Mary Mason

Mary was a Coastal Tlingit woman maybe born near Haines – probably Klukwan in 1874. I say maybe because her mother was living there and talked to Angela Sidney about Daisy, her granddaughter years later. They were members of the Raven Clan who bore the name Lukaax.adi.

Mary is famous because of her husband, Skookum Jim or Keish Mason. They were married around 1893, and Daisy was born June 22, 1895. Jim died in 1916 in Carcross and Mary died on this day, December 28, 1927 in Alaska, perhaps Haines or Skagway. Daisy died only a few years later in Seattle but she was also buried in Carcross with her father. I do not know where Mary’s grave is, I would assume in Carcross also, I will look for it the next time I am up there. The plaque above is in Carcross and was put in in 2000.

 

Life lived like a Story p. 101 and note #45;

1901 Canadian census in Carcross; news acct from list in NPS library

Marion D. K. Weimer

Mr. Weimer was born in August 1853 in Ohio. He married Ella J. Tribby in 1879 in Trenton, Iowa and had a son named Howard L.

M.D. K. as he preferred to be called, and Ella were both teachers. In 1897 with so many other goldrushers, M.D.K. came to Alaska and settled in Eagle where he was the editor of the Eagle Reporter in 1898. He returned to Ohio by 1900 and then the family moved to Nebraska and then on to Los Angeles. Their son worked as a linotype printer in Alhambra and married there.

In 1903 he wrote a book called “The True Story of the Alaska Gold Fields” which can be found online for sale.  He died on February 2, 1931 in Los Angeles.

In May 2009 ice and floodwaters swept away more than 100 years of history with the destruction of Eagle Village. The small log cabins that had once populated the long-established community known as Ninak’ay to the Han people lay strewn along the banks of the Yukon River. The homes, which had been handed down from one generation to the next, were demolished. But now, three years later, a new village stands three miles away on higher ground, safe from floods. Seen above was one of the destroyed cabins from the gold rush.

familysearch; Yukon the Last Frontier by Melody Webb p. 137; 1900-1940 censuses; Rootsweb database of Iowa cemeteries; Alaska Gold Rush History of Alaska Newspapers; Fairbanks Daily News.

Steamship Willamette

 

On page 66 of The Inside Passage to Alaska, Anderson says that the S.S. Willamette left Tacoma on August  7, 1897 with 800 passengers and 300 horses and bales of hay stacked so high on deck that forward view from the bridge was obstructed. In Tacoma 7500 people watched her leave and almost miraculously she arrived in Skagway and was photographed by Winter and Pond unloading, seen above. J.M. Houghton was the ship’s engineer, and H.W. Skinner was the purser, along with a crew of 22. Eighteen men deserted the ship when they arrived in Dyea. The ship had to pay a $50 dockage fee and $1 a head for the horses and cattle to dock there. The ship stayed for 9 days while the Captain and Engineer tried to find a crew to head south.  Apparently Robert Bonine shot a film of the Willamette leaving Tacoma in 1897 which is saved somewhere:

http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/S/SSWillametteLeavingFor1897.html

“The Oregon Improvement Company’s old steam collier Willamette was quickly converted to carry 600 passengers in temporary berths erected in her coal holds, and she made her first voyage to Skagway and Dyea on August 3. The best that can be said of her as a passenger liner is that she carried a lot of passengers; but the stampeders of 1897 were not fussy about accommodations. Among the first passengers was Capt. Everett B. Coffin of the side-wheeler Idaho, who went north with Fred Fickeff as representatives of a Port Gamble grubstake pool.” Gordon Newell, Maritime events of 1897, H.W. McCurdy, Marine History of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle: Superior, 1966, p. 15.

In 1903 The Pacific Coast Company renamed her the S.S. Montara or Montana which later ran aground in 1920 near Nova Scotia.

Holman and Nurnberg store in Dyea

Although I have absolutely no record of either Holman or Nurnberg having a store in Dyea, this is how the photo was labeled that sold on ebay recently for $300. If you can blow up the photo note the odd decorations on the sign at the top corners.

