The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 11, 1897, Page 1

VOLUME LXXXIL SAN FRANCISCO, SATURDA . PTEMBER 11, SE 1897. PRICE FIVE CENTS. STARVATION AND DISASTER IN ‘THE FROZEN ARCTIC REGIONS H. Hamilton. Of the passengers, the foliowing depos- who are now on the way can reach that region. Michael to sat up the new steamer Charles ! ered treasure long before the searchers | GOLD BUT NO FOOD That Will Soon Be the State in the Crowded Klon- | dike Country. | TREASURE AND MINERS ON THE STEAMER CLEVELAND. | News Brought of Threatened Starvation at Dawson City and the Spread of Fever. The Excelsior Delayed by a Broken Propeller. SEATTLE, WASH., Sept. 10.—The steamer Cleveland, Captain | iall, twe ve days from St. Michael, arrived this evening with sixty- five passengers and about $400,000 in gold dust. This amount is only roximate, as many of the miners on board refuse to state the exact nounts they brought with them. Purser J. W. Whitbeck of the Cieveland had in his charge $140,000, and he states that this amount and what he knows of on board will foot up about $400,000. Thirty- | eight of the passengers came from the goldfields, and twenty-seven were carpenters who went to St. Michael to coastruct boats for the | North American Trading and Transportation Company. The Yukoni amer P, B. Weare of the North American Trading and Trans- en route from Dawson City to St. Michael, struck miles below Circle City July 28. The river was v stage, and the passengers remained on board until August 1 the steamer Healy, bound down the river, took them off and them to St. Michael, where they took passage on the steamers | and Cleveland for San Seattle. The Weare and it is doubtful if she will get off. he story of the fabulous wealth of the Klondike, Bonanza and El do and other creeks tributary to the Yukon is retold by the re- urning miners, but the warning which has already been given towait spring is emphasized by every one on board the Cleveland. They say that hundreds must gohungry this winter, and that many will cer- starve to death, as the food supply in the mining regions is far ty Francisco and agrou Dora y e below what will be required to keep alive those already in and around Dawson Cily. If the river steamers fail to get up the river the suffer- | ing will be something terribie. On July 26 the stores of the Alaska Commercial Company and the North American Trading and Transportation Company were closed and notices posted on their doors that no more provisions would be sold until the arrival of another steamer from St. Michael. The steamer Excelsior of San Francisco left St. Michael two days before the Cleveland, but when three days out she broke two propeller blades by running on a bar in Bering Sea and put into Dutch Harbor fe s. When the Cleveland left Dutch Harbor September 3 it was expected the elsior would complete her repairs by September 6 and continue on her journey. The Excelsior has on board about 100! passengers, and it is stated that she has gold dust amounting to nmrlyf $1,000,000. | Captain Hall of the Cleveland is most emphatic in his statement | that intense suffering will result at Dawson City and vicinity this win- ter on account of a scarcity of provisions. In an interview he said: “Winter is setting in earlier than usual, and iceis already forming on the Yukon near shore. The North American Trading and Transpr}rta- tion Company is preparing to shelter at St. Michael 300 or 400 miners who intend to come down the river and spend the winter. The river | steamers Bella, Hamilton, Alice and Healy may get up the river before | the freeze-up, but it is doubtful. | None of the expeditions now on | their way to St. Michael will get up the river, and the passengers will i simply be compelied to stay at St. Michael and consume their supplies. | A few of the passengers taken up by the steamers National City and South Coast and Excelsior secured passage on the river-boats, but the | majority are still at St. Michael. Half a dozen newspaper men, in- cluding S. W. Wall of THE CALL, paid $9o extra and went up on the Hamilton.”” MINERS NOW BEG FOR FOOD! | steamer Cleveland arrived from St. | Michael at 5 o'clocz to-uight with the lollowing passengers, all of whom have mude the journey down the Yukon from Dawson City this summer: A. G. Green, S. Guff, John Guyer, James Gallinger, Mrs. A. P. Henderson, L.S. ider, Phil Kelly, Witliam Lowden, F. E Leonard, Georze F Sezrin, H. Schroder, berm Charles Ross, M. Misa- len, H Anderson, B. Ander- | A. Byler, Miss Lotie Burns, T. H. Bea:mont und child, A. H. Barbour. | Mrs. B ruour, H. J. urrows, A. Balthoff | (Bank of B-itisn Columbia), J. 0. Bergle, S. R. C urcnill, F. Klock, Charles Encle, Stories of Starvation Brought | by Those Returning From the Northwest. Samuel Matthews, Joan Quiver, ‘rank Reynolds, | Wilizam more, T. J. | | son, Mis | | Nearly Half a Million Dollars’ Worth of Gold Comes Down | on the Cleveland. Mrs. Engieand four children, George For- | men unid Rudoiph Foeur. 