Artifact #52: Envelope to Capt Jeff R. Smith

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apt. Jeff R. Smith

Artifact #52 from my personal collection is an envelope addressed to Soapy Smith in Skagway, Alaska. Unfortunately, the letter itself is missing, possible residing with the collections of another family member. 


Here's what we do know.

• The individual who wrote the letter mailed it at around 5:30 p.m., on June 16, 1898, using a patriotic "Remember the Maine" envelope. The battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898 and was the primary excuse for the Spanish American War.
• It is addressed to "Capt" Jeff R. Smith, who took on the rank with the creation of his Skaguay Military Company.
• "Box 61" refers to the mail box slot for room #61 of the Mondamin Hotel located two doors from Jeff Smith's Parlor on Holly Street (now Sixth).
• The rear of the envelope is postmarked in Skagway on June 24, 1898, taking eight days to get to Soapy, arriving fifteen days prior to his demise on July 8, 1898.

(Click image to enlarge)

"He is one of the greatest characters in the west"

—Colorado state representative Lafe Pence, 1894
—Alias Soapy Smith, p. 312.

NOVEMBER 7

1637: Anne Hutchinson, the first female religious leader in the American colonies, is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy.

1811: The Shawnee Indians under Chief Tecumseh are defeated by William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe, near the Wabash River in Indiana Territory.

1837: Elijah P. Lovejoy, an abolitionist printer, is shot to death by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, while trying to protect his printing shop.

1859: The Jefferson Territory (Colorado) General Assembly meets in Denver to set the government in operation.

1874: The Republican Party is first symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly.

1876: The cigarette manufacturing machine is patented by Albert H. Hook.

1876: John Ringo and George Glidden are arrested, ending the “Hoodoo War” in Texas. The feud began over cattle rustling, and last over a year. The Hoodoo’s were vigilantes who disguised themselves with hoods and boot-black.

1879: Frank H. Reid shoots and kills James Simons, a neighbor during an argument near Sweet Home, Oregon. Reid flees the scene but later returns for trial and although Reid was armed with a shotgun and Simons had but a stick in his hand, it was ruled as self-defense. On July 8, 1898 Reid shoots and wounds Soapy Smith in the Shootout on Juneau Wharf, Skagway, Alaska. Reid dies of his wounds 12 days later.

1881: Wyatt Earp and John “Doc” Holliday are jailed in Tombstone, Arizona Territory to await their hearing in the wake of the gunfight behind the O.K. Corral.

1885: Apache Indians under Chief Ulzana, attack two ranches south of the Mimbres Mountains in New Mexico Territory. Killed were Andrew Yeater and his wife. Their neighbor, John Shy barely escapes his burning house and saved his family.

1890: Soap Gang member Joe Simmons hits a Denver, Colorado Tivoli Club patron over the head with his pistol. The gun discharges and the bullet hits the wall.

1892: Denver crime boss Soapy Smith makes a blatant admission about election corruption to a Rocky Mountain News reporter saying “__ __ if any law could keep me from casting as many crooked votes as I __ __ pleased, and I don’t give a __ who knows that is my position. I will cast as many fraudulent votes as I want to, and there is no __ __ law can prevent me.”

1893: Colorado grants women the right to vote. It is the second state to do so.