On this day, September 15, 1908, John Healy died down south in either San Francisco or Seattle. Healy was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1840, emigrated to the U.S. in 1853 during the great famine. He married in New York in 1863.
He was once boss of a whiskey fort on the Montana-Canadian border w/ partner Dickson(the fort was burned by Indians). He was also sheriff of Cocteau County, Fort Benton Montana in 1880 (see census for kids and wife Mary).
He died a rich man according to Pierre Berton, having come to Dyea and establishing a trading post there with Wilson in 1886. The Healy and Wilson Trading Post lasted for many years in Dyea as there were stampeders before the big gold rush in 1897/98. In 1886 he had 16 stores in Alaska. He also served as U.S. Marshal in Dyea.
The town of Healy, a village on the Alaska railroad, a river flowing into the Tanana River, a rock on Admiralty Island and a locality near Yukon Kuskokwin Delta are all named for him.
He is buried in Seattle.
from: Healy; Greer; Hunt;Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography, Dan Thrapp; A descendent says there is a biography of him written by Edwin Tappen Adney. It is currently lodged in the Naval college in New Hampshire.