Another Soapy Smith gun?

Soapy Smith's Gun
The Vancouver Sun
Post January 1, 1922

 

 

 

almer afterwards took the gun and up to the time of his death kept it as a souvenir of his thrilling Alaskan experience."

 

 

 

NOTE: The Joseph Palmer in this post is not the Colorado Soap Gangster of the same name.

 

Below is the contents of the above newspaper clipping.

 

SOAPY’S COLT .45 NOW BELONGS TO SOUTH SIDE CHIEF

SOUTH VANCOUVER, Feb, 1. – The revolver once belonged to Soapy Smith, the notorious bad man of the Yukon, is now in the possession of Chief of Police Baker of South Vancouver.
     It came into his keeping upon the death of the late Joseph Palmer, a well-known resident of the municipality, who died last week.
     Palmer was acting upon a vigilance committee at Skagway at the time when Soapy Smith was shot and killed. Palmer afterwards took the gun and up to the time of his death kept it as a souvenir of his thrilling Alaskan experience. It was presented to the chief after Mr. Palmer’s death by his daughter, Mrs. J. A. Urquhart.
     The gun is an old-fashioned Colt .45.

Don Blair contacted me about a relative of his: Joseph Palmer. He sent along three newspaper clipping, of which I share here. Don writes

Hello Jeff, I was wondering if you have ever come across this information before as I came across it while doing some research on my own family tree. This Joseph Palmer came from England and was a trained shoemaker in England and he ended up in Skagway and ran Pioneer Shoemaker in Skagway at Main and Trail. Joseph from what I have read had the shoemaking business as well as other interests and some claims as well. Joseph later returned to Vancouver, British Columbia and lived until late January of 1922, and he is buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver. The article stated his daughter Margaret in early February of 1922 gave the pistol as a gift to Chief Baker of the South Vancouver detachment as a gift. Like I say I don’t know if this is known information, or not but thought I would pass it along in case its new. Don Blair. 

I wrote Don back, writing

Hello, Don.
      Thank you very much for sending this! I had not heard of this pistol. For a time, I thought maybe Skagway's Joseph Palmer was a Soap Gang member of the same name. This was resolved when gang member Palmer was recorded numerous times in Colorado newspapers. Gang member Palmer went insane and placed in a hospital where he hallucinated that people, including Soapy, were trying to kill him.
     There are numerous guns claimed to have been Soapy's. I have a page devoted to some of them (Soapy's Weapons). The rifle used in the shootout on Juneau Wharf (Soapy's death) was given to the widow. A "Colt pistol" was listed in the estate, and sold at auction. The widow would have received it but it took her over a week to get to Skagway, living in St. Louis. Is the pistol Palmer has actually Soapy's? So hard to say.
     Thank you again!

Ad for Jos. Palmer
Daily Alaskan
July 2, 1898

 

 

Klondiker Dead
The Vancouver Sun
Post January 16, 1922

 

Below is the contents of the above newspaper clipping.
 

KLONDIKER DEAD

SOUTH VANCOUVER, Jan 16. – Joseph Palmer, shoemaker and veteran of the Klondike, was found dead in the rear of his boot repair shop at 5096 Inverness Street this morning. Mr. Palmer was a native of England coming to San Francisco in 1883 where he was in the shoe-repairing business later staking a claim in the Klondike which he worked for several years. He has no relatives living in this country.

I tried searching for Baker, the Chief of Police of South Vancouver, and found no information.

Visit the Soapy Smith Soap Box blog

 

  

"You must lose a fly to catch a trout…now pick which shell hold the pea."

—Author Unknown

Is this William Allen the Soap Gang member of the same name?

WILLIAM ALLEN
Wanted handbill
Courtesy of eBay

(Click image to enlarge)

 

 

 

 

s this William Allen the Soap Gang member of the same name?

Keep in mind that the individuals that created the handbill in Denver, Colorado, including Sheriff Robert J. Jones, may not have known William Allen's history, and that some of the known information may be completely false, which was discovered in 1892 accounts when Soapy Smith hid Allen, even publishing a fake notice of death and obituary, to keep him from being extradited back to Creede, Colorado where he would be tried for his part in the murder of faro dealer Reddy McCann. 

I was not able to find a lot about William J. Allen. According to Robert K. DeArment in his Knights of the Green Cloth (1982), Billy Allen was a "gambler of a somewhat higher grade" in Deadwood, South Dakota in 1876. He seemed to migrate between jobs as a policeman and bartender. For many historians Allen is best known for his altercation with famed gun-fighting dentist, John Henry "Doc" Holliday in Leadville, Colorado on August 19, 1884.

