Skagway Historical Society

Joseph Victor Begin

2012-02-15T09:28:00.000-08:00

NWMP Inspector Begin was in Dyea in 1897. He was born on this day, February 15, 1856 in Quebec and spent several years working on steamboats on the St. Lawrence River and then served in the militia for three years before joining the NWMP in 1885. He served in several provinces before coming to the Yukon. In 1891 he married to Alexina Chartrand and in 1893 had a daughter, Renalde, and then two sons: Francoise Begin born in 1894, and Jean Berchmans Begin, born in 1897. His family must have lived in a larger community, not Dyea, certainly, judging from photos of the family.
From here he went to South Africa and later served in the Great War - a euphemism for WW1 which was big but not all that great. In 1929 he moved to Atlanta Georgia where he died.
The photos of Captain Begin were small and grainy but the fellow on the horse in this poster looks like he posed for this.

various Canadian history sites online.

Bill Gates and the eggs

2012-02-13T11:21:00.000-08:00

"Swiftwater Bill" Gates, or Charles H. Gates was born in 1855 in Minerva New York. He was working as a boatman in Idaho in 1896 when he decided to go to Alaska. He and some partners leased "Thirteen El Dorado" which later paid out and made him a millionaire. Enjoying his new wealth, he would walk the streets of Dawson in top hat, white shirt and jacket (and said to bathe in champagne). He apparently loved women and gambling. He had the hots for Miss Gussie Lamore in Dawson and offered her her weight in gold to marry him. She however spurned him, and was seen in the restaurant with a new boyfriend ordering fried eggs - the most expensive item on the menu. So, to get even, Bill bought up all the eggs in Dawson and fed them to dogs, in another version fed them to the other dance hall girls. Miss Gussie loved eggs and so he hoped to get her attention. Apparently it worked as she offered to meet him in San Francisco and marry him (despite already being married). He married her younger sister, Grace, then divorced her and remarried and divorced several times in the next few years.
Swiftwater Bill was known to be at the gold fields of Nome, Alaska at the same time as William H. Gates I, grandfather of the Microsoft founder. However, despite the similarity in name and coincidences of geography, there is no apparent family relationship between "Swiftwater Bill" and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
In any event, some versions say that in 1933 he went to Peru and was mining silver there, when on this date, February 13, 1933 he died in mysterious circumstances, perhaps murder.....another account says he was murdered on February 21, 1937 and still another that he died of pneumonia following surgery back in Neillsville, Clark County, Wisconsin on February 13, 1933.
In any event, he certainly lived an exciting life.
Seen above with Joe Boyle-left, "Swiftwater Bill" on the right.

Source: Neillsville Press (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) 16 Feb. 1933 obituary of "Swiftwater Bill" Gates.
http://wvls.lib.wi.us/ClarkCounty/clark/data/1/bbs16/16906.htm

Man kicked by horse

2012-02-12T11:31:00.001-08:00

Never stand behind a horse.

"Mother of the Klondike Missionaries"

2012-02-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

Emilie Fortin was born on January 4, 1872 in Saint-Joseph-d'Alma, Quebec. When she was fifteen, her family emigrated to Cohoes, New York where she met Nolasque Tremblay whom she married on December 11, 1893. In 1894 she claimed to be the first white woman to have crossed the Chilkoot Pass, but was actually the fourth after Bell Healy, "Dutch Kate" Wilson, and Bridget Mannion who we met yesterday.
The couple spent the winter in Miller Creek in a little log cabin. That year, Émilie decided to invite the miners to share their Christmas dinner. On the menu was stuffed rabbit, roast caribou, boiled brown beans, King Oscar sardines, dried potatoes, butter and sourdough bread and prune pudding. Her reputation quickly spread throughout the Yukon. In the spring, Émilie and her husband made a garden on the roof of their cabin and harvested an abundance of radishes and lettuce. After a trip south, they came back by the Chilkoot pass in the middle of the Gold Rush. In 1906, they travelled in Europe for four months. Until 1913, Mr. and Mrs. Tremblay walked from one mining claim to another in the Klondike. Later, they settled in Dawson. She opened a women's clothes store that is now an historic building.

Émilie Tremblay was a very courageous woman who distinguished herself by her social involvement and her devotion to others. She was the founder of the Ladies of the Golden North, President of the Yukon Women Pioneers and a life member of the Daughters of the Empire. The numerous medals that she received and some of her souvenirs were placed in the Saguenay Museum in Quebec. She was godmother to 25 children in addition to raising the daughter of her sister who was a widow with 9 children to feed. Émilie kept open house for travellers, missionaries and widows. Msgr Bunoz called Émilie the "mother of the Klondike missionnairies". During the war, Émilie knitted 263 pairs of socks for soldiers, in addition to the ones she gave as gifts.
Her husband Jack died in 1935 so she visited her family and friends in Quebec and the United States.
She spent the last years of her life in a retirement home in Victoria, B.C.
Émilie Tremblay died on April 22, 1949, at the age of 77. In 1985, to commemorate her exceptional devotion to others, the authorities named the first francophone school in the Yukon École Émilie-Tremblay.
She is seen above.

Yukon Government website celebrating women in the Yukon; franco.ca; Gates; Acadian roots.com

No. 70 on ground

2012-02-09T17:11:00.000-08:00

Now here is not the way an engine should be....J.D. True in the foreground.

The Queen of Alaska

2012-02-09T11:19:00.000-08:00

Bridget Mannion was born on February 1, 1865 in Rosmuc, County Galway, Ireland. She emigrated in 1885 to St. Paul, Minnesota. Bridget worked as housekeeper for Seattle Pioneer Henry Yesler, before settling in Chicago, where she became cook to the wealthy family of Portus B. Weare, head of the North American Trading and Transportation Company which operated merchandise and transportation facilities in the Yukon. In 1892 her employer held a dinner party for Captain John J. Healy, another Irish born adventurer and his wife Bella. Whether it was the prospect of becoming wealthy or her innate sense of adventure, Bridget became determined to go to Alaska and persuaded the Healy’s to offer her a job as Mrs Healy’s maid. From the Healy trading post in Dyea, she moved up to the Yukon. By the winter of 1894-95 there were only twenty eight white women living in the Yukon amongst one thousand men. Unsurprisingly, Bridget received 150 proposals of marriage before she had got fifty miles up the Yukon, but it was Edward Aylward who would capture Bridget’s heart.

Edward Alyward was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland in November 1849 and emigrated to the US in 1867. He went mining for gold in Alaska in 1884 and in 1894 he met Bridget at a Yukon River Trading Post and convinced her to marry him. Their wedding was the first ever held in Fortymile, about 150 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.
Around 1900, Bridget and Edward left Alaska with their fortune and moved to live on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. A Seattle newspaper dated 3rd September 1896 carried an article about Bridget calling her the ‘Queen of Alaska’.
Edward died on 29th March 1914. He is buried in Seattle’s Calvary Cemetery. Following the deaths of her sister and a friend, Bridget longed for home. She acquired property in Rosmuc and eventually returned home to Ireland in 1948.
Bridget died at her beloved Turlough, Rosmuc, County Galway in January 1958, just weeks short of her 94th birthday. She is buried with her mother in Cill Eoin graveyard . Even in death her generous spirit lived on, and apart from bequests to family, neighbours and the local church, she set up a trust fund for the education of local children.

Irishclub.org

1905 White Pass train

2012-02-08T15:29:00.000-08:00

This Case and Draper photo of the train in 1905 shows how much of the landscape was "scalped" for building and firewood. I don't know exactly where this was, somewhere on the other side of the pass in Canada.

First woman over White Pass trail

2012-02-08T11:04:00.001-08:00

On July 24, 1897 the Juneau Searchlight reported that a Mrs. Ed Lord claimed to be the first woman to climb the White Pass as she got off the Steamship Rustler. I believe that she was not married to Edward Eldridge Lord (born July 9, 1874) who traveled with his brother Joseph Lord (born July 31, 1864) of Hornitas, Mariposa County, California and maybe David S. Lord another brother. I think there was a mixup in the reporting and she was actually Clara Latchaw who was married to Joseph. They were part of a large family in Hornitas. Their father Samuel had come to California in the gold rush from England. So, despite the fact that they had two small children, they may have left them with family in California while they went to the Yukon.
Joseph's obituary stated that he spent a year and a half in Alaska during the 1898 gold rush.

Edward died in 1957, Joseph in 1939, David in 1949 and Clara in 1960 - all in Fresno, California. Joseph and Clara are seen above.

Rootsweb; Yukon genealogy; familysearch; California death records; Juneau Searchlight

Muir and his buddies

2012-02-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

From July to September 1890 John Muir and his friends toured Glacier Bay. Dr. Henry Platt Cushing did the meteorological, geologic and botanical studies on the trip. He was a prominent geologist who taught at Western Reserve University . He was joined by his collegue Dr. Henry Fielding Reid of the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio. (Today these two universities are combined to be Case Western Reserve University).
Their students were:
Comfort Avery Adams, who had just graduated from Western University with a degree in mechanical engineering and later taught at Harvard for 45 years in electrical engineering.
R.L. Casement of Plainesville, Ohio.
Mr. James H. McBride later physician at CalTech.
John F. Morse (presumably taking the photo) who later was a physician in San Francisco, but died at the age of 40 in 1898 there.

In 1890 Muir's health was poor and he suffered from snow blindness. He expressed irritation with the "stream of tourists habitually snapping their Kodaks and asking naive questions, and with the haste at which they ceased gazing at glaciers whenever a dinner bell sounded." However, like many tourists today, Muir returned to Glacier Bay in 1899. All of his friends later had glaciers named for them.

Bernard Behrends

2012-02-06T11:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to Bernard M. Behrends born on this day, February 6, 1862 in Bavaria, Germany and emigrated to the U.S. with his parents in 1878. He came to Alaska in 1887 and worked for James Brady who would later be governor of Alaska. He married Margaret Virginia Pakle in 1889 in Sitka. She was a teacher and missionary at the Sheldon Jackson school. Sheldon Jackson performed the marriage ceremony. They moved to Juneau and opened the store in 1892 and his daughter Beatrice was also born in 1892 in Juneau. He then opened a bank about 1914. He and Margaret died within months of each other in 1936 in Juneau. Seen above is his store in Juneau. His store appeared in the 1902 and 1905 directories here in Skagway, but someone else managed it. Behrends Avenue in northwest Juneau is named for them. Seen above is the interior of the store.

Kinyradio placenames; 1902 and 1905 directories; Evergreen cemetery records.

Another legal question

2012-02-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

On June 6, 1900 the U.S. Congress passed the Alaska Penal Code which provided for a tax to be collected on certain trades and businesses in Alaska. This tax was to fund local governments in the territory. Mr. Wynn-Johnson represented the Moore Wharf (seen above) which of course preceded the law. He decided to ignore the new law which required a license for the wharf. He was then arrested in 1902 by Marshal Shoup. Wynn-Johnson refused to post bail and instead sued the Marshal and the U.S. Government saying that his incarceration was unconstitutional based on the fact that the license and taxes were also unconstitutional. His reasoning was that the U.S. Government did not impose such taxes anywhere else and that Alaska was singled out. Further that such tax and license laws in Alaska were in place already. Section 8 article 1 of the U.S.Constitution reads:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and pay for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States."
In 1904 the U.S. Supreme court ruled that the law was legal and that 1/2 of the money collected from licenses and taxes would go to local schools. The remainder would go into the U.S. Treasury.
Presumably Wynn-Johnson did alright because he then sold his house and moved to the Alkali Ranch in British Columbia.
The lawyer that represented him, George C. Heard, died not long after, on June 6, 1906 in Skagway. Below is the link to the legel language of the law, if anyone cares to interpret it better than I have, please be my guest!

http://books.google.com/books?id=o-IKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA630&lpg=PA630&dq=%22c.+e.+wynn-johnson%22&source=bl&ots=TFxiKyfyUP&sig=OsYthY1Ah9RaHjHkrkV0f6Wq_hA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jo8pT8WCCZTXiQKR2qXHCg&sqi=2&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22c.%20e.%20wynn-johnson%22&f=false

Another train wreck

2012-02-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

The date on this photo was 1900 and based on the snow level it must be September or October. I did not previously have a record of a car "on the ground" as railroaders put it. I don't have any records of anyone dying on this date by accident, so perhaps it was just an "Ooops".

