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Hattie Maria Corrin Lockwood Strong


And speaking of nurses:
Hattie Maria Corrin was born in South Coventry, Connecticut on this day, October 23, 1864. She was educated in private schools and enjoyed a comfortable existence until the business recession of 1877 and the death of her father a few years later drastically affected the family’s fortunes. The family moved in with relatives and Hattie contributed to their support by giving piano lessons.

She was married in 1888 to Lester B. Lockwood and moved with him to Tacoma in what was then the Territory of Washington. Her only child, Lester Corrin, was born there in 1892. In 1897 the marriage failed and she found herself alone with very limited financial resources and a young son to support.

The Alaska Gold Rush was in full swing and in casting about for some means of supporting herself and her son, she and a friend, a professional nurse, decided to establish a combination hospital-hotel in Skagway for sick and injured miners. The two women pooled their resources to purchase building materials and medical supplies. En route to Alaska they were shipwrecked in a blizzard outside Skagway, losing all their provisions and barely escaping with their lives. She supported herself for about three years in Skagway in a variety of jobs, including nurse, assistant to a physician and steamship ticket agent, until the rigors of the life in Skagway affected her health. She returned to Tacoma, where she found employment as the supervisor of a mens’ club. Further decline in her health forced her to move to a milder climate and she used the small savings she had accumulated for her son’s education to move to southern California.

While convalescing in California, she met and in 1905 married Henry Alvah Strong, co-founder and first president of what is now the Eastman Kodak Company. Mr. Strong, a widower twenty-five years her senior, legally adopted her son and the marriage was an unusually happy one until Mr. Strong’s death in 1919.

Having made the transition from a life of struggle and hardship to one of considerable luxury, Mrs. Strong dedicated the remainder of her life to helping others less fortunate than herself. The list of her charitable activities and honors is far too lengthy to include here but includes the establishment in 1927 of a retreat near Paris for face-wounded veterans of the French Army (for which she received the Legion of Honor), the establishment of the Hattie M. Strong Foundation in 1928, and gifts of various buildings to hospitals, educational institutions and social service agencies in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa. Today there is a Hattie Strong scholarship given to students in their final year of study for a Baccalaureate or Graduate degree.

This and similar stories of heroes and heroines of the Gold Rush make me wonder: were they heroes before they came up to Skagway or did Skagway and the experience here make them see the world for the challenges and possibilities? Certainly in Hattie’s case we see a woman who pitched and and made a difference in the world. Hats off to Hattie!

Hattie M. Strong Foundation site.

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Victorian Order of Nurses


One interesting story of the Klondyke is the expedition of four nurses from Ottawa. The Victoria Order of Nurses was started by Lady Ishbel Aberdeen, wife of the Governor General in Ottawa. She was heavily involved in the launching and further development of the VON for Canada. Lady Aberdeen had read with interest an appeal from Rev. Robert Dickey of Skagway, Alaska, in the Presbyterian periodical, The Westminster, calling for trained nurses to go to the Klondike. She sent Margaret Payson, Amy Scott, Georgia Powell and Rachel Hanna to Dawson. They were outfitted in “neat brown duck suits with bloomers and hobnail boots”. On May 14, 1898, two hundred men, six women and 60 tons of supplies embarked on the Islander for the Klondyke. They got off at Wrangell and went up the Stikine River the Cassiar Mountains and Fort Selkirk to Dawson. They were accompanied by Mrs. Cortlandt Starnes and Faith Fenton, a reporter.
Their work in Dawson and elsewhere is indescribable. Amy and Goergia left in 1900 and went to Africa to help in the Boer War, although Georgia returned to Dawson and married a mountie. Margaret stayed in Dawson and married a wealthy miner. Rachel also stayed on and then went to Atlin for 14 years.
The picture above shows 5 women onboard the ship in 1898. Faith Fenton is definitely the second from the right as I have several other photos of her that match.

The Right Way On by Olive; The Story of Klondike Nurses online.

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Capt. Francis H. Poindexter


Frank Poindexter was the Justice of the Peace in Chilkat between 1887-1891.
He was born in 1842 in Pennsylvania. He moved with his wife Anna and his son Theodore to Alameda, California in the 1870’s and was a bookkeeper there. Seeeking his fortune, he came to Alaska in 1887 with Theodore and worked as the Superintendent of the Chilkat Cannery (seen above where women are laying out nets). This cannery was reportedly blown down in 1891.
Poindexter was also Supt. of the Pyramind Harbor Packing company. The Pyramid Harbor cannery was on the western side of the Chilkat Inlet and was built in 1883 by the Northwest Trading Company. This cannery burned in 1889, but was rebuilt at once and a pack was made that year. This cannery packed 1000 cases of fish per day and in 1896 employed over 100 people in the cannery (many of whom were Chinese) and over 200 fishermen both native and newcomers. Cannery fishermen used large gill nets and some purse seines. A fleet of steamers, transport ships, lighters, riverboats, and skiffs were also used in cannery operations. The average redfish (sockeye) catch from 1894 to 1898 was 300,000 per year.

