Biographies of Nome, Alaska
Biographies of Nome, Alaska
The story of the life of Charles D. Lane would make an interesting volume. His biography should not be condensed in a sketch, such as may be given in this book to the men who have made the history of Nome. The necessity of brevity will deprive the writer of an opportunity to present a careful and complete study of a sturdy pioneer character. I regret this because there is much in the long and active career of Mr. Lane which would not only be of much interest but of great value to many struggling young men. His life has not been a continuous summer day. There have been times when the clouds hung low and looked ominous, but his courage never forsook him, and he never lost confidence in himself; and herein lies the secret of the men who succeed.
Charles D. Lane is the Nestor of the Nome country. From the beginning his judgment told him that this country was rich in gold, and with the courage of his convictions he projected a great enterprise in this region. The inauguration of this enterprise required the expenditure of millions; its ultimate accomplishment means a great many more millions for himself and his associates. The partial consummation of this work shows his unerring perception of the mineral resources of this country. Realizing at the outset the necessity of a large amount of money to develop his plans, he organized the Wild Goose Mining and Trading Company with a capital of $1,000,000. The stock was subscribed by himself and a few of his San Francisco and Baltimore friends. This large sum of money was invested in mining properties of Seward Peninsula. With a few exceptions the numerous claims owned by this company were acquired by purchase. For three years the product of these claims was $1,000,000 the year, but no dividends were declared until the end of the fourth season's operations. The money that was taken out of the ground was expended for improvements, which consisted of facilities for mining work, and in the acquirement of additional property. Many miles of ditches were constructed, a great pumping plant to force the water from Snake River to the summit of Anvil Mountain was erected, and two railroads were built, one from Nome to Anvil Creek and the other from Council City to No. 15 Ophir Creek. At the close of the season of 1904 the company paid all of its outstanding indebtedness and declared a dividend of thirty per cent. I shall not attempt to estimate the value of the company's property, but think I may safely say that it has work in sight on its present holdings for the next quarter of a century.
The man who acquired this property and who planned this work, whose methods permitted the acquisition of this property without the levying of an assessment or the call for a single dollar from the stockholders other than the price of their stock, deserves the credit of excellent judgment and splendid financial ability. To a man accustomed to big enterprises there may be no more difficulty in making one dollar purchase twenty dollars' worth of property than there is in making one million dollars purchase twenty million dollars' worth of property, but the men who are capable of handling the bigger enterprise are not conspicuously numerous.
Mr. Lane was born in Palmyra, Marion County, Missouri, November 15, 1840. His parents were Virginians of Scotch descent. His father was a miller and a staunch old Democrat of the Jackson type. In 1852 Mr. Lane crossed the plains with his father. The family settled in Stockton, California, and engaged in farming and stock raising. Although only a boy of twelve, Mr. Lane began the work of gold mining the first winter he resided in California. In the fifty odd years that have elapsed since then he has worked at mining in every phase, and is familiar with the use of all kinds of mining machinery, from the rocker to the best improved and most modern apparatus. His experience has covered every feature of gold placer and quartz mining. In his work he has had one rule to which he has strictly adhered, and that is, to try to do well whatever he undertakes to do. For a period of his life he drove an ox team, and he is now proud of the fact that he was one of the best ox drivers in the West. Not only did he try to do his allotted work well, but he tried to derive some satisfaction and pleasure from doing it. To use his own figurative way of expressing it, he always tried "to draw a little bit of honey out of any kind of a flower."
His first experience in quartz mining was acquired in Nevada where he obtained a quartz property in 1867 and operated it for several years; but the venture was not a success. He pluckily staid by the mine, however, until he was "broke" and in debt. A part of this indebtedness he liquidated years afterward, when by patient toil and assiduous wooing he had won Dame Fortune's smile. After the unfortunate experience in the Nevada quartz mine, he worked for wages as foreman in a quartz mine at Battle Mountain. He drove ox teams in Nevada and farmed in Idaho. His first successful mining was on Snake River in Idaho. The gold of Snake River was very fine and associated with black sand, but Mr. Lane's method of mining these placers was profitable. He afterward operated by hydraulic methods the Big Flat Mine, of Del Norte County, California.
