Thomas Donahue- Why Did He Enlist in the U.S. Army? A Possible Pre-Military Scenario, But as so Often is the Case When Looking Back, It Is Only Conjecture-

I have debated for quite some time about taking the liberty of posting the following that really has no documentation to support it. It does occur to me though that this is an excellent place to at least present a possibility regarding some of the early activities of Thomas Donahue. The danger is that some in the future may accept this as fact. I do hope that I have made it clear that what I present here is not fact but to me personally it is a distinct possibility, no more, no less.

Ft. Knox, Maine, A Possible Scenario-
Just what brought Thomas Donahue to enlist in Maine? I have one theory and it suggests that Thomas did not enter Maine directly from Canada, but was even recruited in Boston to go north to work as a laborer. During the diplomatic negotiations with Britain in the years following the war of 1812 the U.S. decided it had to improve and increase its defenses along the Atlantic. This was a period of upgrading and new construction of fortifications to defend our harbors from Maine to Florida.

Fort Knox

Bucksport Narrows, Maine

Bangor, Maine, upriver to the right,

The Atlantic Ocean, downstream, to the left, perhaps ten miles

I suggest that Thomas Donahue may have been caught up in this period of military strengthening. There were diplomatic dust-ups with Britain at the time producing ever growing tensions between the two countries. Britain was afraid that the US was planning to take Canada by force, and the new country of the United States felt that Britain would attempt to gain back territory lost during the revolution. For just such reasons the U.S. Army always had a presence in Maine and other border states in order to be positioned to defend the border with Canada. Regardless of any theory about the travels of our Thomas, Maine was a likely destination for any new immigrant focused on joining the Military especially if he entered through Canada regardless of what year. As others have suggested he may have come through Quebec but that would have have more required overland travel to Maine. Even today, that is a tedious drive over many two lane highways if one wants to take the most direct and shortest route. Arriving through St. John, New Brunswick would have allowed for much easier access to Maine by ship or coastal packet.

What I am only speculating on in the following is all predicated on the one record of one Thomas Donahue traveling from New Brunswick to Boston in 1842, about three years before the Army enlistment of our ancestor, and but seven months after the birth of his first child Amelia Bridget in Ireland. Is this our man? We may never know. Was this enough time to travel between Ireland via Canada and then on to Boston? I must admit that during those times that may not have been enough time for the entire journey but entirely possible. It is most likely that he was in Ireland at the time of his daughter’s birth, but if perhaps he had departed home prior to the birth by a few months, then the scenario begins to become very possible in my opinion.

Amelia Bridget Donahue

1842-1921

First Child of Thomas Donahue Sr.

Born in Ireland, Assumedly County Galway

Married John Shimunok in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 1862

Four years after her Father brought her from Ireland

Any record of Thomas first landing in Canada corresponding to this timeline has not been found. Not necessarily a requirement but if records of his arrival from Ireland were found it would add some additional viability to what I am suggesting.

Obviously the Archives have somehow added other data to the actual record shown below. Therefore it would be necessary someday to see the actual microfilm to determine just how the date and the ports involved were determined.

The small port of St. George is inland to the west of St. John, a major Canadian immigration port, by approximately 50 miles. Why would someone arriving in St. John make the extra journey to another town to find transportation? Perhaps it was cost, perhaps it was expedient, but the record shows that the Donahue in question chose the Ship North America sailing from St. George to Boston as his method of choice to enter the U.S. I have to remind myself that nothing in this brief record states that the man was an Irish immigrant. This individual very well may have been a Canadian citizen or even an American citizen returning home following a business endeavor in Canada. Thus the record of a Thomas Donahue entering Canada shortly before the time suggested here might prove most helpful.


