Category: Military

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Cleaves S. Rockenfield

Happy Birthday to Cleaves Rockenfield born on this day, January 19, 1843 in Cincinnati Ohio. He served in the 77th Illinois Infantry, Company I during the Civil War. He enlisted at Elmwood on August 15, 1862 and was mustered out July 10, 1865. He served with his brother (?), Scott H. Rockenfield. They marched to Kentucky, Louisiana and Vicksburg. (There is an extensive narrative of their time at 77illinois.homestead.com)

After the war he returned to Ohio and married Sarah Rees in 1869 and it appears through the census records that many of the Rockenfields then moved to Oregon. They were storekeepers, as was Cleaves, in 1900 in Skagway. Sarah was not here for the census in 1900, perhaps she went back to Oregon.
Above is a picture of the house they built in 1883 in Salem, if I had a house like that I would have moved back down to Salem too.
It was on the northeast corner of Court and Summer Streets. In 1937, two years after the State House burned in Salem, the state purchased the houses on Summer and Court Streets and moved the Rockenfield House to 755 Capitol Street to make room for the garden and State Library. In 1991, during the expansion of the Capitol Mall, the Rockenfield House moved again to its present location on the riverfront. The Village acquired the Rockenfield House in 1990. In 1992, the house opened to the public as part of A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village.
The Rockenfields both died in Portland, Cleaves in 1907 and Sarah in 1917 and are buried in the Salem Pioneer Cemetery.

1900 census; civil war pension list online; rootsweb.

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Fusao or Furas Toyozumi or Tayozumi


Fusao, known as Joseph, was a cook at the Pullen House restaurant and Inn between 1910 and 1915 perhaps longer. In 1915 he registered for the draft for World War One. There is no record for him after that.
He was born on this day, December 17, 1887 in Kumamoto, Kyushu, Japan. This city is famous for Kawagoe Castle where 21 lords from various clans, all closely allied with the Tokugawa Shogun, resided during the Edo Period. The fuedal age ended in 1868 (remember Tom Cruise in The Last Shogun?). The shrine above is the Toyozumi Shrine in Japan built over a thousand years ago.
So Fusao was born twenty years after that, but emigrated to the U.S. in 1906. There were a number of other Japanese immigrants in Skagway in 1910, some worked in the jewelery trade.

1910 census, WW1 registration for Skagway, Alaska.
This is my last blog for 2010, I will return in January. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas Meli Kalikimaka

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Thomas Childs Woodbury


Colonel Thomas Woodbury of the 3rd Infantry A,B, and C Companies was born on this day December 2, 1850 in Henderson, Kentucky. Woodbury joined the military in 1899 in Cebu, Phillipine Islands during the conflict. He commanded battalions and won medals for bravery there and in the Spanish American War. His father and grandfather were both Generals in the military.
The Third Infantry came to Skagway in July of 1904 replacing the 8th Infantry.
Col. Woodbury then went to Fort Seward in Haines in November 1904. See the soldiers on parade on the grounds of the fort above.
In 1906 they went back to Washington State.

The specific history of the military in Skagway and Dyea is interesting if not confusing. Here is the list of military units and their dates of arrival:
-9th Cavalry arrives 1897
-14th Infantry arrives 16 Dec 1897 and Feb 1898
-company L of the 24th (the African American unit) arrived May 15, 1899 from Ft. Douglas, Utah, they came up on the steamer Humboldt.
-106th Coast Artillery (32nd Company arrives March to May 1902) arrives 1902
-3rd Infantry arrives July – Oct 1904
-8th Infantry arrives July 1904 (they go to Haines in November 1904)
-There were also a couple of earlier military expeditions, as early as 1865.

