Jefferson “Red” Saling

Jeff Saling was born on this day, September 1, 1845 in Missouri. He came from Idaho with his two cousins Erwin Mickey and Wiley Anderson to Skagway. However the avalanche of April 3rd 1898 caught Jeff and he was one of the victims buried in the Slide Cemetery in Dyea.

Over the past 113 years, some of the headboards may have been replaced, but in any event, the headboard is wrong according to one descendant. It reads Jeff Saley from Weiser, Idaho but should instead read Jefferson Saling from Mann Creek Idaho. It would seem that his cousins would have given his home town since they were here, it is unlikely that someone here in 1898 would have come up with a name like Weiser.

The spelling of Saling could have morphed due to the lack of upkeep on the headboard.

So here is a perfect example of how unreliable wooden headboards are.

I have often thought that the descendants should be the keepers of their ancestors’ graves and markers. For the municipality to replace all 700 grave markers in the Gold Rush, Pioneer, and Slide Cemetery would be an expensive and difficult process. Fortunately, the descendant is considering making a new headboard as Marshal Rowan’s great granddaughter did last summer. She replaced it with a beautiful and completely appropriate marble marker which the city workers installed.

Seen above is the current marker.

Sam Bonnifield

Sam Bonnifield was born in August 1845 in Ohio. He was perhaps a sea captain on the Steamer Humboldt and came to Alaska as early as 1888.

Sam Bonnifield was a professional gambler and saloon owner who followed the gold from Skagway to Dawson City to Fairbanks in the early 1900’s. It is said he won the Yukonia Hotel and then lost it in one night. He and his brother moved to Fairbanks and opened the First National Bank, which shipped out $3 million in gold dust before the depression hit. Bonnifield was known as “Square Sam” and “Silent Sam” because he treated people fairly. He took the near failure of his bank very hard. He became despondent and suffered a “nervous breakdown”, kneeling in the snow in front of his bank crying, ”O God! Please show me the way out.”

In August 1910, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner noted that Sam Bonnifield arrived in town after walking the Valdez Trail. He spent a year recovering on the family farm in Kansas. The newspaper celebrated his return by saying, “No man ever lived in the North who has more real friends than has Sam Bonnifield, and the entire community will be glad to have him here once again.” In October 1911, the Alaska Citizen ran the headline “Sam Bonnifield is Insane Once More.”

“Sam Bonnifield was taken into custody by the Marshall’s office on Wednesday last on the charge of insanity, and placed in the federal jail. He has been unbalanced for some time, but his condition only became very noticeable the day of his arrest.

Bonnifield has never entirely recovered from the mental breakdown occasioned three or four years ago when the First National Bank, of which he was president, went on a script basis. He was taken Outside for treatment at the time of his breakdown and later walked into Fairbanks over the trail.

A few days before his arrest he drew quite a sum of money from the bank and distributed a part of it among the laborers around town; the balance he carried across the river and played with it in the sand.

When arrested he violently talked about President Taft, Cardinal Gibbon and other of prominence, saying that money is their god.”

Sam Bonnifield was found to be “insane” by a jury of six men and taken to Portland. He was admitted to Morningside Hospital on December 23, 1911, where he stayed until June 26, 1914. A few months after his discharge, he received a letter from Dr. Henry Waldo Coe, the head of Morningside Hospital, verifying that he was “recovered”. Dr. Coe went on to give him the following advice:

“All that I can ask of you is that you do not take life too earnestly or strenuously. As I understand it, you are not compelled to do two men’s work. You have worked hard and are entitled to an easier time. Take an easy time.”

Not much is known about Sam’s life after his stay at Morningside. He died in 1943 in Seattle from being hit by an automobile.

1900; P. Berton p 121, 423; The Mysterious North; Gates p124; Morningside Hospital website.

Duped!


Ok, two more good citizens duped into investing hundreds of dollars in the “Evanston Klondike Gold Mining Company”. The so called promoter convinced both George B. Winter Jr., a successful grocer and Dr. Josiah Jones, a physician and surgeon, both of Evanston Illinois to give him the money up front to purchase supplies and set up camp for them. He was also supposed to help them stake gold claims. When they arrived in Alaska, the promoter and their money was no where to be found. Shocking!
Seen above is their camp at Sheep Camp.

