Marion Granger Clark
Marion Granger was born on February 4, 1866 in Calhoun, Wisconsin. When she was 35 she married Henry David Clark in Tacoma and they moved to Skagway to farm. A Clark child was born and died in 1902 who may have been their first child, but they then had two daughters, Floris in 1904 and Dorothy in 1910 who are often pictured in the fields of Clark Farm on postcards.
Henry first started potato farming in Dyea and later had a farm on the other side of the Skagway River where the Jewell Gardens are now. In the tea room are several enlarged photos of the family and the gardens.
Marion was the treasurer of the Presbyterian Church for 26 years and died on this day, April 28, 1947 and is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery with Henry.
Above is picture of a modern gardener at Jewell Gardens with a bushel of organic vegetables! Last summer our family did the CSA with them and I plan to again – what a great program! It is so great to know that your food is free of pesticides and chemicals. Garden On!
1920 and 1929 Skagway census; Mills page 64; Skagway death record; 1880 census in Wisconsin; 1915 directory.
Alice Stanton Corliss
Alice Stanton was born in 1867 in Stanton, Minnesota and married Charles William Corliss in 1887 in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. He was a lawyer and they moved to Seattle. In 1898 they joined the gold rush and got as far as Lake Bennett before Alice was stricken with meningitis and died. Her husband took her back to Seattle to be buried.
The city of Skagway issued the death certificate for this day, April 19, 1898 but she probably died on April 17, 1898. She had a daughter, Muriel May who was 8 at the time, but it is unknown if she was with her parents on this disastrous adventure.
A year later Charles remarried and had 6 more children. Alice, Charles and Muriel are all buried in the Wright Crematory in Seattle.
Seen above is the boat building yard at Lake Bennett in 1897-98.
Skagway death record; Washington birth record; familysearch; Washington State Bar Assn. obituary 1914;
Swimming anyone?
A little cheesecake after the boring story of Cy.
Francis Mawson Rattenbury
I love this story.
Francis M. Rattenbury was born in 1867 in Leeds, England. Rattenbury emigrated to Canada in 1892, first working as agent for Bradford investors in Vancouver. His experience in commercial and civic design, structural systems, architectural historical vocabulary and office practice furthered his career quickly. Aided by his prize-winning ability as draftsman, Rattenbury quickly supplanted the earlier generation of immigrant architects in the province. He won the 1893 competition for the new Provincial Legislature in Victoria a building which is beautiful and which is open for tours today. Despite cost overruns, the building opened in 1898 to considerable praise. He also designed the famous Empress Hotel in Victoria which overlooks the bay.
Rattenbury’s demonstrated competence at architectural display won him patronage from the leading institutions as well as government. I read once that he designed the White Pass administration building in Skagway that today houses the National Park’s administration. Rattenbury also was a promoter of the Bennett Lake & Klondyke Navigation Company.
Unfortunately for one so talented in architecture and business, he failed miserably in his personal life. Rattenbury married Florence Eleanor Nunn on June 18, 1898 and had a son Francis Burgoyne Rattenbury that same year. Rattenbury and Florence did not get along and fought often when he was at home, but he stayed away on projects in the Yukon during the gold rush. Eventually he divorced in 1925 and married Alma, who at the time of their marriage was 26 to his 56 years of age.
Hastened by scandal attaching to his divorce and remarriage, Rattenbury returned to Britain in 1929. He was murdered by his 18 year old chauffeur, George Stoner, Alma’s lover, on this day, March 28, 1935. (Stoner crept up behind Rattenbury and struck him on the head three times with a mallet.)
Stoner was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang. Mrs. Alma Rattenbury, although chastised for being an adultress, was found not guilty of any crime and released. Despite her freedom, Alma was distraught. Four days later she waded into the Avon River and resolutely stabbed herself six times before delivering a fatal wound. Ouch, how Shakesperian!
Stoner’s death sentence, because of public pressure, was commuted to life imprisonment. After serving seven years he was released in 1942 to join the army. He took part in the Normandy Invasion on June 6, 1944.
The Right Way On, Olive p 165; Alaska State Archives; www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com
Folquert Wooland
Mr. Wooland was born on this day, March 20, 1847 in Norway. He came to Skagway from Leadville, Colorado and was a tailor by profession. He was a City Councilman in 1903 to 1904 and was a member of the Elks. In 1905 he moved to Juneau and died there in 1933.
Seen above are a couple of fashionable 1904 suits.
1900 census under Holland;1902 directory; family chronicles; Skagway Museum Record; Pennington.
Gone Postal 1898
William Steele was the postmaster in Dyea and had quite alot to deal with in 1898. Not least of which was Mrs. Sarah Rowley who attempted to shoot him because she thought he had stolen their goods.