Belated Thank you from Dayton Ohio

2012-01-30T15:10:00.000-08:00

Skagway's Mayor just received a kind thank you note from Ken Serey of Tipp City Ohio. He was reading a history of Dayton, Ohio and it seems that after the great Dayton flood of 1913, the citizens of Skagway sent a check for $92.42. That, along with other individual contributions from all over North America and overseas totaled $129,700. Ohio authorities contributed $430,000 and in all, $2 million was sent to Dayton, but the damage amounted to $300 million.
So Ken was just sending along a thank you note, in case it was overlooked 100 years ago. May I be the one in Skagway to say, "You're welcome!"

The picture above is a mule and a horse on the roof where they ended up after the flood - hmmm, I wonder how they got down!

from "A Time of Terror" by Allan W. Eckert

Stikine Bill

2012-01-30T12:12:00.000-08:00

Hamilton Ross Robinson was born in Anson, Maine in 1872, but left his wife and two daughters behind to work on the railroads up north. In 1898 Heney hired him and put him at the front saying he was a "veteran at the game of railway building". Robinson had worked across Canada building railroads and had most recently worked on the Stikine River building track to Telegraph Creek. He became the White Pass master of transportation and was ambassador to Canada from White Pass. He was known as the "Master of Horse" as head of the grading gang. He later opened the Robinson Roadhouse which is a roadside pulloff on the road to Whitehorse today. He returned to Maine where he died in 1926 at the age of 54. Whiting described him as a mountain of a man with huge calloused hands, which is evident from the photo of him above.

Whiting, Hoggatt and Heney

2012-01-27T15:21:00.000-08:00

Here's that photo that I posted before, it was mislabeled to be Heney in the middle, but actually that charming mug is the governor, Wilford Bacon Hoggatt! This is a scan from the same book, Grit, Grief and Gold by Whiting.

Soapy?

2012-01-26T17:19:00.000-08:00

This picture in the book "Grit, Grief and Gold" does not say where or when it was taken but purports to be Soapy maybe on the trail with a folding table.

Grit Grief and Gold

2012-01-26T17:02:00.000-08:00

In 1933 Dr. Fenton B. Whiting wrote his account of the events in Skagway in 1898. He dedicated it to his friend Patrick Augustus Heney.
I was contacted recently by Ernie and Nancy Brace who found a copy of this little book in the estate of a Norwegian Homesteaders farm in North Dakota. They felt it belonged in Skagway and so mailed it to me to keep here in Skagway for reference. It will certainly be one of the items which we will feature in our new museum at AB Hall. The best part of this book is that it is personally inscribed by Dr. Whiting to his friend Austin Lathrop who he says was one of the beloved "makers of Alaska."
So here for the first time ever viewed by the world is the inscription. He was 67 in 1933 when this book was published and he died in 1936, so this is from just before he died.

AYP photographer

2012-01-20T12:53:00.000-08:00

Frank Nowell was the photographer for the AYPE and there are about 178 glass plate negatives of his photos left. Here is one which he took of Kaw Claa a Tlingit woman in her full potlach costume. I believe this is Susie Kah-kaka-klah who was born in 1884 and died at the age of 21 in Skagway, on July 12, 1904.

Skagway Death Record; 1900 census.

AYP Exposition Seattle

2012-01-20T12:50:00.000-08:00

Here is a photo of the AYP in 1909 which opened with 80,000 visitors.
Brothers John and Frederick Olmstead, designed the fairgrounds. The central portion of the grounds was oriented along axes that exploited the natural beauty of the setting, with views of Mount Rainer, Lake Union and Lake Washington. Built on 250 acres of the largely undeveloped campus of the University of Washington (and partially funded by the state legislature for later use by the University), the AYPE grounds were close to downtown and convenient transportation. Though most of the buildings, designed by John Galen Howard, were too poorly built to survive, the landscaping of the grounds added value to the university by removing wilderness and opening new possibilities for future university installations.

The grounds were centered around the Arctic Circle, with its cascading fountain and reflecting pool, and the surrounding Court of Honor, flanked by two wings of three buildings on either side. Descending from the domed Government Building, these six building were named for Europe, Asia, Alaska, Hawaii and the industries of Manufacturing and Agriculture. Among other notable AYPE buildings was the Forestry Building, a massive structure built entirely of huge logs in their natural state and surviving for several years after the Exposition as the Washington State Museum, until it was damaged by beetles and razed in 1931.

Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition

2012-01-19T16:36:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite photos from Chealander and Childer's AYP Exposition. It is of a few little Eskimo babies lined up like puppies. They do not look very happy about it all!

John Edward Chilberg

2012-01-19T10:30:00.001-08:00

John Chilberg was born on this day, January 19, 1867 in Wappello County Iowa.
In 1899 Chilberg was responsible for the steamship SOVEREIGN and was also Captain of the MONARCH. While living in Nome, his friend Godfrey Chealander conceived of the idea to have an exposition of Alaska in 1907 and convinced Chilberg to help him organize it.
Chilberg became President of the Board of Directors for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held in Seattle in 1909. Held on the University of Washington campus this was Washington's first world's fair and it celebrated 12 years of prosperity -- since the 1897 Alaska Gold Rush -- through the display of resources, products, and advantages of Washington and the region. More than three million people visited the fair from Washington cities and counties and from the rest of the country.

In 1915 Chilberg was President of the Miner’s and Merchants Bank of Ketchikan.
By 1919 he also ran a fleet of ships in Puget Sound. In 1967 he was living in Berkeley California with his son Hugh, a real estate investor. J.E. Chilberg died in 1954 in Laguna Beach, California at the age of 87.

Chilberg is seen above addressing the AYP Exposition in 1909.

Jack Holt

2012-01-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

Another famous person who worked in Skagway during the Gold Rush is Jack Holt, born in 1888 in New York City. He worked in Skagway as a laborer, maybe for White Pass but then moved to Los Angeles and started working as a film actor. He made several silent films, and then worked in sound films. His son Tim Holt also became an actor and starred in The Treasure of Sierra Madre with Humphrey Bogart.
Jack died on this day, January 18, 1951 in Los Angeles of a heart attack.
Seen above in his chaps in a still from one of his westerns.

Ernest F. Keir

2012-01-17T14:54:00.000-08:00

Ernest Keir was born on New Years Day, 1878 in Vernon Wisconsin.
In March 1898, Ernest and his brother set off from Wisconsin for the Yukon. Ernest used his 6.5" x 8.5" full-plate camera to record the trip and his stay in Dawson. Although an amateur, he managed to sell enough of his photographs, through a Dawson City drug store, to support himself in the Yukon. His biggest difficulty was in acquiring enough photographic supplies to keep in business. Keir left the north in 1900 and settled in Saskatchewan. He lost the negatives of his Yukon trip in 1913. He died also on New Years Day, 1941 and is buried in the Pines Cemetery in Spokane.
He is seen above in a cabin with some friends during the Gold Rush, he is at the far right. They are showing off their music collection of cylinders and Victrolas which helped to keep them sane in the long winters. Their version of ipods.

Doll of Dawson

2012-01-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

Mae Field was born in Ramsey County Minnesota in 1873. Her birth name may have been Mary Lavinia Sullivan born June 20, 1873 in Ramsey but I can't be sure. In any event, she was quite famous in the north. When she married Arthur Daniel Field in Hot Springs, South Dakota in 1897 she had already been married and divorced. Arthur was ten years older and had some wealth derived from bootlegging and brothels. The couple decided to go to Dawson to mine. They were able to get their mining equipment over the Chilkoot Trail, but lost most of it in Lake Lebarge in a storm. Arthur staked claims and got a liquor license, just in case the mining did not work out. Mae decided to return to balmy Minnesota for the winter. When she got to Skagway the only boat available was the somewhat dubious "Georgia" which she decided to take, despite no one else taking the chance. Her luck held, but on returning to Minnesota, her mother told her to go back to her husband. So she did. After many adventures and working as a nurse, a babysitter, and a dancer. She later had a rooming house, but she always seemed to live well and have money. She moved to Vancouver in 1911 after her husband left her and the Mounties found her in bed with an unmarried man. (Hmmm) Although they were never able to prove she was a prostitute, the Canadians imprisoned her for six months and told her to leave the country. She eventually settled in Ketchikan where she was living in the 1940's helping the Sisters of Mercy, orphanages, friends and the poor.
Seen above, Mae Field during her Dawson days.

Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush by Morgan; Rebel Women of the Gold Rush by Mole; familysearch.

Princess Kathleen part two

2012-01-12T10:01:00.000-08:00

Gordon Newell wrote this very interesting narrative of the sinking of the Cruise Ship Princess Kathleen in 1952:
"Death of a Princess
The loss of the S.S. Princess Kathleen on September 7, 1952 was the most recent and best-remembered disaster to a large cruise ship in Pacific Northwest waters. It occurred in the waters of a notorious ships' graveyard north of Juneau, not far from where the Island went down in 1901 , the Union Steamship Company's Cutch in 1900 and the Princess Sophia that slipped off Vanderbilt roof in 1918, carrying all 343 persons aboard to their deaths.
It was three o'clock in the morning when the Kathleen, steaming at normal cruising speed through the light rain, struck almost without warning on the rocky shore. The first officer, who had charge of the watch, was unable to explain why the ship was a mile and a half off course.
The SOS was promptly flashed on the air, but on the wrong frequency. [What the ?!?!]
After two hours without an answer it occurred to someone to check on the situation and a ship-to-shore telephone call was placed to the Alaska Communication System, after which a nearby Coast Guard cutter hastened to the scene, arriving at 6 a.m.
Although the Princess Kathleen remained high on her rocky perch for nearly twelve hours after her stranding, no apparent effort was made to seal off her hull from the sea, nor was any of the passenger's baggage removed. At 2:40 p.m. the incoming tide floated the liner briefly, but she filled fast, slipping back until she literally stood on her stern, then slipped under 90 feet of water.
The unhappy passengers filed damage suits for the loss of personal property-clothes, jewelery, watches, luggage, cameras-which all went down with the ship, the claims averaging over a thousand dollars per person. CPR attorneys, however, quoted that interesting provision of admiralty law which limits the liability of shipowners 'to the value of the vessel at the termination of the voyage' (which was zero, since the Kathleen was a total loss), plus her 'pending freight,' which consisted mostly of the fares paid by the passengers for a voyage that was never completed. [what clever attorneys!!]

Eventually the company refunded the fares paid and settled property losses at the rate of $200 per passenger. Although there were those who felt they had received their money's worth in having taken part in a spectacular and much-publicized shipwreck, a good many of the Princess Kathleen's passengers view her last voyage, to this very day, as an extremely high-priced lesson in the vagaries of maritime law."

Newell: "Pacific Coast Liners" 1959.

Princess Kathleen

2012-01-11T17:34:00.001-08:00

The Cruise Ship Princess Kathleen was built in Glasgow in 1924 and went through the Panama Canal in 1925 on route to her "triangle service" between Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria. The King and Queen traveled aboard Princess Kathleen en route to Victoria in 1939.
In 1949 she started her Inside Passage runs and was the preferred cruise ship that could carry 1800 passengers and 30 automobiles.
Unfortunately on September 7, 1952 the Princess Kathleen ran aground at Lena Point in Alaska's Lynn Canal at low tide; it was later determined that radar was not operational at the time of the grounding. The United States Coast Guard was alerted two hours later and a rescue cutter arrived at 0630. The crew tried to reverse off Lena Point, however as the tide rose, her stern became swamped. All passengers and crew were transferred to lifeboats and ashore as she slid into deeper water and then sank.
The wreck of Princess Kathleen sits in approximately 50 ft -100 ft of water and is accessible to divers, however, tides and currents in the vicinity of Lena Point are strong. The wreck contains approximately 155,000 US gallons of Number 6 fuel oil and in April 2010 crews began operations to salvage the fuel in advance of a possible catastrophic leak.

