The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 11, 1898, Page 3

'HE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, MONDAY, APRIL 11, 1898. MARCHED FROM ARCTIC WILDS TO GOLDEN GATE A DARING FEAT. Mate Tilton’s Great Trip Through Four Thousand Miles of Storm. Fears of the Orca Have Perished that Fifth Mate Walker and Guides in a Blizzard. One »f the most marvelous trips ever in in any age was that i by Third Mate Tilton of Belvedere, who ar- ¥ morn- h of nearly rbidding wilds wccount of the arrow ap- recial dispatch all of Saturday. pleted by the in- yatched by the Arctic- where storms the important te- Walker of the arted for civiliza- that the Tilton ex- Michael. The t been heard e line leads to 1 in some that charact e sought to traverse. culations that were niliar with the coun- t to have reached his st three wee »oner to Portland. s there ny chances of disaster, Tilton party narrow- t is tb g Mate Tilton mrade will never be heard of | n | st account of the trip by | s through snow and ice | M t h ssed of nation, and that over it all hovered the dread danger of starvation and a loss of all bearings in a region as wild as was ever made by forbidding land- frigid days and nights of wild- of bravery, diplomacy, skillful husbanding of scanty T s—and good luck. Sometimes starvation was so close that Tilton had to kill some of his faithful degs and use them as food for the oth- er Sometimes his matches were so wet and worthless that he had to use flint stones to light bunches of coal-oil saturated “waste” that he carried in lucifers. Often there was no with which to build a humble and amid such misfortune it uggle to sleep in such a way as to avoid freezing to death. Over it all hovered the cold stars and the won- a Borealis, nightly visitors in the dread waste of Arctic silence and desolation. On the way down the party encoun- tered a band of natives that nursed a bitter feeling against all whites, a tribe in whose bosom slumbered the fires of a fierce vendetta against Anglo-Saxons, because some of their ancestors had been killed by whalers nearly twenty rs ago. As the little band of mes- sengers passed this habitation they learned the particulars of the murder of a white prospector who was shot by a native to avenge the killing of his father. At another point along the march two members of a band of Indian “moon- shiners” who conducted illicit distil- leries in the frozen north, waylaid and murdered a native who was trying to make a record as a revenue agent, by carrying out the instructions of the commander of a revenue cutter. Such things as these were incidents of a marvelous trip, every part of which was not only beset with strange diffi- u lieu of SnOw 'THIRD MATE GEORGE F. TILTON of the Steam Whaler Belvedere, When He Arrived at St. Michael With His Native Guides. up the Mackenzie River one hundredY miles, when his route \ ould turn to the | westward, reaching Fort McPherson, on the Red River. Here he would prob- ably gain the first intelligence of the gold strike on the Klondike. Some twenty-five miles to the westward he | would reach La Pierre’s house. At this | point his routes were open to him, one | leading down the Porcupine River to| Fort Yukon, thence along the Yu- kon River to Circle City and Dawson. | The other route would lead him in al- ! most a direct line toward the coast, crossing the Yukon at Fort Cudahy, striking the headwaters of the Coffee 2iver and bringing him to Orca, a trad- ing post and canning establishment controlled by the Arctic Ofl Company. | | By a reference to the map accompany- ing this article the two routes will| plainly appear. “I started 1 two Indian guides, | but they were so badly frozen that they | could not make the entire trip. 1 had |to drop them at Point Hope iand get others, two of whom, | Tickey and his wife Kauyoana, are with me here. 1 have traveled as | long as twenty-seven days at a time with no other company than these In- dians, and I did not know their lan-| guage when started, so 1 had to draw pictures in the snow to let them | know what I meant. I have learned | their language pretty well now, how- | ever, and 1 am explaining to them the wonders of cities, elevators