In 1890 Poindexter was appointed as Postmaster of Chilkat, Alaska.
Poindexter’s position as Justice of the Peace was cited several times in the Alaska Boundary Commission report in 1903 to help determine the occupation of the area by the U.S. during those years.

Francis Poindexter died in October 1898 in Los Angeles, California.

Juneau AK Free Press Jan 19 1887 to Mar 21 1891; California Death Index; 1880 census; Sheldon Museum website.

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Edward S. Orr


Born in Clarion County Pennsylvania in 1853, Edward was a handsome fellow, over 6 feet tall and generous according to Wickersham. In 1880, Ed was working as an iron worker in Wheeling West Virginia.
He moved to Tacoma in 1888 where he became engaged in real estate and then became mayor in 1894. He came to Skagway around 1897 and hauled freight over pass with William Tukey.
Ed Orr left Skagway with his wife for Dawson in 1900. Later he started the Ed S. Orr Stage Company in Fairbanks and got the US Mail contract between Valdez-Fairbanks.
It was reported in the New York Times that in November of 1902 in Dawson, he joined 400 others to take the oath to become Canadian citizens in order to vote in the election there.
He died in 1926 in Chehalis, Washington. There is not a record of what became of his wife who apparently according to Pennington was from Pasadena, California.

Pennington; familysearch; 1880 census; NPS web page; Klondike Stampeders Register page 268; Fairbanks news list; Wickersham papers.

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Ernest Williams


The “Skagway Kid” on October 19, 1901, fell off of a scow while working at the docks in Whitehorse, possibly during a seizure. His body was recovered in May 1902 and buried in Whitehorse.

Explorenorth; Juneau genweb; Report of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police 1902.

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Frank Patrick Slavin


“Paddy” Slavin was a famous pugilist in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
Born in 1862 in Maitland, NSW Australia, he was the Heavyweight Champion of Australia at one time hence his nickname the “Sydney Cornstalk”.
Slavin was a rushing, moving, boxer-puncher with skill and an extremely hard punch in either hand. He was much like Jack Dempsey, the heavyweight champion, in his skills, ability to take punishment, and killer-instinct. He came to the Klondike in 1898 and fought in matches until 1902 in Dawson and the Klondike. The New York Times of June 18, 1899 reported that he and his partner (Joe Boyle) had 37 placer claims in the Klondike. It also stated that he had gotten $100,000 in investment money to mine. He was also a “Commissioner for affidavits” in Whitehorse in 1908. Here is a letter he wrote to a friend in 1908:
“…Now old pal I am sending by this mail a couple of papers of our little town, and in the first noted you will see I am still on the track and can make they boys go a bit. I won the two mile walk in the snow here at our winter sports. I can still do my two miles in 18 minutes – not so bad for an old “has been,” though he was one of the smartest of the old bunch. Not a pound of surplus flesh on me. We are going to have a great country here in the Yukon Territory, Canada. The population of the territory is made up of people from all parts of t he world, and there is a very strong percentage of kangaroos and New Zealanders. Dawson City is 350 miles further down the Yukon River and north of this we have good sport-horse racing and cricket, base-ball, curling and skating and hockey matches. I had the privilege of being the first starter in this territory. I started the first horse race in this part of Canada and the farthest north in the world and on that part of the glorious Empire which the sun never sets on in 1898.
My son Frank is quite a good lad with the gloves. He is now 16 years old and I have apprenticed him to the engineering. He has now put in a year. He is a very big boy for his age 5ft 10 in high and weighing 142 lb and can go some but I will not let him go out of the amateur ranks. I have two girls, one 14 years and one 18 months – a native daughter.” Letter published in the New Zealand Truth, Issue 143, 14 March 1908 page 8.
He signed up for WW1 in Canada but because of his age was turned down. He then enlisted in the Western Scottish Battalion and worked first in recruiting, but then fought in Europe, suffering from shell-shock in 1917 after 57 days in the trenches.

Frank Slavin lived in obscurity until his death on October 17, 1929 in Vancouver BC.