[John "Doc"] Holliday had borrowed $5 from an ex-Leadville policeman named Billy Allen, a bartender and special officer at the Monarch [saloon], a position that gave him the right to carry a gun and make arrests on the premises. Allen worked with Tyler and Duncan and was a member of their gang. Holliday was laggard in repaying what he owed Allen. In fact, he was nearly busted, his jewelry already in hock. Allen cornered him in the Monarch on Friday, August 15, 1884, and told him to pony up by noon on August 19 or else. The “or else” was a promise at the very least to thrash him—a promise Allen, a robust man fully 50 pounds heavier than 33-year-old Holliday, could easily have kept—or at the worst to kill him.
     Doc Holliday was acutely aware of the danger he was in as August 19 dawned, his creditor still unsatisfied. Keeping gambler’s hours, Holliday had gone to bed at 5 in the morning and did not awaken until 3 in the afternoon—well past the deadline set for repaying the $5. Knowing that Allen was thick with the thieves at the Monarch, Holliday believed the debt would serve as a convenient pretext for his enemies to put him out of the way once and for all. He would later call Allen a “tool of the gang.”
     Holliday left his room in the Star Block, a building located at 405 Harrison Ave., shortly after 3 p.m. He came upon a gambler named Pat Sweeney, who told him Allen had been to Hyman’s earlier that afternoon and was armed. Upon hearing this news, Holliday hiked back up the stairs to his second-floor room and may have concealed his revolver about his person, or he may have entrusted it to Sweeney or to a close friend and fellow boarder, Frank Lomeister, to carry to Hyman’s—testimony on this point is inconclusive. He then sent Lomeister to find Marshal Harvey Faucett or Captain Ed Bradbury of the Leadville Police Department and seek their aid.
     En route to Hyman’s, Holliday bumped into Faucett himself in front of Sands and Pelton’s clothing store at 312 Harrison. He explained his predicament to the marshal, asking if Allen really was a special policeman. Sensing Holliday’s apprehension that this appointment would permit Allen to walk the streets armed, Faucett answered that even though Allen was a special, he had no right to carry a gun outside of the Monarch. Holliday then made a strange statement: “I’ll get a shotgun and shoot him on sight.” Strange, because it showed intent—to the city marshal, no less—to commit a crime in Colorado, and it was Holliday’s lawful conduct in this sanctuary that guaranteed he would not be extradited to Arizona Territory. There, he would have to stand trial for the Tucson train yard murder of Frank Stilwell on March 20, 1882—if Holliday’s sworn enemies did not assassinate him first. Events strongly suggest this remark showed Holliday’s desperate state of mind, but if he was carrying a concealed weapon and therefore liable to a fine he could not afford to pay, it may also have been disingenuous and intended to forestall the marshal’s searching him. Whatever the full intent, it alerted Faucett to a prickly situation. He set off posthaste to find Billy Allen. He entered the Monarch shortly thereafter, but Allen had just left.
     Holliday shuffled through the double glass doors into Hyman’s an      d made sure his revolver was placed behind the bar, close by the lighter on the cigar case next to it. Versions differ as to the caliber of the large single-action Colt revolver, some claiming it was .41, others .44.
     Billy Allen had left his house uptown and strolled down the Avenue. He stopped at the Tabor Grand Opera House to pick up theater tickets and get his shoes shined, and then went into the Monarch. After spending a few moments in the saloon, he was putting on his coat to continue down to Hyman’s when one of the proprietors, Cy Allen (no relation to Billy), warned him against hunting up Holliday just then. Billy Allen answered there would be no trouble and, with a careless air, walked out into the fading sunlight, striding down the boardwalk toward Hyman’s, the hands on the moon-faced clock that overlooked the Avenue to his right nearing 5 o’clock.
     Holliday was lounging by the cigar case when he laid eyes on Billy Allen through the plate glass window at the front of Hyman’s. He reached behind the counter for his Colt and stared at the door. Allen pushed it open, hesitating when a voice outside hailed him. Then he stepped across the threshold, about 6 feet distant, and Holliday leveled the six-shooter that had been dangling in his hand and pulled the trigger.
     The first shot sailed over Allen’s head, shattered a pane of glass in the double doors and lodged in the door frame. Startled, Allen spun on his heel, intending to flee, but tripped over the threshold and pitched forward, landing on his hands and knees. The ex-policeman scrambled to get to his feet. Holliday leaned over the cigar case and, almost on top of the man who’d been the hunter only seconds earlier, fired again. This shot hit its mark. The bullet tore into Allen’s right arm from the rear about halfway between the shoulder and the elbow and passed clear through, severing an artery in its flight. Jolted upright, Allen stumbled outside. He staggered against the wall of Dave May’s clothing store next door. By now he was in shock and bleeding freely, and he fainted into the arms of an onlooker.
     Holliday had only winged his bird and had been ready to fire again. But before he could squeeze the trigger for a third time, the bartender had rushed up to him from behind and clamped down on his gun hand. Captain Ed Bradbury, who’d given Allen a belated warning, then charged into the saloon and snatched the smoking Colt. Holliday immediately asked for protection, and Bradbury led him to the county jail. At the same instant, Cy Allen and other friends of Billy Allen loaded the wounded man into an express wagon and conveyed him to his house. Doctor F.F. D’Avignon was summoned. He could find no pulse in Billy Allen’s right arm, and concluded the artery was severed. As quickly as possible, he sewed it together...
     The day after the Allen shooting, Captain Bradbury swore out a warrant for Holliday's arrest, charging him with assault with intent to kill. He was taken to court, and bail was set at $5,000. John G. Morgan, proprietor of the Board of Trade saloon, and Colonel Sam Houston, one of the managers, signed on as Holliday’s sureties, and he was released....

In my personal collection is a letter to Soapy Smith from John Morgan, asking Soapy to keep a lookout for a gaffed faro box in the Denver pawnshops, that had been stolen from the Board of Trade.    

