A Picture of the Days when Young and Old Men and even Women Rushed away to the Gold Fields of Alaska
A Picture of the Days when Young and Old Men and even Women Rushed away to the Gold Fields of Alaska. Party of Eighteen Start from New York City. Seattle…
From: 1897 C.E. To: 1898 C.E.
Location: New York; Seattle, Washington
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Mad Rush for Gold in Frozen North by Arthur Arnold Dietz, 1914.
A Picture of the Days when Young and Old Men and even Women Rushed away to the Gold Fields of Alaska. Party of Eighteen Start from New York City. Seattle more Wicked than Sodom. New York Party Charter an Old Brig which had been Condemned by the U. S. Government Two Years Previous. Hundreds of Lives Lost in 1897-1898.
During the two years following the discovery of gold in Alaska, no fewer than 1800 men who went to that vast continent of snow and ice, buoyant with hopes and dreams of untold treasures that were to be theirs for the taking, met death instead. These figures are from the government report. But I do not believe that the true story of the great harvest of death in that land at that time has ever been told, or ever will be known.
My own impression is, and I write it down confidently, that the number of brave fellows who started for the Klondyke region and never returned was between twenty and twenty-five hundred, nearly the total fatalities from all causes on both sides in the Spanish-American war. Behold, the power of gold! Imagine that great army of misguided humanity—the very flower of America’s best physical manhood—going down to death for mere gold, which after all is a minor consideration in the affairs of men.
When after untold hardships I made my way into the heart of Alaska, and it came to be a question of life or death, I left behind the gold I took along without great regret as I would leave behind a worthless burden. I have learned the value of gold as compared with life. But in 1896 I did not realize that or this story would never have been written—or experienced.
I remember distinctly how each morning the papers announced in flaring headlines that great quantities of gold were being picked up in the interior of Alaska. Men grew rich over night; the treasure was so great that there were not enough people to lay claim to it.
The country went gold-mad. People ran away from their homes determined to go to the Klondyke. Others, who were tied to their homes by ties so strong that they could not be broken, wished in their hearts that they could go.
Wives, sweethearts, aged parents, children, happy homes, friends, incomes, employments—everything that the world holds dear—were left behind in that mad scramble for gold.
Without a thought as to the perils they were encountering, old men, young boys and even women, who were physically unable to endure the rigors of the climate and the hardships, rushed away. It was a case of the survival of the fittest. Thousands never reached their goal, and other thousands who were more successful were unprepared for the hardships to be endured.
It is no wonder that so many died, but I have always felt that some measure should have been taken by the government to prevent that great loss of life. It was useless; it served no purpose, and somebody was responsible. As time goes by and I reflect, I am beginning to feel that some inhuman brute organized that mad gold-rush for selfish gain; my reasons for thinking thus will appear as this record unfolds.
When the first reports of the gold strike reached the States I was living in upper New York City. The continued exploitation in the papers of gold finds caused almost every man to think of venturing into the frozen north. Almost every man I met talked of it and would say, “If I had money enough I would go.” I had always been from childhood of a roving and adventurous disposition and these stories of untold treasures in Alaska took possession of me and I was soon afflicted with the craze. I imparted my desires to my father-in-law and was pleased to learn his opinion that if anyone could endure the trip that that person was I. That clinched the matter. I decided finally to go to the Klondyke.
At that time parties were forming everywhere. The gold craze seemed to be sweeping everything before it. Men left for that unexplored country with insufficient equipment—men who had never seen a snow-shoe or a dog sled, who had always slept on soft mattresses and were accustomed to three meals a day, for no one could start unless he had at least $500 and many had more than $5000. All of them were sadly inexperienced as to what conditions they might be expected to meet in a land where the mercury drops to from forty to seventy degrees below zero and the nights are seven months long.
In August, 1896, I advertised in the New York Herald for a partner or two to form a mining company. The next morning the postman brought me no fewer than forty letters, and more during the day. They came from men in every station of life—clerks, policemen, firemen, and in three instances women wanted to join our party and claimed to have sufficient funds. One letter came from a friend of mine who was one of the superintendents of a large cartridge factory at Bridgeport, Conn. Besides this, my brother-in-law, a physician living in Brooklyn, and having a lucrative practice, wanted to go. Although at first he was one of the strong advisers against my going.
