Category: Skagway families

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Andrews family


Clarence Leroy Andrews was born in Ashtabula Ohio in 1862 and moved to Oregon with his father in 1864. He and his wife Ida Swaggart and their three daughters, Annie Clare, Mabel and Washti or Vashti moved to Skagway in 1897. Clarence was the deputy collector for U.S.customs, a photographer, an auditor, and a representative for the Education Bureau. Although the family was here in Skagway until after the 1900 census, they returned to Oregon.
On this day, June 14, 1903 there was a terrible flood in Heppner. Mrs Andrews and the three girls drowned there. Clarence was here in Skagway and survived. He served as councilman for the town in 1901, and finally left in 1929. Clarence died in 1948 in Eugene Oregon. He took a number of unusual photographs, this one is from Glacier Bay and titled “The Father of the Glaciers” taken in 1902.

Clarence Leroy Andrews letters and photographs are in the University of Oregon.

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George Joseph Rapuzzi Jr.


George Rapuzzi and his wife Teresa Maria came here from Seattle in the Gold Rush. They were both born in Genoa Italy, George in 1857 and Teresa in 1867 but had come to Minnesota in the 1880’s.
When they arrived here in Skagway they started several businesses including the Washington Fruit and Candy Store (located above between the Red Onion and AB hall), a cigar store, a grocery store, and the California Wine House. They and their children and grandchildren stayed here for decades. His sons George and Louis both worked as U.S. Marshals.

George died on this day, June 10, 1926 and is buried in the Skagway Pioneer Cemetery. His wife Teresa died in 1941 and is buried next to him.

In the past two years the “Rapuzzi Collection” was acquired by the Rasmuson Foundation and donated to the Municipality of Skagway which has in turn given parts and some properties to the National Park. Originally thought to be over 450,000 items, the actual number of items now numbers about 3,000. Hmmm. It sure would be nice to actually see some of these items before they are described and locked away in the city and park archives-far from the menacing crowd.

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John Helmar Johnson

John Johnson was born in Sweden in 1869 and worked for White Pass as a laborer for many years. He died on this day June 8 1947 and is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery. He has a stone marker which is the marker for finding the upper Elks Cemetery. If you stand at the Johnson grave and face the hillside then walk forwards you will find yourself on a small trail that leads to a hidden cemetery up the hillside. Many years ago I took this trail and when I found the graves up there I wondered who they were, and doing research found the stories about those people, which led me here, telling stories of forgotten souls who lived and died here in this little town.

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Roy Edwin Gault


Happy Birthday to Roy Gault born on May 28, in Vernon, Waukesha, Wisconsin. The Gault family moved to Skagway in the early 1900’s. The father of the clan, William worked for the railroad and died in 1905 of heart failure at 58 years old. His sons, Leland and Roy also worked for the railroad. Their sons and daughters also stayed on until their deaths here in Skagway some until the 1960’s.

Roy was the engineer on the White Pass accident in 1940 of Engine 70. Above is J.D. True’s picture of Roy and Jess Wallace by Engine 70 on her side near Mile 82. The accident was caused by an open stub switch. The engineer was Ray Gault, Conductor was Chris Larson, Fireman was Jess Wallace, and Brakeman was Mickey Mulvihill.

Censuses; World War 1 registration; J.D. True.

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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!

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Patrick John Flynn


Pat Flynn was born in 1861 in County Tipperarry Ireland and immigrated to the United States in 1876. He married Ellen Flaherty, an Irish immigrant from Galway, in Tacoma, Washington, where their daughter, Helen Grace (“Nellie”) was born in 1893. Their son John William (“Willie”) was born in Ellensburg in 1896. Another son, Owen Patrick, was born in Skagway in 1904. Patrick worked for the White Pass and Yukon Railroad and his sons followed him into the profession. Owen later became an accountant and served as city clerk for the City of Skagway. Willie spent his entire career with the railroad.
Patrick worked for White Pass as a car inspector and carpenter until his death on this day, May 13, 1935 in Skagway. Ellen his wife had died 9 days earlier also here in Skagway. They are buried in the Pioneer Cemetery.

