12/22/03

A commission from J. B. Haggin. Picking rocks from a miner's hide. An option on the Humboldt. Running a ten-stamp mill. Celebrities on the steamer. Building the wharf at Valdez. The wreck of the Bertha. My lumber thrown overboard to lift vessel.

The Northwest coastline of the North American continent is formed by a partly submerged range of mighty peaks. Up the coast of Canada and into Alaska, the ocean has poured in between these mountains, filling the valleys and following the canyons in long fjords of exquisite beauty. The Japan Current on its way north, not being able to escape into the Arctic Ocean through the narrow Bering Straits, swings east of the Aleutian Islands and follows the curve of the Gulf of Alaska, continuing southward down the coast. This warm currant brings a mild climate along the entire coast, with almost tropical vegetation during the summer. The inside passage of ships plying between the States and Juneau lies through the ocean-filled valleys of this coast range, as they stop here and there at the canneries located in the coves and bay, waiting at times for the changing of the tides as they pull through the narrow channels, and now and again feeling the swells of the open ocean when passing the entrances of the sounds which open into the Pacific. Out through icy Straits into the Gulf of Alaska, the ships continue to follow the coast like bees in a hedge of flowers. There is Mt. St. Elias, towering over eighteen thousand feet into the clouds, and many other giants which look down at the tiny specks floating along on the ocean below.

My return voyage to Seattle was made through the inside passage. The days were long and nights only short periods of luminous, lavender twilight, which made us stay on deck at all hours, drinking in the beauty of the magnificent scenery, and only dropping off for a nap in the sun in a deck chair when sleep would overcome us.

Back in New York, the depression in mining was gradually evaporating, and metal prices were once more on the upgrade. At that time, the Nowell Brothers of Juneau were in New York City, endeavoring to interest J. B. Haggin in their mining at Berner's Bay. Haggin was the principal owner of the Homestake, and probably the foremost mining operator in the United States at that time.   During one of my daily visits to the office of my syndicate in the Mills Building, Dick Lounsbury, son-in-law of Haggin and s member of the syndicate, said that Mr. Haggin would like to see me. The office of the mining magnate was on an upper floor of the same building, so I hurried up to see him and was ushered into his private office. Having closed the door, I took the seat indicated by him, and Haggin, drawing his chair closer, gazed at me with his fishy eye which seemed to bore through to the back of ay head, and said, "What do you know about gold mining?"

"I know how and where to prospect; how to pan free milling ore or assay a sulphide. I also know how to sample or develop mines when found."

"Where would you look for gold?" asked he. "Most anywhere," I replied, "Gold is where you find it."

Mr. Haggin appeared to be satisfied with my answers, for after giving me another look of peculiar fixity, he said: "I have sent two engineers to examine Nowell's mine at Berner's Bay. They will retune with long, larruping reports that I have neither the time nor the inclination to wade through. I want you to go to Alaska and check them up.   Tell me in as few words as possible whether it is a good thing or not. Be brief. The cashier will give you a check for $1000.00 for your expenses."

When I left the office of the foremost mining operator in the United States, I was treading on air and felt as if I had been exalted into a new sphere of life. To be singled out for such an important mission, and the fact that on my judgment and decision would depend an investment running up into the millions, could mean nothing less than an appreciation of my work for the syndicate.

Again I took the train for Seattle and the inside passage for Alaska. Outside of the superb beauty of the scenery, the voyage was uneventful, except for a side trip to Governor Hoggatt's mine above Juneau. There I spent the first night picking pieces of rock out of the anatomical structure of one of the miners who had nonchalantly drilled into a missed hole. The man's body from his face down had been peppered with rooks the size of a pea. Dust and even a piece of cap was dug out of his chest. He was a pitiable sight, but he afterwards recovered and for years served as an example around Juneau for the people who fool with dynamite.

When I reached Berner's Bay I learned that the two engineers sent ahead of me had completed their work, but after a perfunctory handshake the silent antagonism of the fraternity kept them aloof and I saw them no more. I was favorable impressed with the mine, but the situation was so complicated that many years of successful operation would be required to straighten it out. Retuning to New York, I made my report to Mr. Haggin. He said my opinion had already been corroborated by D. O. Mills, the controlling engineer of the Alaska Treadwell Mine on Douglas Island.

By this time my trips to Alaska had awakened my imagination as to the possibilities of the country, and after I had completed my mission for Haggin I returned to Juneau. Before leaving the States I secured an option on some mining claims back of Juneau, for which I was to pay $100,000. At that time things had begun to move rapidly around Juneau. The country was discovered to be full of mineral, and anyone who could handle $1.00 ore at a profit could find a mountain of it for the asking and ample capital. However, it was only when the great consolidation of claims engineered by F. W. Bradley made possible the Alaska Juneau Mining Company, which transposed the industry from mining into a manufacturing proposition, that success was reached. My Humbolt claims went in with the others, so I shifted my activities to making mine examinations along the coast, and was appointed consulting engineer for the Alaska Treasure Mines on Douglas Island.

