Heritage and More: Michael Donahue, a Hard and Even a Tragic Life-

But He Was Probably Tough as a Nails-

This particular posting concerns another phase in the life of Michael Donahue, an older brother of our Grandmother Mary Ellen Donahue McGinnis. He is singled out here for it was very obvious early in my upbringing that Uncle Mike was a favorite family member of Mother’s. She and her brothers mentioned him often and there is a certain story to be told about the man. I am sure there would be many explicit adventurous events to be chronicled had the details of his life in the Klondike during the Gold Rush of the 1890’s had somehow been recorded but that unfortunately is not the case. This is my attempt to draw from a sketchy memory of what was mentioned about Mother’s favorite, Uncle Mike. A search of family photos has not produced one identifiable photo of the man, but perhaps one may yet surface.
He must have been an independent and self confident individual to accomplish all that he did during his lifetime of 64 years beginning with his birth in 1860 until his death in 1924. What really stands out however is his travel to the Gold Fields of the Yukon, to the area of the Klondike. Simply getting to the Klondike during the time of the Gold Rush was an amazing accomplishment in itself.

In reading of the tremendous challenges facing any aspiring prospector to reach the Klondike one has to be respectful and maybe even in awe of anyone that actually completed the journey, regardless of the route traveled. There were several routes available, even from the inland prairies of Western Canada. But the most popular, expedient and difficult routes were those from the coastal regions of Alaska and Canada. Our great Uncle Michael Donahue was one of those individuals that succeeded. It is said that 100,000 actually attempted the journey but less than one in three were able to complete the trek.

The Gold fields covered an expansive area and they lay roughly between Skagway, Alaska and Dawson in the Yukon Territory, a straight line distance of about 350 miles over very mountainous terrain. Dawson the largest town, or during the Gold Rush, a small city, was the focus of the business activity located at the northern edge of the Gold Fields.

What is difficult to establish in retrospect is just how important was the town of Dawson to the activities of Michael Donahue. Court testimony given later in his life regarding Brother Martin’s land litigation Michael definitely stated that he arrived in Dawson city after leaving Washington State in March of 1897 four months before the first shipments of Gold from the Yukon arrived in West Coast ports. His 1901 Canadian census entry establishes his arrival as sometime in May of 1897, at the very most a travel time of about 90 days. This was some five or six months after selling his land to his brother in Michigan. The elapsed time may have been less but it was a difficult journey and maybe he accomplished the task in less than an average travel time. He had the advantage of timing his journey at the optimum time of the year. If he actually planned it that way we don’t know but his timing was very good. Later in the year, during the difficult winter months, the journey surely required more time since men that arrived at Lake Bennett in the middle of winter had to wait until spring in order to begin to float themselves downstream to the Yukon River and then on to Dawson.

Regardless of the route he traveled from the coast, once over the mountains and in Canada, he too had to provide himself, and probably with the help of a mining partner or partners, with a method to float his way to the Gold Fields, be it by building or buying a raft or small boat large enough to float a ton of goods for each individual. The Mounties at the border made sure all entering Canada had enough provisions to last a year. Near famine in the territory in the years leading up to the stampede of men necessitated such a requirement.

So there is no doubt Michael was not only transporting himself to the Gold Fields he was also hobbled with the task of transporting his goods as well. Therein lies the real challenge of the journey into the Yukon during those times, and somehow Michael endured. Again, in retrospect, an almost un-imaginable task when we look at the world we live in today. Today some might even use Fed-Ex which shows just how far we have come since then.
When examining his 1901 census data and realizing he stated he arrived in Dawson City, one would think that his mining claim, that he operated in partnership with one Arthur M. Hazeltine as the census also reveals was much closer to Dawson. We only know about Mr. Hazeltine from that one 1901 Canadian census recording that has helped to validate so much about Michael’s adventures. First impressions in accumulating what little information is available always suggested that the mining claim was probably very near Dawson, well to the north of the Skagway beginning point. In 1901 according to the enumeration he was living in Sulphur Creek, Yukon Territory. Apparently an area with many miners scrambling up and down the creeks looking for more ore deposits or busily working away at their already established claims. Michael and his partner surely were well established by 1901.