Skagway River

2012-01-10T13:02:00.001-08:00

This early 1897 photo shows barges next to the ship unloading freight. Photo by LaRoche.

Unloading freight

2012-01-10T12:59:00.001-08:00

And one more nice picture of people scrambling to unload freight at the Skagway River. What an operation!

4th of July

2012-01-10T12:58:00.000-08:00

Here is a nice photo of a tug of war on Broadway around the turn of the century.

Horses onboard

2012-01-10T12:55:00.000-08:00

These poor horses thought they had it bad onboard the steamship - assuming they even made it off the ship at Dyea or Skagway without breaking a leg, the worst was still to come.
This drawing was made from an early photo by Tappan Adney in 1898.

Allen Brothers Hardware

2012-01-10T11:00:00.000-08:00

George Griffith Allen and his brother Robert Cochran Allen opened a hardware store in Skagway in 1897. George was a widow, but Robert was married to Ida May and had 4 daughters: Dorothy and Hazel the twins, Irene, and Permelia. The Allens moved back to Snohomish or Portland around the turn of the century and Robert died in 1905 there.
George G. Allen died on April 15, 1936 in Los Angeles.
Another George Allen died on the Princess Sophia in 1918, but he was George M. Allen, an editor who ran the Daily Klondike Nugget in Dawson.
Believe it or not there were even two more George Allens, one was the son of a U.S. Senator from Washington who got into some trouble in Skagway and then went to Nome where he was in an armed robbery. The last George A. Allen was a NWMP Mountie in 1897 stationed at Log Cabin.

Seen above is the G.G. Allen hardware store in Skagway in 1897 or '98.

Hunt, NPS p.39; 1880 Portland census; 1900 Skagway census; familysearch; Washington records; Klondike Stampeder Reg by Pennington; Cohen.

1898 hatwear

2012-01-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

A lovely lady in a lovely hat....

Movie at Chilkoot Pass

2012-01-09T09:37:00.000-08:00

In 1898 Thomas Crahan and Robert K. Bonine, who worked for Thomas Edison came to Skagway and filmed a pack train at the Chilkoot Pass. The film shows eight loaded mules led by a man on horseback. Although it is only one minute long, filmed in summer, it is perhaps the earliest movie shot in this area. Seen above is a still from that film. Crahan went on to Dawson and did some filming there and then returned to Whitehorse to film rapids in 1900. The Klondike Exposition Company was organized by Edison and Thomas Crahan to make a filming expedition to the Yukon in order to produce films suitable for display at the Paris Exposition of 1900.

G.O.P. Headline 1921

2012-01-06T11:45:00.001-08:00

Isn't this an amazing headline?

John P. Laumister

2012-01-06T10:55:00.000-08:00

Meet the butcher and his family who came to Skagway in the Gold Rush from Tacoma. John Laumister was born in 1850 in Germany and married Mary Ann Clark in Victoria in 1878. Their sons Charles and John Jr. were also butchers and his daughter Lillian married Mr. Black in 1930 in Alaska. Anton Laumister, probably a brother came to Skagway from San Francisco and worked as a miller and butcher also.
Mr. Laumister was in Dawson on March 8, 1917 for the big fire there:

"Fire started at 9:45 o'clock last night in the Yukonia hotel and destroyed that building and several other well known landmarks in the same block. It was 20 below zero, and the fire department made a prompt response and a fine fight was put up by the men of the brigade and by many volunteers. The fire finally was stopped after midnight and by 3 o'clock was entirely subdued. A stiff wind from the south fanned the flames from the start until the finish, and it was most fortunate that the fire was stopped as soon as it was. John Laumeister was badly burned about the head and had to have his head dressed by the surgeon at the hospital but is out and about today. James Purden was with Laumeister and his head and ears were singed. Harry Bridges, Purden and Laumeister were attempting to put out the fire in the hall with the hose when the flames drove them out and they escaped from the lobby just after the volume of heat exploded through the windows of the lobby with a great report..." from the The Daily Alaska Dispatch, Juneau on March 9, 1917.

The fire must have affected Mr. Laumister's health because he died on this day, January 6, 1918 in St. Mary's hospital in Whitehorse from pneumonia.

Seen above are the frozen ruins of the Yukonia Hotel following the fire.

Fairbanks news accounts; 1900 Skagway census; familysearch.

Dora Ouellet

2012-01-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

Dora Ouellet (or Oullette or Owlette) was born during the Gold Rush, on this day, January 5, 1898 faraway in Pringle in Muskoka and Parry Sound, Ontario.
In the 1930s, Alaska Natives in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region near Bethel had the highest rate of Tuberculosis deaths and illness in the entire world. For 20 years, TB scourged the population throughout rural Alaska. By the mid-1940s, it was estimated that 10 percent of the Alaska Native population had active TB. The epidemic lasted into the early 1960s. One in 30 Natives resided in a sanitarium.
In 1945 the U.S. Health Service opened a tuberculosis sanitarium in the army hospital across the river in Skagway. Nurses came from Sisters of St. Ann in Victoria, B.C. It held as many as 90 patients before closing in 1947.
Poor Dora may have been one of the patients here because she died on July 19, 1946. A total of 56 people died in Skagway between 1945 and 1947, though not all by tuberculosis. Most of the deceased were sent back home, but a few were buried here in the Pioneer Cemetery.

Seen above is Vanilla dressed in her very best. She claims to be an Ouellet.

Skagway Death Record; Ontario 1901 and 1911 censuses.

George Johnson

2012-01-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

George Johnson was born about 1875 probably in Alaska. He was a packer to the railroad camps along the White Pass line in 1898-1899. He was described as being half Native.
On January 2, 1899 May Burke witnessed the shooting of George by Jesse Rounds, a prostitute at White Pass City because George was harassing her.
(This location, along the White Pass route about half way to the top of the pass, is now owned by the National Park Service, but there have been no plans to do anything with the area.)
Six months later, May Burke was arrested at the Summit for "disturbing the peace". Apparently these railroad camps were lively places.
George died on this day, January 4, 1899 and is buried in the Gold Rush Cemetery.

A wild Discouraging Mess, page 70; Skagway coroners inquest

S.S. Buford

2012-01-03T14:51:00.000-08:00

In 1890 the S.S. Mississippi was built in Belfast as an private Atlantic Transport ship. In 1898 she was purchased by the U.S. Army for use in the Spanish American War. Renamed the S.S. Buford (after General John Buford, union cavalry hero of Gettysburg) she saw use as a troop transport ship to the Philippines, as a supply vessel in San Francisco following the great quake in 1906, famine relief missions to China, refugee and troop carrier during the Mexican Revolution and as communication hub for Galveston during the great hurricane there in 1915. In World War One she helped evacuate Americans from Europe and then transported troops. Following the war she brought home 4700 soldiers from Europe.
In 1919 she was dubbed the "Red Ark" and transported 249 "undesirables" back to Russia.
In 1921 she rescued 65 passengers and crew from the burning Tokuyo Maru near Tillamook, Oregon.

In 1923, the Buford was sold to John C. Ogden and Fred Linderman of the San Francisco-based Alaskan Siberian Navigation Company. From July 20 to September 8, 1923 the S.S. Buford sailed up from San Francisco to the Arctic. Here is a list of the ports that this aging vessel visited:
Nome, Juneau, Seward, Wrangell Island, Unalaska, Teller, Ketchikan, Pribiloff Island, Skagway, Duncan's Bay, Swanson's Bay, Auk Lake, Cordova, Copper River, Akutan whaling station, Dutch Harbor, Salmon Creek, Taku Glacier, Mendenhall Glacier, Spencer Glacier, Miles Glacier and Muir Glacier.
The Buford was actually commanded by Capt. Louis Lane and went 185 miles north of the Arctic Circle. At that time it was the largest ship to enter the Arctic Ocean. The Buford then went on another trip to the South Seas in early 1924.

It was then that the Buford was chartered for three months by silent movie comedian Buster Keaton for use as the principal set of his film "The Mariner" later renamed "The Navigator." The Buford had been "discovered" by Keaton's Technical Director Fred Gabourie while scouting for ships for another, outside project, The Sea Hawk.
Released on October 13, 1924, "The Navigator" proved to be Keaton's most financially successful film and one of his personal favorites. An aging Captain Johnny "Dynamite" O'Brien (seen above with Keaton) partook in the filming of the movie.
After so many adventures and heroic trips, the S.S. Buford sailed on May 11, 1929 from Los Angeles to Yokaham Japan to be scrapped. If she had been a military person, she would have been decorated, but on her final voyage her only decoration was the American flag which fluttered proudly off her stern.

Wikipedia; Pacific Coastal Liners;

Frank Herbert Whiting

2012-01-03T10:15:00.000-08:00

Born in 1857 in Mt. Pleasant Iowa, Frank Herbert Whiting came to Skagway on Friday, May 27, 1898 as Superintendent of the new White Pass & Yukon Railway. He is a background character in the Soapy shooting, having been busy on another dock unloading rails and sleepers with Mr. Graves at the time. After the shooting the Citizen's Committee appointed the "Committee of Safety" to determine what the fate would be of the many Soapy conspirators, alleged friends and miscellaneous suspicious characters. The "Committee of Safety" consisted of eleven men. Four of these men managed transportation companies, two owned hotels, one blacksmith, two lawmen and of course the two White Pass managers, Graves and Frank Whiting. These eleven men selected the prisoners and forced them to sign over their money and agree to be handed over to the legal authorities.
Some of these men that were accused of vague crimes said that the "Committee" used their temporary and arbitrary power to get rid of business competitors in the witch hunt. Certainly in the volatile atmosphere, few Skagway residents questioned the doings of the most powerful men in Skagway. A total of fifteen men and one woman were deported but no doubt others left rather than be subjected to the "Committee" or possibly lynching.
Jeff Smith points out that when these deportees arrived in Seattle on the Steamship Tartar there is no evidence that any were ever taken into custody.
But back to Frank Whiting. He and his wife Martha and their 6 kids left Skagway in 1903. They probably returned to Denver, where they had lived before. Frank died on this day, January 3, 1936 in Seattle on a visit to his son. He was buried in Denver in the Fairmont Cemetery. One other note was that he was the great grandson of Timothy Whiting who fought in the Revolutionary War, and so was a compatriot SAR.

NPS website; Archives Canada; Alias Soapy Smith by Jeff Smith; findagrave.com; familysearch.

Kissing Cousins

2012-01-01T12:31:00.000-08:00

Georgia Amanda Pineo and Holmes Dewolfe were born in Berwick Nova Scotia but Holmes's family moved to Port Alberni on Vancouver Island B.C., around 1893. Holmes went to school in Victoria in 1898 and then moved to Atlin.
Holmes and his cousin Georgia fell in love and came to Skagway in 1909 to marry on June 24. The marriage did not last long though, because only a year later, on October 30, 1910 Georgia died at the age of 24. Holmes remarried in 1915 but he too died in Port Alberni, on this day, January 1, 1927 at the age of 43.

Seen above is Port Alberni about 1915 with the Pineo family hardware store on the far left.

The Register, Berwick, Kings Co., Nova Scotia.
Vital Statistics 1909; Family search

The Aggee family

2011-12-30T15:53:00.000-08:00

The Aggees came to Skagway from Telluride Colorado. Alonzo Aggee and his sons Roy and Harry arrived via the Chilkoot Pass on October 9, 1899 yet Alonzo, his wife Martha or Madie Crouch and their son Alonzo Jr.(Sam), daughters Helen and Ollie all show up on the Skagway census in 1900. They may have been in the process of moving to Dawson when the census took place. Oddly, despite the fact that they were one of the few African-American families in the Yukon, the Skagway census lists them as being white.

Alonzo worked for a time as a deckhand on the steamers going up and down the Yukon River. Then he settled down in Dawson City as a barber, and the rest of the family, including his wife Martha, sons Sam and Harry, and daughter Helen arrived soon after.