Those were preconservation years, a time when everything was wide open and the pioneer still had a chance. It was the pioneer's last frontier. The mining lands were still open to the prospector, and he could harness a water power plant, build a cabin, help himself to the coal that lay scattered along the beaches by the thousand of tons, and obtain a patent for his mining claim without interference from government agents. The steamers were crowded with passengers going to the interior to prospect. Business seeking locations, and investors with money for building, for electric light plants, canneries, and saw mills. The traffic was all one way, save for those going back to the States to buy goods, a few tourist and salesmen. The stampede to the Klondyke was about over, and the tide of travel was turned to Valdex and the Copper River country.

It was early in 1902 that I joined the rush by taking passage on the “S. S. Excelsior” from Seattle o Valdez. She was an old boat of about seven hundred tons, slow as cold molasses, but safe enough in to smooth waters of the inside passage. In addition to the crew, she had two hundred and four passengers crowded on her, the second class sleeping on the dining tables and on the deck.  Dr. Fred Cook, who many believe to have reached the North Pole before Peary, was on his way to climb Mt. McKinley. Major Abercrombie, who built the first military trail from Valdez to the interior, was also a passenger. C. E. Johnson, Captain Barnett, and Jim Fleming were on their way to the Yukon, from which they were to emerge as millionaires in the next two years. Charles Miller, of Miller Gulch fame, with his small daughter, Nancy, who was later to become the wife of an Indian Rajah, were also on the boat, as was Charles Anderson, who in 1898 had three five-gallon oil cans filled with gold dust in his cabin on the Klondyke River, had gone broke, and was now on his was to Valdez to make another stake.

It was snowing hard on the “morning” that the Excelsior butted her nose into the same bank that had greeted the Elihu Thompson eighteen months before. After debarking from the steamer in a small boat and wading through half a mile of the tide flat mud, the passengers who were to stay in Valdez wended their way into the town and were soon located in the hotels and boarding houses. The snow was some five feet deep, but it did not seem to bother anybody, as all were on snowshoes except when in the sled track on the main street. About three thousand people were in the town and more were coming on every boat.

Two Swedes, just arrived, saw a twenty-five cent piece lying in the snow. One stooped to pick it up, but the other restrained him, saying: “Don’t fool ban that! We’ll ban finding five-dollar gold pieces soon!” That describes the sentiment prevailing. Although it was winter, reports were coming in from the interior of rich strikes on all the creeks. Everybody was expecting to get rich as soon a they could get over Thompson’s Pass.

In the meantime, I was looking for an opportunity close at hand that promised a profit, and decided that what the town needed more than anything else was a dock where boats could unload their passengers and freight cargoes without having to wade and draw everything through the mud. There was plenty of money available, so a few of us got together and outlined our plans, with the result that the Valdez Dock Company sprang into being forthwith, for which I was made president, Walter Gollin, the agent for one of the steamship companies, treasurer, and Frank Kinghorn, secretary. There was plenty of timber for piling on the hillsides overlooking the bay, so we hired some ax men, and as the logs were dropped into the water they were towed to the wharf site. The commander of the military post across the bay had promised to loan us a pile driver.

Valdez Glacier, three miles beyond the town, form which the place derives its name, is gradually receding, and the moraine resulting there has formed a level plain several miles in extent, reaching out one half mile below the limit of high tide. Below that line the loose, gravel deposit has been carried away by the action of the tides, leaving a perpendicular bank extending entirely around the head of the bay. Arriving at this bank the steamers could come no closer to the shore. Our dock enterprise therefore contemplated a roadway trestle for one half mile out over the tide flat with a landing place for steamers to tie to in deep water.

While the piling was being driven, some of it being ninety feet long, I went to Seattle to buy lumber. The first load of planks was taken by the S. S. Excelsior and landed in safety at Valdez. The balance nearly one hundred thousand feet, comprised the cargo of the S. S. Bertha had seventy-five passengers for Valdez, and I went along for good measure. All went well and we were and we were making good time until we reached Queen Charlotte Sound, when at a late hour on a moonless night we crashed on a rock off the shore of Fitzhugh Island. Immediately all was bedlam on board. The passengers awakened in fright from their berths and rushed around the decks. The women screaming and the men calling for the boats. I at once saw that there was little danger from a wooden ship laden with lumber going down while spitted on a pointed rock, and I did what I could to quiet the passengers, while the captain shouted that we were close to the shore and there was no danger. Some of the men passengers then took off their coats and helped the crew in throwing the planks overboard, so that soon the cargo of lumber was floating around the ship. Thus relieved of her load and the holes in the hull of the steamer plugged, the bertha was easily floated with the incoming tide. Later in the day, the Santa Ana, which had recently been added to the Valdez line of boats, came along and our passengers were transferred to her. The Bertha was towed back to Puget Sound for repairs and reappeared on the run on her regular sailing date.

Very little of our lumber was saved, but it was insured, and I suffered no loss, however it was necessary for me to return to Seattle to replace the shipment. When I finally appeared at Valdez with the dock material, I learned that the government had recalled the loan of the pile driver, and by the time we had the wharf completed it was spring.