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Fenton Blakemore Whiting


Dr. Whiting is not to be confused with Superintendent Whiting of White Pass. Dr. Whiting worked for White Pass also, and was assistant to Mike Heney. He had a Saloon also, on the side.
He helped to quell the workers strike in 1898 by hitting White on the head with a shovel (see blog on John Robert White from October 13, 2009) and he helped in the autopsy of Soapy Smith (see blog on Sept 16, 2010 on Dr. Cornelius).
Fenton was born in 1866 in Quincy, Plumas County, California. He attended Stanford University and graduated in 1891. He died on this day, January 16, 1936 in Richmond Beach, Seattle, Washington. A descendent pointed out that the line drawing above is not Dr. Whiting, but his father, also named Fenton Whiting.

In 1933 he wrote: Grit, Grief and Gold: A true narrative of an Alaska Pathfinder. (Peacock Pub. Seattle); 1900 census; familysearch; Plumas County history online.

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Father Pascal Tosi


Pascal Tosi was born on April 25, 1837 in Santarcangelo di Romagna, Italy. He was one of the first two Jesuits missionaries to set foot in Alaska. As the first Superior of Jesuits in Alaska (from 1886 to 1897) he is regarded as the founder and organizer of the Church in North-Alaska.

Ordained a (diocesan) priest in 1861, Tosi entered the Jesuits the following year in order to be sent to the ‘American mission’. In 1865 he arrived in the United States to serve on the Rocky Mountain Mission. For two decades he proved to be an able missionary to the Indigenous Peoples of the American Northwest.

When in 1886 Archbishop Charles John Seghers set out for northern Alaska on what was meant to be a reconnaissance expedition, he had with him as travelling companions Pascal Tosi and French Jesuit, Louis Robaut. The two were supposed to stay with the archbishop only on a temporary basis. The Jesuits had no intentions at the time of opening a new field of missionary activity in Alaska. However, the murder of Archbishop Seghers (November 1886) changed the situation, and their thinking on the matter. (see my earlier blog on Bishop Seghers)

Tosi and Robaut spent the winter of 1886-87 in Canada at the confluence of the Yukon and Stewart Rivers. When in early 1887, upon entering Alaska, they learned of the death of Archbishop Seghers, Tosi considered himself to be in charge, at least for the time being, of ecclesiastical affairs in Alaska. The following summer he made a trip to the Pacific Northwest to consult with the Superior of the Rocky Mountain Mission, Joseph M. Cataldo, who formally appointed him Superior of the Alaska Mission and entrusted him with the task of developing that mission.

In 1892, he made a trip to Rome. There Pope Leo XIII, moved by Fr. Tosi’s account of the state of the mission in Alaska, told him in their native Italian, Andate, fate voi da papa in quelle regione! (“Go and make yourself the Pope in those regions!”).

On July 27, 1894, the Holy See separated Alaska from the Diocese of Vancouver Island and made it a Prefecture Apostolic with Tosi as its Apostolic Prefect.

By 1897, Tosi was physically worn out by a tough daily life and strenuous labors in an extreme climate. He was succeeded both as Superior of the Alaska Mission and as Prefect Apostolic in March of that year by French Jesuit Jean-Baptiste René (1841-1916). From St. Michael, on September 13, 1897, Tosi sailed, reluctantly, for he hoped to stay on in northern Alaska, for what turned out to be a brief retirement in Juneau. As the ship left the harbor, a salute of four guns was ordered as a manifestation of the universal esteem in which he was held.

Tosi died in Juneau on this day, January 14, 1898 and is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery under the false name of Father Tozier.

Wikipedia; LLORENTE, S. Jesuits in Alaska, Portland, 1969;TESTORE, C.Nella terra del sole a mezzanotte. La fondazione delle missione di Alaska. P. Pasquale Tosi S.J., Venice, 1935; ZAVATTI, S., Missionario ed esploratore nell’Alaska: Padre Pasquale Tosi, S.I., Milan, 1950.; Newadvent.com

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William Gardner Gabie


Happy Birthday to Dr. William Gabie, born on this day, January 12, 1878 in Kazabazua, Ontario, Canada. He attended McGill University in Montreal and graduated in 1907. In 1909 he received his medical certificate from Alaska and by 1915 was the Superintendent of the White Pass Hospital.

He and his wife Luella moved to Washington in 1920 where he applied for a certificate there. Luella was from North Dakota and I found a reference to a Dr. Gabie delivering lots of babies in New Salem, ND in the 1930’s, but not sure about whether it is the same doctor. In any event, he passed away in 1936 in Seattle at the age of 57. Seen above is the old White Pass Hospital.
Happy New Decade!

1910 census, 1915 directory; family website; WW1 Registration; WA death record; medical license at WA records.

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Fusao or Furas Toyozumi or Tayozumi


Fusao, known as Joseph, was a cook at the Pullen House restaurant and Inn between 1910 and 1915 perhaps longer. In 1915 he registered for the draft for World War One. There is no record for him after that.
He was born on this day, December 17, 1887 in Kumamoto, Kyushu, Japan. This city is famous for Kawagoe Castle where 21 lords from various clans, all closely allied with the Tokugawa Shogun, resided during the Edo Period. The fuedal age ended in 1868 (remember Tom Cruise in The Last Shogun?). The shrine above is the Toyozumi Shrine in Japan built over a thousand years ago.
So Fusao was born twenty years after that, but emigrated to the U.S. in 1906. There were a number of other Japanese immigrants in Skagway in 1910, some worked in the jewelery trade.