But the location of Sulphur Creek has been elusive and even now I wonder if I have it properly located. It appears in writings and documentation of the era but it has been very difficult to find on readily available mps on the Internet. Finally using Microsoft Maps I was surprised to find that it was located closer to Skagway than to Dawson. In fact, from all appearances it is less than half way from Skagway to Dawson. The straight line distance to Dawson from Sulphur Creek is maybe 210-230 miles, and back to Skagway from the claim is maybe 120 to 140 miles. Of course this is only an attempt to give proximities and the actual miles by trail and river could be much more in either case.

So my habit of becoming bogged down in details leads me on to question, why the need to travel all the way to Dawson when the claim was closer to Skagway? Many factors are probably involved here. Perhaps the Sulphur Creek area was newly discovered after his arrival and he scrambled back upriver aboard a river steamer to eventually find his claim. Timing was very important in the Klondike when one looks back at the actual events. Being in the right place at the right time, or just plain luck, was also a factor.

Once over the mountains and into Canada proper, the trip downriver to Dawson was less challenging than the trip back to Skagway so that was probably a major factor as well. But just what were the criteria that brought about the eventual claim being located far back upstream from Dawson is intriguing. There was thriving steamship service available along the Yukon and several of its tributaries so travel, once into the river basin, was much easier. In fact, once Michael reached the upper reaches of the Yukon on his original trek into the territory he very well may have abandoned his boat or raft immediately upon reaching a point of steamship service. Many men did complete the journey to Dawson from far upstream this way.

So with some of this as background the following is only an attempt to add a bit more detail to the story as we can only conjecture it.

Leaving Michigan and Wisconsin Behind-

Michael’s later testimony in court proceedings in Michigan in 1914, some nine years following his return from the Klondike, reveals information that partially paints a picture of his travels. After selling his land to his brother in December 1896 he immediately went home to Manitowoc and stayed through New Years of 1897. Soon after he left for Washington State where he undoubtedly visited with his sisters in Florence.

NOTE:
HIS TESTIMONY, PG 35 STATES HE LIVED IN MANITOWOC ABOUT 14 YEARS AND THEN MOVED TO MINOMINEE, MICHIGAN……….WITH?
14 YEARS OLD? YEAR WOULD HAVE BEEN 1874…………
HE DOES NOT APPEAR AT HOME IN THE NEXT CENSUS OF 1880. CANNOT FIND HIM IN MICHIGAN OR WISCONSIN EITHER.

The real defining moment of the impact of the gold discoveries in the Yukon was the arrival of two ships, one in Seattle and one in San Francisco in July of 1897. The news of the stacks of bullion and miners carrying thousands in dollars of gold on their person started a stampede of men from all over the country if not the world all with the intention of getting to the Klondike country before anyone else. What motivated Michael to be among the earlier individuals to decide to strike out for the Yukon and try his luck at prospecting? Something provided him with insight that made him decide to leave. Obviously the news of possible riches to be found had been circulating in the States and that early news tempted Michael at the age of 37 when he decided to give up farming and go north to try his luck.

The story of the Klondike is concisely described in the literature of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park and a portion of that is copied here in order to emphasize just what Michael Donahue had to endure in order to even arrive in Dawson that spring day in 1897. He had overcome immense obstacles to make it happen.

The Klondike Story as Told in the Literature of the Klondike National Historic Park-

The following description of the Gold Rush is copied here for it paints a very accurate picture of just what the event was all about.

