Category: Dyea

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Samuel Roberts


This murder occurred on this day, March 13, 1898. Mr. Roberts ran the Wonder Hotel and saloon in Dyea and was murdered on his way home. Fitzpatrick, Corbett and Brooks apparently felt they could get away with murder during this period of wild abandon. They did not.

Because Alaska was a federal territory and not a state at the time, the case went to a federal court, was appealed, and then heard at the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court case 178 US 304 stated on May 28, 1900:
“The said John Fitzpatrick, Henry Brooks, and William Corbett at near Dyea, within the said District of Alaska and within the jurisdiction of this court, and under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, on the 13th day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, did unlawfully, willfully, knowingly, feloniously, purposely, and of deliberate and premeditated malice make an assault upon one Samuel Roberts, and that they, the said John Fitzpatrick, Henry Brooks, and William Corbett, a certain revolver, then and there charged with gunpowder and leaden bullets, which said revolver they, the said John Fitzpatrick, Henry Brooks, and William Corbett, in their hands then and there had and held, then and there feloniously, purposely, and of deliberate and premeditated malice did discharge and shoot off to, against, and upon the said Samuel Roberts, and that said John Fitzpatrick, Henry Brooks, and William Corbett with one of the bullets aforesaid out of the revolver aforesaid then and there by force of the gunpowder aforesaid by the said John Fitzpatrick, Henry Brooks, and William Corbett, discharged and shot off as aforesaid then and there feloniously, purposely, and deliberate and premeditated malice did strike, penetrate, and wound him, the said Samuel Roberts, in and upon the right breast of him, the said Samuel Roberts, then and there with the leaden bullet aforesaid so as aforesaid discharged and shot out of the revolver aforesaid by the said John Fitzpatrick, Henry Brooks, and William Corbett, in and upon the right breast of him the said Samuel Roberts one mortal wound, of which said mortal wound he, the said Samuel Roberts, instantly died, and so the grand jurors duly selected, impaneled, sworn and charged as aforesaid upon their oaths do say that said John Fitzpatrick, Henry Brooks, and William Corbett did then and there kill and murder the said Samuel Roberts in the manner and form aforesaid, contrary to the form of the statutes in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the United States of America. Burton E. Bennett U.S. District Attorney”
Fitzpatrick was sentenced to life imprisonment of hard labor at San Quentin, California. Brooks and Corbett received separate trials.

There is no information on what became of Sam Roberts’ body, whether he was buried in Dyea or Skagway. The three defendents all show up on the 1900 census at San Quentin.

court cases online;

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Archie McLean Hawks


Archie McLean Hawks was born in Detroit in 1865 to a family with a long history of law and engineering. In 1886 he came west and worked as a construction engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming and Colorado. He later worked on the bridge in Kansas City and the waterworks in St. Louis. He worked in Arkansas and later Denver on electric railways. In 1891 he went to Tacoma and became the engineer in charge of the Tacoma Light and Water Company. He worked as an engineering consultant for the cities of Vancouver, Victoria and Juneau to supply hydroelectric power for the mines at Treadwell, Perseverence, and Sea Level Tunnel.
Hawks wrote a book called “Enchantment,” that described his 1870 train trip from St. Louis, Mo. to Bristol, R.I.

He is known in Skagway for being the Engineer for the CR&T Tramway which was on the Chilkoot Trail. The Chilkoot Railroad and Transport Company (CR&T) was the largest, most comprehensive, and last of the Chilkoot Trail tramways to be constructed.

At first, they toyed with a horse-drawn tramroad and even a railroad going straight up the Taiya River valley, but financial restraints tempered these plans. The company settled on a wagon road to Canyon City, a two-stage aerial tram system (Canyon City to Sheep Camp and Sheep Camp to Stone Crib), and contracted packing services from Stone Crib to Lake Lindeman. This system enabled the company to be the first to offer an integrated transportation option that would transfer prospectors’ gear from the wharfs of Dyea to Lindeman City.

Construction began in December 1897 and both trams began running by May 1898. While CR&T merged with the Alaska Railroad Transportation Company and the Dyea-Klondike Transportation Company just a month after CR&T opened its trams, its infrastructure was heavily used well into June 1899 when the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad construction reached Lake Bennett in British Columbia effectively rendering CR&T obsolete. Even then, however, CR&T’s freight rates were comparable to those of the railroad and so in 1899 White Pass and Yukon Route purchased the Chilkoot Railroad and Transportation Company’s trams and began dismantling them beginning in January 1900 and finishing by April of the same year.

