Rev. Dickey was born in 1880 in Armagh Ireland. He was a Presbyterian minister who arrived in Skagway on October 9, 1897 from Winnipeg. Reverend Dickey established a church and hospital in Skagway, but had then turned it over to the American Episcopal Church, as the town was in US territory. Dickey preached the first Presbyterian service in Skagway on October 10, 1897 at Burkhart Hall.
Dickey quickly helped build a Union Church — involving the Episcopalian, Baptist, Native Christian Church, Methodist, and Presbyterian communities. He maintained friendly relations with the Catholics and Jews of the community, as well. He is also recognized for seeking trained nurses and other medical personnel for the local hospital. He set up a church at Lake Bennett where he caught typhoid. He persuaded Lady Aberdeen (Ishbel Maria Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, 15 March 1857 –18 April 1939 pictured above) to send some of her newly created Victorian Order of Nurses to Klondike in July 1898. He is quite famous in the area and stayed in the Yukon until his death, on this day, May 6, 1950 when he died at age 70 in Teslin perhaps.
Cohens book GR Gateway;Yukon geneo; Sinclair; Mills
A comment & a question.
The Rev. Dr. Robert McCahon Dickey was my paternal Grandfather.
He was born the son of Rev. Joseph Dickey in Ireland 1868 and died in Ontario in 1950.
He is buried in the “Burkholder United Church Cemetery” in Hamilton.
The gravestone reads: “IN LOVING MEMORY OF “JEANNIE ENGLISH DICKEY” ENTERED TO REST 21st MARCH 1939″ . . . . . “REV. ROBERT McCAHON DICKEY D.D.” 1868 1950″
i am in possession of a poster for “Ho for the Yukon” “Pioneering with the Gold Seekers of the Klondyke”
“ILLUSTRATED LECTURE” “by Rev. R. M. Dickey B.A. Associate Superintendent of Camp Education”
“AT CHRIST CHURCH, PARISH HALL, NIAGARA FALLS”
“On Tuesday, December 10th 1912, at 8p.m.”
“SEVENTY STEREOPTICON PICTURES” (Slides made from photographs taken during the Klondyke rush in 1897-98)”
“MISSIONARY AND HOSPITAL WORK”
The poster has quotes from “LORD ABERDEEN” and “REV. A. GILRAY, D.D.”.
Other “posters” for the same lecture exist for – “WEXFORD” (Ireland) “On Thursday EVG,. 12th APRIL, 1900”
The “SLIDES” used in these lectures exist.
In 1997 “GOLD FEVER” by “The Reverend Robert McCahon Dickey (1868-1950) Edited by Art Petersen” was published:
ISBN 0-9657938-0-X (pbk)
o-9657938-1-8 (cloth)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-67328
Patrick Dickey
(Oldest Grandson of Rev. Dickey’s family)
200 Ellesmeer Ave.
Kingston, ON K7P 3E7
epdickey@bell.net
This person is my Great Great Grandfather he had a kid named Cecil Robert Dickey and married someone named Dorothy Olive Emily Woods who had a kid named Susan Robert Dickey who then changed her name to Susan Bergkvist 🙂
CR Dickey and Dorothy had 3 children. Valerie June Dickey, Barry Rex dickey and Susan Ruth Dickey. Barry was killed age 5 being hit by a car in Calgary. I (Susan) only changed my name by marriage My son IBarry Gordon Robert Berg) and his wife Emma Lee are taking me on a cruise to Alaska and I hope to show them the references to Rev RM Dickey in Skagway.
Rev. Dickey was my grandfather. He left the Klondike in 1898 and in fact he never did return although his experience there informed the rest of his life. He was a prime mover in the creation of Frontier College, an organization that brought education to northern logging camps and mines. He lived in Hamilton for much of the rest of his life; married Jeannie English who also immigrated from Nothern Ireland; and raised two sons and two daughters, one of whom, Anna, wa s my mother.