52987 In addition, there were twenty-seven SEATTLE, Wasn., Sept. 10.—The’ caipenters, who had been seut to St | | with the purser of the Cleveland, | ance, | their possession, and as they refused to | | stated. | wotd of warning to the treasure-seekers. | ited the amounts set opposite thei names total footing up $138,000. rim, $17,000. ¥. Schroder, 818,000. Charles Engle, 820,000. A. Ji. Barbour, $10.000. Fritz Klock, 812,000, S, Matthe . 83000, olds, 5000, 3000. Anderson, S2300. 1. Anderson, S3000. James Gallinge Ba of British 830006 This amount, however, 000. Columbia, < represents but | | enormous richness ot | But those who have made a careful in- spection of the country do not hesitate to declare that there are as good or better sections than the Klondike yet to be opened up. One man, a native of the Northwest Tearritory, and for yeurs a member of the Canadian mounted police, declares that on the American side of the line there are richer and greater diggings than the wildest dreams of Klondike have pictured. With all the new discoveries thus far re- ported, with all the gold that has.reached civilization from these far northern min- ing fields, despite the fact that all the prospects are practically in their infancy, come predictions and speculations of the the source of all this placer gold. All miners know as an axiom that placers take their origin from served as chief of scouts during the Riel rebellion and during that repellion served | with Captain P. D. Hughes o. Seattle. He is thoroughly posted on all the mining | districts in the far North, having visited them time and time again. He says that all the claims on the better known tribu- taries of the Yukon worth taking up have already been filed upon. He put in the | entire summer prospecting and says that the best dirt to be found was on Sulphur Creek, tributary to Indian Creek. Dirton Sulphur Creek pans from 5 to 50 cents where found on the surface, and a num- ber of claims have already been located. Mr. Ross is a firm believer in the Amer- ican side of the line, and says it offers fully as good inducements as dizgings on the Canadian side. Hevisited Forty-mile Creek and the camps in that vicinity, and found that nearly all were aeserted. The miners liad all rushed to the K ondike, leaving ciaims that were really paying Qmm‘cmnmm n’rrmmmnmrn’mmmnmmwxnmrqu LR R R R RS a small portion of the gold brought down | on the Cleveland, for the purser estimate: that the amount of gcld dust and nuggets | on board the steamer would approximate | between $400,000 and $500,000. The bal- | however, the owners retaised in | give the exact amounts they with them the actual amount cannot be brought | { Of those who journeyed from the far | northern gold fields all left Dawson City by the ill-fated steamer Weare, which at | last accounts luy a helpless wreck on the | sandbars of the Yukon, thirty-five miles | below Curele City. These were taken orfl | sengers on WARNING OF A RETURNED KLONDIKER. *“ Don’t forget to caution the people who do not care to die against going into the Klondike this winter.”’--- Extract from a statement made by M. Misamore of Port- £ land, Or., who returned on the steamer Cleveland. quartz, either near by orin a far-distant erritory, and now comment is rife as to where the mother lode of all this precious meral is to be found and when it may pos- sibly be discovered. Representatives of some ¢f the leading financiers of the world are now in the field seeking the source of these placer de- posits. Those best informed who are pas- the Cleveland are of the opinion that beforo the close of the ensu- | ing season quartz locations of matvelous richness wiil become a reality. They ex- press a certainty from their observations that within the next six months the ground sluice, cradle-rocker and pan of 220209020292220222228. property. Joe Dyer and his partner, Ma- | thison, were sinking a claim on Foriy- forty days a little more than §5000. They bid for men at the rate of §1250 a day to help them work, but without success. Everybody was making a grand rush for Dawson City. The situation on Miller Creek was prac- tically the same. The few miners who | for the summer and quit. Many good claims were in this way unpanned. As no work had been done oun Miller Creek | mile Creek, from which they took out in | stayed there could not procure assistance | LOST IN 1 When Sighted on | August 28, the United Stales revenue WRECK OF THE WHALER NEVARCH Captain Whitesides and Wife and Six of the Crew Res- cued by the Bear. TWENTY-NINE OTHERS MAY B THE ICE, : Nine Remain Aboard the Vessel, Which, August 15, Was Hopelessly Drifting in an Ice Pack. SEATTLE, Wasa., Sept. 10.