wife of 66 years, Nancy Anne “Buz” Barton.

After graduating from Westtown in 1952, David attended Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. He studied psychology, was selected to the all-American soccer team, and visited Nancy at Wells College in Aurora, N.Y., every weekend. Dave and Nancy graduated from college in 1956 and married at Cropwell Meeting in Marlton, N.J. They honeymooned at the Barclay family cabin in Estes Park, Colo., where Dave had spent summers working on Rocky Mountain National Park’s trail crews. Dave joined the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), serving as a lieutenant in the Judge Advocate Division. He and Nancy lived on base at Camp Pendleton near Oceanside, Calif. When Dave completed his USMC term in 1960, he, Nancy, and young sons David III and Andrew moved to a 250-year-old farmhouse on Springhouse Farm in Cherry Hill, N.J. Son Peter was born soon after.

Dave began working for Lewis W. Barton Company, his father-in-law’s irrigation and supply business. For the next 25 years, Dave grew the company into the largest irrigation distributor and installer on the East Coast. The business grew larger still with the acquisition of a plumbing supply company in the 1970s.

Most weekends during the 1960s and 1970s, Dave was either playing soccer for the Moorestown Field Club, tennis at Springhouse Farm, or hiking the Appalachian trail with his sons and father-in-law. Dave and his wife, Buz, took advantage of the lull in the irrigation business each winter for family ski vacations. Dave became well known for taking home the championship trophy each year from the Whiteface, N.Y. annual ping pong tournament.

Dave’s lifelong love of mountaineering took him to the summit of Colorado’s tallest peak, Longs Peak, 25 times, and, in 1976, across the world to the base camp of Mount Everest. Buz and Dave enjoyed many ski and island vacations all over the world with a tightly knit group of friends, mostly from nearby Haddonfield, N.J., where Buz had attended grade school.

Dave joined the Religious Society of Friends and took on leadership roles at Cropwell Meeting, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and Friends Fiduciary Corporation. He served on the boards of the Mentholatum Company (founded by his grandfather, Albert Alexander Hyde), the YMCA of the Rockies, and Westtown School where he was emeritus trustee. His three children attended Westtown. For the past 11 years, Dave lived at Medford Leas, a Quaker-founded retirement community in Medford, N.J.

In 1984, Dave sold the L.W. Barton company. He was admitted to Rutgers Law School in Camden, N.J. With research and writing help from Buz, the boys, and the first Macintosh computer, Dave fulfilled yet another dream by earning a juris doctor degree to practice trust and estate law.

Dave was preceded in death by his sisters, Mary Barclay Howarth and Jane Barclay Taylor Daniels; and his brother, William Houston Barclay.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy Barton Barclay; three children, David Moore Barclay III (Leila), Andrew Barton Barclay (Michelle), and Peter Lewis Barclay (Laura); eight grandchildren; and ten great-grandchildren.