in tall buildings, and trains of cars, which | they think are houses moving by the aid of strange ghosts. One of the strange features of the | journey concerns Mrs. Tickey, the loss of wh pipe led to the meeting with Lieutenant Jarvis. On January 3 the mate and his guides started early and had traveled near five miles when they missed Mrs. Tickey. She had lost | her pipe and gone back after it. Soon | Prince of Wales, and it seems that his ing out some of Captain Tuttle’s orders] about breaking up illicit distillieries, | and this was resented by the distillers | and their friends. The murderers lay in wait for their victim until he and his wife returned on a dog sled with a | load of wood. “Another murder, which was without any direct provocation, took place on | s of the rivers running into Kotzebue | Sound a short time before we were there. A white man named Boyad, | who had been fitted out by Captain | Nelson of the Liebes whaling station at | Point Hope, was murdered by a mali- | cious native whose father was killed in | 1880. Boyad was on his way up the river | where he intended to prospect for gold. On his way up there he stopped at a native village and hired two natives as guides. One of them was from Cape father had been killed in the Captain Gllly massacre 17 years ago, during the progress of a riot in which the na- | tives were trying to capture a whaling brig. The young man’s father was one | of fourteen who were shot and thrown | overboard during the fight. Though the murderer of Boyad was a babe when his father was killed he has been threatening ever since he grew up that | he would kill a white man to avenge his father’s death. “A few weeks before the murder of Boyad the murderer tried hard to get a shot at a white man on a schooner. Failing in this he hired out to Boyad. The story of the murder was told by the other native, who accompanied | murderer and murdered on the voyage. From his narrative it appears that The snow and ice cut the dogs’ feet terribly so that they froze, and many of them had to be shot and fed to the others. “At Kuskucuim we found a merchant named Lind, on whom we had orders from the Alaska Commercial Company. He did not belong to the company, as we soon found, for he wanted the ex- tortionate sum of $1000 for a dog team, seeing that mine were nearly gone. I could not give such a sum, so I reported ! to Rev. Kilbuck at the mission. He | was a fine man in every way. He gave | me thirteen dogs and fitted me out so 1 could get to the next mission, and was kind enough to travel 350 miles with me on the way. At this mission we found ourselves just in time to at- tend the weddine of Rev. Mr. Rock and Miss King. the school teacher. This was called the fission of Nushigac. “When we got to the Taoack River our Government guide, F. Koltchoff, knew the country, so we started for Nushigac and arrrived there about the 22d of February. We went to Rev. Schoeckart’s mission, where he fitted us out with new dogs, after which he ac- companied me as far as Katmy, 400 miles away. On this march the weather was very bad and the labor of getting through with our provisions and a hundred pounds of mail was very dif- ficult. For three days we had to take refuge behind the mountains to avoid a blizzard, and when we came out it was snowing severely, but we had to press on, because food was being con- | in | sumed pretty fast. We remained Katmy four days on account of the storm, loading up pretty well with pro- visions from the Alaska Commercial Boyad saw the murderer loading his rifle and asked him what he was dnlngi it for. “ “To shoot a seal,’ was the reply. | Company'’s stores. “Then I think I did the most danger- ous thing that ever a man undertook in a sane moment. I took an old scow “‘There is no seal here,’ said the shaped Alaskan dory, renailed it, and tourist. | shot across the Shelikof Straits, a dan- S s, there is one,’ said the native. | gerous place where many boats have MR. TICKEY and His Good Wi’e, Kauyoana, Who Accompanied Courier Tilton From the Regions of Polar Snow. reads like the pages of romance. Every | foot of th lonely march was beset with | urmountable obstacles, but it | in a little more than five | d