Harry and Roy worked as barbers with their father, but in 1901 Roy, the oldest son, died of peritonitis. The family carried on. Sam gained fame as a member of Dawson City's 1910 championship hockey team. He died in 1925 in Tacoma. Harry died in 1917 in Seattle and Martha in 1930. Alonzo L. Aggee outlived them all and died at the age of 81 in Skagit, Washington on December 21, 1940.

-On the Trail of the Yukon's Black Pioneers by Kilian; Washington death records; Skagway 1900 census.

Stephen Joseph Rooney

2011-12-29T09:46:00.000-08:00

Stephen Rooney was born on this day, December 29, 1864 in Sacramento. His father, John Rooney, had emigrated from Ireland at the age of 21 in 1849. John went from Liverpool to Boston to New Orleans, through the isthmus of Panama to San Francisco and finally to Sacramento. He was following the 49er's to find gold which he did. The Alabama mine in Eldorado county, owned by Mr. Rooney, yielded as much as $800 per day, and by 1853, he had netted $25,000. John married and had four sons, among them was Stephen born on the homestead on Coloma road, five miles from Sacramento. Stephen entered Sacramento Institute and later was a student at St. Mary's college in San Francisco (St. Mary's moved from the city to Oakland in 1889 and now is at Moraga). Interested in agriculture, he raised hops, but at one time he also served as deputy Sheriff of Sacramento county.
So it is no wonder that in 1898, he decided to go to the Klondike to search for gold much as his father had 50 years before. He, his brother and Lee Brown landed at Skagway where they tried to move their load to Lake Bennett. However, from the very outset they had bad luck. A number of valuable pack animals had been lost with the Steamship Corona January 24, 1898 on Lewis Island (480 miles north of Victoria). A quantity of forage and provisions was lost in another vessel which went down. Finally, when his high hopes had begun to sink beneath the weight of his failures he fell ill with spinal meningitis and died in Skagway on March 7, 1898. There is a Skagway record of his body being buried in the Gold Rush cemetery, but it was then disinterred and sent back to California by his brother and was interred in a local cemetery in Sacramento. He left a wife, Mary, and three children ages 9, 7 and 5.

Seen above is the Steamship Corona in 1907 when she foundered again.

Willis, William L., History of Sacramento County, California, Pages 693-696. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1913.

Arthur and Aurel Krause

2011-12-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

The brothers Krause were born in 1848 and 1851 in Konopath, Westpreussen, Preussen or what we would call Poland today. They were noted Anthropologists who explored the Chilkat and the Chilkoot Passes 1881. They spent the winter of 1881-82 at Haines, studying the Chilkat for the Geographical Society of Bremen and then wrote "To the Chukchi Peninsula and to the Tlingit Indians: A Scientific Expedition Carried Out by Aurel and Arthur Krause in 1881/1882". Aurel also wrote "The Tlingit Indians: results of a trip to the Northwest Coast of America and the Bering Straits" published in 1885, translated by Gunther in 1956. Unfortunately this did not have much effect on general knowledge since it was in German. In this 1885 account he describes Lake Arkell (or Kusawa) as an early trade route between coast and interior used by the Chilkats. By 1887 George Dawson said that the use of this route was declining by Tlingit traders because the journey from the coast to the head of the Takhini was so difficult. They began using the Chilkat Trail even though it was longer, yet less dangerous. I looked these up in the Alaska Atlas and was amazed at these routes which were not only longer but crossed several glaciers. No wonder they were more dangerous, there were stories of men falling into crevasses on those routes. It is easy to see on a map why the Chilkoot trail from Dyea became so popular.
The Krause research was not only the earliest but some of the most comprehensive accounts of Northwest coast cultures before they were significantly changed by European contact.
Aurel died in 1908 and Arthur died in 1922 both in Berlin.

The Yukon, London 1898 p.378; Yukon places & names, Coutts; Thornton p 286; Life Lived Like a story, page 369. Under Mount Saint Elias: The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit, by Frederica de Laguna SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 7

Walter Russell Curtin

2011-12-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

Walter Russell Curtin was born in 1878 in California and spent a terrible winter onboard the Yukoner where he froze. He wrote about that experience in 1938, more than thirty years after the gold rush.

“I had thirty five cents in my pocket when I set foot in Alaska, but I gave that to a mission church at Dutch Harbour. I did not have so much left when I left the country more than two years later…….

I made exactly nothing, but if I could turn time back, I would do it over again for less than that”
He died in Los Angeles on March 10, 1951.

The Yukoner is seen above going through the infamous 5-finger rapids on the Yukon River.

Yukon voyage;: Unofficial log of the steamer Yukoner, by Walter Russell Curtin (Hardcover - 1938)

A troubled bridge over water

2011-12-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

Here is a photo of that log bridge that Duke Prigmore wrote about in the blog from several days ago.

Fritz Gansneder's Gambrinus Brewery

2011-12-23T12:16:00.000-08:00

Fritz, or Anton Frederick Gansneder was probably born in Oberellenbach, Bavaria. His father Jacob immigrated from Germany with his 12 kids in the early 1880's. The importance of this is that the family brought their knowledge of growing grain and producing cheese, sausage and beer to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. Following the surge of German immigration America benefited from the traditional methods of brewing good ales. Certainly Skagway benefited from Fred's contribution: the Beer by the Quart Saloon in 1898. Fred and Frank moved to Portland around 1896 and established businesses there. Fred came to Skagway briefly to run his saloon and then probably went back to Washington. Here's a tip of the hat and a clank of a mug to Fritz!

Gold Rush Grub: From Turpentine STew to Hoochinoo by Ann Chandonnet page 207; the Mascot Saloon by Spude p. 70 (misspelled as Gausnider).

Clifford James Rogers

2011-12-22T15:53:00.001-08:00

Happy Birthday to Clifford J. Rogers born on this day, December 22, 1887 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He came to Skagway in 1900 and started working for White Pass in 1905, and eventually became President of White Pass. He and his brothers stayed in Skagway and all worked for the railroad. He was a naval architect and designed the first container ship.
In November 26, 1955 the new White Pass container ship was named for him. The Clifford J. Rogers set sail for Skagway then with her first load of "containerized freight." The new ship and containers, coupled with the upgraded and diesel engines on the railroad and trucks on the roads made the Yukon the home of the first integrated container system in the world.
In 1965 the Rogers was sold and replaced with the 6,000 ton Motorvessel Frank H. Brown, one of the world's most modern freighters.
Clifford's first wife in 1909 was Elizabeth Gertrude Steutiford. In 1949 he remarried in Ellensburg Washington to Patricia Colwell.
He died in 1978 at the age of 91 in Snohomish, Washington.

Seen above in the first Victoria College class in 1903 (age 16 far left).

Skiing anyone?

2011-12-21T11:41:00.001-08:00

I've had this picture in my desk for years and thought I'd share it with you.

Prigmore family

2011-12-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

There was an obscure reference in the Skagway Death records to a child "Preigmore" who died in April 1898. After much research and reading of old newspaper articles and censuses I was able to piece together the story of the Prigmore family. First I will quote the San Francisco Call of August 23, 1897. It refers to Duke Prigmore who made more than one trip from Washington to Skagway on the family's quest for gold.
"Many Outfits Lost: Bad Condition of the White Pass Trail from Skaguay where Gold Seekers are Struggling
SEATTLE, WASH Aug 22. Possibly the best description of the White Pass Trail from Skaguay is given in a letter from Duke Prigmore received in this city yesterday. It was brought down by the steamer Starr. After leaving camp on Saturday, Mr. Prigmore says, 'The first three miles is a fairly good wagon road, which leads to the Skaguay river, a rather shallow but very swift stream. There the miners have erected an improvised bridge, over which only one horse can be taken at a time. Beyond the bridge for three miles horses and wagons can be used. Devil's Hill is then reached. The trail is not over two feet wide here, while the climb is at an angle of 45 degrees. At the summit of the hill horses are compelled to make a jump of nearly two feet high only to alight on a slippery rock. Further on the trail is a steep incline, on which logs have been laid forming a kind of ladder.
After crossing the first hill a half mile of fairly good traveling is encountered when the big hill is reached. The path over this hill can scarcely be called a trail as Mr. Prigmore says it is quite narrow and at places is almost impassable for horses. The formation is of a soft and slippery slate rock. The trail winds crookedly around the hill or rather mountain while below it sheers off 500 feet to the river. At this locality many horses and packs have been lost. It is almost impossible for horses to pack any considerable amount of supplies around this bluff. After traveling several miles of this kind of road the big marsh is reached.
Here the packers become frightened as a horse will either flounder and roll in the mud until he gives up from sheer exhaustion, or else loses the pack and breaks a leg. This bog is one and a half miles long, and many of the miners are here camped waiting for the winter freeze so they can get over it.
A party ahead on the marsh told Mr. Prigmore that very few had passed them and they were making but slight progress, which fact leads him to believe that scarcely ten parties have thus far this summer crossed the Summit by way of Skaguay."

Well, Duke came south and got more horses to pack over the pass and in the winter of 1898 his father, Isaiah Daniel Prigmore, and Duke's younger brother, Leroy, came along. It must have been on this trip that young Leroy succumbed to pneumonia and died in Skagway on April 2, 1898. Isaiah took his body back to Washington and buried him in Bayview Cemetery in Bellingham. Isaiah and his wife Francis were also buried there in 1926 and 1935. Although I could not find an age for Leroy, or "Roy" as his headstone says, he must have only been about 9. Duke was 22 when he started this adventure, but he too died (of typhoid) in 1903 back in Ellensburg Washington at the age of 28. In all Isaiah and Francis had 8 children, the rest of whom remained in Washington and had families.

Seen above is the lovely Bayview Cemetery in Bellingham, Washington.

Bayview Cemetery online; various news accounts, family rootsweb info; Skagway Death record.

John Allen Hornsby

2011-12-19T12:13:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday, December 19, 1859 or 1861, to Dr. Hornsby, surgeon for the White Pass Railroad, editor of the Daily Alaskan and member of Skagway City Council. Unfortunately he was also a friend and likely co-conspirator with Soapy. In the coroners report for Ella Wilson, the black woman who was murdered by strangulation in her bed, Hornsby's report said the death was "unintentional" and the case was forgotten in all the excitement of the day. He also apparently failed to publish an account of the Stewart robbery, no doubt at Soapy's request. After the death of Soapy, the town "rounded up" various supporters and associates. To quote Hornsby: "I was sent out of Skagway in a most arbitrary manner. The United States Commission said there were no charges against me, but that he had no power to combat the citizens' committee that had put me on the boat at the point of loaded Winchesters." In any event, he left and went to Eagle and then back to Chicago where he became superintendent of a hospital, then on to Washington D.C. where all good scoundrels end up. He appears to have died in 1939 at the age of 80.
Seen above are the 10 members and friends of Soapy that were rounded up. I don't know which one is Dr. Hornsby, but I would guess it is the guy in the center saying to toss your eggs carefully (this doctored photo was used in 2008 for our Egg-Toss).

-Jeff Smith page 574 in "Alias Soapy Smith";Haigh p.89: The book of Chicagoans by Albert Nelson Marquis online

Arborian karma

2011-12-18T16:37:00.000-08:00

Mr. Edwin Ridd was born in 1860 in Dover England and ran the Hastings Sawmill in Atlin in 1906. As a lumberman he regularly must have cut down trees and cut them up for lumber and firewood. And so, it is perhaps karmic that on this day, December 18, 1906 he was hit by a falling limb from a tree and killed. He is buried in the Atlin cemetery.
In honor of Ridd and his run in with the avenging tree, we decided not to go out and murder a young tree and drag it into the house this year. Or maybe it is just in respect of the ancient Celtic Druid beliefs that everything in the universe is alive. Whatever, we will still observe the ancient Druid rituals of hanging the mistletoe over the doorway and call it good.

Atlin 2011 newspaper.

