I think the best solution is to actually just check out factor like normal and add github as a remote repository. The above may have been an incredibly convoluted way of accomplishing the same thing. I was trying to make sure the github repo was "bare" without really understanding what that meant.

1. Clone factor locally:
       $ git clone http://www.factorcode.org/git/factor.git factor

2. Add github as remote source of this bare repo:
       $ cd factor
       $ git remote add github git@github.com:[username]/factor.git
       $ git push github master

Any suggestions?