From the Web-page of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park-
http://www.nps.gov/klgo/historyculture/tonofgoods.htm

Another good Internet source for the Canadian portion of the Historical Park can be found at:
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/chilkoot/activ/activ1a1_e.asp

Another interesting source of material regarding the fleet of steamships that traveled the Yukon River over the years can be found at:
http://www.tc.gov.yk.ca/archives/sternwheelers/en/river.html

The Last Grand Adventure

With cries of "Gold! Gold! in the Klondike!" there unfolded in the Yukon and Alaska a brief but fascinating adventure, which has captured the imagination of people around the world ever since. In August 1896 when Skookum Jim Mason, Dawson Charlie and George Washington Carmack found gold in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon Territory, they had no idea they they would set off one of the greatest gold rushes in history. Beginning in 1897, an army of hopeful goldseekers, unaware that most of the good Klondike claims were already staked, boarded ships and Seattle and other Pacific port cities and headed north toward the vision of riches to be had for the taking.

All through the summer and on into the winter of 1897-98, stampeders poured into the newly created Alaskan tent and shack towns of Skagway and Dyea - the jumping off points for the 600-mile trek to the goldfields.

Skagway, at the head of the White Pass Trail, was founded by a former steamboat captain named William Moore. His small homestead was inundated with some 10,000 transient residents struggling to get their required year's worth of gear and supplies over the Coast Range and down the Yukon River headwaters at lakes Lindeman and Bennett. Dyea, three miles away at the head of Taiya Inlet, experienced the same frantic boomtown activity as goldseekers poured ashore and picked their way up the Chilkoot Trail into Canada.

Stampeders faced their greatest hardships on the Chilkoot Trail out of Dyea and the White Pass Trail out of Skagway. There were murders and suicides, disease and malnutrition, and death from hypothermia, avalanche, and, some said heartbreak. The Chilkoot was the toughest on men because pack animals could not be used easily on the steep slopes leading to the pass. Until tramways were built late in 1897 and early 1898, the stampeders had to carry everything on their backs. The White Pass Trail was the animal-killer, as anxious prospectors overloaded and beat their pack animals and forced them over the rocky terrain until they dropped. More than 3,000 animals died on this trail; many of their bones still lie at the bottom on Dead Horse Gulch.

During the first year of the rush an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 goldseekers spent an average of three months packing their outfits up the trails and over the passes to the lakes. The distance from tidewater to the lakes was only about 35 miles, but each individual trudged hundreds of miles back and forth along the trails, moving gear from cache to cache. Once the prospectors had hauled their full array of gear to the lakes, they built or bought boats to float the remaining 560 or so miles downriver to Dawson City and the Klondike mining district where an almost limitless supply of gold nuggets was said to lie.

By midsummer of 1898 there were 18,000 people at Dawson, with more than 5,000 working the diggings. By August many of the stampeders had started for home, most of them broke. The next year saw a still larger exodus of miners when gold was discovered at Nome, Alaska. The great Klondike Gold Rush ended as suddenly as it had begun. Towns such as Dawson City and Skagway began to declines. Others, including Dyea, disappeared altogether, leaving only memories of what many consider to be the last grand adventure of the 19th century.

The Canadian government required a year's supply of goods to every stampeder crossing the border. Moving the pile of goods forward was a problem. Stampeders who carried their own goods had the choice of carrying more weight or walking more miles. A light pack of 50 pounds meant more trips. A heavy pack of 80 pounds meant fewer trips, but a heavy burden and slow pace. Every mile walked with a load meant another mile back empty. Some stampeders walked nearly 1000 miles to carry their supplies the 33 miles from Dyea to Lake Bennett.