Skagway Museum Record; “Duty Station Northwest” by Woodman; “Biographical Register of the Officers…” by G.W.Cullum; familysearch

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Henry Walter Hovey


Major/Captain Hovey of the U.S. Company L, 24th Infantry came to Skagway on May 15, 1899. Their first camp in Dyea burned so they rented a barracks in Skagway and stayed until 1902. Although the 24th Infantry was an all-African American company, Hovey was probably white. He was a member of the Arctic Brotherhood in 1901 and, according to the New York Times, he was also at a Midnight Sun conspiracy meeting in November 1901.
Henry Hovey was born in 1852 in Vasselboro, Maine, and he died on this day, November 15, 1908 in Northfield Vermont from heart failure probably resulting from something he contracted in the Phillipines. He was 56 year old.

from the online history of Norwich University, 1819-1911: “her history, her graduates, her roll of honor: He [Hovey]joined his regiment, the 24th United States Infantry at Fort Douglas, Utah, March 1899; but soon after reaching the post, the regiment was ordered to the Philippine Islands. He, with his company “L”,was ordered to southeastern Alaska, where he was given command of the district, with headquarters at Camp Dyea. This camp being destroyed by forest fires, July 18, 1899, he removed to Skagway, where he remained until ordered back to the University in September, 1902. He was promoted major, August 14, 1903 and was ordered to the Philippine Islands, July 1906, arriving there in September, he was in command of Cebu, Dojinrtnicnf of Visayas, September, 1906-November, 1907, excepting a few weeks, when he was in command of the regiment at Camp Bumpus, Leyte. He was retired from active duty, November 7, 1907 for “disability in line of duty” and returned to the United States in…”

1902 directory;family chronicles; Skagway Museum Record; NY Times article

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D’arcy Edward Strickland


Inspector Strickland of the NWMP was born on this day, November 2, 1868 in Ontario Canada. IN 1898 he was in charge of the Canadian border station at White Pass. Strickland was a big, beefy man and, judging from the photos taken of him, he tended not to wear the standard NWMP uniform. According to his disapproving superior, Inspector Charles Constantine, Strickland was a fun-loving person, “what is generally known as a good fellow” with “a taste for low company [and] a decided fondness for drink.”
Strickland was accompanied to the Yukon by his wife Tannis and their son Roland (seen above); his daughter Frances was born at Tagish Post in 1899. Strickland was an important figure in the early days of the NWMP in the Yukon. He supervised the construction of the Tagish Post in 1897.

After leaving the Yukon he went to the Boer War in South Africa as Adjutant of the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles. He died at Fort Saskatchewan in 1908 at the age of 40 from cardial dropsy, perhaps something he contracted in Africa.

www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca; familysearch; Dobrowolsky

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Frank Patrick Slavin


“Paddy” Slavin was a famous pugilist in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
Born in 1862 in Maitland, NSW Australia, he was the Heavyweight Champion of Australia at one time hence his nickname the “Sydney Cornstalk”.
Slavin was a rushing, moving, boxer-puncher with skill and an extremely hard punch in either hand. He was much like Jack Dempsey, the heavyweight champion, in his skills, ability to take punishment, and killer-instinct. He came to the Klondike in 1898 and fought in matches until 1902 in Dawson and the Klondike. The New York Times of June 18, 1899 reported that he and his partner (Joe Boyle) had 37 placer claims in the Klondike. It also stated that he had gotten $100,000 in investment money to mine. He was also a “Commissioner for affidavits” in Whitehorse in 1908. Here is a letter he wrote to a friend in 1908:
“…Now old pal I am sending by this mail a couple of papers of our little town, and in the first noted you will see I am still on the track and can make they boys go a bit. I won the two mile walk in the snow here at our winter sports. I can still do my two miles in 18 minutes – not so bad for an old “has been,” though he was one of the smartest of the old bunch. Not a pound of surplus flesh on me. We are going to have a great country here in the Yukon Territory, Canada. The population of the territory is made up of people from all parts of t he world, and there is a very strong percentage of kangaroos and New Zealanders. Dawson City is 350 miles further down the Yukon River and north of this we have good sport-horse racing and cricket, base-ball, curling and skating and hockey matches. I had the privilege of being the first starter in this territory. I started the first horse race in this part of Canada and the farthest north in the world and on that part of the glorious Empire which the sun never sets on in 1898.
My son Frank is quite a good lad with the gloves. He is now 16 years old and I have apprenticed him to the engineering. He has now put in a year. He is a very big boy for his age 5ft 10 in high and weighing 142 lb and can go some but I will not let him go out of the amateur ranks. I have two girls, one 14 years and one 18 months – a native daughter.” Letter published in the New Zealand Truth, Issue 143, 14 March 1908 page 8.
He signed up for WW1 in Canada but because of his age was turned down. He then enlisted in the Western Scottish Battalion and worked first in recruiting, but then fought in Europe, suffering from shell-shock in 1917 after 57 days in the trenches.

