Stories and Folklore from Skagway, Alaska
Walter H. Ferguson designed the logo for the Arctic Brotherhood around 1903. It was a gold pan with the letters AB inside. Because of the historic cooperation between the U.S. and Canada it had both flags, and in other versions had two hands shaking.
J.W. Nees came to Alaska from Tacoma and started the J.W. Nee’s Hotel and Store in Sheep Camp on the Chilkoot Trail in 1898. He died on this day April 5, 1920 in Alaska.
Seen above is his store at Sheep Camp.
Lundberg; Yukon site; Fairbanks news list
Herman was born in 1865 in Denmark. He ran the Seattle Saloon on the northwest corner of 6th and State Street known as “the Gentleman’s Saloon”. Grimm stood for no nonsense. “No women, no gambling, no trouble,” was his motto. On January 22, 1904, when Army deserter Jeff Halloway, “a drunken roysterer (sic)” and “flourishing a revolver,” caused some trouble at the Seattle, Herman personally ushered him out the back door. He also owned the Pack Train Bar.
Grimm built a house in 1898 at the northwest corner of 6th Avenue and Alaska (or Holly and Ivy on original street maps). The present owner has been remodeling and meticulously restoring it over the past 9 years. It features a “widow’s walk,” hipped roof, bay windows, gable roof dormers, and barge boards over the porch. Past additions to the rear and a rock fireplace have been removed, and the house was raised. Property records show that the property sold for $150 in 1898. In 1902 he had a garden, 50 feet by 100 feet where he raised strawberries, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, carrots, celery, parsley, peas, beans, lettuce, spinach, rhubarb and potatoes. He also had cherry and apple trees. The garden was one of the federal government’s experimental stations. Seen above is his neighbor’s garden with the Grimm house in the back.
Herman Grimm died on this day, March 30, 1928 and is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery.
1900 census;1902 directory;1905 directory; 1915 directory;1910 census; Skagway death record. U.S. Congressional report of the Office of Experiment Stations, issue 4425, 1902.
William Wood was born in 1858 in Marin, California to Canadian parents from Ontario. William became an attorney, land speculator, electric trolley line president, and Seattle mayor. He was a conspicuous figure in the business and political life of Seattle for more than a quarter century and was the key original developer of the Green Lake neighborhood.
He served as mayor of Seattle from April 1896 to July 1897 when the Klondike Gold Rush supplied him with an opportunity more golden: providing steam passage from San Francisco and Seattle to Alaska. I have often heard people cite him as one of the many people who dropped everything and headed for the Klondike to seek their fortunes, but actually he was a savvy businessman who capitalized on the transportation needs of the gold rush.
William Wood died on this day, March 23, 1917 in Seattle of an intestinal ailment.
History of Seattle online; nps.gov; University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Washington State Biography Pamphlet file; Men of the Pacific Coast (San Francisco: Pacific Art Co., 1903), 479; UW Libraries, Special Collections, Struve Scrapbook, Vol. 1, p. 24; 1880 census in California.
Mr. Wooland was born on this day, March 20, 1847 in Norway. He came to Skagway from Leadville, Colorado and was a tailor by profession. He was a City Councilman in 1903 to 1904 and was a member of the Elks. In 1905 he moved to Juneau and died there in 1933.
Seen above are a couple of fashionable 1904 suits.
1900 census under Holland;1902 directory; family chronicles; Skagway Museum Record; Pennington.
Ernest R. Cheadle was born in 1860 in Albany Oregon. In 1880 he was working as a laborer in El Cajon, California.
Married Melinda Julia Hearn in 1889 in Sacramento, California and had two kids, Ernest Jr. and Bessie. He and Melinda Julia divorced in 1896 in San Francisco.
He came to Alaska and built the Cheadle Hotel and Restaurant in Dyea in 1898. He was also appointed the Dyea U.S. Marshal from June 10, 1898 to November 29, 1898.