At the trial, Allen testified that he was unarmed at the time Holliday shot him, that he had never threatened Holliday’s life, and that he did not even know Holliday was in Hyman’s Place when he entered it on the afternoon of August 19, 1884....
     Billy Allen’s career after Leadville was long and adventurous. Researcher Gary Roberts has traced him to Garfield County, Colo., in 1887, where he served as an Army scout during the Ute troubles. Afterward, he worked as a fireman in Pueblo and later as fire chief in Cripple Creek. By 1900 he was participating in the Klondike gold rush and was appointed a deputy U.S. marshal. The manager of the insurance underwriters of Colorado once described the popular Allen as “a strong, brave, determined man.” He died in the Old Soldiers’ Home in Orting, Wash., on March 21, 1941, at age 82.

(The above text comes from the article, Spitting Lead in Leadville, by Roger Jay and originally appeared in the December 2003 issue of Wild West magazine. [http://www.historynet.com/spitting-lead-in-leadville-doc-hollidays-last-stand.htm])

Five years later, Allen is working as a bartender during a special train trip picnic to an out of city park named Logan Park. Allen ingrained himself into the criminal affairs of the Soapy Smith gang when he joined in a melee known as the Logan Park riot.

      On Sunday, July 21, 1889, the destination of one such outing was Logan Park. The trip was heavily promoted, though by whom was not exactly clear. Advertised as "a dazzlingly beautiful spot for a day’s picnic adventure," in reality, Logan Park was far from beautiful, far from home, and far from the law. For Jeff and the Soap Gang, it was a dazzling opportunity with a captive audience...
     The bartender Billy Allen became interested, and joined in the row, ostensibly, to quiet matters, but his appearance was like waving a red flag at an infuriated bull. Grasping a couple of beer glasses, he began to strike right and left, believing in the Irish tactics of hitting every head he saw…. Rocky Mountain News, July 22, 1889.

Two and one-half years later Allen is in Creede, Colorado where he gets involved with Soapy's brother-in-law, William Sydney "Cap" Light, in a shooting scrape that ends in the death (probable murder) of faro dealer Reddy McCann.
     The official story goes something like this. At 4:15 a.m. on Thursday March 31, 1892, “Reddy” McCann, a faro dealer from the Gunnison Exchange, was drinking heavily in the Branch Saloon and causing a ruckus. Earlier somebody had been shooting out windows and lights near the section of Main and Wall streets. McCann was believed to have been doing the shooting. It was Deputy Marshal Light’s job to disarm the hip-pocket brigade, as the men who carried guns into Creede were called, so Light, under the influence of alcohol himself, entered The Branch Saloon accompanied by William Allen and approached McCann. The story appeared on page 1 of the April 1, 1892, edition of The Creede Candle:

Reddy McCann Shot and Instantly
Killed by Captain Light.

     It is said that Light went into the place and was told by McCann that no — — — could take his gun away from him; that one word led to another until finally the deputy slapped McCann in the face; that following the slap came the guns and that Light was forced to shoot in self-defense.
     Sheriff Delaney had previously taken two guns from McCann at different times, the latter time getting a sore hand as his part of the struggle.
     McCann was a faro dealer at the Gunnison Exchange. He came to Jimtown from Salt Lake and had been in the camp about six weeks. …
     At the inquest, Mr. Schwartz, a friend of McCann, testified as follows: “At 4:15 a. m. Mr. McCann, deceased, went into Mr. Murphy’s saloon and stepped up to the bar. In a few minutes Captain Light and William Allen entered the place and began to talk with Mr. McCann, and in my opinion both were under the influence of liquor at the time and they began joshing one another, and Captain Light slapped McCann in the face, knocking a cigar out of his mouth, and I saw them both reaching for their guns, and I dropped behind the counter and I do not know who fired the first shot. After the shooting was over I got up and found McCann laying [lying] on his back on the floor and the barkeeper and I walked up to him and he told us these two words, “I’m killed!” We sent for the doctor at once. We picked him up and laid him on the table, where he expired about fifteen minutes later. I was too excited to tell how many shots—about five or six I judge.”
     William Allen testified: “My residence is Jimtown, Colo., occupation, bartender. After I came off watch this morning at 4 a. m. Mr. Light and myself went over to Mr. Long’s saloon to take a drink, and there met Mr. McCann. He and Mr. Light began to talk. I walked over to the stove and I heard a few words of tussing [cussing?]. Saw Mr. Light slap the cigar out of McCann’s mouth and McCann drew a gun and commenced firing at Mr. Light. Then Mr. Light began firing at McCann. Then I saw McCann fall. Mr. Light turned and walked out.”
     To district attorney: “I did not go into the saloon alone. Mr. McCann was standing against the bar when we entered. Can not tell who spoke first, McCann or Light. They seemed like friends to me when they met. Did not think Light was angry when he slapped McCann. McCann drew … first and he fired first. Can not tell who were present when the firing began, only Dave Allen, myself and Captain Light. Myron Long was attending bar at the time.

Friends of McCann recognized that they would not be heard in Creede so they went to newspapers in other towns to publish their version of the affair. Their story was accepted. In Light's obituary some of that story tarnished his image as a lawman.