He was fifty years old when he made the strike in the now famous Utica Mine at Angels, California. This great quartz property had been exploited to a depth of ninety feet, but a great deal more work was necessary to be done to prove its values. This was a trying time in Mr. Lane's life. The work of developing a quartz mine without adequate capital is a splendid test of pluck and persistence. A poor man must have unbounded faith and courage to devote years of unrequited labor to such an enterprise. After three years of unprofitable work his associates became uneasy and wanted to dispose of their interests. Notwithstanding the adverse conditions, Mr. Lane never lost faith in the property; he never lost faith in himself nor confidence in his judgment He succeeded in inducing Messrs. Hayward and Hobart, San Francisco capitalists, to buy out his partners and supply the money that was necessary to continue the development work. The Utica Mine has produced $17,000,000 and is still a valuable property.
This brief sentence tells the whole story. The Fortuna Mine of Arizona is another valuable property which Mr. Lane has developed. This mine has produced $3,000,000. Mr. Lane became interested in Alaska in 1898, at the time of the Kotzebue Sound excitement, and outfitted an expedition to go to this country. He accompanied the expedition and spent a part of the summer of 1898 in this region. After he returned to San Francisco, G. W. Price who was a member of the expedition, made a journey from Kotzebue Sound to Golovin Bay, and was at the Swedish Mission on Golovin Bay when Lindeberg, Lindblom and Brynteson returned from Anvil Creek with the news of the gold discovery on this stream. Mr. Price accompanied the discoverers on their second trip to the New Eldorado, assisted in the organization of the district and acquired some valuable property. Mr. Lane was immediately notified of the great strike, and the following season was the beginning of his extensive operations on Seward Peninsula. Although Mr. Lane is the owner of two quartz mines that have produced $20,000,000, he believes that a greater success than any of his previous ventures is to be made in Alaska.
This is but a brief and unadorned sketch of Mr. Lane's business career. As a man he is a distinctive type of the pioneer fortune builder, surrounded by an atmosphere of the frontier and yet possessing the instinctive qualities of the educated gentleman. He has been the architect of his own fortune, and has toiled along the uncertain trails of poverty before he walked the highways of affluence. But at all times, whether laboring with pick and shovel, driving an ox team or directing a small army of men engaged in work that has produced millions for him, his character has remained unchanged. He is, always has been, and always will be Charles D. Lane, plain-spoken, straight-forward, frank and honest in his methods, and as easily approached by one of the toilers in his mines as by the man of title or wealth. With him appearances do not indicate the man. He knows that an honest heart and a true soul may be hidden in a body clothed in a jumper and overalls. In truth, I believe he would look for them in this garb before he examined those that wore the raiment of the wealthy.
Mr. Lane's greatest pride is that he is a plain miner. The money he has made has been clean money. It has not caused heartaches and sorrows. There is no blood on it It was not filched from one class of people to enrich another class. It was drawn from the bosom of old Mother Earth, where it was placed for the benefit of her children. Mr. Lane detests cant and hypocrisy. He believes in work more than he believes in faith. He believes in fair and honest methods, and has little use for the praying money mongers who unload their sins on Sundays and accumulate a new pack during the week. His religion is the religion of justice and charity, a religion of ethics, a religion of work that is helpful to his fellow man. Born on the frontier at a time when public schools furnished but meager facilities for an education, and being compelled at an early age to assist in the work of a bread winner, he did not obtain the scholastic advantages which are the inheritance of the boys of today. But the lack of early educational opportunities has not prevented him from obtaining an education. It may not be a technical education but it is eminently practical and useful. Contact with the world has given him an unerring knowledge of men, and a keen mind capable of comprehending principles has been stored by reading and experience with a vast fund of useful knowledge. He possesses a striking originality of expression and his conversation is illustrated with more pertinent and appropriate anecdotes than have been told by any man since the days of Abraham Lincoln.
D. W. King, a well known newspaper man of the Northwest has written a poem and a toast to Charles D. Lane which I may appropriately use to conclude this sketch. The occasion was the celebration of Mr. Lane's sixtieth birthday on board the steamer Oregon en route from Nome to Seattle. This was a very pleasant incident in Mr. Lane's life, and a number of tributes were paid him in toasts and verse by the passengers. Mr. King's contribution is as follows:
There's an old fellow knocking around out West,
With his grizzly beard and mane- Reckon I might as well sing out,
I'm referring to Charlie Lane- Whats had his ups and downs in time,
An' his joys and sorrows, too, Though now he's flush, on the full red plush
Of Fortune's favorite pew.