This period of our American history was the time of the boom in Canal and Railroad construction in the Eastern U.S. A specific need for young and energetic construction labor was the enlargement of the Erie Canal an ongoing project begun in 1836. All these endeavors required back breaking labor and the Irish fulfilled much of that need. There very well may have been a competition for labor to supply the workforces for the many projects in progress at the time and the Irish may have been recruited into labor gangs immediately upon stepping off the ship. If so, Boston would have been an active recruiting ground with immigrants arriving at a rapid rate. The Irish obviously welcomed the opportunities, for even being near the bottom of the social rung of American society, they found themselves in far better living conditions than what they had left in the old country. The coal mines of Pennsylvania employed many Irish as well. The speculation proposed here requires one to believe that our Thomas Donahue very well may have entered the US at Boston under these circumstances and that he was recruited and transported north as a laborer to work in construction gangs. There was need for labor in many large projects with Ft. Knox being but one of them.
Fort Knox again, is very near Bangor, Maine, the city where Thomas enlisted in the Army.

The fort is named after an early Revolutionary War General, who interestingly enough has a fort in Kentucky named after him as well. The fort was being constructed inland from the Maine coast, at Bucksport, to defend Bangor and the surrounding area, an area rich in timber resources. Again, if Thomas was involved in any of this, it is but a theory.

The period between his possible arrival in Boston and his enlistment in Bangor is roughly two years seven months. If he participated in the very beginning of the construction at Ft. Knox that commenced in mid 1844, then we have roughly twenty months of unknown activity, assuming that he did come through Boston. This leads me to speculate even further that he may have been part of an organized work gang that went from job to job. This would have given him ample time to wander north and eventually find himself employed in the Bangor area. I don’t see how we will ever be able to answer any of this.


Ft. Knox was and still remains a large and impressive granite fortress overlooking what is known as the Bucksport Narrows. It was intended to prevent the British from coming inland off the Atlantic and capture Bangor and the surrounding rich timber producing areas. The fort was being constructed under the supervision of the Army Engineers to be eventually transferred to the Artillery for manning upon completion. The first Battery, dug into the earth close to the river in front of the eventual completed stone structure, was completed in 1845. The fort continued under construction for many years as other Batteries were slowly added to a permanent fort until it was finally completed in 1869. It still stands today as a Maine State Park and is quite visible from US Highway 1, the scenic coastal route of Maine as one crosses the bridge at the narrows. Available Internet sources of the Fort’s history do not specify which Artillery unit manned the first Battery.
The 1^st US Artillery very well may have been already stationed in Maine or brought in from out of State to man the first and original defenses at Fort Knox. It is quite possible they were even involved in the day to day building tasks.


Bangor would have been the nearest large town or city at the time, a logical place for the military command to Headquarter early on in our history due to the vulnerability of the area around Penobscot Bay. Again, that is but conjecture, but certainly possible. Recruitment certainly was one of the duties of the military command regardless of their actual location. Oversight and supervision of the work site could surely have been easily conducted from Bangor. The fort itself was but twenty miles downstream from the town. Overland Telegraph was in it’s infancy during this period making it possible that Bangor may have provided access to a Telegraph line, a huge consideration for the establishment of a Military Headquarters. The stone material for the actual fort that began after the completion of the river battery was quarried along the Penobscot River closer to Bangor and transported downstream to the building site by river barge. Steamboat service along the river and bay had been established by the early 1840’s enabling travel accommodations between the fort construction site and the towns along the water. This meant that being part of a work crew 20 miles downriver from Bangor did not mean the men were totally isolated and surely if desired might spend their free time in Bangor, a larger town than Bucksport. All this combines to make me be less surprised that Thomas ended up enlisting in Bangor. If he were part of the fort construction effort then he had opportunity to be in Bangor on probably many occasions.


Thomas’s enlistment record states he was a laborer (as required in any construction effort) at the time of his joining the ranks of the 1^st US Artillery, Company “G”. If he was involved as a civilian in the construction of the fort he may have found himself temporarily out of work at the completion of the first Battery sometime in 1845. The Army was looking for men as the Mexican War was looming on the horizon and the Army may have been a promise of some kind of continued employment for Thomas.