Supplies for one man for one year -
Recommended by the Northern Pacific railroad company in the Chicago Record's Book for Gold Seekers, 1897-

150 lbs. bacon, 400 lbs. flour, 25 lbs. rolled oats, 125 lbs. beans, 10 lbs. tea, 10 lbs. coffee, 25 lbs. sugar, 25 lbs. dried potatoes, 2 lbs. dried onions, 15 lbs. salt 1 lb. pepper, 75 lbs. dried fruits, 8 lbs. baking powder, 2 lbs. soda, 1/2 lb. evaporated vinegar, 12 oz. compressed soup, 1 can mustard, 1 tin matches (for four men), Stove for four men, Gold pan for each, Set granite buckets, Large bucket, Knife, fork, spoon, cup, and plate, Frying pan, Coffee and teapot, Scythe stone.

Two picks and one shovel, One whipsaw, Pack strap, Two axes for four men and one extra handle,
Six 8 inch files and two taper files for the party, Draw knife, brace and bits, jack plane, and hammer for party.

200 feet three-eights-inch rope, 8 lbs. of pitch and 5 lbs. of oakum for four men, Nails, five lbs. each of 6,8,10 and 12 penny, for four men

Tent, 10 x 12 feet for four men, Canvas for wrapping, Two oil blankets to each boat, 5 yards of mosquito netting for each man, 3 suits of heavy underwear, 1 heavy mackinaw coat, 2 pairs heavy machinaw, trousers, 1 heavy rubber-lined coat, 1 dozen heavy wool socks, 1/2 dozen heavy wool mittens, 2 heavy overshirts, 2 pairs heavy snagproof rubber boots, 2 pairs shoes, 4 pairs blankets (for two men), 4 towels,
2 pairs overalls, 1 suit oil clothing, Several changes of summer clothing, Small assortment of medicines

Over 100,000 people started off for the Klondike gold fields, but less than 30,000 actually made it to the gold fields in Dawson City, Yukon Territory. The difficulties of the Chilkoot and White Pass trails forced many to turn back.

That one last statement serves to really define the challenge of travel to Dawson. Less than one in three actually completed the journey.

As mentioned in the Historical Park description there were two overland routes to the gold fields from the Coastal Region, both beginning in the area of Skagway in the southeastern pan handle of Alaska. Both were by foot path or trail. Railroads came later. The longer but perhaps less physically demanding route was the White Pass trail and the other the dangerous, but shorter route over Chilkoot Pass. Another choice was by river steamer from the mouth of the Yukon River in western Alaska on the Bering Sea. The latter method was more expensive and it was long and circuitous but certainly physically much easier to endure. Travel by the steamers equipped with paddlewheels for use in shallow portions of the river was seasonal however with the first boats from the Bering Sea not reaching Dawson until June at the earliest.

Since Michael arrived in Dawson in March he then used an overland route to Dawson some 350 straight line miles northwest of Skagway over very difficult mountain terrain and through spring storms with snow undoubtedly still on the ground. Being raised in Wisconsin and after ten years or more enduring the cold weather in the woods of northern Michigan the snow and cold were certainly nothing new to the man but he had supplies he had to pack by himself or pay to have others help in the task. He did have some money from the sale of his farm but if he had enough to hire packing help through the most difficult areas we don’t really know. But he made it for sure.

Travel to Alaska Was Probably Relatively Easy- Once There, Getting to the Klondike Presented Enormous Challenges-

Presumably Michael landed in Alaska at Skagway and one of the first things he probably was able to witness first hand was that travel to the Klondike by land was not an easy task regardless of the route of travel. The area probably isn’t extremely convenient to reach even today from the Alaskan Coast but considerably easier than during the Gold Rush. Michael faced a terribly grueling journey and the fact that he even made it to Dawson before the rush really mushroomed in size is a sign of strength, endurance and determination. In all fairness the man probably had it much easier than those of the hoard that followed later in the year for he traveled the route in the spring of the year.