Although he was living in Dyea, Alaska, he went to Seattle on February 2, 1899 and married Nellie Ada Hewitt. She presumably died because he then married Sylvia Jurinda Smith, a Swedish gal from Utah on November 2, 1903 and had two more kids. In 1910 he was living in Seattle, Washington with his 4 kids and Sylvia and working as a real estate person. Ernest Cheadle died on June 8, 1921 in Seattle, Washington.
Pictured above is another cozy hotel in Sheep Camp.
S.F. Call online; Washington State Records; Skagway Museum record; Rootsweb for King family;
Although little is known about the O’Connor & Utter outfitters of Dyea in 1898, there is a chance that the Utter might have been Charlie Utter of Deadwood fame.
He was born in about 1838 in New York and his death is unknown. After Wild Bill Hitchcock died in Deadwood in 1876 Charlie went to Colorado and then back to Deadwood for a time. He went to Leadville, Durango and then New Mexico where his trail disappears in the 1880’s.
Utter worked as an trapper, guide, prospector and saloon owner. To someone like Utter, the Klondike would have been irresistible so it is my humble opinion that he was here. There was a Charles Utter who worked as a prospector in Juneau in 1903 and later he worked as a bartender in Nome in 1907 to 1910.
Utter’s biographer, Agnes Wright Spring, traced Utter to Panama in the early 1900s. Now blind he owned drugstores in Panama City and Colón. The last record of him was in 1913 down there where he reportedly had a family. Seen above is the actor who portrayed him in the series “Deadwood”.
Anton Vogee photo of outfitters; Penningham p 437; Fairbanks newspaper notes 1903, 1907, 1909-1910
John Nordstrom was born on this day, February 15, 1871 in Alvik Neder Lulea, Sweden.
According to some sources he “found $13,000 in gold in Skagway” and so, being a good Swede and a businessman, he went south and started a store. That store is now very famous and has a reputation for being very helpful and courteous. I find I cannot walk through it without having at least a couple of helpful ladies ask if they can help me find anything. Jag älskar Nordstrom’s!
Anyway, John left Skagway about 1899 and was in the Yukon in 1901. He died in 1963 at the age of 92. Vad en lyckosam guy!
Wikipedia
John Killmore was born on this day, February 3, 1873 in Missouri. In 1898 he joined the throngs coming to Dyea where he ran a freighting business from Dyea to Sheep Camp for 4 months. He was successful for a short time, but as business waned he sold his outfit and returned to the Kittitas area of Washington. He married Kate, settled in Ellensburg and farmed until his death in 1959 at the age of 86. Seen above is the farm area in that part of Washington – maybe I’ll retire there too!
Ancestry bio from 1904; Washington state records
Happy Birthday to Cleaves Rockenfield born on this day, January 19, 1843 in Cincinnati Ohio. He served in the 77th Illinois Infantry, Company I during the Civil War. He enlisted at Elmwood on August 15, 1862 and was mustered out July 10, 1865. He served with his brother (?), Scott H. Rockenfield. They marched to Kentucky, Louisiana and Vicksburg. (There is an extensive narrative of their time at 77illinois.homestead.com)
After the war he returned to Ohio and married Sarah Rees in 1869 and it appears through the census records that many of the Rockenfields then moved to Oregon. They were storekeepers, as was Cleaves, in 1900 in Skagway. Sarah was not here for the census in 1900, perhaps she went back to Oregon.
Above is a picture of the house they built in 1883 in Salem, if I had a house like that I would have moved back down to Salem too.
It was on the northeast corner of Court and Summer Streets. In 1937, two years after the State House burned in Salem, the state purchased the houses on Summer and Court Streets and moved the Rockenfield House to 755 Capitol Street to make room for the garden and State Library. In 1991, during the expansion of the Capitol Mall, the Rockenfield House moved again to its present location on the riverfront. The Village acquired the Rockenfield House in 1990. In 1992, the house opened to the public as part of A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village.
The Rockenfields both died in Portland, Cleaves in 1907 and Sarah in 1917 and are buried in the Salem Pioneer Cemetery.
1900 census; civil war pension list online; rootsweb.