the man who made it stood | ce yesterday and told of | He is as fine a specimen Ofi manhood as one will find in a | a native of Marthas | rd, Massachusetts. | Tilton and two Indian guides from Portland on the State of yesterday morning, having anied a long part of the Koltchoff, the Government | a trained explorer, who rendered | to the man dispatched ization by the starving whalers. | man ever made the trip by dead of winter,” sald the 1d there is not | n the world to induce voyage, ble servi civ No ot land h awful journey again. The h for a life time.” | 1d the herrors trip it is but ne t that the tr n guides often fi wvith and 1 desol. £ emember that be crossed, ‘orded and rapids s thought of fe and that | when the pilgrims had | mountains for days to avoid death in theroaringblizzards that filled the air with fine snow, driven by polar hurricanes that almost blew men from their feet; that the trip was often made by such zig-zag marches that a day's . travel brought the courfers but four or flve miles toward their desti- Indians climbed, 1 culties that were overcome, but which was rich in events of human interest. In some of the wild reglons which the travelers crossed they found evi- dences of great mineral wealth, the quartz being rich and plentiful. One night while digging down into the snow along the banks of the Yukon, Mate Tilton found plenty of rich coal, some of which he dug up and used for fuel. | He took observations and noted the lo- cation of this and other Interesting points on the march for future refer- ence, for he believes there is a vast coal field along the Yukon. The story of this wonderful trip is best told by the man who made it. By frequent reference to his notebook the traveler yesterday detailed the more important points of the narrative as follows: “You should understand that I start- ed from Point Barrow on the 21st of October, having been selected at a meeting of officers of the ice-bound whalers on the 18th. They had called for volunteers to carry the news to civ- ilization, and I was one of the volun- teers and was chosen to make the southern trip. Fifth Mate Charles H. Walker of the steam whaler Orca was to go home by way of the Mackenzie River and I started by way of St. Michael. According to the esti- mates made by those familiar with the situation it was thought that Walker | ought to getto New Bedford three weeks hefore I could make it to Portland, but he has not yet been heard from and T hegin to fear he may have perished during the journey. “Walker intended to go from Point Barrow to Herschel Island, then to the Mackenzie River, then up the river to Fort McPherson, and from there over the old trail. “Walker intended to stop at the Wan- derer, fast in the ice off Baxter Island. After consulting the officers of the Wanderer he intended to go to Her- schel Island, where other vessels of the fleet lie. From here he intended to go after this it was noticed that two men were running toward the party, waving their hats and throwing their hands up | | as if to ask for an interview. They were Lieutenant Jarvis and Dr. Call, who would have been rhissed but for the fact | | that Mrs. Tickey loved her pipe so well | that she forsook the party to reclaim it. | | Those who saw Mrs. Tickey yesterday | as she wandered through the parks of the city, or hurried along the streets | gazing with open-mouthed wonder | upon city scenes, could not overlook the fact that she carried her pipe in a buckskin sack. | “Well, 1 should state that there was | | a great deal of dissatisfaction among | | the men when we left Point Barrow. | | If Lieutenant Jarvis gets through all | right he will be welcomed to take | charge, as things need direction. When | T left they were hauling fuel 20 miles | with a sled, and provisions were so | { short that there was already some | | wrangling over their distribution.” | When Mate Tilton met Lieutenant | Jarvis the latter had 2000 miles ahead | of him before he could reach Point | | Barrow. It was his intention to go to | Port Clarence, which is a reindeer | station, and try to drive 300 reindeer to | the men threatened with starvation un- | Jess relief comes by July. Lieutenant Berthof has taken