1910 census, WW1 registration for Skagway, Alaska.
This is my last blog for 2010, I will return in January. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas Meli Kalikimaka

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Della Murray Banks


In January 1945 Della Murray Banks wrote an article in the Alaska Sportsman Magazine about her work on the Dalton Trail. She and her husband Austin Banks had made previous trips to the Chilkat area – in 1896 she was burned at Cook Inlet and lost two fingers on her left hand.
Back in Seattle, in 1898, they were hired by Denison Tucker and the infamous Homer Pennock to lead them to the Klondike on the Dalton Trail. Early on Mrs. Tucker and her sister Mrs. Hutchins decided to stay behind in Seattle so that they would not get their feet wet. (They also could not cook or eat off of tin plates).
In July 1898 the party of about 10 people arrived in Skagway to see the town under martial law following Soapy’s death and subsequent goings-on. Della and her husband went over to Pyramid Harbor to stay instead. They found the English proprietor of the hotel celebrating the Santiago victory. Tucker hired two packers, Jack Noon and Tom McAvoy (who died on today’s date, December 16, 1918).
They used a couple of horses, Polly and “Swift”. They found a mule bit for the horse along the way, and near the summit of the Chilkat Pass, they traded that for a regular bridle found hanging in a tree. By the time they arrived at Dalton Post, Della was riding on a fine saddle and with good bridle, both acquired from the dead animals they passed along the way!
Della cooked on the trip and they paid her $50 a month. In the photo above she is cooking supper, as she puts it, “for our famished outfit. Each meal required ninety biscuits, which I could bake fifteen at a time in our sheet-iron stove. My knees became calloused from kneeling on the rough ground, kneading dough and making biscuits. Conveniences? There were none.”
Would you do this for $50 a month?

Apparently she did not even get that, as the consummate con man, Homer Pennock swindled Mr. & Mrs. Banks. The town of Homer was named by Della Murray Banks, (the first white woman in Homer) before she realized that she and her husband had been swindled. The name stuck, but Della and Austin did not stick around.

collection of her letters are at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley; The Homer Spit, Coal, Gold and Con Men, was
written by Janet Klein, and published in 1996

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Winter Shipwreck


“On December 8th [1900] the Str. “City of Topeka” struck on the rocks at the south end of Sullivan Island, Lynn Canal, and her passengers and crew were fortunate enough to reach the shore with enough equipment to make a camp in the midst of the storm that was howling down the Chilcat Inlet.” (about 25 miles south of Skagway)

In 1890 the Steamer “City of Topeka” brought 3655 tons of coal to Alaska from Nanaimo BC. It is seen above, on the right, at Muir Glacier in 1895 when it was bringing tourists to Alaska on cruises. I wonder if they got their towels folded into little animals in their staterooms?

There is another rock down near Wrangell call “City of Topeka Rock” which might have been another spot that this poor ship went aground, but I cannot find information on that.

First quote is “Marine Disasters of the Alaska Route” – excerpt regarding wrecks in Lynn Canal, written by C.L. Andrews as a plea for the government to install safeguards in the Lynn Canal. published by the Washington Historical Quarterly 1916.

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Fred and Clara Patten


Fred Patten was born in Nebraska in 1873 and Clara was from Wisconsin. They met and married in Auburn, Washington and had a daughter there in 1900. They had moved here to Skagway around that time. Sadly, Clara died on this day, December 14, 1905 of blood poisoning and is buried in the Gold Rush Cemetery.
Fred stayed on and made a partnership with Chris Shea as carpenter and contractor. Together they wrote a book called “The Soapy Smith Tragedy” in 1907. (If you can find this book, it is worth quite a bit now.)
By 1907-1908, Skagway’s glory days as a gold rush boomtown had passed. Vacant buildings, derelict shacks and debris were visible everywhere. One visitor described Skagway as “the scrap-heap of creation.”
In an attempt to revitalize the town, Fred and Chris led a drive to centralize the town’s business district on Broadway. In 1908, Shea and Patten purchased two barracks, sawed the longer one in half, and moved all three to their present location on Broadway. The two halves were remodeled with a new false front to make up the Pack Train Inn and the Trail Saloon. By 1910 they had both moved on.
The building currently houses a fur store and a diamond store in the summer and says “U-Ah-to-no” on the side.

Washington records online; 1880 and 1900 census; Skagway death record

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Allen Wayne Dennis


Allen was born in 1949 probably in this area and worked for White Pass. On this day, December 13, 1969, he was hit by a Casey Car on the railroad and killed. He is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery.

Pictured above is a Casey Car in Carcross. These small cars are used by the Maintenance of the Railroad workers every day. The workers take these cars up the tracks early each morning in the summer to check the tracks to make sure there has not been a rock fall or other damage to the tracks.

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Mary Matilda Moore Kearns


Mary was the daughter of Skagway’s Police Chief in 1907. She was born either in 1882 or 1885. On this sad day, December 11, 1907 three days after giving birth, she died and left behind two newborn twin baby girls: Mary Matilda and Matilda T. Kearns. Her parents, Charles and Matilda Moore brought the girls up. Her daughter Mary M. lived to be 90 and died in Spokane in 1997.
Mary Matilda Moore Kearns is buried in the Gold Rush Cemetery.
The photo above is from 1911 but is not of Mary and Matilda, just a couple of twin girls with a Buick Speedster somewhere else, but is a good depiction of the time.

1910 census; Skagway death record

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The old city hall building


Unbelievably this building is still standing and I walk by it each night on the way home. It is falling apart and it is a shame that the city or the park service doesn’t buy it.