New Zealand “paperspast” website; Wikipedia; Nytimes article-8/22/1897; 1901 Dawson Census online

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Thomas Christmas Riggs Jr.


Happy Birthday to Thomas Riggs, third governor of Alaska. Riggs was born on this day, October 17, in 1873 in Ilchester, Maryland. He attended good schools and graduated from Princeton in civil engineering in 1894. The Riggs family moved to Washington state and was involved in the lumber business. Thomas came to Skagway in 1897, joined the Arctic Brotherhood, was a U.S. Surveyor, and owned the Dyea Lumber Company. Hmmm, no conflict of interest there.

He then unseccessfully prospected for gold in Dawson and Nome before heading south to Idaho. He found politics more rewarding presumably and was appointed to the U.S. Boundary Commission in 1903 and soon become the United States Engineer-in-Charge. During this effort, his team surveyed the United States-Canada boundary from the Pacific to Arctic Oceans, placed boundary markers, and cleared wooded areas to provide a clear line of sight between markers. (What became of the lumber I wonder?)

After that, President Wilson appointed him to the Alaska Railroad Commission during which time he oversaw the building the Alaska Railroad. President Wilson then appointed him the third Governor of Alaska in 1918.
During his governorship he saw the 1918 flu epidemic arrive in Alaska and made efforts to stop it, but to no avail. The flu wiped out entire villages and left hundreds of native orphans.
When Harding was elected President, Riggs left the governorship and Governor Bone was appointed. Riggs then left Alaska and moved to New York and finally Washington D.C. where he died in 1945 at the age of 72.

Wikipedia; NPS records; WW1 Registration; 1909 Arctic Brotherhood membership book.  Below is a picture of him in Dyea (picture from an ebay posting)

Riggs in Dyea

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Mary Wheeler Bagg Clemenger


Mary Wheeler Bagg was born in October 1857 in Ohio. She and her husband came to Skagway in 1898 from St. Paul Minnesota. Mary was a music teacher.
Her husband Matthew B. Clemenger owned the Arctic Brotherhood Hall, was the President of the Home Power Company, managed the Dewey Hotel and was an assistant Postmaster in 1900.
Their names in the online 1900 census are incorrectly transcribed as Clemens.
She died on this day, October 15, 1902 of heart failure at the age of 45 and was buried in the gold Rush Cemetery. Oddly her headstone says she was 40. Perhaps her husband did not know how old she really was.

1900 census;1902 directory; Skagway Death record

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Edwin Tappan Adney


Tappan Adney was born in 1868 in Athens, Ohio. He came to Skagway in 1897 as a correspondent, photographer and did sketches for Harpers Weekly. He used a 5X7 long-lens Premo camera.
He was one of the first photojournalists to pass safely through British Columbia. As a writer for Harper’s Weekly, he was sent with his camera to the Yukon from 1897 to 1898. His classic illustrated book concerns his experiences in the Yukon, of which numerous editions have been printed. He returned to Alaska to briefly report on the Nome Gold Rush in 1900.

He retired first to Montreal, then to New Brunswick, the place where his wife was born.
His famous book, the “Klondike Stampede” was published in 1899, by Harpers. It was dedicated to “The Noble Hardy Pioneers of the Yukon, this little account of some trouble they have caused”.

He died on October 10, 1950 in Woodstock, New Brunswick at the age of 82.

Klondike Stampede online; Wikipedia, Yukon-news.

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Stanley and Annie McLellan


I was going through some old files today and happened onto a note from the sister of Stanley Alexander McLelland and his wife Annie Lettice Sterling McLellan.
This 1988 note was from Hazel M. Swan of Nelson, B.C. who was looking for information on the deaths of her brother and his new wife (they had married in 1909 in Atlin, B.C.)
I did a little research and found that they died in an avalanche in 1911, and by coincidence on October 5.
“The small Ben-My-Chree mine [on Lake Atlin] employed crews of between 10 and 60 men. Stanley and Anne McLellan lived in a small stone house high in the mountains and close to the mine, which was 5,000 feet above lake level. On October 5, 1911, tragedy struck. From 500 feet above them, from the crest of a hanging glacier 500 feet, an avalanche roared down and buried the Ben-My-Chree mine. The McLellans, who were peeling potatoes in their house, were killed instantly. The couple were then buried at Atlin.”
The mine was closed for good, but the Partridges opened a small hotel there which was very popular in the 20’s and 30’s. Today the only way to get there is by boat or floatplane.

Skagway city records; Atlinhistory.com