Archie Hawks died on this day, March 8, 1963 in Santa Barbara at the ripe old age of 98. He is buried in the Madronia Cemetery in Santa Clara County.

A History of the Puget Sound County, 1903 online; Martinsen; California death index; the Winterthur Papers online

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Incident at Sheep Camp


On this day, February 20, 1898 two thieves were caught at Sheep Camp on the Chilkoot Trail. The first thief was flogged, but the second escaped and fled down the trail. Too frightened to face his accusers, he took out his gun and shot himself dead. Now this thief was probably William Wellington as his name appears as having shot himself on this date. The grainy photo above could be of this incident, it is from the Yukon Archives.

Although no record exists as to where he was buried, the earliest burial in the Dyea Cemetery was in March 1898. In February there were several other burials in the Gold Rush Cemetery, so he was most likely buried there, but without a headboard.

Pierre Berton page 261 of Klondike Fever; Amelie Kneass in October 1944, “The Flogging at Sheep Camp”. Alaska Sportsman; John Pearson, letter home about incident.

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The Hallelujah Lassies


One of the many religious communities in Skagway during the Gold Rush, the Salvation Army had several people working here. The most famous was General Evangeline Cory Booth who was born on Christmas Day 1865 in London to the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth. The names of some of the others here were:
Lieut. Emma Matilda Aitken (middle row far right)
Adjutant George Dowell (middle row, second from left)
Ensign Rebecca Ellery (middle row, far left)
Captain John Kenny (top row, second from left)
Ensign Thomas James McGill (top row, second from right)and his wife Laura Aikenhead McGill (not pictured)
Ensign Fred Bloss (top row far right)
Ensign Frank Morris (top row first on left)
Captain John Lecocq (front row)
These were members of the 1898 “Klondike Brigade” of nine Salvation Army soldiers, seven men and two women (well actually three if you include Mrs McGill). The “hallelujah lassies” arrived in May 1898 on the Steamer S.S. “Tees” (see yesterday’s blog) at Skagway and then proceeded to Dyea. They climbed the Chilkoot Pass while it was still deep in snow. Included in their outfit were two folding canoes for the river journey, but before the group could use the canoes, they had to cross the rotting ice of Lake Bennett. It took them three weeks to travel from Skagway to Dawson.

Thornton p 190; The founding of the Salvation Army, 1962; Explorenorth.com; descendent confirmation

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Charles Augustus Sehlbrede

Reverend Gus (he was also a minister) came to Skagway in 1898 from Oregon.
Born on this day, December 10, 1851 in Louisville, Kentucky, Gus was one of ten children. After college, he took the train to Oregon in 1877 and passed the Oregon Bar the next year. He married in 1883 in Salem, Oregon.

Because of the recommendation of U. S. Senator George W. McBride, Sehlbrede was appointed as U. S. Commissioner at Skagway, Alaska by President McKinley. While on that appointment, he presided over the coroner’s inquest for Soapy Smith. He was also appointed town recorder after John U. Smith left. (Smith was a crooked U.S. commissioner for Dyea from August 1897 to May 1898 who disappeared the night that Soapy was shot.)
Sehlbrede brought his wife, Ianthe, and his two daughters, Bertha Lucille and Emma Lucrecia to Skagway. However, Ianthe and daughters left in 1901 to go back Corvallis (wimps). Judge Sehlbrede joined them soon after in sunny Oregon.
The photo above is from a 1947 magazine article.
Sehlbrede died in 1922 in Corvallis also and is buried in Oak Lawn Memorial Park there.

1900 census;Pioneer History of Douglas County, Oregon; Pennington; 1902 directory;Portrait and Biographical Record of Western Oregon, published by Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago. 1904

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George Dickinson


George Dickinson ran the Northwest Trading Post with his wife, Sarah, a Tongass Tlingit as early as 1880. In 1886 he partnered with J.J. Healy at the trading post in Dyea. He became ill and died in San Francisco on this day, November 29, 1888.
His obituary in the Juneau City Mining Record of November 29,1888 gave his age at death as 45. Sometime later, the Healy and Wilson trading post is seen above in this Anton Vogee picture.

Neufeld:Juneau City Mining Record Nov 29 article; Daniel Lee Henry book online excerpt; San Francisco Call.