The painted fairies [showgirls] from all over the West flocked in and they made the place hum for a few months. A bartender named [William] Allen became enamored of one of these angels whose beauty had not been seriously marred by the excesses of the camp. He had as a rival Red McCann. The eventual quarrel followed and the girl agreed to take the man whose nerve showed up to the best advantage in a Creede shooting scrape. Captain Light was a friend of Allen’s, and to him he confided the story. That night they started out to do their daily kalsomining, and before entering a saloon they met McCann and a party of friends whose hilarity was such that they all began shooting off their guns in the air. The chambers were emptied and they all went into the saloon to liquor. McCann and Light exchanged words and the latter, always calm and composed, irritated McCann to such an extent that he pulled his empty gun on Captain Light. With that the deputy marshal nailed him, and before his gun quit smoking five cartridges had found a resting place in some vital part of McCann’s anatomy. An inquest was held, but before the verdict was announced Light had left the camp. —Rocky Mountain News, December 27, 1893

These two accounts indicate that the story told at the inquest was a cover-up for the murder of an unarmed man. Four months later on July 22, 1892, in Pueblo, Allen was arrested and transported back to Creede to face a murder charge. He was suspected of possibly firing his gun at McCann as well. He was standing at the roulette table with McCann between him and the bar. Light was near the door facing McCann. According to some reports the shot which killed took effect in the victim’s left side, the one toward the roulette table, could not have come from Light’s gun.
     The friends of McCann in Creede had apparently been pushing for justice but four days later Allen was released owing to a want of witnesses.
     This is the last Known information on William J. Allen's connection to Soapy Smith and the Soap Gang. It is known that Allen did go to the Klondike, but I have not located him in Skagway, or associated with Soapy Smith.

William J. "Billy" Allen
Circa 1895
Courtesy Regina Peck Andrus (g-granddaughter of W. J. Allen)

(Click image to enlarge)

Visit the Soapy Smith Soap Box blog

 

William J. "Billy" Allen

April 23, 2017

William J. "Billy" Allen: pages 142, 214-216.

"Games of chance are traps to catch school boy novies and gaping country squires, who begin with a guinea and end with a mortgage."

—Author Unknown

Artifact 53: Letter from Edwin Smith to Soapy Smith, March 27, 1898.

(Click image to enlarge)

etter from Ed Smith to Jeff R. Smith II.

Artifact #53

      In order to better understand the possibilities and probabilities of the letter (artifact #53) we have to step back about one year previous. Communications to and from Alaska were slow, ships delivering mail between Seattle and Skagway in 1897-98 took at least five days, each way.
     In 1897 "Soapy" Smith’s cousin Edwin Bobo Smith was a reporter for the Washington Post. This position and his prior service in the US Congress gave him numerous influential contacts, and he used them to try to help his cousin Jeff make a respectable name for himself. In a 1920 interview for The Trail magazine, Edwin said that Jeff wanted a concession for a hotel site on the government reservation at St. Michael, Alaska. Edwin believed that his cousin's,

     "... intention seems to have been to seek an honorable fortune in the frozen north and then to return to Washington and establish himself in the respectable life of a hotel proprietor." Edwin made a vain effort to keep him out of Alaska, but he expressed the greatest confidence in the success of his schemes in that distant region and was intent upon going…. “This ... is my last opportunity to make a big haul. Alaska is the last West. I know the character of people I shall meet there and I know that I am bound to succeed with them.”

     Those connections along with Edwins’ faithful efforts secured Jeff something he very much wanted: permission to build at an American gateway to the Klondike. In October 1897, to help control the disorder created by the gold rush, the US government opened Fort St. Michael on St. Michael Island, District of Alaska. It was in a new place of abundant opportunity without competition, and at 2,000 miles from Seattle, surely it was far enough away that Jeff's alias ("Soapy") would not be there to greet him. Situated near the mouth of the Yukon River, it would be the transfer point from ocean-going vessels to flat-bottomed boats that would ply the Yukon River to and from Dawson City, the boomtown nearest the gold-laden creeks.

     Soapy had written to cousin Edwin in Washington, DC, to ask him to use his influence to secure permits to operate at Fort St. Michael in Alaska. This site at the head of the Yukon River looked early on to be a prime location for a major settlement. Edwin replied in a letter dated November 18, 1897.

Dear Jeff:

Your letters were gladly received. Always anxious to know how you are doing. You say you want me to send your permits. The letter to Col. Randall is all the permit the war department will give. That letter which I have already forwarded you grants you every concession you are after. I hope you will not get in any trouble with the minimums of the law.
Your brother
Ed. B. Smith

      Edwin did the best he could in dealing with the slow-moving gears of the federal government. By the time his above response had reached Soapy, the latter had already established himself in the new camp of Skagway, Alaska. It, and neighboring Dyea held the best two trails to the Klondike gold fields and are over 2,000 miles closer to Seattle. Soapy had given up on his plans for St. Michael, but did he tell his cousin? The two had grown up together in Georgia, hunted together, calling each other, "brother." Soapy introduced Edwin into the bunco world in Texas. They had witnessed the shooting death of outlaw Sam Bass together, so it seems Soapy would have let his cousin know that there was no further need for his efforts for St. Michael.

     Nearly a half year later, in a letter dated March 27, 1898, on Washington Post stationary, Edwin wrote to Jeff to convey remembrances from Congressmen who still reminisced over his visit to the capitol.

Dear Brother Jeff:

Glad to get your letter. I am so busy you must excuse me for not writing sooner. I saw Senator Wolcott and he asked to be remembered to you. Ex-Congressman Bell of Colorado and Congressman Shafroth also ask me about you every time I see them. Baily of Texas wants to know when you are coming back here. He will be the next speaker if the House goes Democratic. I wish you would write and give me all the news. I want to print [it] in the Post.