He's blazed his trail and packed his grub
'Cross many a high divide; He's toiled and sweat in dry and wet, .
Where the precious metals hide. Busted and sick of typhoid blues,
He's stood in his last deep ditch. And cursed his luck like an old woodchuck,
'Fore the mica turned out rich.
Since them old days they's been a change,
For the hardest metals wear, An' you'd never know unless you looked
At the color of his hair; An' they say in town when he aint around,
'At his taste is a trifle queer, For he'd rather shake with "Tough Nut Jake"
Than a bloated millionaire.
I reckon they aint no man we know
That's deserving a better lot; I reckon there's no one in the game
That's a better right to the pot. He's won out against the longest odds
In the business of buckin' fate, And though old and scarred in the battle hard,
He's the same old jovial mate.
They ain't no shine to his make-up, boys,
From his hat to his Arctic sox; Not even on them old boots of his,
But he's got a heart like an ox.
And I believe some day, when he goes away
To prospect the other shore, He can give his name and whence he came,
And Peter will ask no more.
While the sun of his fortune is highest now,
With him it is long after noon; He's sixty years old today, boys,
And the shadders will be here soon. So we'll drink to his health and pray the court,
A receiver for old death's claim, And we'll let go hard of our friend and pard,
For he won't pass here again
Then Mr. King offered this toast to Missouri, the native state of Mr. Lane:
We've all abused Missouri,
And sung our songs of Pike; And laughed to poke some wicked joke
At raw-boned hungry Ike. But we've got to pull our horses up,
And fess up flat and plain; Can't find no mate to match the State
That gave us Charley Lane.(Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; pages 197-201 - Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
Jafet Lindeberg, president of the Pioneer Mining Company and prominent mine owner and operator of Seward Peninsula, has the distinction of being one of the three men who first discovered gold on Anvil Creek and Snow Gulch. This discovery made in September, 1898, was the inception of active mining operations in Northwestern Alaska, and the beginning of exploration in a region where vast and uncalculated mineral wealth still lies fallow. At the time that Mr. Lindeberg, in company with Elrik O. Lindblom and J. E. Brynteson, made the famous strike he was a mere youth. He was born in Norway September, 1874, and was just 24 years old when the discovery was made which not only turned the current of his life but changed the course of the lives of thousands of others.
The four partners, Lindeberg, Lindblom, Brynteson and Kjelsberg, known as the Pioneer Mining Company, mined a large quantity of gold in 1899 and 1900. In 1901 the Pioneer Mining Company was incorporated, and Mr. Lindeberg was elected president and general manager. He was a very young man to occupy such an important and responsible office, but his experience as a miner had developed the practical knowledge, which was the first prerequisite of the position he held, and the policy he has pursued has shown a wise foresight and a correct estimate of the undeveloped value of the country. His policy has been to secure additional holdings for his company, and in mis respect he has followed the example of one of the most successful miners in the West or North, Charles D. Lane, whose methods in Alaska have placed the Wild Goose Mining Company in possession of many very valuable mining claims. To Mr. Lindeberg it was obvious that the wisest plan to pursue was to use the earnings of the company for the first few years to increase the company's possessions. The new discoveries that are made every year in the Nome country are conclusive evidence of the undiscovered mineral wealth of the country and of the permanency of the mining camps of this part of Alaska. The slowly developed conditions have shown the wisdom of Mr. Lindeberg's policy. He regards the work he is engaged in as his life work, and to it he is devoting all the energy of youth and the judgment gained by experience of mature manhood.
Mr. Lindeberg owns the electric light and power works at Nome, and he and his three early associates constructed and own the Moonlight Springs Water Works which supply Nome with pure water and provide the town with protection in the event of fire. The quality of the water furnished the residents of Nome is not excelled, and in this respect the people are fortunate, as prior to its introduction there was an epidemic of typhoid fever which has not since occurred. The Nome Electric Light plant is the first one established in Northwestern Alaska.
