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Harriet arrives in Skagway


Although we have covered Harriet Pullen before, it was on this day, September 8, 1897 that she arrived in Skagway full of hope for a new life. She left behind a bankrupt farm and four children to join her husband here to scratch out a living. Starting a restaurant in a tent and cooking meals, her husband ran a string of horses across White Pass. After earning enough money, she bought a log cabin and then sent for her boys to help her.
Soon after, she and her husband split and sold the packing business. She told people that she was a widow. She purchased a large frame house from Captain Moore and named it the Pullen House. All that is left today is the chimney, which is now more clearly seen since the city has cut down all the trees in the area in the past month. Nasty trees, who needs them?

from Alaska: Saga of a Born Land by Borneman

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Shipwreck


Another Canadian Pacific Railroad liner, the Princess Kathleen, grounded on Lena Point during a fierce squall and sank northwest of Juneau on this day, September 7, 1952.

Fortunately the over 400 passengers and crew were able to climb ashore with no loss of life. The massive ship now rests on her port side in around 80-140 feet of water. Like the Sophia, limited visibility and strong currents frequent the wreck site. Located relatively close to Juneau, the site is a popular recreational dive destination. Since the sinking, periodic fuel releases and oil sheens have been noted in the vicinity. The vessel sits at an angle on its port side at a depth ranging from 52 feet at the bow to 134 feet at the stern.

Recent inspection of the ship’s integrity showed it to be coming apart since the rivets have mostly disintegrated.

Small amounts of oil will still be released at the site, since dive crews could not scrub the ship clean. The leaks will result in small oil sheens on the surface, as had been observed before the work.

The cost to recover about 110,000 gallons of bunker oil from the ship has surpassed $10 million and likely will cost more than $12 million, U.S. Coast Guard officials said.

Federal funding to pay for the oil removal project will come from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, the emergency fund discussed as a source for cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico associated with BP’s oil rig explosion.

Project coordinators with the U.S. Coast Guard and state officials consider the Juneau project a major success. Removing the oil eliminates the potential for a large environmental disaster, Alaska On-Scene Spill Response Coordinator Scot Tiernan said.

The price tag also is worth it, U.S. Coast Guard Response Chief Cmndr. Kurt Clarke said.

Juneau Empire article from June 13, 2010.

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E. Leroy Pelletier


Mr. Pelletier came to Skagway from New York in 1897 to cover the Gold Rush. In addition to being a newspaperman, he was also a journalist. He was a man possessed of a small body, a large head, and nervous energy that was electrifying. As a newspaperman, he covered the Klondike stampede for The New York Times.
His dispatches to the Times, covering the period 1897 to 1900, provide enthralling reading: he narrated tales of precautions against starvation, delays due to selfishness, preventing a corner in supplies, smallpox comes to camp, getting ready for the greenhorns, pistols drawn many times, large loss of life and a murder, no time for legal trials. Sounds like an adventure movie.

Working for Henry Ford, first as a consulting engineer and later when it was obvious he was considerably more adept with words than machines, Pelletier worked as Ford’s private secretary and advertising manager.
He preferred the title “publicity engineer.” That he was. A brilliant intellect matched with a vivid imagination, he could think even faster than he could talk, and his conversation was routinely described as “rapid-fire.”

His September 5, 1938 Detroit obituary follows:
“E. Leroy Pelletier, 72, advertising manager for Henry Ford, died Sunday.
Pelletier was a former newspaperman who covered the Klondike Gold rush. He designed the first four-cylinder air-cooled automobile at the turn of the century and was president of the company which built his automobile the “Duquesne”.
Tales of Klondike veterans told how Pelletier, the energetic New York reporter, organized the “Jackson Money Exchange” and reputedly sold, through the agency, a third of the Klondike region.
Surviving Pelletier are his widow, Gertrude; 2 sons and a daughter; a brother Frank (Pelkey) of Vancouver,BC. Pelletier was a native of Houlton, Maine.”

In the fall of 1897 he founded the Yukon Telephone and Telegraph Company in Dawson w/big Alex McDonald.

photos from 1897-98: online from Tappan Adney; rootsweb; p206 The EMF co.book by Yanik

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George Herman Miller


Mr. Miller came to Skagway around 1912 and then worked for White Pass as an auditor by 1915. He was born on this day, September 2, 1873 in Canada but by the 1910 census he was living in Maryland, his parents were from Germany. He registered for World War One while here and was still here in 1923. During the Crash he lost everything and was later seen on the streets of Vancouver begging.

So apropos of nothing, here is a picture of a girl wearing a rhubarb leaf.