Cartographer from Purgatory

2011-12-16T12:42:00.000-08:00

William Yanert was born in 1864 in Prussia, or Poland. He was a cartographer with the 14th Infantry and arrived in Skagway on this day, December 16, 1897 to map things. He left the army and made his way to a remote spot in Alaska in 1901 where he built a cabin and called it Purgatory. When asked why he named it so, he said "It was a hell of a place to live." It is 45 miles downstream from Beaver, Alaska on the Yukon River. In 1910 his brother, seen with him above, joined him and he lived there for thirty-seven years. During that time he hunted, fished, wrote poetry and created art carvings which he sold to tourists who happened by on steamships up the river. They were entertained by his harmless pranks, his wit and gentle spirit. How many times have you heard people say they just want to go live in a cabin in the woods? Seems he did and enjoyed his life there. He died in 1941 in Portland but was buried in Beaver, Alaska.

online obits; Lung-Trail to north Star gold p 323; "Sergeant William Yanert, Cartographer from Hell," by Thom Eley, Professor at Univ of Alaska, Anchorage.

Michael James Heney

2011-12-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

So a descendent of Mr. Heney has said that the previous photo of Heney in which he is smoking a cigar is not actually M.J.
Coming from a descendent, I have to concur and so have removed the offending photo and am now replacing it with one of him at a luncheon given to him by his workers, seen above. Heney is on the far right with a natty little beard. Notice how the workers on the left look just a little uncomfortable though.

The Glacier Queen

2011-12-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

While on the subject of little warships, there is the case of the little Canadian HMCS (Corvette Castle Class) ship built in 1944 in England at Smith's Dock Co. Ltd. She was the next to last ship of its class finished before the end of the war when the others were cancelled. Of the Castle class ships, three were sunk in enemy action but they sunk seven u-boats. They were underpowered and tended to turn into the wind despite everything the helmsman tried.
First named the Walmer Castle, she was renamed the Leaside before being sold to the Union Steamship Company of Vancouver where she was renamed the SS Coquitlam around 1955. Then sold to the Alaska Cruise Lines in 1958 where she was renamed the Glacier Queen. Here you see her at Skagway as a nice little cruise ship in the 1960's.
In 1970 she was bought by Stanley M.J. and hulked as a floating hotel near Vancouver B.C.
On the 8th of November 1978 she sank at Anchorage off Seldovia Bay, but was later raised and scuttled by the U.S. Coast Guard about 100 miles west of Cape Elias.

Wikipedia; wrecksite.eu.; cruiselinehistory.com

M.V. Wheeling

2011-12-12T17:11:00.000-08:00

I happened to see a photo of the Wheeling online and wondered what it was, as it looked a bit different than the other ships.
Turns out it was a little U.S. warship that was sent around the Pacific to intimidate locals.
In October 1897 it arrived in Hawaii and gave the Hawaiians quite a shock, until they learned that the President had sent it with important communications for Admiral Miller, in command of the naval forces at Honolulu and Mr. Sewall the U.S. Minister.
Six months late, in March of 1898, Governor Brady was on his annual inspection of the Alaska ports aboard the Wheeling.
After leaving Dyea they sailed to Hoonah and found the local community all inflamed about a recent homicide and subsequent intentions to make the mother of the 6 year old child who had supposedly committed the murder pay up in blankets. Governor Brady told the local tribe that they could not do that anymore. At Yakutat he found another case of a witch hunt that nearly killed three people. To reinforce his word, he had Captain Sebree practice the guns of the Wheeling as an object lesson.
Governor Brady said that the trip had "done much good for the Natives as they dreaded a gun boat more than anything else."
Shortly thereafter on July 25, 1898 it was reported that Canadian sealers were raiding the rookeries of the islands of St. Paul and St. George. Stationed at Unalaska, the gunboat Wheeler certainly had her hands full patroling the entire Bering Sea.
On January 26, 1911 there was a report that the Wheeling had suffered an explosion while enroute from New York to Cuba. She must have survived that because in 1915 she was at the ready in Haiti when President Wilson was having some problems with Mexico. That article mentions that the entire Atlantic fleet of 21 warships was at the ready.
Seems the little Wheeling got around!

The Morning Herald March 23, 1898; Evening Post, January 26, 1911; Clinton Mirror, March 13, 1915; The Philadelphia Record, Sept 25, 1897.

First ship to Skagway?

2011-12-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

MJ Kirchoff, noted Alaska history author and "Alaska Historian of the year" for 2008 and 1993 has written this excellent review on the subject of the first ship to land in Skagway during the Gold Rush:
"I recently found an August 2, 1897, letter written from Camp Skagway for sale on the internet, and from that posting I made the following discovery. I assumed the letter must have been written by one of the early arrivals from the steamer Queen, as many websites and print sources cite the Queen as being the first vessel to land at Skagway Bay during the Klondike Gold Rush, on July 29th, 1897. As it turns out, the Queen didn't land on the 29th, nor was she the first. The Queen landed at Skagway Bay on July 26th, and she was preceded in by the steamship Al-Ki.

One of the Queen's passengers, a Rev. Alfred Kummer, said in an interview on his return to Puget Sound that the Queen landed 200 passengers at Skagway, "who, with the small party left by the Al-Ki, comprised the gold seekers at the place." (San Francisco Call, Aug 4, 1897). The Al-Ki arriving first is also mentioned by a Queen passenger named Lancelot Pelly, who wrote from Dyea on July 29: "Her [the Al-Ki's] passengers were not all off the rocks when we arrived." (San Francisco Call, August 12, 1897)

When I mentioned the Al-Ki coming in first to historian Karl Gurcke of the Klondike National Historical Park, he asked a good question. How did I know that the Al-Ki landed her passengers at Skagway, rather than at Dyea? Well, I don't, at least not yet, but there is an interesting reference in the July 24, 1897, issue of the Juneau Searchlight that helps shed light on that: "The steamer Al-Ki, Capt. James Patterson, arrived here from Puget Sound ports yesterday noon with a full cargo of merchandise and live stock and the following passengers: . . . For Dyea-H.R. Raymond, Miss Annie Hughes, and twenty-eight second-class. For Skagua Bay-Dr. J. Brown, Fred Banner, C.J. Rowine, Miss K.M. Smith, D.W. Ward, P. Schoock, A.K. Taber, E.M. Ward, T.J. Harris, Robt. Evans, T.B. Carey and seven second-class." It seems probable that if the Al-Ki had passengers booked for Skagway, she would have landed them at Skagway, particularly when Skagway was an easier port to get into than Dyea.

There's one more twist to this story.

Even though the Al-Ki beat the Queen into Skagway, she still wasn't the first steamship to land stampeders there. That honor would probably have to go to one of the small steamers operating from Juneau. When William Moore announced on July 14, 1897, that the trail over White Pass was going to open, Juneauites immediately took notice. On July 17, 1897, the Juneau Searchlight reported: "Several men are busy at work this afternoon loading a scow with lumber and feed for Skaguay. The horses which will arrive on the Topeka will be put on this scow and the steamer Rustler will take it in tow as soon after the arrival of the Topeka, as the passengers can get ready to leave." Soon thereafter, on July 19, the Rustler did go to Skagway, and by July 24 the Juneau Searchlight reported that there was quite a little crowd at Skagway. George Rice and his wife had arrived with 9 head of horses to be used in a pack train, and there were at least 22 other stampeders on the beach, including a Mrs. Ed Lord, who was proclaimed to be "the first woman ever over the White Pass."

To summarize then, on July 26, when the Queen arrived at Skagway Bay, Skagway and the White Pass trail was not the wilderness sometimes portrayed. Rice's horses were already packing, several dozen stampeders from Juneau and Puget Sound were already on the beach (delivered by the Rustler and the Al-Ki), and Moore had close to 20 men employed building his sawmill, planking his wharf, and blasting rocks out along the trail. Skagway was a busy place!

Respectfully submitted, MJ Kirchhoff"

We're hoping that any other history sleuths out there have some more clues to offer!
Seen above is a scan of the Steamer AL-KI. probably at Skagway.

Christmas Mail

2011-12-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

It has always been and still is a challenge to get mail to Skagway. Today we rely on small planes to fly our mail in from Juneau and if they can't fly for three days, they put it on the ferry. Numerous times I have had retailers tell me they either don't deliver to Skagway or they send it the dreaded FedEx way: which is, they send it to Anchorage and then hand it over to the post office there which puts it on the barge as parcel post. Recently I had a computer delivered this way that arrived with a big hole punched in the side of the box. Fortunately it hit only packaging material. There is no direct mail delivery on the road to Whitehorse, so if you send a letter there, it goes to Seattle, maybe to Ottawa and then back to Vancouver and then to Whitehorse. And takes 3 weeks. So here is what they did in 1898:

"The amount of mail stacked up on the Skagway dock that Christmas of 1898 was too much for one man to carry, however. The North-West Mounted Police took over the job of delivering the backlog of mail to the Klondikers. They formed relay teams of men and dogs to carry the mail in 30-mile stretches. Traveling day and night, the Mountie teams could complete the one-way 600-mile trip in an average of seven days. The use of dog teams on the Dawson-Skagway route ended in 1901 when the White Pass and Yukon Railway was completed. But dog teams were responsible for mail delivery in most parts of the Alaska Interior for another 30 years."

Alaska History Course.org

Albert Graham Mosier

2011-12-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

Mosier was born in 1866 in Des Moines Iowa. He attended Iowa State School of Engineering at age 16 and graduated in 1885 at age 19. He worked for railroads in Iowa until he moved to Seattle in 1888. The Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern hired him to work on the route near Snohomish. He went to Alaska in 1896 to report on a disputed waterway, but got involved with the gold rush and stayed, surveying from White Pass to Skagway, working for Captain Gaillard (who we looked at a couple of days ago).
The route that the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad takes today is a result of his survey in 1897.
In 1898, Mosier went to Dawson by way of St. Michael and the Yukon and spent ten years in the Klondike and adjacent territories, making his mark as one of the most successful drift miners in the region.
He returned to Washington in early 1924 just before his wife died,and he never returned to Alaska. Albert was a U. S. Deputy Mineral Surveyor and a U. S. Deputy Surveyor in Alaska in 1914. He died on this day, December 8, 1955 in the town that he platted: Sedro Wooley, Washington.

Seen above in his 80's still using his surveying equipment.

Skagit River Journal website; glosurveyorsnotes.pdf; webpage on him as Washington pioneer.

Sylvestor Scovel

2011-12-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

Of the many schemes to get rich, Sylvester Scovel's was unique.
Scovel was a reporter for the New York World, but he also brought two tons of blasting powder to Skagway in Sept 1897 for White Pass Trail construction. He arrived in Skagway with his wife, Frances Cabanne and went over the Chilkoot Pass with their provisions. When he and Frances reached Lake Bennett, they had intended to float up to Dawson, but when he heard that only three mail deliveries would make it to Dawson that winter, Scovel came up with an idea. Why not organize a regular dog team mail delivery service from Skagway to Dawson and thus deliver the "New York World" to miners who would happily pay for news? He told Frances that they would certainly get rich.
Skeptics pointed out that the 600 miles of snow covered trails, frozen lakes and sub-zero conditions would take 25-30 days.
Still, Scovel told his wife that it would be like an extended honeymoon with nothing to do but "hunt, fish, prospect for gold and write correspondence..."
He left Frances in a tent at Lake Bennett while he hiked back to Skagway and took a boat down to Seattle to wire his employers for support in this venture. The World took three days to respond and then turned him down flatly and ordered him back to New York immediately. He wrote to Frances to return to Skagway and take the first boat down to Seattle as he was returning to New York. He also wrote to William Saportas, an acquaintance and fellow reporter in Skagway (also friend of Soapy) to please go find the "madame" in Lake Bennett and take her down south. Meanwhile poor Frances had not heard from her husband yet and so related in a letter to her mother that Bennett was "awful, awful without him and in this hole - it is death."
Sylvester's relatives in Chicago were amazed and told him he should not have left Frances. His Aunt Belle even boxed his ears! To make matters worse, the World was not happy and accused him of "gross extravagance" having wasted too much money. Oddly, the only reason he was not fired was because Hearst was courting him to come work for the New York Journal. Scovel went on to be the World's "man in Havana", but died there in 1905 following an operation to his liver.
In the end the only one who came out ahead was William Saportas. He married the lovely widow Frances in 1917 and they presumably lived happily ever after.