Skagway Death Records, censuses; Juneau Parks and Recreation website; Flynn Crest

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Harry G. Ask


Harry was born in Washington the youngest son to Charles and Joanna Ask who were from Norway and had lived in Minnesota and Washington. Charles and Joanna came to Skagway in the gold rush about 1898 and stayed for many years running a mercantile and grocery store: “Ask and sons General Merchandise”. The store was still running in the 1930’s.
Harry was born on this day, May 8, 1894 and was only 4 when he came to Skagway with his family.
I have seen his name on one of the little plaques under the Mountain Ash trees that were planted along Broadway several years ago. How those little trees survive is a mystery to me, but then how people survived here for decades is as much a mystery. I believe that the family all moved back to Washington in the 1930’s.
The photo above is from Broadway looking south at the harbor. The trees on the right are the commemorative trees, Harry Ask’s is one of these.

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Francis Mims


Although we know very little about Francis Mims, we do know that he was probably born in Oregon about 1893 and definitely died in Skagway on this day, April 29, 1898 at the age of 5 from meningitis. Francis’ remains were shipped home to Oregon.

The Mims family did not stay until the 1900 census in Skagway. There are family records online that point to the Matlock family in Pendleton where Nellie Mims was living with her father and her kids: Hazel born 1896 in Oregon, Lulu born 1899 in Alaska, Pauline born 1894 in Oregon and Wesley born 1897 in Oregon. Oregon records show that Nellie divorced her husband Edwin in 1901. If that entire family came to Skagway in 1898, they were lucky to have only lost one child. The photo above is of Pendleton Oregon in 1905.

UPDATE:
Edwin was convicted on November 4, 1899 of manslaughter and was sentenced to 5 years in prison and $1000 fine. He had been involved in a barfight with a bouncer when Mims pulled out a gun and shot J. Henry Miller.
On April 10, 1901 Governor T.T. Geer of Oregon granted him a full pardon. Presumably that is why Nellie divorced him. Edwin died in 1925 in Tonopah, Nevada.

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~szmatlok/Bailey/3-4.html;
Citizen Call of Phillipsburg Montana of April 10, 1901 – online.
http://www.archive.org/stream/reportscasesdec45oregoog/reportscasesdec45oregoog_djvu.txt

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Cadet Desmara Fiquette


Mr. Fiquette arrived in Skagway in 1898 and stayed here as a merchant and gardener for the rest of his life. He passed away at the age of 69 on this day, April 7, 1924 and is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery in Skagway.

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Edward Anton Rasmuson


Mr. Rasmuson was born on this day, April 5, 1882 in Denmark. He came to Alaska as a missionary around 1904 and was married to Jenny Olson in 1905 in Sitka. His son Elmer described his father, Edward Rasmuson, as a learned, disciplined man who kept his personal diary in Greek, who learned law and banking through correspondence courses.

After 10 years in Alaska, Edward and Jenny Rasmuson moved their family to Minneapolis, where several of his relatives from Sweden had settled. He passed the bar there, but his wife, Jenny, wanted to return to Alaska, so the family moved to Juneau in 1915.

E.A. soon discovered there were too many lawyers in Juneau to make a good living, so he took a magistrate’s job in Skagway.

It was 1916 when they arrived and Skagway had fallen into the doldrums of a post-Gold Rush bust. The originals of the western-style buildings that tourists now visit were boarded up, and the economy was dependent on the vagaries of the railroad business. The memory of Soapy Smith was still fresh, and Elmer remembered “Ma Pullin” riding Soapy’s white horse in parades. The family remained deeply religious, and much of life revolved around the Presbyterian Church.

Because E.A. was the only lawyer in town, it was natural for him to become the attorney for the new Bank of Alaska, founded in 1916 by a group of New York financiers. It wasn’t much of an edifice — four walls and usually two employees. Edward became a Commissioner in 1917-18 and the President of the Bank of Alaska in 1923. He lived in Skagway from 1916 to 1943. Today the Rasmuson Foundation does many good things for Alaska.

Edward Rasmuson passed away in 1949 at the age of 67.

from the Rasmuson Foundation website and the University of Alaska Fairbanks biography website; census data.

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