Mr. Lindeberg is married. Mrs. Lindeberg is a member of an old and prominent family of California. Their winter home is the Palace Hotel, San Francisco. The summer seasons are periods of active work at Nome for Mr. Lindeberg, when he is most frequently seen in the garb of a miner looking after the many details of the company's extensive interests. He is a man of untiring energy who has made the most out of the opportunities of life, and by inherent strength of character has elevated himself to a position of prominence in the field of industrial activity. (Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; pages 201-202 - Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
Captain D. B. Libby first went to Alaska in 1866 and had charge of a part of the construction work of the Western Union Telegraph Company, which at that time was attempting to erect a telegraph line across Canada and Alaska to connect with a Siberian line by a cable across Bering Strait. Some of the old telegraph poles that were erected in 1866 and 1867 may still be seen in Seward Pen-insula. Captain Libby discovered gold on Ophir Creek in 1866, and always cherished a desire to go back to this country, but did not have an opportunity for its gratification until the dis-covery of gold in the Klondike country created greater interest than had hitherto been manifested in the Northland. He is a native of Maine, and was born February 3, 1844. He served as a soldier in the Union Army, and after the war went to Pike's Peak. While in Alaska in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company he had charge of a division of the line construction. He spent the winter in 1866 and 1867 in a camp on Grantley Harbor named Libbysville. After he returned from Alaska he was ticket agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, Fourth and Townsend Streets, San Francisco, for fifteen years. Failing health compelled him to resign this position, and he went to Mendocino County, California, where he fully recovered. His second journey to the Northland was made in 1897. He left San Francisco August 18, sailing on the steamer North Fork. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law, Louis Melsing, and by Harry L. Blake and A. P. Mordaunt. He spent two winters in the Fish River country. At the present time he is at the head of a prospecting expedition in the unknown and unexplored country of the Kuskokwim Valley.
Miss Louise Melsing, of San Francisco, and Captain Libby were married in 1882. They have two children, Daniel B., Jr., and Adeline E. The son is now a young man of eighteen years and an assayer. When he was fourteen years old he accompanied his father on a trip to Alaska.
Captain Libby is a prominent figure in the history of Northwestern Alaska. He has trodden many miles of the "toe-twisting tundra," and his work has been distinctively of the kind that falls to the lot of the pioneer explorer and prospector. The region he is now investigating is so far away from the direct and usual methods of communication that possibly a month or more would be required for him to send a message to the nearest postoffice or telegraph station. It is to men of this type that future generations will be indebted for a better knowledge of Alaska than we possess today. (Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; pages 202-203 - Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
N. B. Solner has been identified with the banking interests of Nome since the early spring of 1900. He is the manager of the Bank of Cape Nome, one of the leading banks of Alaska, transacting a very large business in the Nome country. He came to Nome in June, 1900, supervised the construction of the bank building, and has since had the management of this financial institution, which is doing its share to promote the welfare of Seward Peninsula and develop the mineral resources of this country.
Mr. Solner is a native of Janesville, Wisconsin, and was born January 10, 1864. In 1880 he entered the First National Bank of Moorehead, Minnesota, and in 1884 was cashier of the Tobacco Exchange Bank of Edgerton, Wisconsin. In 1886 he went to California on account of ill health. Two years later he visited Seattle, where he obtained employment as paying teller of the First National Bank of that city. He has held other positions of responsibility and trust in banks, and has had a most thorough training in all departments of the banking business.
Subsequent to the establishment of the Bank of Cape Nome he was elected vice-president of that institution. In November, 1903, with James D. Hoge and other representative citizens of Seattle, he organized the Union Savings and Trust Co., of Seattle, and was selected as cashier of that institution. This is one of the most successful banks ever organized in the city of Seattle. In the brief period of its existence it has accumulated more than $1,200,000 in deposits.
Mr. Solner fills both positions-that of manager of the Bank of Cape Nome, and cashier of the Union Savings and Trust Co., of Seattle. He visits Nome during the summer seasons, and exercises a general supervision over the Nome bank. The principal business of banks in Nome is the purchase of gold dust, and the Bank of Cape Nome handles annually $1,500,000 of the product of the mines of Seward Peninsula.
Mr. Solner, by virtue of his training and natural aptitude for the business, is a successful banker; he is a courteous and genial gentleman, exact in business methods, punctilious in his work and the discharge of the duties devolving upon him, and possessing an unusual clarity of perception of the ways and means of building the business to which he has devoted the years of his life since early manhood. He has many friends in Nome who esteem him for his moral worth and for the sterling qualities of his character. (Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; pages 203-204 - Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
John Brynteson is one of the first discoverers of gold on Anvil Creek. He was a member of the party that started from Golovm Bay to mvestigate a report brought by natives of gold on the beach at Sinuk. This party, on account of rough weather, was forced to make a landing at the mouth of Snake River, and during their detention at this pkce they prospected some of the adjacent country. Mr. Brynteson found encouraging prospects on Anvil Creek August I, and it was these prospects that induced him to return to this place accompanied by Lindeberg and Lindblom in September following when the great discovery was made by which the Nome country became known, and developed into one of the notable gold producing regions of the world.