In two weeks we had a party of eighteen men organized and we decided to start on February 1st, 1897. Unlike many of the parties that had rushed away on the spur of the moment, our party had a faint idea of the difficulties it was to encounter, and we attempted to take every preparatory precaution possible and to make the venture a success. We met every Sunday at my home to arrange for the trip, and in order to familiarize ourselves with arctic conditions, we read books by Perry, Scott and Dr. Kane on North Pole expeditions and various other works.
We decided to buy our outfit on the coast, feeling sure that we could get there just what we needed. We did, however, buy four large St. Bernard dogs and two Newfoundland dogs, which we started to train in upper New York City as soon as we could get harness made for them and snow was on the ground. We would hitch them to an old bob sled loaded with lumber to make it heavy and drive them for several miles each night, and one day, while we were thus engaged, a policeman placed several of us under arrest.
He at first thought that we were crazy and our minds had become unbalanced by the gold craze stories in the papers. When he finally learned his mistake, to save himself, he turned us over to the humane society who brought charges of cruelty to animals against us—that is, driving dogs in harness.
Much was being printed in the papers about our party about this time, as the reporters were after us for interviews and we had little trouble in identifying ourselves when brought before the judge and he promptly discharged us, wishing our party success.
At last the date for starting came, and the New York and Bridgeport Mining Company, as our party came to be known, was ready. The company consisted of one mineralogist, two civil engineers, two New York policemen, one physician, three toolmakers, one tinsmith, one mail clerk, five clerks, myself and my friend, the factory superintendent, every one in good, healthy condition. Fourteen of the eighteen men were married. We were all dressed alike and wore big heavy special made sweaters, corduroy trousers, large sombreros and heavy leather boots; each carried a 30-30 Winchester rifle.
The newspapers had printed so much about our party that on the day set for leaving, an immense crowd surrounded the Y. M. C. A. Building, where we gathered to make the start. You can imagine the parting as we bade farewell to wives and children, sweethearts, friends and parents.
No one had any idea of the hardships he was to encounter; everyone was buoyant with enthusiasm; yet as I look back upon that scene I can again feel that tremor of uncertainty that passed through us as we thought of encountering the unknown. However much those brave women feared for the safety of their beloved ones, yet little did they think when they gave their last parting kiss and spoke their last word to many of them that it was to be forever.
When we left upper New York several hundred persons accompanied us on the elevated train and to the Lehigh R. R. Station where we took the Black Diamond Express for Buffalo, and from there were soon on our way to Chicago. All along the route we were sought for interviews by newspaper men who questioned us as to our intentions and prospects. We must have looked like a husky bunch, all dressed alike in sweaters and boots.
Between Chicago and St. Paul we had all kinds of trouble with our dogs, which had to be fed and watered, and when the train stopped for a few minutes we had to take turns at running them a little. They whined and howled and the baggagemen were generally very much pleased when we changed cars.
At. St. Paul a party of thirty or more men bound for the same destination as we, came aboard and soon a strong friendship grew up between the two parties which continued during the rest of the trip to Seattle.
At Fargo, N. D., we were held up two days while a wrecking train was clearing the tracks of wreckage caused by a rear-end collision the day before, when seven people were killed and many were injured. It took us nine days to reach Seattle, but in spite of the delays and the trouble with the dogs, everyone seemed to be in good spirits when we got there and we were enthusiastic to go on.
It had been said that the gold rush made Seattle, and I truly believe it. But I shudder to think of the cost in human life and misery. During the gold rush that western city was more wicked than Sodom; the devil reigned supreme. It was a gigantic chaos of crime and the city government as an institution protected evil. Every kind of illicit business flourished. License trod all law under foot in its grasping and neversatisfied greed. Every possible form of deception was practiced with the full consent of the city government, apparently. Thousands of gold seekers spent their money for worthless fakes and they never knew they had been deceived until too late; soon their frozen corpses told the story of man’s inhumanity to man and its awful price.