BL Singley photo of 1898 Univ of Fairbanks; Evanston directory 1897

Maoris


Once again I return to Maori sagas. In the diaries of William Hiscock, a New Zealander in 1898, he traveled with two Maoris on the trail. He later met up with them near Dawson and this little story:
“Coming back we called in to see the Maoris and found they were not doing too well. They were about two miles outside Dawson. Both of them had scurvy. They had built a nice cosy cabin, in appearance outside it was like an old-fashioned beehive. As so many cabins were being built logs soon became scarce and people had to go longer distances to get them, so the Maoris used willow sticks. They peeled the bark off them, and being only about one and a half inches thick they made the cabin round, about twelve or sixteen feet diameter at the base and brought them all to a point at the top. As there were plenty of will sticks at hand they placed them close together. The outside was first covered with a thickness of moss of which there was an abundance, and on that was placed a good thickness of turf and dirt. A nice porch over the door opening and the usual Maori figurehead on the porch finished it. It looked very nice inside. these two Maoris had a very hard time knowing nothing about mining and they suffered from the intense cold. They stayed in their cabin and with the plainest of food and lack of exercise they soon had scurvy nor did it leave them until spring came. They eventually got a passage on one of the steam river boats that came up the river from St. Michaels and then worked their way back to New Zealand.”
The only name he gave for one was “Bob the Maori”. So, looking at the records of the NWMP at the time of their crossing, there was a Robert Doe, a R. Kibblewhite, a R. Hisk and a R. Gane all from New Zealand. Kibblewhite and his traveling companion, C.V. Ledebur were both from Drury New Zealand which was a Maori community. So, by process of deduction, it might be them. Seen above is an African traditional twig beehive house which probably resembled the cabin that the Maoris built in Dawson.

Albert Kinaston


Albert was born in Roxburgh, Otago, New Zealand in 1875. He paid his 20 pounds for passage and boarded the S.S. Monowai in January 1896 in New Zealand heading for San Francicso. From there he went to Alaska and on to Dawson. Though only 21, he was a blacksmith. Shortly after arriving in Dawson he fell ill with a fever, possibly spinal meningitis or typhoid and died. His friend, William Hiscock wrote in his diary that when he inquired after him with the local police they could not find a record, but he ran into a mate of Albert’s who showed Hiscock the grave and the headboard in the snow. This account is from the book “A Kiwi in the Klondike, A New Zealander’s Quest for Gold” published by his granddaughter, now 103 years old. Her daughter just gave me this book yesterday, so I will bring you more New Zealand stories in the coming days!
Seen above is the S.S. Monowai.

Stella M. Hull, 242 Hull Rd, RD 2. Waiuku 2682, New Zealand.(copies available for $20 pp); immigrantships.net – an online listing of people onboard ships.

Homeward bound from hell and mosquitoes


A Sioux City man wrote back to Iowa about his experiences in the North in November 1899. As he was leaving Atlin, he said he saw a tree with a piece of paper that said simply “Homeward bound from hell and mosquitoes”.
He also related that quite alot of building was going on in Skagway and that in fact there was a shortage of carpenters. He said the permanent growth of the town was wonderful and where last winter he had seen half of the residents living in tents, there was hardly a tent to be seen in the winter of 1899-1900. He said there were lovely residences and they were even building a college….
“The timber has been nearly all cut down, and many lots have been cleared of stumps and several streets graded. The town has a water system supplied by a lake high up the mountain. This furnishes natural pressure for fire protection. The town has an electric lighting plant, and a rival company is preparing to build a similar plant to compete and bring down the rates. There is an air of confidence and permanency about the town which is very gratifying and nearly everyone in business is making money.”

Dubuque Daily Herald, November 16, 1899.

Ropata Heketa Manihera


Ropata, son of a Maori chief, left his home and family in New Zealand to go to the Klondike. He was one of the group of Maori’s that several goldrushers encountered on the trail. His eloquent account to his wife appeared in the New Zealand newspaper soon after he wrote the letter on April 18, 1898.

