The Klondike News,
Dawson, N.W.T., April 1st, 1898
LYMAN S. BURRELL, Manager.
ANDREW NELSON, Assistant Manager.
RICHARD AGGASIZ, Secretary.
M. L. HAMILTON, Treasurer.
N. N. BROWN, Superintendent.
THE gentlemen whose names appear above are all well known business men of Dawson. They are all young men who have accumulated fortunes in the last year or so, their principal holdings being in American territory about a hundred and twenty-five miles below Dawson.
When the first news of the rich strikes on Missoin and Seventy Mile Creek became known, these young men outfitted for a two month's trip, and with a fast dog team
left Dawson about the first of January. They were gone between five and six weeks and their trip will net them fully a quarter of a million dollars a piece.
This may sound to the reader like the wild ravings of a gold-crazed lunatic, but it is literally and absolutely true.
The property owned by this Company in the American Territory is as follows:
THE MISSION CREEK DISTRICT.
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, on Twelve Mile Creek.
Nos. 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, below Discovery on Wolf Creek.
THE SEVENTY MILE DISTRICT.
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, on Sonnickson Creek.
Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, below Discovery on Green Gulch.
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 above Discovery on Broken Neck Creek.
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, on Sutter Creek.
Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, on Mogul Creek.
Nos. 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16,0n Crooked Creek
Nos. 1 2 Sand 4, of Bar Diggings below Seventy Mile Falls.
The four claims last mentioned are on an Island, just below the Falls, and consist of about eighty acres. On this Island men with rockers have washed out from fifteen to forty dollars per day to the man, and it is the intention of the Company to hydraulic the entire Island in the near future. There is an immense body of water flowing
over the Falls and a pipe line three-quarters of a mile in length will give them a fall of over seventy-five feet. Conservative experts estimate the profits of the venture at two million, five hundred thousand dollaras.
The Company also own twenty acres of bar diggings just above the Falls. Another very valuable piece of property owned by them is a quartz ledge about twenty-two
miles from the Mouth of Mission Creek, on the right bank of that stream. It is a beautiful ledge, fully eighteen feet in width; the quartz being "in place" between well defined walls, and the lead can be traced from the river bank fully a half a mile up the hill.
This ledge is of peculiar formation, and although the surface rock does not show it to be very rich in free gold, there is every indication that development will prove it to be of inmense value.
A peculiar circumstance in regard to this ledge, is the unusual formation of its walls; while the one wall is of stratitied slate, the other wall is a pure vein of coal, about an inch and a half in width.
This Company is also owner of one of the most promising looking coal veins in that region. All through that section of the country, small veins of impure lignite can be found at intervals in the shale and sandstone, but the vein located by the
Alaska Placer and Coal Company is fully eighteen feet wide at the point where the out-croppings were first noticed and widens rapidly to nearly forty feet. It is extremely favorably located for commercial purposes at the Mouth of Seventy Mile River, at a point about a half a mile from the Yukon. Barges can be loaded with this coal and floated clear to St. Michaels.
Some forty-five miles up the Seventy Mile River, the Company also own three hundred and twenty acres of coal fields; this latter coal although of a better quality than the hundred and sixty acre tract at the Mouth of the river, is of course inaccessible at the present time.
A glance at the map below will show the reader the holdings of the A. P. & C. Co., and which, enormous as they are, will be greatly increased during the coming season, it being the intention of the managers to bond or purchase every claim offered for
sale in that vicinity this year.
The five gentlemen above named were originally the sole owners of this immense property, but have since sold a one-sixth interest to Charles Meadows, the well
known mining expert and plunger, of Phoenix, Arizona. As soon as Mr. Meadows succeeded in acquiring his interest he started for the United States to purchase the necessary machinery to develop and work the property during the coming season.
Mr. Meadows will also purchase and equip a small steamer to run between Dawson and the Seventy-Mile and Mission Creek Districts.
The headquarters of the Company are now at Dawson, but will be removed early in the Summer to Star City, at the Mouth of Seventy Mile River. Star City, by the
way, is destined to be one of the leading towns on the Yukon River.
That there will be an immense influx of people into this section this year is a foregone conclusion. Not only on account of the richness of the mines thereabouts, but also on account of the too liberal mining laws of Uncle Sam, which are noted at lenght in an other article.
In one respect, however, the United States laws are much better than the Canadian, in that they do not permit the speculator to gobble up a whole town site and sell lots to the miners at boom prices.
A miner who desires a lot for residence purposes in Star City, or Eagle City, or in fact any part of Alaska, must within one year alter locating it, build a house
thereon and otherwise improve his property.
Possession is the only title in Alaska. Upon this the reader will find a good picture of Lyman M. Burrell, the manager of the Alaska Placer and Coal Company.