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Anna Edes Rablen Snow

Anna was born in 1861 in Cornwall, England. After coming to America, she was working as a maid in Sonora when she met a young handsome Jewish man named James Fink. James dropped his real name and adopted his stage name of George Thornton Snow. Anna and George were married and became talented performers who traveled the gold camps of California. They had two children in Sonora. In 1887 the family took passage on the old side wheel steamer “Olympia” to Juneau for a six week stint to provide classical entertainment to the miners there. They liked Juneau and stayed.

George was soon hit with “gold fever” and made two trips to the Yukon leaving Anna in Juneau to eke out a living by sewing. After returning to Juneau in 1894, he planned to go north again but Anna put her foot down and said “If you go we’re going”.
They took the little tugboat “Rustler” up the Lynn Canal to Dyea. The Snow family crossed the Chilkoot in 1894. Daughter Crystal Brilliant, age 10 and son Montgomery, age 11 were perhaps some of the first children to cross. One of the items that they dragged over the pass was a three octave organ. At the top of the pass they were hit by a blizzard and had to build a tent to hunker down for three days. Crystal and Montgomery played “igloo”. George was so proud of his early accomplishment that he started the Yukon Order of Pioneers that year.

The family opened the Grand Opera House at Circle City where they all performed. (See the store in Circle City above in 1897.) They moved back to Skagway in 1909 and George became the City of Skagway jailer. George died in Seattle in 1925 at the age of 78 (he was quite a bit older than Anna).
Anna Snow died on this day, November 19, 1943 in Juneau at the age off 82, and is buried in the Juneau Evergreen Cemetery.

1910; Klondike Centennial Scrapbook p. 145;Snow Family papers in Alaska Historical Collections at the Alaska State Library; Gates; More than Petticoats, Remarkable Alaska Women by Cherry Lyon Jones; Familysearch records; Juneau Parks and Rec site.

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Henry Walter Hovey


Major/Captain Hovey of the U.S. Company L, 24th Infantry came to Skagway on May 15, 1899. Their first camp in Dyea burned so they rented a barracks in Skagway and stayed until 1902. Although the 24th Infantry was an all-African American company, Hovey was probably white. He was a member of the Arctic Brotherhood in 1901 and, according to the New York Times, he was also at a Midnight Sun conspiracy meeting in November 1901.
Henry Hovey was born in 1852 in Vasselboro, Maine, and he died on this day, November 15, 1908 in Northfield Vermont from heart failure probably resulting from something he contracted in the Phillipines. He was 56 year old.

from the online history of Norwich University, 1819-1911: “her history, her graduates, her roll of honor: He [Hovey]joined his regiment, the 24th United States Infantry at Fort Douglas, Utah, March 1899; but soon after reaching the post, the regiment was ordered to the Philippine Islands. He, with his company “L”,was ordered to southeastern Alaska, where he was given command of the district, with headquarters at Camp Dyea. This camp being destroyed by forest fires, July 18, 1899, he removed to Skagway, where he remained until ordered back to the University in September, 1902. He was promoted major, August 14, 1903 and was ordered to the Philippine Islands, July 1906, arriving there in September, he was in command of Cebu, Dojinrtnicnf of Visayas, September, 1906-November, 1907, excepting a few weeks, when he was in command of the regiment at Camp Bumpus, Leyte. He was retired from active duty, November 7, 1907 for “disability in line of duty” and returned to the United States in…”

1902 directory;family chronicles; Skagway Museum Record; NY Times article

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Sophie Matthews


On this day, September 27, 1938 Sophie Matthews died and was buried in the Pioneer Cemetery. She was 76 years old, a Tlingit native born in Klukwan in 1862 and her native name was Kxa Gis Ooh. She married William Edward Matthews who came to Skagway in 1888 from St. Louis Missouri and was a farmer.
Their son William Clarence Matthews also married a woman named Sophie who died young, at 26, in 1921 and is buried in the Cemetery in Dyea. See her grave in the picture above. Their two daughters, Julia and Mable died as little girls in 1920 also probably from the influenza epidemic and are buried together in Dyea. There are quite a few descendants of the Matthews clan that still live in Skagway.

Skagway death record.

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Birthday Wishes galore!


Today May 14 is the birthday of several people:
Alexander Irving from Scotland who worked in the White Pass Commissary in 1898-1900.
Mortimer Irving Stevens born in Illinois and worked as both an engineer and a reporter and publisher for the Skagway Searchlight in 1898.
Evelyn Frolander who was born in Indiana and lived and worked in Skagway from 1929 to 1974 as a nurse in the hospital.
Robert L. Rapuzzi born in Alaska, probably Skagway, in 1920.
and most important of all – me, seen above biking in Dyea!