Category: Tragedy

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Patrick Comer and John Stanley

On this day, August 2, 1903 two men went out fishing and never returned. They both drowned when they ran into trouble out in Lynn Canal. Patrick Comer was buried in the Skagway Gold Rush Cemetery but Mr. Stanley or Standley was shipped down to Seattle to be buried.
Stanley was the first Mayor of Skagway and joined the Arctic Brotherhood in 1899, he was 50 years old when he died. Comer was a fisherman and was 45 years old when he died.

Also died on this day was Herman Meyer, famous in this town for his building “Meyer’s Meat Market” which is now under reconstruction by the National Park Service on the corner of 5th and State Streets.
Meyer was a butcher, owned the Arctic Meat Company, and also managed the Arctic Telephone Company. He moved to Valdez in 1903 and died in Alaska on August 2, 1923.

Skagway death records; 1900 census; 1902 directory.

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Walter Monastes

Walter, 17 years old was a steward on the sternwheeler steamboat Florance S in July 1900. The Florance S, a 100 ton 75 foot ship, was built in 1898 and was originally owned by Seattle-Yukon Transportation Company. It was sold to Captain Sydney Charles Barrington in 1900. When it rolled over at a corner and foundered in the “Thirtymile” section of the Yukon River, Walter, and passengers Mrs. Stewart, and her daughter Ada all drowned there. (Various sources also say that the ship rolled on July 25 or July 29, 1900). The boat was sidelined for a few months and then converted to a barge in 1901. It was resold to Captain Wallace Langley in 1905. It was owned by George S. Black by 1939.

Although Captain Barrington was the captain of this ship, a man named Jordan was at the wheel at the time of the accident, and was arrested for manslaughter.

Young Walter Monastes was from Skagway, and his body was shipped here and buried in the Gold Rush Cemetery.

Dawson Funeral Index; NWMP report; Wikipedia; ExploreNorth

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Frank H. Reid

The famous or infamous Frank Reid died on this day July 19, 1898, having been shot in the groin by Soapy Smith on July 8, 1898. He was born in either 1850 or 1844, but it was 1850 in the 1880 Linn County census with his brother, D.V.S. Reid. Both were born in Illinois. His grand-neice came to Skagway and said that the H. in his name stood for Harold.

Frank was a graduate engineer and a teacher in Linn County, Oregon District 29 in the 1870’s. In 1898 he came to Skagway and created the Map of Skagway which was adopted on March 6, 1898 by the City. He had worked with W. Thibaudeau to plat the streets.
Earlier, he had been a Lt. in Mart Brown’s Company of Oregon Volunteers.

Klondike Stampeders Register p80; Mission Klondike, Sinclair; phot above – Eloise Short and Kathryn Baker (right) stand by grand uncle Frank H. Reid’s monument during a visit to the Gold Rush Cemetery in 1990. Photo by Jeff Brady

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Ida Shonkwiler Kirmse

The first Mrs. Herman Kirmse was born in Oregon in February 1869, and came to Skagway with the family in August 1898. She died on this day, July 15, 1900 of convulsions in Skagway, but was buried in Seattle.

Herman then remarried in September of 1900, to Hazel Cleveland. They lived here for a couple of years, but then Herman accidentally drowned in Ketchikan after he fell off the dock there in 1912. The rest of the family stayed only a few years and were gone by the next census in 1920.

The Kirmse’s curio store has recently seen a revival with antique displays and other antiques for sale (corner of 5th and Broadway).
Coincidentally, today a man came in and asked about the “Kirmse Clock” on the mountainside. He was amazed that a clock could have been taken up there over a hundred years ago. Despite being told that the clock is just painted on the rock, he still chose to believe it is a real clock. Alas, we did not argue with him, he went off happy.

Skagway Death Record; census; correct spelling of Shonkwiler from descendent (wrong in Skagway death record)

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Robert M. Parkins

Mr. Parkins, born about 1867 died on this day, July 14, 1901 in Skagway and was buried in the Gold Rush Cemetery by the Skagway Fire Department.

Skagway Death Record. Parkins coat of arms above.

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Andrews family


Clarence Leroy Andrews was born in Ashtabula Ohio in 1862 and moved to Oregon with his father in 1864. He and his wife Ida Swaggart and their three daughters, Annie Clare, Mabel and Washti or Vashti moved to Skagway in 1897. Clarence was the deputy collector for U.S.customs, a photographer, an auditor, and a representative for the Education Bureau. Although the family was here in Skagway until after the 1900 census, they returned to Oregon.
On this day, June 14, 1903 there was a terrible flood in Heppner. Mrs Andrews and the three girls drowned there. Clarence was here in Skagway and survived. He served as councilman for the town in 1901, and finally left in 1929. Clarence died in 1948 in Eugene Oregon. He took a number of unusual photographs, this one is from Glacier Bay and titled “The Father of the Glaciers” taken in 1902.

Clarence Leroy Andrews letters and photographs are in the University of Oregon.