Seen above are Scovel and his wife Frances in Skagway promoting his newspaper!

The Year that defined American Journalism: 1897 and the clash of paradigms by W. Joseph Campbell; Edmond Hazard Wells, Magnificence and Misery, page 32.

NY Times Sept 6, 1897

Frank Hawley Darling

2011-12-06T11:45:00.000-08:00

On December 5, 1898 there was a snow avalanche at Crater Lake that buried 5 people, among whom were Mrs. Lizzie M. Clay Darling and her husbands two sons who were teenagers. She and Frank Hawley Darling were married on May 23, 1891 when she was 21 years old. Possibly Frank had been married before but I could only find the marriage record for Lizzie.
Frank was born in 1855 in New York and it is possible that he was an artist in California early in his career.
He waited for Lizzie and his sons to arrive at Lake Lindeman, but they never made it. After losing his family he returned to Seattle and worked as a clerk until his death on this day, December 6, 1925 - 27 years and a day after the tragedy.

P.S. Although the newspapers reported that he had two sons that died, the NWMP report stated there were 4 men: Warren, Rouhl, Johnston (Bert Jones), and Harry Shaw as well as Mrs. Darling. She was too young to have two teenage sons even from a previous marriage. If Frank had two other sons, then their names would have been Darling also. I checked the censuses in Washington and did not find that he had been previously married or that he had sons. Furthermore, if he took his wife down to Washington to bury her there, why not take these sons too? So in the end I think the newspapers made up the boys to make a more dramatic story. I have not yet found any information on Warren or Rouhl.

Seen above is the cemetery at Lake Lindeman. Perhaps the boys were buried here, but Lizzie was buried in Edmonds, Washington at the Edmonds Memorial Cemetery.
RCMP report online.

David DuBose Gaillard

2011-12-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

Before the construction of the railroad, Gaillard led a team of engineers up to the White Pass to survey a route.
Gaillard was born in 1859 in Fulton, South Carolina. After graduation from West Point and promotion to first lieutenant in 1887, he married Katherine Ross Davis. The couple had one child, David St. Pierre Gaillard. By 1903 he was a Captain in the Army Corps of Engineers and in 1908 he led the Army Corps in building the Panama Canal.
Gaillard was in charge of the notorious Culebra Cut through the backbone of the isthmus. Men who worked with him said he gave 12 hours every day to the Culebra Cit, besides which, he took his share in the labor of general administration of the Canal Zone. He checked up expenses, even on small things and once it was computed he had saved the Government $17,000,000.
He succeeded, but did not live to see the job finished. Suffering from what was thought to be nervous exhaustion brought on by overwork, he returned to the United States in 1913. In fact, Gaillard suffered from a brain tumor.
Lieutenant Colonel David DuBose Gaillard died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on this day, December 5, 1913. He was 54 years old. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The Panama Canal opened nine months after his death, and Culebra Cut was renamed Gaillard Cut in his honor.

Skagit River Journal website; NY times article 1903.

Open House tonight!

2011-12-02T11:19:00.000-08:00

AB is hosting an open house tonight, December 2, 2011. Reed and Arlen set up a fantastic lego train display with completely original buildings that were conceived in the minds of Arlen and Reed. One building you will recognize as the Old Faithful Hotel and the rest resemble little Swiss chalets. But you only have one hour to view these - from 6-7 pm. We will also have punch and cookies.
Is that me above slogging supplies to AB?

Edward James Gray

2011-11-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

Mr. Gray was born in England in 1855 and came to Lake Bennett from Victoria where his wife was living. He was working on the sawmill when he had an accident, on this day, November 29, 1899 and died. His body was shipped back to Victoria and he lies with so many other gold rush unfortunates at the Ross Bay Cemetery.

Update on William G. Martin

2011-11-29T09:57:00.000-08:00

Received this update on my previous post about William G. Martin and the lynching at Lake Bennett.

"In regards to William G. Martin, as big a fan I am of Bill Hunt's, I'd have to say that it is he who is doing the imagining concerning Martin's lynching at Lake Bennett, since he offers no references. Basically, it is just his opinion that the Martin episode never took place. But quite a lot of evidence suggests it did.

First off, Hal Hoffman was an experienced reporter who was assigned to the Klondike rush by the San Francisco Call. He hiked both the Chilkoot and White Pass trails in the summer of 1897 and reported from Juneau during the winter of 1897-98. I have followed his reporting closely and I see no reason why he would exaggerate this particular story.

Hoffman's story about Martin was also collaborated by another reporter. An "H.L.M." described the lynching in detail for the New York Tribune, and the story was carried in quite a few other newspapers. The easiest place to read it would be in a paper called the New Zealand Tablet. Google "William G. Martin Klondike" and the Tablet article appears on the first page.
One final piece of evidence that Martin was actually lynched. A George Martin from Missouri wrote a letter to the the St. Louis Republic on August 25th from Dyea, just days before the alleged lynching. Martin's letter was published in the September 22, 1897 edition of the Republic, and it seems likely to me that this George Martin and William G. Martin were one and the same.
Nothing is ever certain in history, but when you have several contemporary accounts indicating an event happened, and one lone voice a hundred years later saying it didn't, I'm going to have to favor the former.
Respectfully submitted, M.J. Kirchhoff"

Having looked into it further I found reference to an obituary in a Missouri newspaper: (SHELBY DEMOCRAT Thursday September 16, 1897 Page 2 column 9) so I would have to agree, that we refute the refutation of Bill Hunt!!!

According to a family posting on Rootsweb, William Green Martin was born 1856 in Liberty Township, Shelby, Indiana to William W. Martin (born NC) and Cloe or Chola Ensminger (born IN). His nickname was Gid Martin. He had three older sisters, Amanda, Martha and Mary.

Good sleuthing Mark! Honorary membership in the Skagway Historical Society granted on this day!

Lake Bennett seen above with the boat building in full swing.

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=shelbyinharrells&id=I06834

Owaneco, Illinois

2011-11-24T10:08:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken around 1898 in Owaneco Illinois. It is of the Johnson clan in front of a house (which still stands) there across from the cemetery. The handsome fellow on the far right with the bowler hat is my husband's great grandfather, William "Honest Will" McCluskey with his bride in front of him, Mary Martin (nee Nichol) McCluskey. A few years after this photo, the McCluskeys moved to Arizona to grow cotton but were caught up in bank defaults and lost everything. Their sons stayed in the Mesa area and married the Goodwins who owned trading posts and movie theatres.
A few years ago I went to Owaneco and found the cemetery where Reed's gggrandmother and uncles are buried. It was a beautiful little cemetery with nice stone markers. You learn so much from markers, very often the transcriptions leave off important details. The Christian County Historical Society in Taylorville had lots of really good documents also, most of which have not been scanned or transcribed.
So what does this have to do with Skagway and the Gold Rush. Well nothing really, but I'm still searching for a link! Let me know if you have one! Happy Thanksgiving.

Lowney's Bon Bons

2011-11-22T11:05:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago my son found this odd little piece of metal in the dirt in the alley. I've had it stuck by tape on my desk since then thinking I would research it one of these days. Anyway, this summer we finally did a search and found that it is actually the flattened bowl of a Lowney's bon bon spoon.
Lowney's made delicious chocolates and candy in the late 1800's. They had their own buildings at both the Chicago (1893) and Buffalo (1901) World's Fairs.
Some people collect their memorabilia, but I wonder what the bon bons tasted like! Did someone buy them at Mrs. Rapuzzi's Washington fruit and candy store?

Train Talk

2011-11-21T12:14:00.000-08:00

What Trains Say

2011-11-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

On my travels I picked up a great little brochure in an antique store which lists all the "Railroad Slang" and the meaning of the train horn toots. I will post some of those.

Red Onion in railroad terms means a railroad eating house. Who knew?

Seen above is the Bennett Station eating house.

"What Trains Say" by the Association of American Railroads.

Allen Melville Carpenter

2011-11-18T12:21:00.000-08:00

Dr. Carpenter was an honorary member at the very first organizing of the Arctic Brotherhood in Skagway. He was born in 1871 and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1891 with a doctorate in chemistry. He must have been a very good friend of one of the original members, but there is no evidence that he was actually here. The eminent Dr. Carpenter died on this day, November 18, 1943 in New York.
Seen above are some of the brethren in Seattle in 1908. Note their snappy hoods!

The Right Way On, Oliver p 322; journal A.M.A. 1943 online

Alice Mason

2011-11-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

Alice was born in September 1897 and died on this day November 16, 1898 and is buried in the vicinity of the Slide Cemetery with a large marble marker. She was only a year and two months old. The marker also is for presumably her 11 year old brother, John J. Mason who died the following June. Although there are other Native Masons buried nearby, there is no record of their family. Seen above is the marker, courtesy of Mike from findagrave.com.

The dubious story of M.C. Daly

2011-11-15T10:48:00.000-08:00

"A thrilling story of starvation and death in the wilds of Northern Alaska is recorded in Skagway, Alaska. The victims were M. C. Daly of Boston, Mass., and two Frenchmen, names unknown. The story was brought to Skagway by William Lawlor, an Arizona miner."

Although this appeared in the Seattle papers in November 1899, it is dubious in my opinion that it happened in Skagway or the Yukon because it is a year after the gold rush at a time when businesses and roadhouses had been set up. Further there is no record on this day of Mr. Daly or two Frenchmen dying here.
However there was a tragedy at Kotzebue where at least 48 people starved to death under horrible conditions in August 1899 until Lt. Jarvis and the revenue cutter Bear arrived to rescue the miners there. read that story here:
http://genealogytrails.com/alaska/northwestarctic/goldrushdeaths1899.html
The photo above is of Kotzebue in winter-I think I will go get a hot cocoa now.

(Seattle, Washington, The Evening News, November 15, 1899, page 1)

A story of two orphan Jenji's

2011-11-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

Jenjiro Ikuta was the adopted son of the Keeler family here in Skagway in 1900. Frank Truman Keeler was a wealthy man in Skagway - a moneylender, optician, jeweler and landlord of brothels on 7th Avenue. Jenjiro was born on this day, November 14, 1881 or 1883 in Japan but said that he came to Skagway from Oakland, California in the gold rush. He may have come to Skagway with family who died, but who knows.
Anyway, he learned jewelery from Frank Keeler and started his own store, Totem Jewelery which was here until about 1920. He married Lena Estella Worth from Michigan and they had three kids, Carol a son born 1918, Edna a daughter born 1910, and Truman a son born 1915. In 1920 Jenjiro and his son Truman decided to go back to Japan while Lena took Carol and Edna to Oregon. (Both Truman and Carol married and their descendents have posted most of this information on genforum and rootsweb). Lena remarried and later died in Kennewick, Washington. Perhaps Jenjiro stayed in Japan, as no one seems to know and their are no records of him back in the states.

When I was down south we went to a funeral service for my father in law, Bill McCluskey, who went to Japan right after the war ended. The story was told that when he was on a train he found a child curled up in a pile of rags. He asked where the parents were and was told by the train personnel that he was an orphan. So Bill "adopted" him for a year and fed and paid for him to go to school. At the end of his service time in Japan, he collected money for little "Jenji" to continue in school. He never was able to reconnect with him. I wonder how many times he wished he could have found out what happened to little Jenji!

Hang in there!

2011-10-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

I will be on a historical sleuthing trip for the next two weeks - wish me luck!

Most disagreeable!

2011-10-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

In the RCMP report written by Capt. Steele, he mentions Staff Sergeant James B. Hyles who served in Skagway from August 1897 to May 1898. Steele described it as "one of the most disagreeable detachments in my command. His duties were receiving and forwarding mails and stores, giving information to people entering the Yukon Territory...later working in the pay office at Bennett and discharging the duties of acting Sergeant Major at Tagish."
Hyles had 15 years of service at that time in the NWMP.

Report of the RCMP 1898.