Your brother Ed

On the same day Edwin wrote Soapy another letter (artifact #53). Below is the context of that letter.

March 27, 1898

Dear Jeff:

I have been assured time and again that you are O.K. on the permit and have been looking every day for it to come. I shall go to the war Dept. tomorrow and see Gen Brook [Brooke] who has just got back. I think his absence has been the cause of the delay. You need not have the slightest doubt that you have had your petition granted and I hope to send it to you in the next 48 hours.

Your brother Bo.

(Click image to enlarge)

      It would appear that Edwin had written one letter to Soapy, and then received another letter From Soapy that same day, and immediately replied. By March 1898 Soapy had opened several businesses in Skagway, making it his permanent base of operations in Alaska. There seems to be no reason he would write to Edwin about continuing plans for St. Michael. There is another possibility but time is the one factor I have not figured out as of yet. Could Edwin have been offering his help in obtaining legitimacy for Soapy's volunteer Skagway Military Company?

     In March 1898 the Skagway vigilante committee of 101 began threatening the control Soapy held over the town. With the February 15 sinking of the Battleship Maine and the start of the Spanish-American War on April 21, 1898 Soapy saw a means of recruiting a sizeable body of men and of sealing his own stature as its leader. On March 18, 1898 he formed a private military company. Finally, there was the Warren bill. It authorized funds for such units as Soapy's volunteer militia the Skaguay Military Company. On “March 8, 1898, Secretary of War Russell A. Alger allocated $250,000 for organizational expenses, $197,000 for transportation and horses, $31,392 for equipment, and $15,000 for subsistence.” Surely Soapy would have wanted some of that money, but only 11 days span this allocation and the approximate date of Soapy's creation of a volunteer military company. However, the speed at which news could cross the country was ever increasing through organized cooperation among newspapers via telephone and telegraph. News from coast to coast could be in print within a day, and news from Seattle could easily have reached Soapy in time to lend impetus to his plans. The letter Edwin wrote from Washington D.C., on March 27th arrived in Skagway on April 7, 1898.
 

(Click image to enlarge)

      Soapy went about forming the Skaguay Military Company by working people into a state of wanting and needing it. He called for and led patriotic assemblies to address war fears and the need for readiness. Wasting no time, he followed up by executing a plan to recruit, organize, have recognized, and administer an all-volunteer military force created, in theory, for use by the President of the United States. However, he also offered his services to Governor John G. Brady of the District of Alaska, for patrolling the trails and keeping law and order. Certainly this would have put a damper on all vigilante activity.
     In the letter Edwin wrote on March 27th (artifact #53) Edwin mentions General Brooke¹ and uses the term petition. Could the petition be in regards to the minutes and letter Soapy wrote to President McKinley offering the Skaguay Military Company for service? Only a few weeks prior, Soapy had been recognized by the war department when given authority to locate at Fort St. Michael. Now he sought recognition from the President of the United States.

General John R. Brooke
circa 1895

__________

Notes
¹ General John Rutter Brooke: In 1897 he was promoted to major general in the Regular Army and assigned to command the I Corps during the Spanish-American War. In Puerto Rico, he landed in Arroyo with General Hains, and reached Guayama by the time the armistice was signed. When General Miles left the island in October 1898 to return to the United States, Brooke became military governor and head of the army of occupation in the U.S. military government. On the December 6, Brooke was replaced by General Guy Vernor Henry, and by December 13, was named to the same position in Cuba.

"I do not know that I will ever see you again on this earth, but I do know that one who has to my own knowledge so generously and so munificently helped the poor, relieved the distressed and encouraged the weak, will not be among the damned, whatever his short comings may be."

—Judge James B. Belford letter to Soapy, 10/16/1896
—Alias Soapy Smith, p. 292.

NOVEMBER 11

1620: The Mayflower Compact is signed by the 41 men on the Mayflower when they landed in what is now Provincetown Harbor near Cape Cod. The compact calls for "just and equal laws."

1831: Nathaniel "Nat" Turner, a black slave, is hung for the August 21, 1831 slave uprising in Jerusalem, Virginia. The revolt results in at least 200 black deaths and 60 white deaths.

1843: Famed Texas and Dodge City, Kansas gambler Benjamin F. Thompson is born in Knottingly, England.

1851: Texas Ranger Dick Ware is born. He is best known for the shooting of outlaw Sam Bass in Round Rock, Texas in 1877 which Soapy Smith and his cousin Edwin witnessed.

1851: The telescope is patented by Alvan Clark.

1868: The first indoor amateur track and field meet is held by the New York Athletic Club.

1868: Vigilantes at Bear River City, Wyoming lynch three jail prisoners. A few nights later a mob of gamblers, led by Tom “Bear River” Smith, freed the remaining prisoners and burned down the jail.

1873: Telegraph lines are established between Prescott and Yuma, Arizona Territory.

1873: Bad man Edward “Red Beard” Beard dies from wounds he received in a gunfight with Joe “Rowdy” Lowe in Delano, Kansas on October 27. Beard, chased employee Jo DeMerritt into Lowe’s saloon, and shot Annie Franklin, thinking it was DeMerritt. Lowe exchanged shots with Beard, before the latter fled. Lowe followed after him on horseback. Lowe eventually caught up with Beard, shooting, then turned himself in to the sheriff. Beard clung to life for two weeks before dying.