Mr. Burrell has traveled over almost every mile of the country adjacent to the Yukon River from Circle City to Sixty Mile, and can draw off-hand a map of the country that would put the United States Geological Survey to shame.
Andrew Nelson, the assistant manager of the Company, is a bright young man, who has been several years in the country and who recently sold one small interest which he owned on Bonanza Creek for seventy-five thousand dollars cash. Mr. Nelson as well as all of the other members of the Company is a large owner in the Klondike district, but believes that his Seventy Mile property will be much more valuable than anything he has yet acquired on Canadian soil.
Richard Aggasiz, who occupies the responsible position of Secretary, arrived in Dawson last summer from his home in Seattle, and by his unusual business ability and hustling qualities, has made a rapid fortune.
M. L. Hamilton, the Treasurer, is one of the solid business men of Dawson. His picture and biography appear on another page.
N. N. Brown who acts as Superintendent at Seventy Mile, is a hardy, wiry, rustling expert miner, and it was largely through his ability in this respect that this immense property was acquired by the company.
Charles Meadows, "the outside manager", has been written up in every newspaper in the United States, as well as in foreign countries. He has been twice around the world and in every mining excitement of note for the past ten years, and in his opinion the developments of the next two years on the American side will astonish the world.
Seventy Mile River is supposed to be about 300 miles in length, but has never been prospected for more than fifty miles from its mouth. It lies directly in the
Gold Belt and has numerous tributaries heading high up in the rugged mountains adjacent.
It is not a NEW country when compared with the Klondike, and had been prospected before the Klondike craze to some extent. Three men by the names of Froelich, Beam and Rundell, were there at the time of the Bonanza strike. They found on Crooked Creek, a tributary some twenty-five miles from the Mouth of Seventy Mile, pay dirt from the grass roots up, and the averaged better than twenty dollars a day a piece summer and winter. But this did not satisfy them and they removed to Mogul Creek, where they found good pay for six miles. This they also gave up and went to Broken Neck Creek, a mile or so above, here they built a cabin and took out as high as thirty-five hundred dollars in two weeks. At the Mouth of Sonnickson Creek, a young Swede recently panned out fifty-four dollars in dust, and picked up a nugget weighing twenty-six dollars and thirty- two cents, in one afternoon.
One advantage this country has over the Klondike region is that there are winter and summer diggings. There ground sluicing and hydraulicing can be carried on for nearly five months in the year. Timber is large and plentiful, and a saw mill will be erected there in the near future.
Emptying into the Seventy-Mile River at a point forty miles from its Mouth, there is a tributary called "Barney" Creek, from which there comes a most pathetic incident. It was several years ago that an old man who was known only on the Yukon as
"Barney" went up the Seventy Mile River on a prospecting trip. He was an experienced miner and the indications for gold there delighted him. He managed to obtain a small outfit and in a flat-bottom boat started to pole up the river.
When just below the Seventy Mile Falls he met with a serious accident, his boat being overturned and his provisions swept down the rapid current of the river. He
succeeded in rescuing a sack of beans, two sacks of flour and some bacon, and with this meagre variety continued his journey.
He at length located for the winter on the creek which now bears his name, where he found what he had long been dreaming of. The gold was there, nuggets and dust, dust and nuggets; and in larger quantities than he had ever before seen. With feverish haste he erected a small cache and hardly stopping to properly cook his food, worked during the summer.
But at length a strange feeling of lethargy came over him; his bones ached and it was with difficulty that he arose from his bed of boughs each morning. A few days later he noticed that his ankles were turning black and he then realized for the first time, that he was the victim of that dread disease of the Yukon, the scurvy.
But he was loathe to leave his garden patch of gold, and postponed his departure from day to day. All this time had been living on sour dough bread and beans
straight, his bacon having long since been exhausted.
When he at length determined to start for Forty Mile, he had hardly strength enough to steer his boat down stream, and it was only after a terrible journey, that he succeeded in reaching the Yukon, where he was picked up by a passing steamer.
Everything that medical aid could suggest was done for the unfortunate man, but the disease had made fatal inroads upon his enfeebled system, and his death occurred a few days later.
Before dying he told the manager of the North American Transportation and Trading Company, of his claim, and deposited his money with the Company. And let it be said to the credit of the manager, that the old man's secret was well guarded until the news of his death arrived, and the money left in the Company's care was forwarded to the wife and daughters of the deceased.
As will be seen from the map the placer properties of the A. P & C. Company are in almost every instance in blocks of connected claims. And their entire holdings would make nearly eleven miles of gravel beds.
The Company is not incorporated, but is a partners concern, and there is no stock for sale. It is quite probable however, that Mr. Meadows will make arrangements while in the United States for a syndicate to take hold of the property and furnish the capital necessary for the speedy workings of the properties by improved methods.
