Category: Skagway families

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David Nathan Hukill


D.N. Hukill was born in 1858 in Covington, Kentucky. He came from Seattle in 1899 with his new wife Henrietta Catherine McKenzie. They had four daughters and three sons born here in Skagway. His granddaughter still lives in Skagway, (Mavis Irene).
David first worked White Pass construction, and then as a janitor and carver. He later worked for the City of Skagway as a laborer for streets. He was said to be a labor organizer. He died on this day, November 15, 1917 in Sitka at the Pioneers Home there. He was 59 years old.
Seen above is a modern Skagway fossil mammoth ivory carver with his supply.

1900 census;1905 and 1915 directories.

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Frederick Verbauwhede


Mr. Verbauwhede was born in 1850 in Wareghem, Flanders, Belgium. His family, wife Nathalie and three kids came to Skagway in 1898 from Portland Oregon. His store which sold candy and cigars is still standing on Broadway and is owned by the National Park Service which leases it to Klondike Tours.
The photo above is of the other two cribs which he owned around the corner in “French Alley” between 2nd and 3rd off Broadway. The young lady pictured is not related to the family, she was a tenant.
Frederick and family stayed here until 1904 when they decided to go back to Europe and landed in Roubaix, France. His grandson, also named Frederick Verbauwhede still runs a casino in Normandie.

Frederick Verbauwhede died on this day, November 12, 1933 in Roubaix, France, he was 83.

1900 census;1902 directory;family chronicles Gold Rush participants website; descendant in France.

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Samuel Haughton Graves

Mr. Graves was born in 1852 in Chicago, Illinois. He came to Skagway as the President of White Pass in 1898. He drove the ceremonial golden spike which finished the railroad line from Skagway to Whitehorse. This happened at Carcross on July 29, 1900.
So much has been written of him and his work supervising the 35,000 workers who built the railroad that I would not know where to begin.
Seen above is the administration building that once housed the offices of the White Pass President and staff. Today it is the administration building of the National Park Service. Graves’ office is the corner office overlooking the station and the harbor and is now the park’s Superintendent’s office. The office next to that was the railroad’s chief of operations but is now the park’s chief of administration (my husband, Reed). Some winter evenings when I go over to meet him for our walk home, the office is quiet and yet the ghosts of those great men linger on, I can almost smell the cigar smoke…
Graves died on this day, November 11, 1911 of a heart attack in Ottawa but is buried in the Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.

On the White Pass Payroll by Graves, 1908, Chicago; Minter

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Leon Edward Henry Hudson

Born on this day, November 10, 1874 in New York, Lee Hudson came to Skagway around 1905 which is when he appeared on the directory.
He worked as a White Pass carpenter, a janitor for the bank, and a cook. He was the Chief of Police in 1923 and the Town Marshal in 1929. His wife Anna was originally from Germany or Norway and his daughter Lucilla was born in this area, in 1909. Anna died in 1912 at the age of 32 leaving Lucilla and Lee. Lee stayed on in Skagway and died in 1934 in Skagway. He is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery.

The photo above was taken in 1923 when President Harding visited. Is that Hudson holding the little girl? His daughter Lucilla was 14 then, perhaps that is her standing on the boardwalk wearing a white bow on her head…

1905, 1915, and 1923 directories;1920 and 1929 census; Mason directory; WWI registration; Skagway death record

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John Nicholas Hansen


John Hansen, known as “Nels” was born on this day, November 1, 1874 in Bornholm, Denmark. He came to Skagway in 1897 and married Ethel Mae Feero about 1907. His three children, John Egbert born 1908, Aden Nels born 1909, Frank born 1917 and William born 1919 were all born in Skagway and stayed here most of their lives.

Nels worked as the White Pass bridge foreman and as a fisherman. He was a member of the Arctic Brotherhood and was Skagway councilman from 1920 to 1922. Nels and Ethel were in Skagway for the 1929 census but I have no idea what became of them after that.

1910,1920, 1929 censuses; 1915 directory; 1909 AB book; rootsweb posting; WW1 registration.