a band of Lap- landers and natives to help him drive the reindeer to Point Barrow. | Consulting his notebook again and again the man who achieved the won- | | derful feat of making a voyage that | most men pronounced impossible, said: | “Do not ask me for dates, for I was | | too busy trying to keep alive and make | the journey to try to keep run of the days. 1 tried it once and found that I | had lost two or three days, so I gave it | up. But I will stick to it that we left | Point Barrow on the 21st of October; |and that we have figured out that we made an average of about twenty miles |a day. It is hard to say how many | hours we traveled daily, for sometimes | we had to lay up all day and take ad- | vantage of the good weather of the | night, and at other times we could run for eight or ten hours. Sometimes the storm raged so at our backs that we had to rope ourselves together to keep from being lost and separated from one | another. Blizzards raged at our backs | that we could never have faced. “The first thing of note that occurred | after we left Point Barrow was at Point Hope station, where there was some serious trouble among the natives, which resulted in the murder of one of | them who was acting as a revenue | agent for the United States. “I was within fifty feet of the mur- der. The dead man’s name was Wa- shock, and he was formerly an inter- preter on the Bear. As I passed a | point within fifty feet of the assassi- nation T saw two natives firing as fast as they could at Washock. who fell at | once. After he fell one of his mur- derers ran up to him and shot him in | the head, although he was already | dead. I had my rifle loaded and could | have killed the murderers, but it was not within my jurisdiction, and it would | have been bad policy anyhow, for the | natives would probably have taken re- venge by murdering some white men. “The man they murdered was carry- So Boyad turned his head to look in the direction indicated, whereupon the native shot him, and threatened to shoot his companion unless the latter | promised not to tell how the killing oc- curred. “The murderer made his way to Cape Blossom, where a mission was started | last year, told the missionary that he had not been paid for his services because Boyad accidentally shot himself, and was therefore paid by the missionary for his services. Later the other native | told the truth. I used some of Boyad's | provisions on my way down and car- | ried a sack of flour stained . by his blood. If I could have found the na- | tive who committed the murder I wouid | have shot him. This is the way they | administer law up there. Soon after | this I found some natives avho lived at | Cape Prince of Wales. They were go- ing to kill the murderer, but I warned them not to do so, but to turn him over to the Bear and let the law have its| course. There are many more natives there who have the same sort of griev- ance, and the case ought to be made an example to deter others from similar crimes against white men. I find that the bitterest natives are said to be | those who have grown to manhood since their pirate fathers were shot. “After leaving this part of the deso- late region which we traversed we | found nothing very startling until we got to within fifteen miles of St. Mi- chael, where we found the steamer Alice lying in the ice. After leaving the Alice we went up the Yukon River. This was a very bad trip, the cold be. ing about forty degrees below zero | most of the time. “One night we camped out under a drilling tent, as there was no snow.. On January 25 we came upon the steamer Mare Island, and a ball was given in my honor. There were only two or three ladies aboard, but some of the | men tied handkerchiefs around their arms to designate that they were play- ing female parts, and we danced until | nearly morning. By the way, there | was nothing to drink, and nothing is needed, for there is nothing that will | finish a man quicker in that cold re- | gion than drink. A drinking man in | an Arctic climate has no chance. The best drink is tea or a few drops of | tabasco sauce in a glass of water. T is wonderful how warm that stuff wil keep one. Coffee is good, but tea is| better. 