A story of two orphan Jenji’s

Jenjiro Ikuta was the adopted son of the Keeler family here in Skagway in 1900. Frank Truman Keeler was a wealthy man in Skagway – a moneylender, optician, jeweler and landlord of brothels on 7th Avenue. Jenjiro was born on this day, November 14, 1881 or 1883 in Japan but said that he came to Skagway from Oakland, California in the gold rush. He may have come to Skagway with family who died, but who knows.
Anyway, he learned jewelery from Frank Keeler and started his own store, Totem Jewelery which was here until about 1920. He married Lena Estella Worth from Michigan and they had three kids, Carol a son born 1918, Edna a daughter born 1910, and Truman a son born 1915. In 1920 Jenjiro and his son Truman decided to go back to Japan while Lena took Carol and Edna to Oregon. (Both Truman and Carol married and their descendents have posted most of this information on genforum and rootsweb). Lena remarried and later died in Kennewick, Washington. Perhaps Jenjiro stayed in Japan, as no one seems to know and their are no records of him back in the states.

When I was down south we went to a funeral service for my father in law, Bill McCluskey, who went to Japan right after the war ended. The story was told that when he was on a train he found a child curled up in a pile of rags. He asked where the parents were and was told by the train personnel that he was an orphan. So Bill “adopted” him for a year and fed and paid for him to go to school. At the end of his service time in Japan, he collected money for little “Jenji” to continue in school. He never was able to reconnect with him. I wonder how many times he wished he could have found out what happened to little Jenji!

Dakl’aweidi Family Tree


Another partial family tree showing the relationship between Kate Mason, Skookum Jim Mason, George Carmack, Daisy Mason and Graffie Carmack. Also from “Life Lived Like a Story”

Deisheetaan family tree


Because the family tree is so confusing I thought I would post this nice family tree from Mrs. Angela Sidney’s recounting in “Life Lived as a Story”.

Minnie Shotridge Moore


I can’t resist posting this sweet family portrait of Minnie Moore 1874-1916 (Mrs. Ben Moore or Lingit Sai-yet) and her three children taken in 1898. In his book “New Indians” unpublished, 2010, Dan Henry says that she was scorned by local Skagway women and her “half-breed” children were taunted by classmates. In 1906 they moved to Victoria. I will post the names of the kids later when I get them.

J.B. Moore Collection

Dawson Charlie


Kaa Goox was a Canadian Tagish/Tlingit First Nation member of the wolf clan, born in 1866. His wife was Sadusge Annie. He was one of the co-discoverers of gold that led to the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon. He was the nephew of Skookum Jim Mason. He staked one of the first three claims in the Klondike, along with his uncle and George Carmack. Kate Carmack was his aunt. Storyteller Angela Sidney was a niece.

Pierre Berton incorrectly called him Tagish Charlie in his book.
He died December 26, 1908 in Carcross when he fell off the bridge and drowned. He was only 42 years old. Seen above is his monument in the Carcross Cemetery.

Hallelujah Conductor


Calvin Eugene Shelly was a conductor on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad. He had come to Skagway from Chicago but was born in 1864 in Akron, Ohio. He came here with his wife Mary and their two sons Allen and Robert.
He attended the Peniel Mission and was “beautifully saved at the mission. He received the name of “Hallelujah Conductor” for he was always praising the Lord….One night during testimonies, he said this –“I have been a year paying for a dead horse, and now I am clear before God and Man.” He meant that he had been a year paying and making restitution for things he had done in the past.” – as Mable Ulery put it.
Their home was on 7th between Broadway and Spring which is just an open lot now. When we moved here in 1998 I remember there was a controversy because someone bulldozed the house one day and hauled it off. It was that action which prompted the city to make it necessary to get permission to bulldoze historic buildings and not just do it in the night. True, it was just a dilapidated house nearly 90 years old, but it was part of the fabric of historic Skagway.

Speaking of historic, seen above is Lep in his conductor’s togs.

Calvin passed away on December 28, 1945 in Burlington, Washington.

William J. Blackwell


William J. Blackwell was born in 1843 in New Jersey. He married Adelaide M. Blood in 1883 in California and owned bottling and brewing companies in Seattle and Slocan, British Columbia before he came to Skagway in 1898. Here he started the B&B Bottling company with Mr. S.E. Beazley. He moved on probably to Nome where he was a member of the Eagles until 1915. He was also a member of the Arctic Brotherhood from 1898 to 1902 in Skagway. One account says he died in Alaska on this day, October 5, 1922. Washington state census records show him in a Sedro Wooley mental institution in 1930 and that he died there in May 1930. Not sure which is correct, but nevertheless he did have a business here on 5th Avenue until 1907. He manufactured and bottled soda water, sarsaparilla, ginger ale, champagne cider, sarsaparilla and iron, as well as all kinds of mineral waters with syrup.

Washington state records; business directories; 1900 census; Daily Alaskan 1900.

Dr. Emory Kniskern


Emory Leroy Kniskern was born on this day, October 3, 1868 in either Marne or Berlin Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan medical school to get his medical degree in 1895. He came to Skagway in the gold rush and signed death certificates in April of 1899. By November 1899 he was in Washington and married Cornelia “Nellie” Butler. He was a Captain in the Medical Corps at Camp Worden, Washington in World War One. He had two sons and moved back to Muskegon Michigan where he specialized as an oculist and aurist. Dr. Kniskern died in Michigan in 1946 at the age of 78.

Not having a good picture of Dr. Kniskern here is a photo of a guy with his faithful steed on the dock at Skagway.

Skagway death records of April 29, 1899; family search; Washington census 1910; Univ of Michigan online.

Calantha Alica Bracktle


Happy Birthday to little Calantha who was born on this day, September 28, 1896 in Angel’s Camp, Calaveras County, California. Her father, Wallace was a jeweler from San Francisco who seemed to follow the gold. In 1887 he was a watchmaker in Sacramento. He and his wife, Annie Dorothea Westfall and Calantha came to Skagway from Oakland about 1899. Calantha may have attended school in 1900 when they were here for the census, or maybe not.
Wallace invented a portable weighing scale and received a patent on it in October of 1899. It would have been a good thing to have in the field where gold dust was the method of payment.
They moved back to Oakland where he was a jeweler. Calantha married in 1916 and had a son. She died in 1971 in Fairfield, Solano County, California.

1900 Skagway Census, 1880 San Francisco Census; pfawr and mytrees online