Timaru Herald, Volume LX, Issue 2798, 30 August 1898 Page 3

A Maori’s Journey to Klondyke.
From Ropata H. Manihera, of the Papawai Pa, Wairarapa, writes as follows to his wife: Port Wrangell, Haines and Skagway April 1898.
“O, my Pine, greeting. Great is my love for you and the children. Our steamer reached this town on Tuesday. This is the place where we go to the interior. Our party numbers 150. Today we are busy packing our provisions on pack horses, and will finish the work to-morrow, and then make a start. One hundred horses are to do the work. At the summit they will be abandoned, it being too expensive to continue them to Lake Bennet. The charge to the summit is 4d a pound; to Lake Bennet, 8d. We can’t pay the latter, so we shall have to drag the sledges to the lake ourselves. There we must build boats.
“Pine, you can scarcely imagine the great expense of carriage of freight here. You pay the steamer, you pay Customs, you pay wharfage and the tax. Even now it has not stopped. It’s pay, pay, pay, all the time.
“The best plan is not to bring anything but to buy here . It would be less trouble. Goods get stolen. On our arrival here, we found many of our things had disappeared. The country is all frozen over, making the drawing of our sledges very much easier.
“Pine, lots of gold came to this place. Many pakehas have returned with fortunes. Others again, have made nothing. This is a great country – the greatest gold land in the world.
“People run short of food, and are obliged to come back to fetch more. Some run short of money, and cannot pay the taxes, and are obliged to give up. As gold is found close to this place, these are engaged digging round about here. Thought this field is not yet developed, yet the whole of both sides of the river has been pegged out.
“I can’t build a canoe here the trees being too low.
“We intend to go on until our destination at the gold land is reached, where I will write again to you. I am all right, my mates too, and do not mind the cold at nights. It is nice and warm in the daytime.
“the strength of the sun is 90 degrees and more. But the land is all wrapped in snow. A great number of women and children have gone on. Some of these went by road.
“It is all nonsense and talk by the newspapers in saying that Maoris won’t be able to stand the climate here. In my opinion the Maoris can bear the climate best.
“Scarcity of food is the only draw-back here. Why women and children survive here, most of whom are from Australia. The rivers are fortunately well stocked with fish; also there are plenty of ducks, geese, and other fowls.
“O Pine, greeting to you and your children and the people. Long life to you all, and me. Again I send greetings to you, O my Pine. We sailed from Vancouver on reaching this town today. This is a small town, Our steamer passed many small islands coming up.
“This a snow land. On our arrival we looked around on shore, where we found many women and children. This very day four of our shipmates were robbed of their money. This is a notorious place for murders, and very dangerous to be out at nights.
“There were murders just a little while before our arrival. Five mates on the march had a dispute on the road. They parted, two going one way and three the other. In the night, while they were asleep, they were attacked, killed, and robbed, their bodies being chopped up to bits with an axe.
“Some of our contingent have gone by the road leading from here to the goldfields, while the majority of us proceed on by the steamer to Skagway, and take that route. Our steamer leaves again for that place today, getting there some time to-night.
“That is a worse place. Many pakehas have lost their lives there. There’s no law here – you have too much there.
“On our way up we met two steamers full of people returning from there. Their advice is “Go Back; don’t go to the diggings; people going there must be very careful.’ They gave some awful accounts. I scarce know what I shall do on landing – whether to make for the fields and trust to fate, or what; and if death overtakes me, well there’s no help for it.
“O Pine, this my letter to you all, and my love. Take it and show it to the home folk at Papawai, that they may see it and my love.”

The portrait above is of Ropata’s father:
Te Manihera Te Rangi-taka-i-waho was a noted chief of Ngāti Kahukura-awhitia. He helped broker the first Pākehā settlers to the Wairarapa and went on to sign numerous land deals. He died at Papawai, near Greytown, in 1885.

Following the death of Manihera Rangitakaiwaho, his son, Ropata Heketa Manihera, his brother, Hoani Rangitakaiwaho, and Hoani Te Whatahoro Jury presented the portrait to the Government who gave it to the Dominion Museum.

Timaru Herald, August 30, 1898; Auckland Art Gallery.

Alexander Grey


Alexander Grey, known as Sandy, lived in New Westminster, British Columbia but was on his way to Atlin when he checked into the St. James Hotel. The St. James Hotel building is still standing and is directly behind the Hardware Store on 4th. Sandy Grey was born in 1858 in Ontario but had moved to B.C. by 1880. At the age of 41, he died of heart failure on this day, May 26, 1899 in Skagway. His brother George was in New Westminster but it was decided to bury him here in the Gold Rush Cemetery. The headstone, obviously replaced is wrong on two things, the spelling of his name and his age, both of which are from the census and death records. I don’t know what the little saying on the bottom says, I will have to go up and check it out.
Does his ghost still haunt the St. James? Ask one of the hardware employees.

Skagway death/coroners inquest record; 1880 BC census.

Shot at Lake Lindeman

There are several stories told of the shooting death of John Matthews. In one version his name is Frank Matthews, but the story is basically that while trying to move their load of supplies on Lake Lindeman, John and his father lost the load in the lake. After losing the load, he either accidently shot himself with a rifle or committed suicide. One version was that he was the former sheriff of Puyallup, but I could find no verification of that. John was born in 1872 in Idaho and had a wife named Jane and some babies. He died in May 1898 and is buried somewhere between Lindeman and Bennett.

Klondike Fever; “Every Trail has a story” by Henderson p 44; Mayer; “Two Years in the Klondike”.

Thin Ice


On this day, May 10, 1898, two men drowned near camp Cozy Cove, 14 miles north of the Lake Bennett camp. They were Luc Richard from Frenchtown, Montana and Thomas A. Barnes from Kansas, ages 38 and 35 respectively. It all started when four men started across Lake Bennett with a dog team, but the ice was thin and they broke through with their dogs. The bodies of the two victims were buried a few days later on an island. About a hundred and fifty men attended the “short and impressive” funeral service. “It was virtual suicide to venture out on the ice at such a time the way these boys did,” Ole J. Wold wrote in his diary on the day of the burial.

page 79 of Klondike Saga by Lokke.