28l “Well, as we went on our mail pouch began to — w heavier, so that when I arrived in Portland T had a hundred pounds. I started with about twenty | pounds from Point Barrow, but picked up letters here and there through alil the Alaska country. | “At various points on the march I had | to rob the native caches of their food, | but T always left some ammunition to | pay for the grub I took., which is a | custom of the country. Well, after we | left the Mare Island we began the peril- ous trip southward. We had a hard | trip of 320 miles to the town of An- | droska. We h.1 orders on the Alaska | Commercial Company's stores there to | refit us for the trip. They furnished us fresh dogs and -ortage to the Kusku- | cuim River, 180 miles away. We had | an awful journey over the mountains. | t il | a telegram from their own house in been dashed to pieces by the fury of the waves and the treacherous character of the surroundings. It was the most startling trip I ever took or ever want to take. A thick fog came up before we got across, and I had to steer by studying the movement of the water. We get across and camped by 9 o’clock that night, well satisfied that we had performed wonders. “Wa were well on the way toward the end of our journey now, and were glad to see a prospect of rest. For months we had been going up canyons, away around inlets and doubling back and around to avoid mountains, and it seemed glorious to be in sight of the goal. The next day we continued down to Kadiac, and the second day arrived at St. Paul, on Kadiac Island. There the Alaska Commercial Company char- tered a schooner for $1200 to take us to the island of Orca, but we came upon the steamer Albion to which we were transferred, and by which we were brought to Portland. It was a great rest to get away from the terrors we had been fighting so long. Night after night we had been sleeping in snow houses which got so warm and suffo- cating sometimes that we had to dig through them to keep from smothering, and now we are at leisure, so that all our faces got well. When we arrived at St. Michael we were bleeding from the cold as much as if we had been cut in the face with knives. At Portland we were treated elegantly by the Alaska- Yukon Transportation Company, which aw to our passage. Lewis, Anderson & Co., however, showed us no mercy whatever. They would not recognize San Francisco, asking them ‘to treat us right.” One of the most interesting souvenirs of the entire trip is the bunch of letters from various vessels which Mate Tilton and guides met on the Yukon. Each boat gave him a few sheets of paper containing a record of the passengers aboard, together with data concerning the whereabouts of the craft. The following is a copy of the records he brought with him, showing many names of persons well known in San Francisco and throughout the country: NONAVAK OR KENNEDY RIVER, January 25, 1898. This river flows into the Yukon River fifty miles up from the mouth. The following is a list of the passengers | and crews of the Elizabeth Anderson, | hulk Politkofsky. steamer W. R. Merwin and schooner W. J. Bryan, bound to the gold fields of Alaska: G. Mulligan, Joe Baker, O. Fingley, Fred Oberg, Peter Pederson, Astoria, Or. Mrs. E. Carr, Mrs. J. Higgins, A. A. Carr, Seattle, Wash.: Judge iram Robbins, Little Rock, Ark.; Dr. W. C. Bowers, Louisville, Ky.; Willilam Moody, William Beerwart, Evansville, Ind.; John How- ell, M. L. Weiss, Joe Kestle, H. B. Por- ter, Denver, Colo.; Scott Hannan, Charles Range, Con _Seems, Murray, Idaho; J. L. George, Louisville Ky.; J. W. Snyder, Lake Tapps. Wash,; orge Mills, South Prairie, Wash.: J. W, Stew- art, A. F. Rowell, Marysville, Wash. Allen Tucker, Archie Heath, Willlam H. Esworthy, Port Blakeley, Wash.; Fred N. Havener, Waltham, Thomas Edwards, Schamokin, Pa.; J. ice, George H. Denvin, Lewis- ARCTIC CRIMES. Some Strange Discovered Murders During the Dread Journey. A Village Where Natives Nurse a Grudge Equal to a Ven- detta Against All White Men. Thomas Busman, N Patee, St. Joe, Mo.; Los Angeles, Cal.; William Bartell York City; E. Henyan, Holstein, W. E. Williams, Renton, Wash.; W Francis, Coronado, Wash.; Caj ert Thomas, Black