Peter Bertona

2011-10-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

"Spanish Pete" was born in 1857 in Noya, Spain and came to Skagway in the gold rush. He worked as a mail carrier in Dyea in 1900 but had came to Alaska in 1896. In 1903 he beat up Joe Lee, a Tlingit native because he lived next door. The Daily Alaskan article from April 28, 1903 reported that "Spanish Pete had beat up an Indian named Joe Lee on April 27 at Dyea after he discovered Lee near a house that the Indian had recently purchased but which Pete considered his own....Spanish Pete regards Dyea as his own private preserve and resents visits from Skagway as an invasion of his rights. When Lee denied Pete's ownership and refused to vacate the property, the latter struck him with a four-foot club which he continued to wield vigorously until help arrived."
Thomas Thornton states in his 'Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park Ethnographic Overview and Assessment' on page 211: "Native families who had traditionally harvested and smoked fish at Dyea returned to their camps to do so, often complementing traditional subsistence harvesting with cultivated gardens. However, some returnees were intimidated by whites attempting to exercise control over the area."
The Lee family lived in Haines but had a smokehouse along the river in Dyea where they would smoke coho and dog salmon. They would also gather highbush cranberries there on the flats where it was much easier to collect than in the brush. Coho salmon eggs were mixed with gray currants and cranberries to make kanigul ("paint") a local delicacy. The Lee family would also cut birch to sell to the railroad for fuel.

1900;Klondike Nugget 6/10/1900; Thornton page 211

Dakl'aweidi Family Tree

2011-10-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

Another partial family tree showing the relationship between Kate Mason, Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack, Daisy Mason and Graffie Carmack. Also from "Life Lived Like a Story"

Deisheetaan family tree

2011-10-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

Because the family tree is so confusing I thought I would post this nice family tree from Mrs. Angela Sidney's recounting in "Life Lived as a Story".

AB at Halloween

2011-10-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

Reed took this photo last night of the AB Hall with the Jack-o-lanterns in the windows.
Booooooo!

Benny & Edith Moore

2011-10-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

Again, a picture of Minnie and James Bernard Moore's kids, Benny and Edith. This picture taken in Tacoma in 1905.

Minnie Shotridge Moore

2011-10-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

I can't resist posting this sweet family portrait of Minnie Moore 1874-1916 (Mrs. Ben Moore or Lingit Sai-yet) and her three children taken in 1898. In his book "New Indians" unpublished, 2010, Dan Henry says that she was scorned by local Skagway women and her "half-breed" children were taunted by classmates. In 1906 they moved to Victoria. I will post the names of the kids later when I get them.

J.B. Moore Collection

David Legg Brainard

2011-10-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

David Brainard was born in 1856 in Norway, New York. On Sept. 13, 1876, 19-year-old David Brainard left home to travel to Philadelphia and view America's first successful world's fair, the Centennial Exposition. After taking in many marvels of the Machine Age, Brainard boarded a train for home. At New York City, he changed trains and reached into his pocket for money to buy a ticket, but there was none. Too proud to write his family for funds, Brainard took the free ferry to the US Army Post at Governor's Island and joined the Regular Army. He didn't know it, but David Brainard was on his wasy to becoming one of those rare individuals in military history who rose from Private to General by pulling himself up by his bootstraps.
When Brainard joined the Army, it had been only three months since Custer's command was mauled at the Little Big Horn, and in no time, Brainard was sent to Montana Territory, to serve with the Second Cavalry against the Northern Cheyenne and Sioux Indians. The square-jawed Brainard was a keen soldier, who firmly believed orders clearly issued should be obeyed.
On May 7, 1877, Brainard participated in the Battle of Little Muddy Creek against the Sioux under Chief Lame Deer, and suffered wounds to his right hand and a gunshot wound to his right cheek, affecting his eye. Over half a century later, in 1933, he received the Purple Heart for his injuries.
He was a Captain in the 14th Infantry when he arrived in Skagway in February 1898. Captain Brainard was appointed Purchasing and Disbursing Officer of the Alaska Relief Expedition and was based in Dyea. Brainard’s relief expedition was intended to address the “sufferings” of the Dawson miners during the Alaskan Gold Rush, but they found the miners well supplied and needed no relief. He is most famous for being the last survivor (in 1935) of the United States’ Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (1881-84), an ordeal of unimaginable hardship. Only six survivors were rescued in 1884 after being stranded in the Arctic for two years in the harshest conditions.
Brigadier General Brainard died at the age of 90 on March 22, 1946 in Washington D.C. and is buried in Arlington.

military rec; ipy.org bio; "Duty Station Northwest" by Lymon L. Woodman

Michael Bernard McKanna

2011-10-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

Michael McKanna was born in 1849 in Waterford County Ireland. He moved to Alaska with his family and went mining in the Yukon gold fields with his two oldest sons, Jim and Emmet. There, he came down with Brights Disease, a kidney ailment. Making his way back toward Douglas with Jim as his support, Michael died near the shores of Lake Bennett on June 13, 1899. When news reached Douglas, his daughter Elizabeth took a boat to Skagway and the White Pass train to Bennett. She and Jim buried their father’s body in the small Bennett cemetery.

family McKanna website:lauralei.com; familysearch; headboard 2009; listed in Atlin bios
http://willisgene.wordpress.com/the-mckanna-family-pioneers-of-the-northwest/

Dawson Charlie

2011-10-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

Kaa Goox was a Canadian Tagish/Tlingit First Nation member of the wolf clan, born in 1866. His wife was Sadusge Annie. He was one of the co-discoverers of gold that led to the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon. He was the nephew of Skookum Jim Mason. He staked one of the first three claims in the Klondike, along with his uncle and George Carmack. Kate Carmack was his aunt. Storyteller Angela Sidney was a niece.

Pierre Berton incorrectly called him Tagish Charlie in his book.
He died December 26, 1908 in Carcross when he fell off the bridge and drowned. He was only 42 years old. Seen above is his monument in the Carcross Cemetery.

Harry Huntington's letter

2011-10-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

Harry wrote a letter to his fiance (later wife) Jennie from Alaska which is dated 1897, but he must have meant 1898 as it is written on the back of a newspaper extra which has the date April 3, 1898 printed on it. The EXTRA published by the Dyea Trail is about the death of eighteen prospectors in a snow slide.

"Sheeps Camp April 7, 1897, My beloved Wife:-How I wish I was on my way to meet you My Love My all. If tomorrow is a good day we will bid adieu to Sheep Camp and take up our abode at Lake Linder Mon. We were on the summit yesterday, paid our duty and took most of our freight down the hill out to Crater Lake. Wolff and Percival will finish up today. I went as far as the stables and brought back the dogs. Yesterday I dug my freight out of about eight feet of snow, you can see men all over the trail digging out their "caches", some will never find theirs. Today is warm and the sun shines brightly on the snow covered Peaks. Up to yesterday fifty one bodies have been taken from the snow slide, and some that are alive are in evidence now of the awful experience of being under the snow and couldn't move a muscle. I talked with one man that was in 45 minutes. He said he could breathe alright and was very comfortable physically but not mentally.
The search for the misfortunate was kept up until last night no one being allowed to pass the Place with a pack or load. There is no one at work this morning and I guess they have given it up. The snow slide made no noise whatever and wasn’t even heard by the ones that were caught.
We never left our camp during the storm and don’t work any stormy days, we have lost a lot of time but it has given us an opportunity to get mail from our dear ones a home. I hate to leave on that account. I rec. a nice letter from Halla yesterday, and I got it by accident too.
One of the Crossley boys was down Sheeps Camp and saw my name on front of a store.(?) There are two places to get mail and I suppose they got it on account of having "Please Forward to Sheeps Camp" on it. You can address your letters to Takish House North West Territory from now on They come from Dyea the 20th of each month."

from "The Descendents of Nathaniel Huntington" online genealogy book.

Tlingit couple

2011-10-08T11:34:00.001-07:00

This couple was photographed in dancing costume by Case & Draper in 1906.

August Konalski

2011-10-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken by Howard Clifford before 1975. It shows a few headboards which were probably replacements. Eve Griffin is currently doing a project on the cemetery, photographing all the remaining grave markers and doing a careful measurement and map - apparently something which has never been done before. When her project is finished, very soon, I will post the new map!
August Konalski is an example of someone who did not appear in the Skagway Death Record but who obviously died here on this day, October 7, 1898. Other than the fact that the name Konalski is the second most common Polish name, we know nothing else about him.

Hallelujah Conductor

2011-10-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

Calvin Eugene Shelly was a conductor on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad. He had come to Skagway from Chicago but was born in 1864 in Akron, Ohio. He came here with his wife Mary and their two sons Allen and Robert.
He attended the Peniel Mission and was "beautifully saved at the mission. He received the name of "Hallelujah Conductor" for he was always praising the Lord....One night during testimonies, he said this --"I have been a year paying for a dead horse, and now I am clear before God and Man." He meant that he had been a year paying and making restitution for things he had done in the past." - as Mable Ulery put it.
Their home was on 7th between Broadway and Spring which is just an open lot now. When we moved here in 1998 I remember there was a controversy because someone bulldozed the house one day and hauled it off. It was that action which prompted the city to make it necessary to get permission to bulldoze historic buildings and not just do it in the night. True, it was just a dilapidated house nearly 90 years old, but it was part of the fabric of historic Skagway.

Speaking of historic, seen above is Lep in his conductor's togs.

Calvin passed away on December 28, 1945 in Burlington, Washington.

William J. Blackwell

2011-10-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

William J. Blackwell was born in 1843 in New Jersey. He married Adelaide M. Blood in 1883 in California and owned bottling and brewing companies in Seattle and Slocan, British Columbia before he came to Skagway in 1898. Here he started the B&B Bottling company with Mr. S.E. Beazley. He moved on probably to Nome where he was a member of the Eagles until 1915. He was also a member of the Arctic Brotherhood from 1898 to 1902 in Skagway. One account says he died in Alaska on this day, October 5, 1922. Washington state census records show him in a Sedro Wooley mental institution in 1930 and that he died there in May 1930. Not sure which is correct, but nevertheless he did have a business here on 5th Avenue until 1907. He manufactured and bottled soda water, sarsaparilla, ginger ale, champagne cider, sarsaparilla and iron, as well as all kinds of mineral waters with syrup.

Washington state records; business directories; 1900 census; Daily Alaskan 1900.

Michael James Heney

2011-10-04T10:42:00.000-07:00

Having often referred to Mr. Heney, I looked back and found that I have never done a post just on him. So here is the brief biography from Wikipedia:

"Michael James Heney was born on October 24, 1864, near Stonecliffe, Renfrew County, Ontario. He was the son of Thomas Eugene Heney and Mary Ann McCourt, Irish immigrants. His family farmed in the upper Ottawa Valley.

At age 14, Heney ran away from home to work on the newly announced Canadian Pacific Railway. Though he was soon found and brought home by his older brother Patrick Heney, he stayed home only until 1882, when he left home to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway in Manitoba. He started as a mule skinner and gradually worked his way up through all the aspects of construction. In 1883 he was included in a survey crew, spending the next three years learning more about construction as the Canadian Pacific Railway worked its way through the mountains of British Columbia.

At 21, Heney was ready to set up as an independent contractor. He returned east to earn the engineering degree his father wanted him to have, but was too impatient and was soon back in the west. By 1887 he had moved his operations to Seattle, working on the final stages of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway. The career of the "boy contractor" was launched. Many construction projects in Washington, British Columbia and Alaska followed."

A chance meeting with the London financiers at the St. James Hotel in Skagway led to his most famous achievement, the building of the 110 mile track from Skagway to Whitehorse. Built in a record two years and two months it still runs today but only on the Skagway to Carcross length.

At the pinnacle of his career, Heney left Cordova, Alaska to complete some business arrangements in Seattle. On his way back north, his ship hit an uncharted rock and sank. Heney went under deck to rescue his horses, but the last boat left without him when he returned on deck. So he swam to a boat and held on to the stern while it was rowed ashore as there was no room on it. I read another account that said he swam back to help women swim to safety. In either case, shortly thereafter he developed pulmonary tuberculosis and died within a year, on this day, October 4, 1910 in San Francisco. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery Seattle.