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Adolf Gustav Arlitt


Adolph Gustav Arlitt was born August 27, 1865 in Waldenburg, province Schlesien, Germany. He was a baker and immigrated in the 1880’s, settling first in Austin, Texas, where he worked at the Lundberg Bakery. In 1888, he moved to Seattle and was employed at a number of bakeries including A.W. Piper Bakery, Queen City and Eureka Baking Company, and the O.H. Thrall Bakery. In 1897, he and his friend, Fred Olshewsky opened The German Bakery & Restaurant in Skagway.

Gus returned to Seattle in the spring of 1900 to be with his family, while Olshewsky stayed on in Skagway for about another year. Gustav remained in the bakery business in Sumas, Sehome, and Olympia, Washington, where he started the German Bakery and Coffee House, and later, Arlitt’s Bakery. In 1921, he became one of the original 125 investors in The Olympia Veneer Company, and worked there mixing glue for the plywood until 1935. He died on August 3, 1937 and is buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Tumwater, Washington.

thanks to John Arlitt, great grand-nephew

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Engine 61


There are very few photos of Engine 61, so I have been told, so here is one of Theresa Weise about 1920 posing on the front of it. The engine was purchased new and built in 1900 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works. It was a 2-8-0 wheel configuration and weighed 17,600 lbf.
Here is a description from a railfan’s site: “This single Consolidation had the same power dimensions as the converted #56 (Locobase 10678), but was a road engine. Like most of the WP & Y locomotives, 61 had an outside frame (to make room for the Stephenson link motion inside) and it stayed in service an equivalent amount of time before retirement in the early 1940s.”
Sadly it was used as riprap along the Skagway River in 1949.
I believe it was John Bush, who worked in Skagway as the head of the train works here, who had it retrieved and moved to Skagway Shops in 1990. He was involved in trading abandoned narrow gauge trucks (railroad car wheels) to other narrow gauge train companies. He was also responsible for trading these trucks to a town in the midwest for Engine 69, which eventually made its way to Skagway. When White Pass traded for this engine, it had been sitting in the town center of some little town in Nebraska (?) for many decades and the town was quite attached to it, so it was moved out of there under cover of darkness and hidden in Washington State for a couple of years until it was brought up to Skagway.
Anyway, the fate of little engine 61 is not as lucky, it was sold to Mid-West Locomotive & Machine Works in 2007. Narrow gauge engines and parts are getting difficult to find these days.

photo courtesy of John Weise. Wikipedia for engine info; steamlocomotive.com

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Sophie Matthews


On this day, September 27, 1938 Sophie Matthews died and was buried in the Pioneer Cemetery. She was 76 years old, a Tlingit native born in Klukwan in 1862 and her native name was Kxa Gis Ooh. She married William Edward Matthews who came to Skagway in 1888 from St. Louis Missouri and was a farmer.
Their son William Clarence Matthews also married a woman named Sophie who died young, at 26, in 1921 and is buried in the Cemetery in Dyea. See her grave in the picture above. Their two daughters, Julia and Mable died as little girls in 1920 also probably from the influenza epidemic and are buried together in Dyea. There are quite a few descendants of the Matthews clan that still live in Skagway.

Skagway death record.

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Ellen Orr Batson


Born on this day, September 22 1879 in North Carolina, Ellen Orr was married to William Burt Batson the town butcher in Skagway. They were here at least from 1910 to 1915 but probably longer. William managed the Frye Bruhn Meat Company.
Ellen Orr Batson died in 1967 in Randall Washington and is buried in the Silver Creek Cemetery there.

There were actually two buildings associated with the Meat Market, one is on 5th, seen above, and this summer was the “Bombay Curry” Restaurant. This was the actual store and is being considered for historic building status, the other is the building on 5th and State. This building, the Frye-Bruhn’s cold storage building, was once used to refrigerate the company’s meat products. It has been recognized as historically significant by the National Park Service, which took ownership of the building in 2004. A contributing element of the Skagway and White Pass National Historic Landmark, this building is also in the process of being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places by the Park Service.

Late breaking news about the restoration of the cold storage building:
a revolver was found in the walls of the building last week, no news on its age, but a photo of it is flying around Skagway. Earlier in the summer one of the archaeologists was impaled in the eye by a flying nail but she is now recovering. Who knows what other evil spirits the building hides?

Alaska Library Archeaology; 1915 directory, family website, Silver Creek Cemetery list, Skagway News, Skagway Museum Record.