Mr. Brynteson came to Alaska in the spring of 1898. He had been a worker in the iron mines in the northern part of the United States, and the object of his trip to Alaska was to prospect for gold. His first prospecting in Alaska was in the Fish River country. The result of his efforts in this region was not entirely satisfactory, although colors were found; and he joined the expedition to another part of the peninsula as told by the preceeding paragraph, and through this trip became one of the discoverers of gold in the Nome District and the owner of very valuable mining properties.
Mr. Brynteson is a native of Dalsland, Sweden, and was born August 13, 1871. His father was a farmer and the subject of this sketch received his education in the public schools of his native land. He came to America in 1887, but Dame Fortune never smiled on him until he went to Alaska. He was one of the original members, and one of the organizers, of the Pioneer Mining Company, and he is now a director in that corporation. Since his acquisition of wealth from the mines of Alaska, he has purchased a home in Santa Clara Valley, Cal., where he is following the quiet and unpretentious life of a farmer. He has valuable and extensive interests in Seward Penbsula.
While the products of his mines have made him a capitalist and placed him in a position of absolute financial independence, he still remains the unassuming man and courteous gentleman that he was before the days of his affluence.
Mr. Brynteson was married May 2, 1900. Mrs. Brynteson was formerly Miss Emma Forsborg. Three children, one son and two daughters, have been born to them. His identification with the early history of Nome, the discovery of gold, organization of the Nome District and the development of the rich mines of Anvil Creek and Snow Gulch, is told in a preceding chapter of this book. (Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; pages 204-205 - Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
There is not a man in the Nome country who is better known or more highly esteemed than Major Monroe. He came to Nome to supervise the construction of the Wild Goose Railroad, and is the man who built the first railroad in Northwestern Alaska. After its construction he acted as superintendent of the line, and subsequently when the road was acquired by the Nome-Arctic corporation and its name changed, he was selected as manager and placed in full charge of the road.
Major Monroe is a native of Indiana, and was born June 4, 1841. He is of Southern lineage, his parents having emigrated from Kentucky to the Hoosier state. At the age of eighteen he enlisted as a soldier in the First Iowa Cavalry. For meritorious service he was promoted to first lieutenant of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry. He served his country as a soldier during a period of four years and a half, and was in a number of engagements in the Civil War, notable among them the battles of Perry Grove, Arkansas, and Springfield, Missouri. During the latter part of his service in the army he was transferred to the Western Department, and for two years fought Indians on the frontier. He was in Wyoming during the serious trouble with the Sioux.Major Monroe was accredited with being the best drilled cavalry officer in the Department of the Platte, and has a certificate from General McCane, the commander, for his proficiency as a horseman and a swordsman. He was mustered out of service as Brevet Major, and began the work of civil life as a railroad contractor and superintendent of construction. He helped to build the Union Pacific, and in 1872 went to California, and for many years was connected with the construction department of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. In 1884 he established the town of Monrovia in Southern California, and lived there until the spring of 1900, being engaged in the real estate business. In 1900 he came to Nome with Charles D. Lane and constructed the most northerly railroad in North America.
Major Monroe was married in Omaha, December 25, 1864. Mrs. Monroe was formerly Miss Mary J. Hall. The issue of this marriage has four children, Milton S.. George O., Myrtle M. and Mabel H. The elder daughter is now the wife of Bruce C. Bailey, and the younger daughter is the wife of Bruce T. Dyer.
When Major Monroe was superintendent of construction on the Southern Pacific fines of the Southwest he was known among the employes by the name of "Red-Cloud." At that time his hair, which is now beginning to show the frost of many winters, was red, and to recall a familiar story, he rode a white horse. Then as now, he possessed an inexhaustible fund of good humor. He has the happy faculty of seeing the silver lining of the cloud, and he can fence a thrust of anger with a joke as dexterously as he could fence with a cavalry sword when he was an officer in the Department of the Platte. He owns a big heart; and with the aggressiveness and industry that are necessary pre-requisites for business enterprise, he has a soul that responds to every sentiment. (Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; pages 205-206 Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
W. H. Lang is at the head of one of the largest ditch enterprises of Seward Peninsula. He is the general manager of the Flambeau Ditch and Mining Company, which is constructing a thirty-mile ditch from the Flambeau River to Hastings Creek. This ditch will cover a large area of valuable mining ground.