The photo above shows him later in life with his cigar. I think it exemplifies his character more than the more common studio photo of him. He had a number of similarly strong men working for him who pushed the thousands of workers to finish the White Pass project. Seldom have I seen anything negative written about him, but I believe there was another side to management. Similarly, there has never been anything written about his private life. Heney never married nor did he have any women friends. I have seen references to his deep grief over the loss of two of his co-workers, Robin Brydone-Jack and Hugh Nelson Foy during the building of the railroad. During the reconstruction of the White Pass Depot building by National Park Service workers in the 1970's, they found negative grifitti about Heney written on the boards under the subfloor. I believe he was a man driven to accomplish great things and was the inspiration if not the embodiment of Ayn Rand's character of Howard Roark in The Fountainhead. However, that does not mean that he was loved by all. In those years, businesses did not have to worry about safety, insurance, worker's compensation, or benefits. White Pass did have a hospital and they did bury their workers who died during construction. However, they did not tolerate strikes, and being a railroad town, workers and their families over the decades were at the mercy of the WP management.

Wikipedia; Minter.

Dr. Emory Kniskern

2011-10-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

Emory Leroy Kniskern was born on this day, October 3, 1868 in either Marne or Berlin Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan medical school to get his medical degree in 1895. He came to Skagway in the gold rush and signed death certificates in April of 1899. By November 1899 he was in Washington and married Cornelia "Nellie" Butler. He was a Captain in the Medical Corps at Camp Worden, Washington in World War One. He had two sons and moved back to Muskegon Michigan where he specialized as an oculist and aurist. Dr. Kniskern died in Michigan in 1946 at the age of 78.

Not having a good picture of Dr. Kniskern here is a photo of a guy with his faithful steed on the dock at Skagway.

Skagway death records of April 29, 1899; family search; Washington census 1910; Univ of Michigan online.

Peniel Ladies in San Diego

2011-09-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

Another picture taken of Mabel Ulery with her co-workers at the Peniel Mission in San Diego, California.

Peniel Ladies

2011-09-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

This picture apparently hangs in the Peniel housing in Skagway. It is a photo of Victorine Yorba Tooley on the left seated and Mabel Ulery (Mrs. Holmes Cox) on the right, seated.
Behind them standing is probably John Jefferson Paulsell (born 1864). He was a college teacher who taught private grade school. He had been a criminal lawyer in Stockton, and in Skagway nursed men during the meningitis outbreak. He was a missionary who helped Ulery form the Peniel Mission in 1898. He would be 35 in 1899, but Mabel Ulery said of him: "His appearance was that of an older man, because of his gray hair, which was due to the terrible grief and shock he had suffered in his past life..."
The woman standing could be Miss Kline, Miss Josie Barnett, Gusta Carnahan who was Victorine's sister or Roberta Yorba, Victorine's daughter.

Secret Map

2011-09-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

Having lived in Skagway for over a decade I was surprised to learn that some people had not heard the story that the front of AB Hall is actually a secret map to a gold mine. Despite the thousands of pictures taken every summer, no one has yet figured it out.

common knowledge

Floods in Skagway 1919

2011-09-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

This major flood happened in Skagway in September 1919. This is when the train tracks crossed the Skagway River and ran on the west side of the river and then crossed back to the east side up the way.

"Passenger Trains Between Skagway and Whitehorse Stopped by Flood

Last Friday rain started to fall in torrents in the mountain surrounding Skagway and by the following morning the Skagway river was a raging flood, filled with trees and driftwood, that carried all before it. Four bents were washed out of the railroad bridge near the car shops and eleven bents out of the railroad bridge at four mile post. The weather reached the decking of the first bridge and the driftwood pilling up against it threatened at one time to cause the whole structure to go out, but a flat car with a derrick aboard was put into operation and the trees and logs hoisted over the bridge and dropped into the stream below. The government bridge across the Skagway river at Twenty –Second street was damaged to the extent of having the center span carried away.

At the height of the flood there was a White Pass train stranded between the first and second bridges, but since then the first bridge has been repaired sufficiently to get the train into the yards shops.

After the rain started to fall it continued to pour down almost without cessation until yesterday afternoon, when it commeneed to let up, and the weather was reported to be clearing and river falling.

Section men from Carcross, Pennington, Bennett, Log Cabin, Summit and Glacier were rushed over to Skagway to assist in the work of controlling the flood and are still there.

Yesterday afternoon a telephone message was received here from General Manager II. Wheeler at Skagway, saying that the Skagway river was threatening the track near Boulder and asking that a work train be made up here and rushed over with a load of sacked gravel to use in checking water’s inroads. The train, consist of an engine and three flat cars left here at 7 o’clock this morning to load 500 sacks of gravel at the 98 mile post.
A train was run from Whitehorse Tuesday and the passengers and mail transferred at the washout. They connected with the Princess Alice, which sailed from Skagway Wednesday night. There have been no train since then and it now seems probable there will not be until Saturday or Sunday.

There is a lot of perishable and other freight for the interior now in Skagway which cannot be moved until regular train service is resumed, which will likely be first of next week.

Whitehorse Weekly Star, Friday, September 19, 1919

Calantha Alica Bracktle

2011-09-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to little Calantha who was born on this day, September 28, 1896 in Angel's Camp, Calaveras County, California. Her father, Wallace was a jeweler from San Francisco who seemed to follow the gold. In 1887 he was a watchmaker in Sacramento. He and his wife, Annie Dorothea Westfall and Calantha came to Skagway from Oakland about 1899. Calantha may have attended school in 1900 when they were here for the census, or maybe not.
Wallace invented a portable weighing scale and received a patent on it in October of 1899. It would have been a good thing to have in the field where gold dust was the method of payment.
They moved back to Oakland where he was a jeweler. Calantha married in 1916 and had a son. She died in 1971 in Fairfield, Solano County, California.

1900 Skagway Census, 1880 San Francisco Census; pfawr and mytrees online

Edward C. Robinson

2011-09-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

This Edward Robinson was an army soldier here in 1903 where he succumbed to pneumonia on this day, September 27, 1903. He was only 29 and his body was sent to Seattle for burial. He is buried at the Ft. Lawton Military Cemetery. Seen above is his grave marker which says he was in Company M of the 8th US Infantry. Previous to this I thought that the 8th Infantry had arrived in July of 1904, but this proves they were here earlier.

Find-a-grave website; Skagway Death Record

The wreck of the Sternwheeler Columbian

2011-09-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

The sternwheeler Columbian was lost in the worst accident in the Yukon River's history on September 25, 1906. On the day of the accident, The Columbian was carrying only one passenger—Ernest Winstanley, a stowaway who had sneaked aboard, pretending to be the caretaker of the cattle on board. One report said he was kicked off when the ship docked at Tantalus, but another gave his medical condition while in hospital in Whitehorse.
The explosion happened at Eagle Rock when Phillip Murray showed a loaded gun to Edward Morgan, who accidentally discharged the gun into the load of blasting powder stored on deck. Morgan was killed instantly. Following the ensuing explosion and fire, the captain grounded the ship on shore and those uninjured or killed by the blast jumped ashore.

The explosion blew out the sides of the vessel, scattered men and cargo in the water, and in less than five minutes had involved the whole inside of the ship in a mass of seething flame.

The crew had no provisions and no way to easily go for help. The closest telegraph office was thirty miles away at Tantalus. A party of three set out on foot but they were overtaken by Captain Williams and Engineer Mavis in a canoe they had borrowed from a woodcutter.

Arriving at Tantalus after midnight, they woke up the telegraph operator who sent out a message about the disaster with no response—all the other operators were asleep. The first to receive the message, at 9:00 a.m. on September 26, was at Whitehorse. The first ship to arrive at the scene of the explosion was the sternwheeler Victorian, arriving at 7:00 p.m. Captain Williams had returned that morning to find that Carl Christianson and John Woods had died during the night. Phillip Murray died shortly after being carried aboard the Victorian.

Another sternwheeler, the Dawson, had been dispatched from Whitehorse with a doctor and nurses aboard. The Dawson had not received the news until 1:00 p.m. on September 26 and at 1:00 a.m. on September 27, the Dawson took the crew of the Columbian on board and returned to Whitehorse. Soon after, when Lionel Cadogan Cowper, the purser died in Whitehorse the death toll rose to six men.
The Whitehorse Star reported:
"Ernest E. Winstanley, the only survivor among seven victims of the explosion and fire on the steamer Columbian, which disaster occurred on the Yukon river on Tuesday, the 25th of September, is still at the general hospital at this place where, under the skillful treatment of J.P. Cade and careful nursing of the hospital corps, it is believed he will recover.
Winstanley displays wonderful fortitude and it is believed will be able to leave the hospital in another month or six weeks. His father Ernest Winstanley, arrived Sunday from Dawson and is spending much of his time at his son’s bedside.
The bodies of Mate Welsh and Fireman Morgan, who fell or jumped into the river after being horribly burned, have not yet been recovered."
Then the Weekly Star reported on October 12, 1906:
"Today at 11:30 an artery in Winstanley’s neck burst and this may tend to complicate his chances for recovery." Apparently they credited his long woolen underwear with keeping him from being burned over much of his body, but his face and hands were burned. He did survive and on September 31, 1906 he moved to Galiano in southern British Columbia where he was a farmer in the 1911 census.

Also lost was her cargo of 150 tons of vegetables and meat, and 21 head of cattle.
The disaster is described in "Fire on the Yukon" by Sam Holloway. A memorial to the victims was erected in the Whitehorse Cemetery by the employees of the British Yukon Navigation Company. The Columbian is seen above in better days in 1903.

Explore North; NWMP record; wikipedia; Dawson Daily News, September 26, 1906; Hougen group website; BC 1911 census online; Yukon Archives - Benjamin Craig's list of people leaving the Yukon.

Hazel Gertrude Batson

2011-09-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

Hazel was born in 1913 and grew up in Skagway. Her dad was a Councilman and a manager of the meat market. Today is her mother's birthday (see previous blog on Ellen Orr Batson). Hazel moved to Yakima, Washington where she married in 1944. Seen above with her friend John Weise in Skagway about 1918.

Wilbert Garfield Packard

2011-09-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

There are records of a total of 98 people that died on April 3, 1898. All but three died in the avalanche on the Chilkoot Pass.
Wilbert Garfield Packard of Riverside California, born on this day, September 20, 1881 also died on that terrible day, but he died, along with two other men, of spinal meningitis. His marker in the Dyea Slide Cemetery says he was 16 years and 8 months old, the beloved son of Charles and Emma Packard of Los Angeles.

Packard family site on Genforum.

Fred Cope

2011-09-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

On this day, September 19, 1897 two men died - one on each summit.
Fred Cope, the ex-mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia, drowned in Summit Lake which is just over the White Pass. He was buried on the shore there.
The election of Fred Cope in 1892 was the closest in Vancouver’s history, with a winning margin of 11 votes over his rival Dr. J.T. Carroll. Cope was the youngest mayor in Vancouver history, only 32 when elected.
The obituary at the Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver says this about him:
"During Fred Cope's mayoralty, Vancouver was experiencing its first economic slowdown and Mayor Cope's efforts were directed to limiting expenses. City staff were laid off and those remaining had pay cutbacks. The Canada-Australia Steam Line began servicing Vancouver because of Mayor Cope's efforts, with the first ship (RMS Minonuera) arriving in Vancouver June 8, 1893. He was elected mayor for two consecutive terms. Cope died while prospecting in Alaska during the gold rush. He fell from his horse while crossing a stream and drowned." His photo is above.

Meanwhile, in a letter by George Young, a goldrusher on the summit of the Chilkoot Pass, he stated: "An old man who had his goods as far as the summit of the pass went back to Skagway to get horse feed and died of heart disease. His wife was along, but she has turned back. This is the saddest thing that has occurred." -from George Young's letter Sept 19, 1897.

Obituary Met Vancouver newspaper Oct 2, 1897; Skagway death record; Victoria Colonist says he was buried in situ because of advanced decomposition; The Vancouver Sun online obituary.