—Two hours | food upon leaving the vessel, the supply to work their claims, so they cleaned u_pibex'ure the Cleveland left St. Michael, | all 10ld consisting of but a few cans of cuicken and two cans of condensed miik. jcluler Bear arrived in port, having on' After resting over night on the island the board Captain and Mrs. Whitesides, Mates | party the following morning began their 1 and Forty-mile claims during the sum- I Blaine and Read, two seamen, and Boat- | journey toward Point Barrow. A portion THE TUG SEA LION Approaching th.e Steamer- Cleveland in the Straits of San Juan de Fuca Early Yesterday Morning.. From the Tug “The Call” Correspondents Went Aboard the Returning Steamer and Secured the Latest News From the Northern Gold Fields. by the steamer Healy, which conveyed them to St. Michael. Not oue of those wno haveinspected the region of the Klondike will utter one word derogatory of the marvelous rich- ness of the land of gold. Fortunes are be- | ing wrest d from the bywels of the earth bordering the banks of every river, creek and rivulet almost as if by magic. Such seem:ng limitless stories of the precious metal the world has never known before, but with their stories of gold they blend a Within a radius of say fifty miles of Dawson City the country has been thor- oughly prospected, and if there is any land that has thus far hidden its secret weaith ‘rom prying prospectors it wiil have been forced to reveal its undiscov- the placers will give way to the drill and dynamite of the quariz leads. None pre- dict just where the incalculable wealth from which the placers take their origin is to be found, but, nevertheless, all are firm in their belief that withina com- puratively short period definite and per- manent quartz locations will be made known to the world. The statements of these men best con- vey tneir belief in the resources of the great but as yet practically unexplored Northwest. Charles Ross, whose home is in the Northwest Territory, i among the pa-- sengers on the Cleveiand, Ross accom- pacied the first detacbment of mounted volice into the Yukon country and has made his bome there ever since. He mer, under the mining laws, they are all subject to relocation next spring, and Mr. Ross is of the opinion that these aban- doned claims wiil ofter an absolute cer- ta nty ‘to incoming prospectors. He 1s strongly in favor ot the Chilkat trail and says if he goes back in the spring he will goin that way. Any good pack animal up there, according to his story, is worth $400. Itis explained thata pack animal is an absolute necessity to the prospector, hecause without one food cannot be car- ried in sufficient quantities to justify any sort of an extended trip. While all the miners returning to civil- ization an the Cleveland are bringing back with them comparatively large sums in J Continued on Second Pages steerers Peters and Sanders of the wrecked whaler Nevarch. They were transerred to the Rosalie, having been picked up by the Bear at Cooper Is<land, thirty miles east of Point Barrow, on August 17. ! The party bad left their vessel August 14, They dragged a small canvas boat over the ice with them, using it to ferry across open stretches on their course, and atter strugeling in this way for thirty hours without rest or sleep, they reached Cooper Island, a narrow point of sand, mansaging a.ter a hard struggle to reach land. Their first work upon gaining land was to build a fire of dry wood, and then they built a temporary shelter of the same ma terial, using their sail us a roof over the improvised house. They had but little of the men walked along the track, th balance paddling along near shore in the canvas boat. At100’clock the same morn- ing they ran across a iamily of Esquimos camped on the beach, who treated tiem as hospitably as circumstances permitted. The one littie tent of the Esquimos was made to shelter the visitors and owners alike for the night, and the sailors were making ready to resume their journey the following morning when picked up by the Bear. The cutter was signaled by the sailors and fortuna‘ely was moving along close enough inshore to notice the signal. In fear of losing their chanceof being vicked up a crew paddled out to intercept ner and was picked up by the cutter. An hourlater ali were safely on board the Bear, when it was learned that the cutier had