Frank Slavin lived in obscurity until his death on October 17, 1929 in Vancouver BC.

New Zealand “paperspast” website; Wikipedia; Nytimes article-8/22/1897; 1901 Dawson Census online

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John Foley


John Foley was a well known card shark (three-card-monte) during those tumultuous days in 1898.

In the spring of 1898 the Spanish conflict aroused the patriotism in “Colonel” Soapy Smith to the point that he decided to recruit a company of soldiers in Skagway such as Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. Such became legal under authorization of the Volunteer Bill of April 23, 1898. The bill as presented by President William McKinley provided for the First Volunteer Cavalry Regiment – The Rough Riders – as a result of the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898 with the loss of 260 of her crew.

President McKinley called for 125,000 volunteers from the seven Western states and territories, a figure that was soon raised to 267,000. Three regiments were to be raised in the West, the first in the four territories, which included Alaska, the second in Wyoming and the third in the Dakotas.
Soapy organzied Company A, 1st Regiment of National Guard of Alaska and elected himself as Captain and John Foley as 1st Lieutenant.

The next time he shows up in history is that on this day, September 13, 1913 he got married in Alaska.

Corvallis Community online pages; Soapy letter to Pres McKinley in Clifford; news accts of deaths in NPS library

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Vincent Tony Dortero

Antonio and Sabina Dortero were born in Italy and came to Skagway in the goldrush with their three children, John, Vincent and Rosie. Vincent was born in Astoria Washington on this day, July 28, 1894 but went to World War One where he died in 1918. There is a memorial across from the Skagway Museum/City Hall with his name and other names of war veterans.
Vincent was buried in the Pioneer Cemetery next to his father. Vincent was 24 years old when he died.

1915 directory; World War One registration; Cemetery record
photo of his father’s store online

photo of Vincent, shortly before his death from influenza, from great granddaughter of John Dortero, Bettie Ogden.

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Capt. Wilds Preston Richardson


Captain Richardson got around! He arrived in Skagway in 1902 with the 9th Infantry.
He was originally sent to build Ft. Seward in Haines as an army engineer. He was also a Captain on the Yukon river and a Major for the Alaska Board of Road commissioners. He was a General in the Infantry Brigade in World War I in France and Russia.
The “Richardson Highway” is named for him. In 1900 he wrote “Relief of the Destitute in the Gold Fields, a compilation of Narratives of Explorations in Alaska, (Senate report 1023, GPO).
Richardson was born in 1861 in Texas and died on this day, May 20, 1929 in Washington D.C.

1905 directory; Navy history website; “Duty Station NW” by Lymon L. Woodman

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Major Frederick Russell Burnham


Happy Birthday to Major Burnham, another of those famous explorers who came to Skagway in the gold rush but left soon after. He came here with his son Roderick, then 12. Almost immediately upon arriving, he received a telegram from Lord Roberts: “…appoints you on his personal staff as Chief of Scouts. If you accept, come at once the quickest way possible.” So off he went to South Africa. (Lord Roberts is himself famous for keeping his troops safe in India and earned the phrase to show that you’re ok “Bob’s your uncle”). Burnham was born on this day, May 11, 1861 in Tivoli Minnesota and died in 1947 in Santa Barbara, California.

Anyway, Major Burnham led a very long and exciting life, read his biography on Wikipedia.