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Robert Bruce Banks


Robert Banks was born June 11, 1858 in Windom Minnesota, the 17th child of 21 from his father James Monroe Banks born in 1792 in Pennsylvania.

Banks is mostly famous for drowning in Lynn Canal when the Clara Nevada blew up upon leaving Skagway on February 5, 1898.
Robert Bruce Banks was about 40 when he died and he was trying to find work in Skagway as a woodcutter. His wife Josephine and their 6 children ages 2 through 16, waited for him to return in the Bellingham area. Here is the last letter he wrote to his family three days before he boarded the Clara Nevada:

Skagway Feb. 2,1898
Dear Josie,
I sent out a letter Monday on S.S. Noyo but we hear she is on a rock between here and Juno. I had hired out then to go on the wagon road to work but when I got out there they said they already had too many men. There are ten carpenters for every days work here. The weather has been very cold and windy for 4 days. We are very healthy,, but I did not come here for health or poverty. Had plenty of that before. Wood cutting is $2. per cord now, and buck our own timber, pay uncertain. In fact pay here is generally uncertain. I have not had a line from you to date except letter in Seattle. Unless something good turns up soon, I will return to Seattle. I can earn a little money there before spring. Alki is expected Friday, then I surely shall hear from you and return on her unless things look better.
With much lonesomeness
R B Banks

Letter one of many and Photo above is courtesy of family on genforum and rootsweb.

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John Smart


John Smart was born about 1885 in the Carcross area. He was the son of Dawson Charlie, also known as Tagish Charlie or Káa goox. On this day, May 26, 1903 John was run over by the train at Carcross. He is probably buried in the Carcross cemetery with his father who fell off of the Carcross bridge in 1908. Pictured above is Charlie at the far right with family.

Daily Alaskan May 27 1903; Yukon Archives 1087 #8

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Jonas Fred Whitcomb Jr.


Mr. Whitcomb was born in Keene New Hampshire in 1873 and came to the Klondike in search of gold. He died on this day, May 25, 1898 at the south end of Lake Tutshi, accidently by gunshot. He was buried at the south end of Windy Arm.

“In May 1898, Whitcomb and A. P. White, of Houghton, Massachsetts, went ahead to clear a trail from Tutshi Lake to Windy Arm. On the 25th, while leaning over to start a rock rolling down the hill (possibly during a hunting excursion), Whitcomb’s revolver slipped out of its holster and fell to the ground, discharging it. The bullet hit Whitcomb in the chest, killing him immediately.

On May 27th, he was buried in a Masonic ceremony at the south end of Windy Arm. His father sent a brass plaque for the grave, and it was mounted on a piece of slate. His death was briefly reported in the July 2, 1898, edition of The Klondike Nugget.

There appears to have been two other burials beside Whitcomb – right beside on the left is a slate marker with “H. M. H.” chiselled into a piece of slate by the same hand as the initials “J. F. W. Jr.” on the back of Whitcomb’s slate marker, while several feet to the right is an apparent exhumation. The 1898 diary of Stewart L. Campbell reports that on Monday, May 9th, 1898, “a Mrs. Howe [was] buried at end of lake. 72 years old”, and on May 15, “3 men drowned around the point.” He also reports that he took a photos of the graves at the south end of the lake, so the deaths he reports are possibly related to this site.

The graves are accessed from the South Klondike Highway – there is lots of room to park at the south end of Windy Arm . There is no trail, and you have to wade across two creeks (waist deep at mid-summer water levels) and crash through the forest to avoid lakeshore cliffs.”

quoted from Murray Lundberg’s website “explorenorth.com”

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Caspar Jack Kossuth


Happy Birthday to “Cassie” Kossuth, born on this day, May 2, 1892 in Seattle to Caspar Kossuth and Stella Barnum. Caspar senior died in Seattle between 1892 and 1897 because the widow Kossuth, her mother and her son little Cassie arrived in Skagway in July 1897. Stella set up a little hotel with her mother and soon found help from a gentleman friend, George Buchanan (not the same George Buchanan as the Detroit philanthropist of an earlier blog).
George apparently did not like the boarders at Stella’s hotel, and so did as some jealous men do, he shot her and then shot himself. We do not know if Cassie was witness to this, hopefully not, but by 1900 he had been adopted by another Skagway family the McArthur’s. Now in the 1900 census William and Annie McArthur show both Cassie and a Kenneth McArthur both born in 1892 in Seattle and arriving in 1897. Perhaps they are the same boy, in any event, Cassie grew up and married in 1930 to Margaret in Seattle. He passed away in 1966 in Seattle at the age of 74.
Now those of you who wonder if the spirits of Stella and George still inhabit the hotel building which now sits behind the Red Onion Saloon on 2nd Avenue, the answer is maybe. The current owner told me that his aunt always said she felt a presence in that building, but nothing more. If you happen by on the night of September 20, the night of the murder-suicide listen for a couple of shots!

Victoria Daily Colonist 9.26.97; Klondike Fever