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!
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
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.
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
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.
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.
from
Captain William Moore
Happy Birthday to Capt. Moore born on this day, March 30, 1822 in Emden, Hanover, Germany. He came up here from Vancouver in 1862 as an explorer. He and his wife, Hendrika Fenn had several kids and grandkids who lived here prior to the gold rush. He once owned much of the land that is now Skagway, but was over run by goldrushers in 1897-1898. His original cabin and house is now owned and has been renovated by the National Park Service.
When Capt. Moore left Skagway, he and his family moved back to their lovely home in Victoria. In November I walked the road where the house once stood, but unfortunately has been replaced by condos. There are a few renovated Victorian Houses on that street. He and Hendrika are buried in the Ross Bay Cemetery, a two mile walk from downtown Victoria. Try as we might, even with the exact plot number, we could not find the actual graves, but I’m sure they are there.
Edgar Richard Peoples Jr.
Ed and Estella Peoples moved to Skagway in 1898 from Illwaco, Washington. Ed was a furniture maker and undertaker. On this sad day, March 11, 1901 their two year old son died of tuberculosis in Skagway. Little Edgar was cremated and his remains taken to Portland, Oregon.
The People’s Mortuary was found on the southwest corner of 8th and Broadway from about 1898 to 1901.
Mr. Peoples was the Mayor of Skagway and on city council in 1900-01. After the death of little Edgar, he resigned and moved to Eagle with his wife Estella and Frank Woodruff. They then moved to Rampart, and then on to Fairbanks by 1926. Edgar and Estella both died in Seattle in the 1930’s.
Skagway Death Records; Washington death records; Oregon death records.
Edward Toreson Hestness
Mr. Hestness was a White Pass section foreman in the 1920 census for Skagway. He was born on this day, March 9, 1879 in Norway. He died in 1924, at the age of 45, in a WP&YR train accident and is buried in the Skagway Pioneer Cemetery. He left behind 5 children and his wife Gertrude. His son Harold hated White Pass for failing to compensate the family and so he went to the University of Washington Law School and became an attorney. The photo above is of another train wreck, taken by J.D. True, but you get the picture.
from: 1910, 1920 and 1929 census and book “After the Gold Rush” by Robert Dahl, son of Dr. Peter Dahl who lived in Skagway at the time.
Ellen Kendell Rogers MacMillan
On this day, February 18, 1991 Mrs. MacMillan, a schoolteacher in Skagway in the early part of the 20th century, died in Washington. She was born in 1902 in Skagway, the daughter of Minor Ellsworth Rogers, a White Pass carpenter who came to Skagway in 1897 and stayed until his death in 1958. Ellen’s husband was John Roderick MacMillan. They both died in Redmond Washington.
Ellen is not to be confused with Elma Kyle McMillen who was also a long time schoolteacher in Skagway from 1960-1981. Elma passed away in Whitehorse in 2002.