Mr. Lang is a native of Rock County, Wisconsin, and was born September 25, 1856. He was educated in the public schools of Eau Claire. When he was a young man he and his brother formed the Line Construction Company. The business of this company was constructing and building, and its field of work was in Northern Wisconsin. Several electric light plants were constructed by the company. Another feature of the company's work was the building of lumbermen's log driving dams. Mr. Lang followed this character of work until 1897 when he started for the Klondike by way of White Pass. He spent two years on the Yukon in the business of mining. He returned home in 1899, and in the following spring went to Nome on the Robert Dollar. During his first two years in the Nome country he mined on Hungry, Oregon and Bourbon Creeks. In 1903 he organized the Flambeau Ditch and Mining Company and has been associated with the enterprise as general manager ever since.
Mr. Lang was married in 1878 in Minneapolis, Minn. Mrs. Lang was formerly Miss Celia Kelly. They have two children. Will and Cora, both of whom have reached maturity, the latter being the wife of W. J. Heiser. The family resides in Portland, Oregon. Mr. Lang is a careful and prudent business man and an upright, honorable citizen. The economical management of his company's affairs in the Nome country is attested by the low cost of the ditch work he has done. As one of the ditch promoters and builders in this country he is doing much for the development of the resources of Seward Peninsula, and when his company consummates the work in which it is engaged, the result of Mr. Lang's labors should be more than satisfactory to himself and his associates. (Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; pages 206-207 - Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
A. Schneider is the French Vice Consul in Nome. He is also largely interested in mining and ditch construction, being president and general manager of the Northwestern Ditch Company. This company owns a valuable ditch fifteen miles long between Osborne Creek and the beach of Bering Sea. This ditch enterprise was started by the Fort Davis Hydraulic Mining Company. The company constructed eleven miles of ditch. Last season it sold its interest to the Northwestern Ditch Company, which constructed the other four miles. Mr. Schneider was associated with the first corporation and was elected to perform the duties of president and general manager of its successor.
A. Schneider was born in Paris March 3, 1864. He received his education in the Chaptal College of Paris, and subsequently engaged in the commission exportation business. He left this business to go to Dawson in 1899, and came to Nome the following year. In 1901 he was appointed Vice Consul for France at Nome, and has filled this position satisfactorily to his country and to the French residents of Northwestern Alaska. Besides his mining and ditch enterprises, Mr. Schneider is a director in the Miners and Merchants Bank of Nome. He and Miss. Marguerite Bourgeois were married in Paris in 1890. Two daughters, Simone and Helene, are the issue of this marriage. Mr. Schneider is an esteemed and popular resident of the Northland, possessing the urbanity and courtesy that are the hereditary qualities of the French people. He has shown tact and wisdom in the management of the affairs of the consulate, and at all times has pursued a policy in his official acts that has received the approval of the best element of the community. He is one of the pioneer ditch constructors of Seward Peninsula, and is identified with mining enterprises of considerable magnitude. He has manifested an ability in business that makes him prominent in the field of enterprise and finance of the Nome country. (Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; page 207 - Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
J. D. Leedy was the first man to land in Nome from the steamer Garonne in the spring of 1899, and the steamer Garonne was the first vessel to arrive at Nome from from the states. Mr. Leedy's description of the handful of men found in the new camp is both interesting and instructive. At this time Nome had the atmosphere of an unusual environment. The inhabitants had lived through the long winter without a suitable or adequate food supply, and there were a few minor cases of scurvy. Among the inhabitants who had spent the winter in Nome was a brother of Mr. Leedy. When the subject of this sketch swung over the rail of the Garonne and descended by a rope to a home made dory he carried with him two valises; one fillled with fresh fruits and other with fresh vegetables. He describes the gratification of the boatman when he was presented with an onion, and how he ate it like he was eating an apple. The snow had not entirely left the ground, and the only log cabin on the present site of Nome was the one occupied by G. W. Price, the deputy recorder of the district. A few tents in which two or three lines of business were conducted, completed the ensemble of the town.