1882: The Las Vegas Optic in New Mexico publishes a false death article on John O. “Texas Jack” Vermillion, who later becomes a member of the Soapy Smith gang in Denver, Colorado, becoming known as “Shoot-Your-Eye-Out-Jack.”

1887: Labor Activists are executed in Illinois after being found guilty of the murder of eight police officers.

1889: Washington becomes the 42nd state.

1896: Bascomb Smith is ordered to leave Denver. He leaves for a short time but returns.

1897: Soapy’s Cousin Edwin B. Smith interviews Soapy about his adventures in Alaska. Soapy is quoted, “I was at Skagway when there were 6,000 people there, and never saw a more orderly crowd. A move was made to get up a law and order society, something after the fashion of the California vigilantes, but the thing was so utterly uncalled for that its promoters were forced to abandon the project.”

1898: The Skaguay News tired of the problems the John D. Stewart robbery by the Soap Gang caused the city publishes that “it is to be hoped that after the robbers are fairly started on their way to San Quentin, Stewart will submit to a surgical operation and have some oatmeal mush or other equally soft substance injected into his brain cavity.”

Victoria Daily Colonist, Sept. 23, 1897: Soapy Smith and others in Skagway, Alaska

Skagway Bay
Row boats unloading two steamships
anchored in deeper water.
Note the Indian canoe on the far left.
circa July-September 1897

(Click image to enlarge)

HE SNOWS OF WINTER

Skagway, Alaska, two months after its founding.

Victoria Daily Colonist, September 23, 1897

The Snows of Winter
Victoria Daily Colonist
September 23, 1897

(Click image to enlarge)



THE SNOWS OF WINTER

________

Have Set In in the North and Soon Will Drive the Discouraged Ones Home.

________

Preparations for the Siege Advancing at Skagway and On Lake Lindeman.

________

Steamer “Queen” Returns With Latest News From the Trails and From Alaska.

________

     ”Wait till the snow commences to fly, and then you’ll see the crowds pouring this way. Just now they are holding down Skagway, talking considerably about what they’re going to do it all the time knowing themselves they can’t do it. The whole situation in a nutshell is this: the men that have the sand and the savvy to go across the mountains are by this time on the river or at the Lakes; and any rate they are on the other end of the trail. Those that make up the population of Skagway now wouldn’t be any good to themselves as miners if they did get in. They’re about ready to admit it to themselves, but they don’t like the prospect of hearing what their friends will say when they do the right-about and come home. And so now they’re waiting at Skagway—for the first snow. That will put the Kibosh on the Klondike dream for the great majority.”

     This is how Peter Anderson, an old Yukoner, who came down by the Queen yesterday, explains the state of affairs at the gateway to the pass. He was commenting upon the comparatively few returning pilgrims on board, and this brief review of the situation was explanatory.

     “There are a whole lot of sensible miners,” he continued, “who feel just as I do about the Yukon country. It’s a good part of the world to stay away from. I went there 11 years ago, and I know pretty near every part of the district. Talk about fortunes in Stewart River, why it’s been prospected clear up, and all it ever returned in the past has been grub stake. You’ll get all sorts of stories of course about every creek in the Yukon Valley, but mark my words the Stewart will prove a no-good stream in the end.”

     “Say, did it ever strike you as peculiar that none of the old-time miners of the North had a hand in the Klondike money-making? Do you know how that was? Why, the prospectors were all out in the hills when the fines were made by accident and a hog luck. A chap went up Bonanza to try and find a shortcut over the hills and naturally try the dirt he ran across. He got $3 rim takings and investigated. It kept getting better—and there you are.

     “Which proves that it’s better to be born lucky than industrious, for the news got to the settlement when only the inactive members of the population were at home. The men who put in the hard work of years looking for the gold are looking for it yet for the most part. The fortune simply came to the people that weren’t stirring themselves, and of course they gathered it in. On the whole, it’s as I said, a no-good country. Hundreds will starve to death this winter, and what fortunes that country has in the way of placer gold have pretty much all been landed already.

     “Claim? Well, yes, I have half interests in two or three that look fairly well, and may turn out something decent. I’m going back in the spring to work them for all there is in them.”

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Skagway Bay beach
Unloading horses and mules onto shore
circa July-September 1897

(Click image to enlarge)

     Had the Queen not arrived yesterday there would have been many anxious hearts to-day in this city, in San Francisco and along the Sound, for she was several days behind her scheduled arrival date, and she usually is reliable as the railroad. Captain Carroll and his first officer were nevertheless a trifle surprised when told that their friends were becoming uneasy.

     “There was no vocation for any alarm,” said the Captain, “and nothing in particular occurred to hold us back. It was just the fog that detained us a little.”

     “Speaking about the gold that is piled like cordwood at Dawson,” said the first officer—although no one had even broached the alluring subject—“I was talking a few days ago with a man who is putting in all his time on the Yukon at one thing or another, and was one of the very first to get into Dawson. I asked him if these stories were true of the immense amount of treasure at the Klondyke town. He replied that if there was any gold piled up like cordwood, he hadn’t found the woodpile. To show you what kind of the place it is, he told me he had plenty of difficulty in raising a few thousand dollars on some of the best claims in the place—and then they charged him five per-cent, a month for the use of the money.”