Most of the deaths and suffering came in the winter when the rush began to peak and the men attempting the Chilkoot route formed an endless chain trudging their supplies on their backs to deposit at the top of the pass to be checked by the Mounties. At the summit they stockpiled their backbreaking loads in a safe place to await another trip in the process of accumulating a year’s supply of food and material before being allowed to continue on to Dawson. Partnerships were certainly formed on the U.S. side prior to the ascent of the steep mountain to the Canadian border at the top. The partnerships allowed for someone to be present with their stockpile of goods stashed at the foot of the pass and once again to guard the stockpile at the summit. The partnerships between small groups of men, all strangers for the most part, must have been a risky endeavor to say the least.

Prospectors had been in the Yukon for many years when the first real rich strikes were found. To support the early prospectors that went North there were probably many well established outfitters available in Seattle when Michael arrived. It was probably fairly easy to find a ready supply of provisions and equipment as well as advice. After the news of the strike was well known even more outfitting businesses sprang up in Seattle. It was a young town bustling with newcomers and rapid growth. The purveyors of equipment had experience handed to them from those that had been to the northern climes before and returned with a wealth of experience so one was not totally uninformed once he left Seattle for his own personal effort to find his Pot of Gold.

By Foot, all on Your Back, or Hire Packers-

The fledging prospectors hopefully knew what to expect but the challenge soon became to accomplish what must have seemed impossible, especially after one arrived at the scales near the foot of the half mile climb up the face of the mountain pass that would take them into Canada over Chilkoot Pass.. Looking up at what seemed to be nearly a vertical wall must have been a shock to anyone from the low rolling hills of the farmland of Wisconsin adjoining Lake Michigan. It has been said that many men, upon seeing the path to the summit then turned back and began to liquidate their supplies in order to return home. Others would backtrack hopefully to find their way to a route less challenging.. The other land route over White Pass from Skagway was much longer but Chilkoot Pass became the route of choice probably out of desperation. As men began arriving in Skagway it soon became a serious competition to reach the Klondike first in order to stake a claim. Chilkoot provided the fastest, but certainly it was not the easiest. Once into Canada, the route to Dawson became a land and a water route requiring the construction of small boats or rafts for portions of the trail along lakes and rivers which served to complicate the journey even more. Rapids had to be conquered and many did not rise to the challenge and they watched their precious supplies float away when their craft was upset in the several rapids encountered along the way.

The Park description of the need to traverse the dangerous river rapids as the water flowed through narrow canyons in the mountainous territory in a long serpentine route towards the preferred destination of Dawson paints a hazardous situation. How Uncle Mike accomplished all this is beyond my level of comprehension but he did make it and although he was not among the earliest to arrive, he did arrive before the real rush that began later in 1897.

Local coastal Indian tribes had carved out the route to the interior through what is now Southeast Alaska over Chilkoot Pass, east of present day Skagway, Alaska, many years if not centuries before any prospecting ever began in Western Canada. The coastal Indian tribes conducted their own trading business with bands of Indians to the inland east using their long established route to carry new modern goods that European and Russian traders were introducing to the coastal tribes. Early on in the development of the continent the large trading companies, most notably the Hudson’s Bay Company, encroached on their exclusive trading areas moving west from Eastern Canada through the interior of the continent bringing competition to the Indian traders coming from the west. This eventually curtailed the trading efforts of the Coastal Indians of Alaska and British Columbia and those natives that remained tied to trade were reduced to the role of packers or bearers of equipment for early exploration by Europeans moving east from the Pacific Coast.

So help for moving one’s goods was available. One could hire Indians as bearers but that was only available for those with funds. By the time Michael arrived even the Indians probably had competition from white packers that came north with horses and equipment with the idea of making money the easy way rather than making the effort to prospect on their own.

Most of the supplies of the miners would have been purchased in Seattle or Vancouver and shipped to Skagway by coastal packet boats to eventually be packed by horse or on the backs of men. Some men carried every article on their backs the entire distance from Skagway to the Klondike a feat that seems unimaginable today. Steam driven and even electric Tramways to carry supplies attached to suspended cables along the route from Skagway to the summit of Chilkoot were eventually installed along the most difficult portions of the trail but these were constructed after Michael arrived.