Although she was arrested for the attempted murder of postmaster Steele in Dyea on June 12, 1898, she was later released on insanity. She and her husband, H. Campbell Rowley worked as packers on the Chilkoot Trail. They had lost their outfit when the SS Corona went down, and then their replacement outfit was also lost.
No wonder she went crazy!
When I worked at the Skagway Post Office in 1998 I encountered a number of irate and irrational people at the window who also thought I was hiding their mail. I remember one man who could not believe that his package, sent from Florida the day before, was not in Skagway since it had been sent priority! Another local man would scream at us if his Wall Street Journal was not in his box at 8 am, despite the fact that mail arrives by small airplane, and in huge bags, and weather permitting. So we would upend all the mail, look for his paper and make a special delivery to his box to avoid the commotion. Well all those postal workers that I worked with are retired now and the screaming man – well he died shortly thereafter of hypertension as I recall…..
New York Times 6/17/1898; Skagway Museum Record
Mary Ellen/Elizabeth Higgins Hitchcock
Mary Higgins was born on this day March 1, 1849 in Baltimore Maryland or Virginia or Brooklyn, New York. In any event she was from a very wealthy family and married U.S. Navy Commander Roswell D. Hitchcock in 1871. He died in 1892 leaving her a bored and wealthy widow.
She was an eccentric writer who came to Alaska three times with her friend Edith Van Buren (grand-neice of President Van Buren), the last in 1899. Later that year she wrote a book entitled “Two Women in the Klondike” of her adventures with Edith and their two great dane dogs, Ivan and Queen, a dozen pigeons, two canaries and a parrot. I have read this account of their hardships (having to wait all morning for the warm water for their manicures) and having to discipline the insubordinate “servants” that they encountered. It would be funny except that I’m sure that their fellow travelers were not amused.
When they finally got to Skagway on their way south, they stayed at Brannick’s Hotel that had a 4-poster bed with spring mattresses, sheets and pillowcases.
They went to an oyster bar for dinner (beer, ten cents) and took the City of Topeka steamer south the next day.
She had her portrait done with Ivan, seen above. She felt she had endured great hardships, and told stories of her adventures back in Amityville, New York where she died in 1920 at the age of 71.
nytimes article 8/22/1899; victorian-cinema.net; Two Women in the Klondike by Hitchcock.
The Hallelujah Lassies
One of the many religious communities in Skagway during the Gold Rush, the Salvation Army had several people working here. The most famous was General Evangeline Cory Booth who was born on Christmas Day 1865 in London to the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth. The names of some of the others here were:
Lieut. Emma Matilda Aitken (middle row far right)
Adjutant George Dowell (middle row, second from left)
Ensign Rebecca Ellery (middle row, far left)
Captain John Kenny (top row, second from left)
Ensign Thomas James McGill (top row, second from right)and his wife Laura Aikenhead McGill (not pictured)
Ensign Fred Bloss (top row far right)
Ensign Frank Morris (top row first on left)
Captain John Lecocq (front row)
These were members of the 1898 “Klondike Brigade” of nine Salvation Army soldiers, seven men and two women (well actually three if you include Mrs McGill). The “hallelujah lassies” arrived in May 1898 on the Steamer S.S. “Tees” (see yesterday’s blog) at Skagway and then proceeded to Dyea. They climbed the Chilkoot Pass while it was still deep in snow. Included in their outfit were two folding canoes for the river journey, but before the group could use the canoes, they had to cross the rotting ice of Lake Bennett. It took them three weeks to travel from Skagway to Dawson.
Thornton p 190; The founding of the Salvation Army, 1962; Explorenorth.com; descendent confirmation
Steamer Tees
In 1893, Captain John Irving of the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company built three boats for his company. The Steamer Tees was built in Stockton-on-Tees in England, and she plied the Inside Passage for 44 years bringing thousands of gold seekers and others to Skagway and Dyea. The Tees was a modern steel hulled, double bottomed freighter with a triple expansion engine, a siren whistle and electric lights. Her top speed was 10 1/2 knots and at 165 feet, had cabin space for 75 people. She came to the west coast in April of 1896 and despite going aground once in 1899, made hundreds of trips north to Alaska. After being acquired by the CPR in 1903 she continued to ply the rough waters off of the rocky coast of Vancouver Island for 10 years. In 1918 she was sent with a crew of divers to salvage the safe off of the Princess Sofia. The safe with $62,000 of bullion was recovered but the Sophia was not able to be salvaged.
Late in life, in the 1930’s she became a tow boat towing scows laden with hog fuel from the Chemainus Sawmills to Port Angeles. In 1937 while towing a barge into Victoria Harbor on a stormy day she was struck by the barge and destroyed.
The ghost of Fannie Hall, a Gold Rush actress who was murdered on the ship in January of 1900 must have gone down with the ship in Victoria Harbor.
The photo above is not the Steamer Tees but is similar.
Frontier Days in British Columbia by Garnet Basque; Klondike Nugget of February 1, 1900.