Category: Goldrushers

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John C. Hilbert


Mr. Hilbert was a German goldrusher who died on this day, April 21, 1899 on an island of Lake LeBarge of pneumonia, he was 40 years old. His body was sent to San Francisco for burial.
Here is the entry from the Skagway Death Record:
“Died on [Richthofen] Island in Lake LeBarge; recorded 6/23; embalmed 6/23; brother’s address: Holbert Bros. Wholesale Liquor, Powell & Macon Sts, San Francisco; eye color-dk; height-5’9″; weight-~160 lb; hair color-dark; shipped to ER Butterworth for exch to SF on the Humbolt, 6/29/1899”
Hilbert Brothers produced whiskey in San Francisco from 1890-1902 when they became a mercantile company. See advertisement glass above.
So, what was he doing on an island in Lake Lebarge anyway? The Yukon Archives does have an estate record for him which I have not yet viewed.

from Skagway Death Records and a really cool website that shows liquor advertisements: http://www.pre-pro.com/midacore/view_glass.php?sid=KWS274

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Patrick Brarmon

Murdered in the Klondyke Saloon on this day, April 8, 1898 and buried two days later in the Gold Rush Cemetery. Apparently there was no investigation at the time, things were getting pretty bad in Skagway.
Mr. Brarmon was about 22 years old and hailed from San Francisco.

Skagway Death Record.

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Kate Mason Carmack


Kate Mason also known as Nadagaat Tlaa Kaachgaawaa, married George Washington Carmack around 1889, or so she thought. After finding the gold in the Klondike and starting the whole Gold Rush thing, they became very wealthy and moved to Hollister California. Being away from home was not good for Kate or her daughter Gracie, as George left them and married someone else. Long sad story there, written up many places.

Kate returned home and on this day, March 29, 1920 she succumbed to the flu in Carcross and is buried in the little Carcross Cemetery. She was variously reported to have been born in either 1857, 1862 or 1869 in Tagish, perhaps.

Skagway Death Record and Jennifer Duncan in Frontier Spirit; Wikipedia

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Frederick Trump

Well Happy Birthday to Frederick “Fritz” Trump (Drumpf) the grandfather of Donald. Born in Kallstadt Germany on this day, March 14, 1869, he came to Skagway and then built the New Arctic Restaurant and Hotel at Lake Bennett in 1900. He sold the restaurant and returned to Germany where he married and then returned to Queens, New York.
He died too young, in 1918, of the Spanish flu in New York. The money he made at Lake Bennett helped to build the Trump enterprises.

Wikipedia

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Ernest Friedrich Schmalenbeck


Born on this day, March 13, 1849 in Evangelisch, Wengern Westfalen Preussen (Germany), Ernest caught the gold fever in 1898 and made it to Skagway. In an accident, he lost an eye here and so called it kaput and returned to Germany. His grand-daughter came to Skagway last July and told me this story, one of many stories of gold rushers who returned home with empty pockets but a lifetime of reminiscences to tell his grandchildren. So Happy Birthday Ernie! Here for your entertainment is the Schmalenbeck family crest.

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Henry Lewis Hulbert

Henry was born on this day, January 12, 1867 in Kingston-upon-Hull England. He was the first born into a prosperous family. He attended Felsted School in Essex, and entered the British Colonial Civil Service, with his first appointment in Malaya. While in Malaya, he married Anne Rose Hewitt. A subsequent personal scandal and divorce resulted in Hulbert leaving Malaysia and arriving in the United States.

Like so many others, he came to Skagway in 1897 and called himself a miner. Soon after, at age 31, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on March 28, 1898. He completed his boot camp training at Mare Island, California.