Our first impression when we alighted from our train in Seattle was that the city was overcrowded, and we soon learned that there was no chance of getting hotel accommodations. We searched for lodgings until we were tired and about to give up in despair, when someone directed us to a stable that was being converted into a lodging place. Cots so small that one could not lay comfortably upon them were placed six in a room, and besides the cot each man was given a tin basin and stool; for this service he was charged $1.00 per night. The only place to get water was at a hydrant which had been used for washing wagons. It was a hard life already, but no one complained and everyone seemed to be willing to do his part.
With no better accommodations in prospect we settled down to make the best of it and prepare for our expedition to Alaska. One man was selected each day to watch our rooms and dogs which were tied just outside in the hall. The place was worse than a barn, but everyone was willing and did his part and thus our troubles were minimized.
A committee of four were selected to do all the purchasing and to secure transportation and as one of the committee I shall never forget the experience. Previous to that time I thought that nothing could surprise a New Yorker. But I was sadly deluded and to my sorrow. While our experience in New York did us great service in preventing our being swindled and spending all our money for stuff that was of no value, still we were relieved of hundreds of dollars through schemes that looked to be perfectly good until we got to Alaska and found that we had been defrauded in every way.
At that time the city of Seattle was a maelstrom of raving humanity driven half insane by the desire for gold. Between 1800 and 2000 people from all over the world were there clamoring for transportation to Alaska when there was none. Money was plentiful and fabulous prices were asked for everything. Every scheme, legal and illegal, mostly illegal, ever devised by mortal to separate a man from his money was run “wide open."
Unspeakable dives, houses of ill-fame existed on every block in the business section and women under the protection of the police solicited business everywhere. Gambling houses, saloons and disorderly houses were run in notorious defiance of the law and under the same roof. Many pickpockets, professional gamblers and gunmen collected about these places like flies about a cider jug, and would not stop at murder—to say nothing of lesser crimes.
Everything imaginable for use in gold mining and arctic expeditions was offered for sale.
Fakers filled the streets and hawked their wares which consisted of compasses, mercury, worthless contraptions for locating and testing gold and a thousand and one things which were found to be absolutely worthless.
Agents solicited business everywhere. They sold anything from a portable house to a condensed form of vegetable. Evaporated foods seemed to be a favorite with the confidence men; evaporated potatoes, beans, fruits and even evaporated eggs—I remember distinctly how we were deceived into buying 100 pounds of the eggs. The agent poured some of the yellow powder out and cooked it. It tasted like scrambled eggs which indeed it was, but it was all a sleight-of-hand trick for the stuff we paid for was yellow corn meal. Although we were very careful, many of the supplies we bought were worthless.
A United States Government store was opened in Seattle at that time, where old army equipment, consisting of tents, blankets, knap-sacks, etc., were sold. Much of this stuff was worn out and useless but it was eagerly bought by the gold-blinded crowds. The men who came from the east were not so easily deceived, but many parties spent all their money for worthless trash and some never got further than Seattle. One party from Texas, which later took passage for Alaska with us had been so badly fleeced by the confidence men, and had bought so much worthless stuff that much of it had to be left behind. I think sometimes that almost as much money was left in Seattle by the gold seekers as was ever recovered those two years. The real gold mine was in Seattle.
While we were engaged in purchasing our outfit, we were also attempting to secure passage to Alaska. We soon found that every available craft had been engaged weeks ahead and it looked as if we were doomed to remain several weeks in Seattle. Everyone in our party was anxious to push on, as was that great army of 2000 men, impatient and blinded by the prospect of riches.
Dan Collins, the former New York policeman of our party, in talking with one of the United States Custom Inspectors, was told of an old brig tied up at Tacoma, across the inlet from Seattle that could be chartered for a good sum.
We looked the old hull over and learned that it had been condemned by the Government two years before. She was a square-rigged brigantine, 140 feet long with a twenty foot beam, and was owned by the Oceanic Packing Company of Seattle, Wash.
We were blinded, no doubt, by our desire to get to Alaska and did not see any defects. We were informed that it could be put into condition, manned by a crew and taken to Alaska for $5000.00. This sounded good to us, as we had planned to get together several parties and thereby divide the expense. Ship carpenters were set to work at once, while we scurried about getting a party from Manchester, Conn., the St. Paul party and later a party from Dennison, Texas, one hundred men in all, who were as anxious as we.
Dietz, Arthur Arnold. Mad Rush for Gold in Frozen North. Times-Mirror Printing and Binding House, 1914.
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