To Make Things Worse, You Might Have to Deal With the Bad Guys-

A part of human nature will always find the dregs of society attracted to any endeavor where riches are being found. Their motives are the same as for the honest they mingled with, except they find that by using their dishonest skills, they too can make money, but without all the back breaking effort.

These were dangerous times in Alaska and the Yukon for the weak were preyed on by gangs of thugs and criminals interested only in robbing, cheating or even killing. These were the days of the demise of the famous criminal Soapy Smith in Skagway, and “The Shooting of Dangerous Dan McGrew” in Dawson as immortalized in the famous poem by Robert Service. The poet was living in the Yukon at the time of the 1896 gold strike and experienced first hand or heard the stories directly from those that had experienced the dearth of law and order during the stampede to find gold.

Soapy Smith, 1898

Michael Becomes Part Owner of a Gold Claim-

The 1901 Canadian does provide evidence that he actually did make the journey to the Klondike. A portion of that census page is shown below.

Michael’s entry reads:

Donahue, Michael J., Male, White, Relationship to Head of Facility, Partner, Single, Age 43, Born Wisconsin, U.S.A., Arrived in Yukon, May 1897, In Yukon 4 years, 4 months, Nationality, U.S., Occupation, Gold Mining P (probably meaning partner, Position, P (again partner), Salary, own account.

Dawson, 1898

Dawson Waterfront, 1898

Dawson At the Top Of the Map

Sulphur Creek and Skagway Far Below

Just what degree of success Michael had is really unknown. It is known from the later court documents that he was in the Yukon from March of 1897 until sometime in 1905. While there, a total of eight winters, he mentioned in his court testimony that he had come out three times. Presumably he traveled sometime in the late fall in order to avoid the harsh winters rather than live confined in a small cabin with his mining partner at Sulphur Creek. With few amenities, living through a terrible winter, unable to work the frozen ground, sitting out a long winter had to be an ordeal to remember forever. A short quote from Robert Service’s poem about Dan McGrew helps to explain what the isolation of lonely winters meant-

“Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars? —
Then you've a hunch what the music meant . . . hunger and might and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that’s banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowded with a woman’s love —
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that’s known as Lou.)

Lou is the not so virtuous girlfriend of Dan McGrew that caused the shooting of Dan and a prospector loaded with gold dust, the result being that she deftly slips away with the prospectors fortune after the shooting subsides.

Winter Breaks-

Since Michael had funds to travel south for the winter months for three seasons it is reasonable to assume that he had found some success in finding gold. The fact that he was able to marry and begin farming on 160 acres of homestead land immediately after his last trip south indicates he must have been successful enough to do more than just make ends meet.

His trips south most likely brought him to Seattle and then to Florence to visit and stay with his sisters and their families. During one of these trips is when he probably met his future wife, Bridget McPadden, a good Irish immigrant lass. Bridget was living with a family in the area around Florence but her 1900 census entry is yet to be located. The Donahue sisters very well may have once again assumed their alleged matchmaking roles and were somehow instrumental in creating this meeting that led to marriage. In 1905 his final trip south probably began very early in the spring, probably as soon as travel became practical, and he must have come overland, some of it by rail which had begun service by 1905. It’s very unlikely he came out by steamboat down the Yukon river for he could not even began the journey before mid-June and eventually arriving back in Florence to be married in September as well as establish land holdings in Grant County probably would not have given him time to accomplish all this.

Michael’s Legacy-

Mother was presented a souvenir gold nugget by her Uncle Mike that remains in the family today and has been passed on the Don. In recent years in gaining contact with the descendants of Uncle Tom in Oregon we now know that Uncle Mike also presented another souvenir to the family in the form of a small vial of gold dust. Molly McGinnis has shared a photo of that memento, another definite proof that Mike definitely was somehow somewhat successful in the Klondike.