On April 1, 1899, Marines from the U.S.S. Philadelphia went ashore at Samoa in the Philippine Islands, with Royal Marines from two British ships, to intervene in a dispute between two tribal leaders over succession to the Samoan throne. The Marines were ambushed, and Private Henry Hulbert was one of three Marines and one Navy Gunner’s Mate to earn Medals of Honor for their heroism in the engagement precipitating withdrawal of the unit. Private Hulbert was cited for “distinguished conduct in the presence of the enemy”.

Subsequently in World War One, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Belleau Wood, Soisson and the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge,where he was killed in action on October 4, 1918 at the age of 51. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. Captain Hulbert is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Henry L. Hulbert (DD-342), named in his honor, was christened on June 28, 1919, and commissioned and put into service in 1920. The destroyer was moored in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and brought down a Japanese torpedo bomber. The Hulbert was decommissioned in 1945.

from various online sources

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George C. Holt


George Holt, a Quaker, was a very early arrival to the Dyea area. He crossed the Chilkoot Pass to Marsh Lake and back about 1874 (variously reported as 1872 to 1878), first white man to do so. He brought out a small quantity of gold, but he’s best remembered for making the return trip through the pass without the knowledge or consent of the Chilkoot Indians who guarded it against outsiders. Holt was lucky to get out alive.
Born in 1850 in Ohio, he died in December 1885 at the Knik River (said to be about 45 years old), murdered by local natives.

The Alaskan 10.2.1897; Pierre Berton; many other books.

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Thomas Alfred Marquam


Nicknamed “Fighting Tom,” he was elected to represent Republicans from Skagway and Haines at the 1900 territorial Republican convention in Juneau. He lost his bid to become Alaska’s delegate to the National Republican Convention, but represented Haines as a witness before a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating conditions in Alaska in the summer of 1903.

Tom Marquam came to Skagway with some lawyer friends in 1897 to follow the gold rush as his father had done in 1849 in California. He met a young woman, possibly a prostitute, here and married her. She died a few years later and he then married another prostitute named Ray Alderman pictured above with President Harding.

In 1923, when it became obvious that Dan Sutherland, Alaska’s delegate to Congress, was at odds with the president and would not escort Harding on his visit, Tom happily volunteered to do it himself, with his bride at his side. Harding, a man of the world with a mistress of his own, appreciated the mayor’s pretty wife. He invited the Marquams to accompany him in his private railroad car, and Tom’s appointment as ambassador seemed assured until Harding died less than three weeks later.

Tom Marquam’s death on November 23, 1931, at age fifty-seven was not well explained. One newspaper reported he had died of a heart attack; another referred to several operations and a long illness. There were rumors that he had been murdered and it was also suggested that he had committed suicide in a fit of depression over the still unsettled charges against him.

http://www.alaska.edu/opa/eInfo/index.xml?StoryID=299

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George Washington Carmack

Happy Birthday to George Carmack one of the discoverers of the the gold in Dawson!

Born on September 24, 1860 in Pacheco California he came to Alaska in 1882 on the US Wachusette at Sitka, he was a marine.
George married a native woman who died and then he married her sister, Kate Mason Nadagaat Tlaa Kaachgaawaa who became wealthy with him and moved down south.

Eventually, George left California and his wife and daughter. In 1900, George married Marguerite Saftig L’Aimee in Olympia, Washington. Kate, illiterate and nearly destitute, initiated a protracted legal battle to prove she was George’s wife and eligible for alimony, but eventually dropped the case in favor of trying to reclaim her husband. When this failed, Kate settled in Carcross, where she lived until her death from influenza in 1920.
Their daughter Graphie lived to be 70 and died in Lodi, California in 1963.

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Larss & Duclos Photography


Born in 1863 in Sweden, Per Edward Larss had a photo studio in Dawson during the goldrush with his partner Joseph E.N.Duclos who was from Quebec. Larss were only here from 1898-1904, but his photos are timeless. There is a biography of Larss called “Frozen in Time”.
September 22, 1941 was the death date in San Pedro, California of this famous Klondike Photographer.

His photo studio is visible on the right in this early photo.