Diamond, E. McIrwin, Shoshone, Ic J. A. Dwyer, San Francisco, Weldon, Eddy, N. M.; C 0.; Robert O'Shea, ew York City; J. S Thomas Deverant, New Towa; ¥ Wash.; ‘Cal.; W ._Schneid s rd, William Schiebert, I Buchanan, Ashev Schumber, T. H. lany, Isaquah, Wash.; am Helena, Mont.; David La Blau, Mo Canada; William Tedford, Seattle, J. C. Brown, Louisville, K Carrington, Crosse, Kan.; 3 Henry Simmon Mich.; R. Hansen, Sea liam Jackson, Butte, Mont.; W. ston, New York City; P. F. Kenr toria, Or.; Sam Kirk and wife, Wash.; John Lawrence, Port Bla vash.; John *Long, Butte, Mont.; ald, Jackson, Mich.; V. York City; Peter BT SV Wash.; J. E. Phillips, Taylor, Port Blakeley, V Note, New York; E. Victor, Colo.; Colo.; George Hes son, A. R. Benson, Baltimore. sell, Canada; Thomas Kennec ol ; Mar Seattle Arthur Jordan, San Francisco, Cal.; Paul | Stein, Chicago, Ill.; Pat McCarty, Seattle Wash.; Captain George Paul, Port Biake- le{" ‘Wash. rew of the steamer W. K. Merwin— D. K. Howard, manager; Thomas Lyle, captain; Arthur Leighton, first officer; Y.; James | | in the icy re friend, Daniel W. Jones, Governor of the of Arkan ngers of the steamer ukon River, January Anderson, master; Jerome C. Woolf, pur- g Way, chief engineer. Pas- William™ Pike, Arizona; L. Loe- S. Kramer, San Francisco; D. San William Charles Allen; < C ' 33 Murphy, San Jose; on;_ J. H. D. Baliey. Camanche, Cal.; M Limel, _ Robe Chamberlain, Washington; P. W. Judkins, Maine; F. A, W Pacific _Grove, Cal.; V. H. E Jose; W. B. Kirk. H. Woeb- ancisco; T. V. Marling, Arl- Kennedys River, :ting of the Bo- > “Roost” on Jan- .r Headquarters, special an Club hel 1898, it w: twe.the members of the club,extend Mr. Tilton, who is our guest, and we rest him to kindly embody in his pri- log the sentiments as expressed be- vate We view with pleasure and admire the pluck and determination that Mr. Tilton has shown in undertaking such a journey as the one he w engaged in, namely, mission of mi oping by its accom- hment to be able to fully enlighten tha lized world of the suffering and dis- aster that have befallen our countrymen ms of the Arctic Ocean. st of its kind that v ended, starting v and ending at Kadiak. f the fact that heBoes ore:now presented deeds of brav- mly believe this instance, - man undertakes such a long companied only by two Indians, W K‘ I 1 Arctic Storms. THIRD MATE GEORCE F. TILTON of the Steam Whaler Beivedere, Who Marched Four Thousand Miles Through William Boyden, chief engineer; R. McGovern, second engineer; Clarence Breeding, fireman; William Ringling, A. Anderson, William Hinkley. William Rob- erts, . F. Bbwen, hall Arm- strong, sailors: Gharles Slaughter, stew- ard; Harry Devine, cook; Thoma: ley, baker: C. A. Sherbourne, James Ho- fan. Tiesco Wiedemann, pantry boy aul Roder, cook; John Trigg. porter; Denny Howard, fireman; Mike McGuire, waiter; Nicol Browne, cook; rank Patterson. waiter; Captain James New- gent, passenger, Seattle. - nedy, Alaska—James D. tain; Robert Peterson, mate; purser; Edwin Dolliver, steward. Passenger on the Mervin—Judge Hiram Roberts of Arkansas {s one of the pas- sengers of the ill-fated and abandoned Eliza_Anderson, who endeavored to reach the Golconda of Alaska. He sends his regards to Senator J. K. Jones and Con- Lebanon, Ind. i ter, M H. Hunt, Asheville. N. C.: gressman W. L. Lowry and his'particular James Officers of the river steamer Alice Ken- | Kennedy. cap- | Rudoiph | Hansson, chief engineer; Michael Dowd, | | the business people of the city. a man and wife, pales, we think, into in- significance ats of this kind before undertaken, the people of our country should, and we hope they will, treat this hero of the frozen north. who undertakes such a perilous journey in the interests of Shan- | humanity, with that liberality which our citizens are noted for the world over. MRS. 8. C. KIRK, Lady Pres. ROBERT W. ANDERSON, . KIRK, R. PETERSEN, (Signed) Found Dead in Bed. E. 8. Jacoby, a glove manufacturer at % Market street, was found dead in his bed at 2734 Pine street, where he roomed with J. A. Salts. The deceased was well known among He was aged 28 years and unmarried. Apoplexy is supposed to have caused his death. His father resides at Mill Valley.