Mr. Leedy had acquired considerable experience as a miner in the Black Hills and in British Columbia, and he immediately devoted himself to the work of acquiring mining property by lease or appropriation. During this year and the years that followed he prospected and mined with varying success. He staked the first quartz claim ever staked on the peninsula. This quartz property is at the head of Nome Gulch and Mr. Leedy believes that it contains the possibilities of a mine. He was employed by the Alaska Banking and Safe Deposit Company as an expert to investigate properties offered as collateral for loans. Mr. Leedy has the record of never having advised a ban by which the company lost a dollar.
Mr. Leedy worked faithfully and waited patiently, but his opportunity did not come until the season of 1904. He and H. T. Harding had often canvassed the proposition of a ditch to supply water to the valuable mining claims lying on the southerly slope of Anvil Mountain. These numerous talks finally crystallized in the initial work of the Seward Ditch, which diverts water from Nome River near Dorothy Creek, and will deliver water for use on Dexter Hill under a pressure of 100 inches. With the cooperation of Dr. Cabell Whitehead and Henry Bratnober this ditch project was amply financed during the winter of 1904-'05, and with the arrival of the first fleet of steamers in the spring of 1905 the work of perfecting this important enterprise was begun.
J. D. Leedy was born in Fredericktown, Knox County, Ohio, February 4, 1865. His father was a lumber manufacturer, who moved to Trenton, Missouri, when the son was an infant. When he was eleven yean old J. D. Leedy went to the Black Hills. In addition to a public school education he has been a student in the State School of Mines in Rapid City, S. D. He began the work of mining at an early age, strikmg his first drill when he was fourteen years old. He left the Black Hills country in 1889 and went to Seattle, and ever since that date he has mined in British Columbia, Washington and Alaska.
Mr. Leedy married Nellie G. Norton in Nome September 16, 1899. His education has been practical. He has learned by work, and his judgment of mines and mining is accurate and reliable. He is a man of big brain capacity and the possessor of that most excellent quality and estimable trait of human character-honesty. (Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; pages 208-209 - Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
CAPTAIN CHARLES S. ALDRICHA veteran of the Spanish American war, a lawyer, a United States Commissioner and a man who commands the respect and esteem of his associates, friends and acquaintances, this epitomizes the story of the life of Captain Aldrich. Although he is young, his character is commendably strong, and his unvarying rule of conduct has been a recognition of the ethics of the many phases of human life. He was born at Tipton, Iowa, September 7, 1872. His father was a farmer and stock raiser, and one of the pioneers of the state, and a member of a family that came to the United States in an early day. Capt. Aldrich's boyhood days were spent in Tipton, where he was graduated from the high school. Subsequently he took a literary and law course at the State University of Iowa, and was graduated in 1896 with the degree of LL. B.
He was practicing law in Marshaltown, Iowa, at the beginning of the Spanish-American war. He assisted in recruiting the 49th Iowa Volunteers, and was selected as captain in this regiment, serving under General Fitzhugh Lee until after the conclusion of the war. His company was mustered out in Savannah, Ga., May 13, 1899, and Captain Aldrich returned to Iowa, and resumed the practice of law at Marshaltown. The stories of the new gold fields discovered in Northern Alaska induced him to go to Nome. He arrived in the camp in the spring of 1900, and opened a law office. He practiced law until the spring of 1903, when Judge Moore appointed him to the office of United States Commissioner of the Fairhaven District. He took charge of the office July 20, 1903, and resigned the following summer upon receipt of the sad news of his father's death and the further information that he was urgently needed at home. During his incumbency in the Fairhaven District, residing at Candle, he had, by the observance of that rule of conduct, trying to do right, which has impelled him in all his endeavors, made many warm friends, and it was with sincere regret that he severed these relations.
During his residence in Nome Captain Aldrich took an active and a leading part in the organization and maintenance during the winter seasons of a literary society. The weekly meetings of this society were well attended, often overtaxing the seating capacity of the assembly room, and indicating a widespread and general interest in the work of the society. The long winters in Nome create a lot of leisure time for the residents, which may be spent in idleness, or a part of it may be profitably utilized if the opportunity arises. The literary society gave many persons the opportunity of free entertainment of the most wholesome character, and has been helpful to many people of this isolated community. (Source: Nome & Seward Peninsula, History, Description, Biographies & Stories, by E. S. Harrison, Seattle, 1905; pages 209-210 - Submitted by Peggy Thompson)
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