In support of the other possibility that he landed in Canada first and went directly to Maine in order to enlist then he probably would have become aware of the opportunities for employment to the south in Maine immediately upon arrival in Canada. The U.S. Army was in a recruiting phase of some degree at the time and perhaps the promise of a secure Military life is what motivated Thomas to cross the border to the south and find his way to Bangor. No one will ever know if he set foot on North American soil and immediately decided to seek out a way to enlist in the U.S. Army. It was not uncommon for the Army to occasionally advertise for recruits in Irish newspapers in the home country as well in North America. Travel and shipping out of Canada to and from New England was primarily accomplished by small vessels making communication between coastal cities and towns quite easy. Travel to Bangor would have been much easier in this manner rather than traveling overland from inland New Brunswick or Quebec. An immigrant arriving on Canadian soil through St. John or Halifax would have found it easy to obtain passage south the U.S. Perhaps passage or Military records may be found someday to verify either of these scenarios.

I am sorry I cannot provide more facts and I offer only speculation, but I just want others to be aware of what may have been the case. This all took shape during my Canadian trip in 2007 when we passed over the Bucksport Narrows and saw the commanding view of Fort Knox as one crosses the bridge traveling south. It then occurred to me, yes something of that impressive size would have required many laborers and being in the vicinity of Bangor I just started poking around the internet to see what might be put together. Shortly after giving up on the possibility I was reminded by others of the Thomas Donahue entry found on Ancestry that I had looked at but a few months earlier and totally dismissed it until the reminder caused me to apply a little imagination to the situation. Unfortunately my only access to records is via the internet.

All I can provide so far is imagination and conjecture but be assured I will always be tuned into such a possibility. I am fully aware of large holes in all this. Imagination is not one of my strong traits but when the opportunity arises I attempt to go along for the ride since for me personally the opportunity does not come that often.

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.

Gold Dust from the Klondike-

Found in the effects of Thomas A. McGinnis

Mary Lou Ramsey- If I am Correct, She Must Have Been Like a Mother to the Younger Children in the Family-

Mary Lou Jones, an older half-sister of our father, Charles F. Jones, an aunt to my current generation.
The only photo discovered of her so far is her sitting for a Jones family photograph in Harrison, Arkansas around 1905 – 1906 if I have the photo dated reasonably close. The following is a close up of her cropped from that family photo.

Mary Lou Jones, Later Ramsey

1873 -1913

Probably about the age of 32 in the Photo

As is the case with so many of the facts regarding our family history be it the history of the Jones family or the McGinnis clan, only so much can be reconstructed based on public records or vaguely recalled anecdotal information.  So what follows is a description of what can be defined regarding Mary Lou’s life only from easily obtained public records and documents.

Her birth is recorded in the Jones Family Bible-
Mary Lou Jones, eldest daughter of A.H. Jones and E.A. Jones his first wife was born June 26, 1873





Two Mothers for Mary Lou, Only to Become a Mother to Her Siblings, Making Her Essentially the Third Mother of the Overall Family-
Her father had re-married in late December of 1879 after the death of her mother in March of the same year. Her stepmother Martha Moulder, now Jones, is the grandmother of our current generation, my generation. Mary Lou was but six years old at the time of her mother’s death. Essentially she was raised by her stepmother Martha. Martha gave birth to nine children when she died the same year of the birth of our Aunt Ruth in 1894. Mary Lou was 21 years of age when her stepmother died meaning in all likelihood she now became the surrogate mother to many of her step brothers and sisters.
This list of children in the household other than herself now included two siblings born of her own Mother, Esther, two years younger, born in 1875, and Brother Samuel, five years younger, born in 1875, then 16 years old. Also included are the eight living children of her stepmother, with the oldest being my Father, Charles, 13 years old, and Ruth, the youngest born that same year.
The next census year of 1900 reveals eleven individuals in the household of A.H. Jones including himself. A large family by any estimate, and certainly a huge responsibility for the eldest daughter to have to shoulder at such a young age. We will never know just what her role was in entirety, we can only speculate. It was not uncommon at the time for older daughters to be cast into such a role however and one can assume she certainly had a large influence on the younger children especially.
The following family photo taken in Harrison sometime around the 1905 to 1907 time period truly hints at her position in the family being seated in the front row near her father:

The Jones Family of Harrison, Arkansas

Circa 1905-1907

Back Row, left to right: Pearl (most likely), Bill, Martha or Mattie (most likely) Grady, Eula, Charles.
Front row, Ruth, A.H. Jones, Granddaughter Mae Ruth Rutledge, Mary Lou, Albert.
Note the identity of Grady and Albert is subject to change. They look so much alike at this age making it very difficult to be really certain but after several years of looking at this photograph, Albert in the front row right is most likely.
The photo had become rather damaged over the years particularly on the face of Charles Jones. A novice attempt to digitally repair the damage to the photo is shown above. It is far from perfect.
Two children, Esther and Samuel had already left home by this time as evidenced by their not being included in the picture. Esther, another subject for more research had died some four years earlier in 1901 in Renton, Washington leaving behind two daughters. Esther’s youngest child, Mae Ruth Rutledge, was sometime later sent to live with her Grandfather Alfred in Harrison meaning that now young Mary Lou, at the age of 33, also had the responsibility of raising a niece. The whereabouts of her other niece as well as the father remains undiscovered at the present time. That niece remained a close member of the family throughout her life. She also settled in Bremerton when her Grandfather gave up the family farm in Harrison and moved to Washington State in 1912 to live out his life among his children. The timeline of the arrivals in Bremerton suggests that Samuel, the eldest son, was the influence behind the decision to leave Arkansas.
It should be noted that the granddaughter, Mae Ruth Rutledge, attended Dad’s funeral in 1972 and signed the funeral register as “Ernie and Mae Orchard”, her married name. I have no recall of seeing the woman at the time or at any time in my life, but she obviously was there or viewed the remains prior to the funeral.




Mary Lou’s Marriage and a Rather Soon Divorce-

Nothing regarding her life survives until the notation of her marriage in the Bible in 1909:
Mary L. Jones- Eldest daughter of A.H. Jones and E.A. Jones his 1^st wife was married to- S.P. Ramsey at Harrison, Arkansas, October 17, 1909. By O.B. Murphy, J.P.

Mary would have been 36 year of age at the time of the marriage. Samuel Ramsey, apparently a widower with many children at home, was nine years older than Mary.  Mary was an attractive woman but perhaps her years at home helping to raise her siblings found her to be an aging spinster when she finally did marry. Were all the eligible bachelors of the area long gone and she felt that to marry into a pre-made family was her only choice? Perhaps a reasonable assumption.
This was approximately two to four years following the family photograph shown here. Mary did not live long after her marriage and now that a copy of her death certificate has been obtained it states that sometime between her marriage in 1909 in Arkansas and her death in Bremerton in 1913 she had divorced her husband Samuel P. Ramsey. A look at a rather large census entry for the 1910 census for the Ramsey household might suggest a reason for the divorce, but that is only speculation. It obviously was a second marriage for Samuel Ramsey and perhaps Mary Lou found it an environment she no longer wanted to be a part of. The census page enumerated on April 16, 1910 follows here:




The Ramsey family Mary Lou married into was also a large pre-made family and Mary Lou just may have felt she had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Online census searches bring no record of any of the Ramsey family in the 1920 census, certainly not of the father. He may have died during that period. Possible entries for some of the children have been traced down but that really is a subject for other families to pursue.




The Birth of Her Son-
To piece this together even more one has to return to the family Bible and note that Mary Lou had given birth to one child during her short marriage. The Bible states the following:
Garland Alfred Ramsey, son of Sam P. Ramsey and Mary L. his wife was born September 19, 1910 at Western Grove, Arkansas





The Death of Garland Alfred Ramsey-

Mary Lou was pregnant at the time of the Arkansas census in April of 1910. Sometime between the birth of her son in September of 1910, a year after her marriage, and the child’s death in Bremerton in 1912, Mary Lou divorced her husband and had come west to settle in Bremerton with her child and to be among all her family members, all now having left Arkansas by this time. The notation for the child’s death from the family Bible is as follows:
Garland Ramsey, Infant son of Sam Ramsey and Mary, his second wife died at the age of 2 years and 11 days, September 30, 1912, at 7 O’clock and was buried in Ivy Green Cemetery, Bremerton, Washington, October 1, 1912