     “And did you hear about the Chinese cooks at Juneau?”

     This time it was the steward who was speaking and the item of information was strictly in his own particular line.

     “No? Well, I’ll tell you. You see, a cook named Sing Lee, who had been working in Juneau for $30 a month and glad to get it, heard somewhere that they were paying $15 a day to cooks in Skagway. That’s my graft, says he to himself, and he throws up his job on the spot and takes his ticket for Skagway. “Then every other pig-tailed chap in the place that can boil an egg or fry a slice of bacon, gets it in his head that Sing Lee had gone to Skagway to get $15 a day. That settles it. The whole crowd packed off to Skagway, and when they get there they find that the ‘no Chinese need apply’ goes there in everything, and they’re lucky to get out of the camp.

     “In the meantime, the first of the winter crowd from Skagway gets into Juneau, and for want of something better to fill in time with, these white men get the Chinamen’s billets.

     “Labor of all kinds will surfeit the market at Juneau this winter, for a good share of the Klondykers that are stuck at Skagway will put in time until spring at ‘the city.’ Every hotel and the place was full up when the Queen sailed, and the rush had not yet fairly commenced.”

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Piles of supplies on the beach
after being unloaded on the shore
Skagway, Alaska
note the woman (center)
circa July-September 1897

(Click image to enlarge)

     Burton E. Bennett, the prosecuting attorney for the state of Alaska, and Marshall James M. Shoup, came down by the Queen, the latter with the object of removing his wife and family, now in Seattle, to their new home under the Arctic stars. Mr. Bennett, who was here on private business, is a notable man in connection with the Northern affairs, and is doing no small part in the preservation of law and good order during these days of excitement. He is, by the way, the only Democratic appointees still retaining office in the territory, and he was the first representative of United States justice to secure a conviction for murder in an Alaskan court.

     This was in the case of Three–Fingered Charlie, which is up for re–trial at the term of court opening in Sitka during early November. It is a celebrated case, and the facts are briefly these. A white whiskey smuggler had come down from Checan with considerable money and added to his funds the profits from several transactions with the tribe to which Charlie belongs. When he was ready to go away, Charlie and another Indian known as Takke begged a trip to Juneau, and en route thither the white man was killed, Three-Fingered Charlie shooting him from behind and Takke finishing the murderer with a hatchet. On the subsequent apprehension of the two Indians, Takke confessed the old terrible transaction and was sentenced to ten years at San Quentin, which he is now serving. Three-Fingered Charlie was also convicted but applied for a new trial, and this, upon some technicality, has been granted.

     There are six other murder cases on the docket for this approaching session of court, the best known of these being those in which Schell and Slim Birch will be put on trial for their lives. The latter, strange as it may seem, has been very much lionized of late among the miners, and Kid Birch, his brother, succeeded in raising $4,000 for the defense fund on the Klondyke alone. this fund now amounts to $7,000 or more, and this best of counsel available, including Col. James Hamilton of Seattle, has been retained.

     Mr. Bennett says that aside from the Klondyke, the mining fields that are most interesting Alaska at the present time are situated on the southern side of Prince William Sound, and consist chiefly of copper containing about $5 in gold to the ton. The ore body is said to be quite extensive, and a number of miners are working in that direction. Others are steadily developing Cook Inlet; while still others are investigating the character and extent of the recently discovered minerals on Copper river. Mining is the sole industry of Alaska at present worth taking into account, for the salmon fishing this year has been a flat and conspicuous failure.

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Skagway, Alaska
Tent city
camp fire smoke hangs over the land
circa July-September 1897

(Click image to enlarge)

     Ex-Congressman Taylor, of Indiana, is one representative American who has every confidence in the permanent mineral resources of the far north, and yet also has no desire for the Klondyke at present. He is a heavy shareholder in the Jualin Mining Co., And has just returned from a visit to the company’s property near Juneau. He expresses himself as well satisfied with this—as well as another piece of property of which he has just become the owner.

     “Soapy” Smith and Jack Jolly are two fellow-passengers with Hon. Mr. Taylor, but less representative citizens. Smith is an old-time Denver sport and the proprietor of numerous “games” in Colorado until the simultaneous coming in of governor Waite and going out of licensed gambling. Since then he has been something of a rolling stone, although not without acquiring considerable loss, of the long green variety. Recently he has been illustrating how it is possible for a man to make a fortune without going to the Klondyke, his “sure-thing” games at Skagway having made for him $20,000. Hearing while in Juneau 10 days ago that Prosecuting Attorney Bennett had declared all the games at Skagway under the ban, Smith promptly closed out his business interests and came south for the winter. [It should be noted here that Soapy did not flee Skagway because of the ban. He received notice that his wife Mary was very ill and Soapy headed to St. Louis to be with her. This was verified by Soapy, Bat Masterson, and others.]

     James S. Esbey–Smith, still another passenger by the Queen, is the examiner of the state department who has been busy during the past month in visiting the marshals, United States attorneys, judges and various commissioners of Alaska.

     Fred. G. White, formerly manager of the district telegraph office in this city, and now a member of the produce firm of White and Blackett of Skagway, came by the just arrived steamer from that city of a day. He has a little to add of the progress of Victoria’s Klondyke brigade, and came home for the winter simply because it is much preferable to spending the cold months at the foot of the mountains.