Chilkat Native costume

A photo taken by Frank H. Nowell in 1906.  It could be Louis Kah-kaka-klah because the next photo was of him with Susie Kah-kaka-klah (his wife) that I blogged on before:

http://www.skagwaystories.org/2012/01/ayp-photographer.html

They both were in the 1900 census. He was born in 1881 and was a hunter. She was born in 1884.

Peniel picture

I saw this great photo on Ebay that sold recently. Other than the date of 1905 there was little information about it, but I recognized the woman in the center as being Victorine Yorba. Looking through my records I believe that the two men are C.W. Ruth and E.L. Wilson who were revivalist preachers at the Peniel in 1905. One could also be the Rev. H. M. Tourney who led revival meetings in the Peniel in 1906.  Miss Josie Barnett was also there working in 1905 and I do not know her date of birth so either woman on the ends could be her. Although the ebay seller thought this was at the Presbyterian church, I don’t think so. The interior does not match the Presbyterian Church, but could be the Peniel Mission. The signs on the walls do not match the somewhat staid Presbyterian dogma, but are more indicative of a revivalist clergy. “If God Be for us who can be against us” and “The son of man is come to Seek and Save that Which Was Lost” I can’t quite read the other ones. Also, note there is no altar but rather just a stage as if for preaching and note the extremely large Bible on the right.

Oct 3, 1905 local paper in park library;

Categorization

It has taken weeks, but I have now successfully categorized all of my previous 715 posts into 35 categories to make it easier to find topics. Hopefully this will be helpful to those tour guides hoping to do stories for the tourists in the summer. Let me know if you find anything mis-categorized or that should be categorized into more than one. Hmmm, what should this entry be put under? Entertainment?

Violet Iowa Denizen Allman Marquam

 

This woman’s history is complicated so I will make a stab at it.

Violet Denizen was born in Marysville, Iowa in 1876. Her first marriage was to Mr. Allman and she changed her first name to Iowa. Her second marriage was on March 2, 1903 to J. S. Harding, a “mining man” in Wenatchee, Washington. It must not have worked out because she went back to her first married name of Iowa Allman. She apparently came to Skagway either in 1897 or soon after her marriage to Harding,  and purportedly worked as a prostitute when she met the eminent Thomas Marquam, an Alaska Republican politician. See earlier blog on him:

http://www.skagwaystories.org/2009/11/thomas-alfrred-marquam.html

Iowa, or Violet,  died on February 21, 1917 at the age of 41 in Seattle. Her name then was Iowa Marquam, so presumably she married Marquam somewhere in there. Or she just used his name.

The picture above must have been taken between 1910 and 1913 because it says her name is Mrs. Iowa Marquam. In the 1910 census she was living with Thomas Marquam in Fairbanks as Iowa Allman. If she married, it would have been after that. One of the fellows pictured is Andrew Jackson Maiden who died in 1913, I believe.

From left to right they are Andrew Jackson Maiden, Hans Matson or Madsen, Albert Henry Mayo, Mrs. Iowa Allman Marquam, William “Bill” McPhee and James “Jim” Bender. These were old timers or Pioneers of Alaska who the Marquams were enterttaining.

Washington records.

 

OW!

Years ago Lep let me borrow his really cool bicycle like this one. Fortunately I did not fall on my face, but it was really exhilarating!!

Count Emile Janne de Lamare

The first automobile to drive in Skagway was in April 1900. That was when Count de Lamare came to Skagway with his three wheel automobile and another one. He was a Paris correspondent and brought his cars north to gain publicity for his writing. He was president of the Auto Club of Paris and an enthusiastic autoist. They presumbably took the train to Bennett where they set out on the lake. The three cylinder engine could go a remarkable 58 kilometers per hour but the other one with 5 horse power could only attain 26 kph. They were both gasoline engines and they carried along a sled with spare parts. Unbelievably they made it to Atlin in 5 days, gave rides there and then headed to Dawson!

The trip proved to be very difficult and they abandoned the vehicles somewhere in the Klondike. Still, their travel in the North where there were no roads was marvelous. The Count and his traveling companion Mary Hitchcock, traveled 1000 kilometers, in the late spring where they encountered icy and slushy conditions.

The little vehicle is seen above. No wonder the traveling party was so small….

from: Atlin – the story of British Columbia’s Last Gold Rush by Christine Frances Dickinson and Diane Solie Smith.