The death certificate for the child reveals a primary and a contributing cause of his death.  The primary cause in medical terminology and difficult to read states “Gastritis and (unreadable) Colitis”.  Part of the colitis term is unreadable.  The contributing cause explains it all however as it states: “Food Intoxication, Probable”.   The term probable certainly adds confusion but for the most part it appears to have been caused by food poisoning.




Timing of the Family’s Migration to Washington State-

The Bremerton or Charleston city directories of 1910 do no list the presence of the patriarch, A.H. Jones or any of his family other than Samuel. This coincides with the obituary notation for our grandfather stating he arrived in Bremerton in 1912, obviously after the publication of the directory. The child’s death in Bremerton suggests that the family may have arrived around the middle of the year. I am making the assumption that Mary Lou may very well have accompanied her father to Bremerton making the location for her divorce in Arkansas.
Mary Lou was now 49 years old, and now on her own but living with her father and siblings, those un-married siblings that were still living with their father. The city directory for 1913-1914 shows living in the household of our Grandfather A.H. Jones, Albert, Grady, Eula and Ruth, ranging in ages from 30 to 19. Ruth married and left home in 1914, Eula in 1915 and Grady married sometime between 1914 and the death of his father in 1922. Assumedly the 1913 city directory entry was taken after the death of Mary Lou in March of that year.



Mary Lou’s Illness and Death-
The next date of record for Mary Lou of course is that of her death in Bremerton in 1913 about six months following the death of her only child. It had to have been a terrible shock to the entire family, for as suggested she was not only a sister but to some, even a mother figure. She had been living in Bremerton probably for less than a year. If she had arrived earlier than 1912, the year the majority of the family arrived, she surely would have been found in some record as living with a sibling. No directories reveal her presence earlier than 1912. Being that her son died in Bremerton it tends to establish 1912 as the year she came west.
Her death certificate has recently been acquired and it does explain the circumstances of her death and it appears to have happened rather suddenly. Apparently she had been under treatment for about two months that eventually required surgery. The reason of death, “Surgical shock- following abdominal surgery”. Apparently she was suffering from appendicitis and I suspect that in 1913 any surgery was a serious matter and perhaps that explains the two months of treatment. A search of the internet reveals that the first successful appendectomy surgeries began in the late 1890’s, but some 20 years before Mary Lou’s procedure. That is a relatively short time for a new surgical procedure to become well developed and it just might be that in 1913 an appendectomy was very serious and was used as a last resort. All speculation of course but it is a distinct possibility that Mary Lou was very ill and it became necessary to perform surgery in order to save her life.
As can be seen on the copy of her death certificate she died of surgical shock. A very faint entry below reveals the word appendicitis. To me that is the root cause of her illness. The rest of that entry as well as the entry regarding secondary causes are beyond my skills of reading medical terminology. I will leave that that task to others.





Mary died at the relatively young age of 39 years, 8 months, 3 days old. As noted on the certificate she is also buried in Bremerton, in Ivy Green Cemetery. It has been many years since I visited the Jones family plot in that cemetery and at the time I was not into the details of family history and I have no pictures or even much recall as to all that are buried in the plot or near by. I think it is reasonable to assume that Mary Lou lies somewhere near her father Alfred H. Jones, her son Garland Alfred Ramsey, a brother, Bill, a subject for a later posting still being researched, and her future sister-in-law, Pearl Baker Jones.
This is all that can be gathered regarding our Aunt Mary Lou Jones using what records that have survived. Her story was completely unknown to me as I grew up and I am pleased that at least something of her life can now be told.
If ever anyone might have the opportunity to once again visit Ivy Green Cemetery in Bremerton, new pictures of all the family grave markers would be greatly appreciated in order to imbed them within an overall family history constantly in the process of research and documentation.