     James Sallee, who during two terms represented King county in the legislature of the state of Washington, is home again, the difficulties of the path to the Yukon having proved too heavy for him. This is his second unsuccessful attempt to reach the upper Yukon, he having started out with the same objective two years ago—with equally unsatisfactory results.

     John M. Smith, the United States Commissioner at Skagway, realizes perfectly now what a “land office business” amounts to. He has harvested over $10,000 in recording and transfer fees since the overland rush to the placer grounds commenced, and there are other sources of revenue to be taken into account.

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Skagway cabins
circa September-October 1897

(Click image to enlarge)

     A very fair idea of the condition of things at Skagway is given by Herman Kohlund, a returned Seattleite, who is author of the prediction that not more than one-tenth of those who started out on Skagway or Dyea will ever see the great river of the north. No one has yet got in by the White Pass with an outfit, he says, who did not start provided with horses and equipped in every way for hard work. And no one who has not already started down the river will get into Dawson this year, for there was four feet of snow on the mountains on the 11th of this month and a storm raging, while ice had already formed on the lakes and rivers.

     Preparations for winter were well advanced at Skagway when he took passage by the Queen, over a hundred shacks and log cabins have been run up in a single week. Prices had fallen to bedrock—both for labor and all classes of necessaries.

     Horses, for example, which one month ago were in strong demand at from $100 to $200 each, are now freely offered for a $5 banknote. Those who cannot sell the horses will probably slaughter them and smoke the flesh for winter use, the expectation being that even this class of diet will be acceptable before the frigid term is over. Prices at Skagway as a general thing rule much the same as in Victoria now, which—as no stock can be bought there as cheaply as in Victoria—means that the merchants of the little city of tents are content with small profits.

Pack Train Saloon tent
Broadway or Trail
circa July-September 1897

(Click image to enlarge)

     F. M. Lysons, [See: They Feared an Ill Omen. His name appears as arriving in Skagway aboard the Utopia having left Seattle on August 14, 1897. He lasted one month.] another returned Seattleite, estimates that there were 80 in all in the Queen’s contingent of discouraged gold seekers, he himself being one of the number. He had got as far as Lake Lindeman, going in by the Chilcoot trail and coming out by Skagway—and finding the former route much the preferable of the two. At the lake he received the information that not more than one hundred had got through with her outfits over the White Pass, while 300 or more people had settled themselves in camp at the lake for the winter. A few more were counting upon portaging to Lake Bennett, and hoping to get through from there this fall before the waterways solidified.

     J. J. Carscadden, of Portland, the erstwhile jovial proprietor of the Pioneer and Klondyke restaurants at Skagway will reach his home to-morrow, well satisfied with his experience of Skagway and equally well satisfied to bid it good-bye now that all the money to be made there has been made—for this year at all events. When he opened his canvas walled provision palace there was only one other restaurant in the camp and any kind of a meal sold for $1.50—bread being more 25 cents a loaf and hard to get at that. Now there are thirty-five restaurants and the day of the 15 cent dinner is at hand.

Horse and cart for local work
Skagway, Alaska
circa July-September 1897

(Click image to enlarge)

"People who believe in giving justice to whom justice is due, will now please admit that Col. Jefferson R. Smith has established the undisputed right to be called one of Denver’s most reliable citizens. And that’s what he is."

—The Mercury, 1894
—Alias Soapy Smith, p. 312.

NOVEMBER 9

1857: The Atlantic Monthly began publishing. Its first issue featured the first installment of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

1865: Soldiers from Fort Owen, Montana Territory ship 12,000 pounds of cabbage to mine workers.

1871: The White Mountain Indian Reservation is established in Arizona Territory.

1872: A fire destroys about 800 buildings in Boston, Massachusetts.

1875: Indian inspector Watson makes the recommendation that all Sioux be forced onto reservations by January 31, 1876.

1881: Bill “Russian Bill” Lintenburn and Sandy King, arrested for dealing in stolen cattle, are grabbed by masked vigilantes from a Shakespeare, Montana hotel where a makeshift court was in session. The men were hung in the lobby of the hotel and left hanging for the townspeople to see.

1882: “Marshal Bat Masterson received a severe bat on the head from a cane in the hands of a drunken man yesterday whom he was in the act of arresting.” Trinidad Daily Democrat

1886: Soapy Smith (Denver) receives a letter from John Morgan, proprietor of the Board of Trade clubroom in Leadville, Colorado, about a stolen gaffed faro dealing box. He wanted Soapy to keep his eyes out for it, in Denver’s pawn shops, but not to let anyone know that it was gaffed as he feared losing his reputation and that of his gaming house.

1889: J. M. Kallin of Montgomery, Alabama is ejected from a Burlington train at Barr station for having a counterfeit ticket he had purchased from one of Soapy Smith’s fake ticket brokers on Seventeenth Street, Denver, Colorado.

1890: Joe “Gambler Joe” Simmons, proprietor of the Tivoli Club is reported to have wounded W. M. Shuck of Lyons, Colorado with a glancing shot from his .45 Colt. The reason is unknown.

1898: Trials begin for Soap Gang members, Bowers, Jackson, Triplett, Foster, Wilder and Taylor for the robbery of John D. Stewart. The robbery is a direct cause of Soapy Smith's death.

1906: U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt left for Panama to see the progress on the new canal. It was the first foreign trip by a U.S. president.