1920 census; 1915 and 1923 Polk’s directory; WW1 Registration

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“Skagway Bill”


William Clark Fonda arrived on the steamer Alki in 1896. He was said to be the one who broke ground for White Pass as a laborer and was later on the famous “Committee of 101”.
He is the model for the statue in front of the Pioneer’s home in Sitka which opened in 1913. He sent letters home from 1896-1909.
Skagway Bill was born in 1858 in Glen, New York and died on this day, September 1, 1938 in Olympia, Washington.

fonda.org; Pennington page 350.

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Willie Egbert Feero


Happy Birthday to Willie Feero born on this day, August 31, 1883 in Maine. The family came to Skagway from Auburn, Maine via Tacoma arriving on October 19, 1897. His father, John Eleanor or “Sandy” Feero worked as a packer until he froze to death in December of 1898 on the Chilkoot Trail.

Willie and his mother, twin sisters, and brother stayed in Skagway. Willie worked and lived in Douglas and Skagway until his death in 1950. During that time he married, had a family and worked as a White Pass engineer/fireman and a carpenter.

There are descendants in Skagway today who I am sure would have better stories than mine. Here is a picture of his son John taken in front of their house in Douglas about 1935.

1900 census;1915 directory; WWI registration; Skagway death record; Pennington.

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Charles Lincoln Parker


Charlie Parker was born on this day, August 30, 1897 in Oregon. He is famous for being the youngest person to cross the Chilkoot Trail in that era of the Gold Rush. I would think his mother would get more credit for that – carrying a baby over the pass was no picnic. He had 4 sisters and 3 brothers, 3 of whom were born in Atlin. His father Abraham Lincoln Parker moved the Golden North Hotel by horse and capstan in 1908 to its present location. The Parker family moved to Juneau in 1913. The brothers Leslie and Charlie moved to Gustavus and had families there. Charlie wrote many letters and supported many causes for Gustavus. You can read them online at the Gustavus Historical site.

This 1928 photo of homesteaders & brothers Leslie “Les” & Charles “Charlie” Parker in everyday Gustavus, Alaska “scruff” (working clothes & untrimmed beards). Seen in front of Charlie’s white painted house on east side Salmon River and south of Salmon River bridge along “Charlie’s River” (slough).

1910; Juneau Parks and Recreation website; Gustavus Historical photo online

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James Edward Lilly

Mr. Lilly had a grocery from the time he came in 1897 to 1900. He worked with his sister, Francis, and his brother, John at the Lilly Brothers hay feed and flour. By 1901 they had moved to the Yukon. James was also a lawyer. James was born in 1861 in Champaign Illinois, he died on this day, August 27, 1912 in Alaska.

This Barley fond shows a skit with people holding banners of various businesses in town in April 1900. You can see the Lilly Brothers banner in the lower left.

1900;1902;family chron; Univ of IL record online; Fairbanks news list

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Major Lorenzo Dow Kinney


Major Kinney arrived on the Steamship Elder in 1897. He joined the Arctic Brotherhood and built a bridge over the Taiya River. He had the “Chilkoot Tramway Company” one of several companies that built tramways up the Chilkoot Trail. He later platted the little town of Atlin.
Born on this day, August 26, 1855 in Jacksonville, New Brunswick, Canada he moved around quite a bit. After leaving Alaska he moved to North Bend Oregon.

Sight unseen, Lorenzo singled out Coos Bay as a development plum ripe for the picking. Coos Bay was already a burgeoning seaport with lumber, shipbuilding and fishing as solid economic foundations.
Kinney was fresh from failures in Alaska and Canada, and had no money. Still, Kinney had rich friends and an intense personality plus a persuasive speaking style that readily secured money and credit. From 1902 to 1914, he was Coos Bay’s chief promoter and pitchman or “instigator,” as he preferred to be called. He was a man with a prolific capacity for words and whose name was a household word around Coos Bay. But by any measure, Kinney fit the category “odd.”

According to a posting on genforum, he was something of a rogue and spent time in the Oregon State Mental Hospital: Diagnosis: manic-depression. He died there of pneumonia on Aug. 9, 1920.

The book “Instigator: The Troubled Life of Lorenzo Dow Kinney”, 2008, by Richard and Judith Wagner chronicles Kinney’s life. It reviews his beginning in New Brunswick his time in Virginia, Utah, Alaska, British Columbia and focuses on his years 1902-1914 on the Coos Bay in Oregon where he promoted railroads, streetcars and land.

Picture above is of a Tram on the Chilkoot Trail, possibly his.

1900 census; National Park Service Dyea info; genforum Kinney family; Minter; Oregonlive article by John Terry from October 30, 2009.

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Barney Grey


Barney was an unhappy man. He walked off the wharf on this day, August 25, 1901 and drowned in the bay. He was buried in the Gold Rush Cemetery and little is known of him other than he was about 38 years old.

Skagway Death Record