Jones Family, From the Earliest to the Latest-

About 1905-1906

Harrison, Arkansas

 

The family left Arkansas in 1912. Charles F. Jones arrived in Bremerton circa 1908-1909.

At the time of this picture Samuel had already left home and had married in Seattle in

1904 and was living in either Seattle or Bremerton. Samuels older sister Esther Almira, a half-sister to Charles F. Jones, had died in Renton, Washington in 1901.

 

(As mentioned in an earlier posting, the photo had a large damaged spot on the cheek of Charles Jones.  What you see is the result of an unskilled attempt to repair the image.)

 

About 1911-1912, Bremerton

 

All the individuals are identified on the back. Since Dad's first wife, Pearl Baker is not in the photo, the date may have been prior to their marriage in October of 1912. It is assumed the location is somewhere in Bremerton.

 

 

About 1911-1912,Bremerton-

Presumably taken the same day as the previous group photograph

About 1913-1917 in Bremerton

 

From Left, Back Row: Sam, Bill (Bill died in 1917), Charles

Front: Albert, A.H. Jones and Grady.

 

About 1915-1917, Bremerton

 

For some unknown reason, Eula nor Bertha, Sam’s wife, are not present for this family photograph.

In some ways the individuals appear older than what their actual ages are.  Since all five of the Jones sons are present, and knowing Bill, standing second from the left, died in 1917 the photo date really has to be around the time of his death.

 

 

1	A.H. Jones, about 72 years of age
2	Albert Sidney, 33 yrs.
3	William Tate, 32 yrs
4	Henry Grady, 26 yrs
5	Lillian Ruth, 22 yrs
6	Allen T. Mogford, 28 yrs (Husband of Ruth)
7	Mae Ruth Rutledge, 17 yrs (Granddaughter to A.H. Jones, Daughter of Esther Almira Jones)
8	Samuel Alfred, 38 yrs
9	Pearl (Baker) Jones, 23 yrs  (Wife of Charles)
10	Charles Franklin, 35 yrs
11	Unknown
12	Unknown
13	Unknown

 

About 1921, Bremerton

 

This photo was probably taken very near the time of death of A.H. Jones in March of 1922 judging by the age of the child, Allen Mogford Jr. being held by his father.  Allen Jr. was born in 1920 and around a year old perhaps in this family group.  Our Grandfather was 78 years old at this time.  He was 78 years and 10 months old when he died.

Again, Eula is not present nor Bill who had died about four years prior.

 

 

 

1	Pearl Baker Jones, Wife of Charles
2	Charles F.
3	Grady
4	Bertha, Wife of Samuel
5	Sam
6	Allen Mogford
7	Allen Mogford Jr.
8	A.H. Jones
9	Albert
10	Mae Ruth Rutledge, Granddaughter
11	Unknown
12	Probably Loreta Mogford, Ruth’s oldest child
13	Probably Norma, daughter of Bertha & Sam
14	Ruth Jones Mogford

 

 

 

Maybe between 1935-1940

From Left: Eula, Pearl, Martha, Grady, niece Mae Ruth Rutledge (later Orchard) and Ruth

The date of this photo has me baffled making the credibility of the date questionable.

The following four photos were all taken on the same day.  It appears to have been taken in the front of Ruth’s house on fourth street in Bremerton.

 

About mid 1940’s to maybe 1949.

From Left: Eula, Martha, Ruth, Pearl.

Pearl had traveled from her home in the Joplin, Missouri area and Martha, or Mat or Mattie as she was also known, lived in the Los Angeles, California area.

 

 

 

From Left: Aunt Bert, wife of Samuel Jones, Pearl, Eula, Ruth, unknown and Martha

 

 

From Left: Charles F., Grady and Samuel

 

From Left: Charles, Martha, Eula, Samuel, Ruth, Pearl and Grady. 

Missing is Albert.  Three others had already passed away, Esther Almira Rutledge in 1901, Mary Lou Ramsey in 1913 and brother William (Bill) Tate Jones in 1917