The Clara Nevada: Gold, Greed, Murder and Alaska's Inside Passage

by Steven C. Levi

  There was a sort-of match for Dan Cunningham. I found a “D. Cunningham” who was a passenger on a steam whaler Thrasher of New York. William Jacobs, carpenter, also has a name match with a boarder in Ketchikan, but these matches were doubtful. Jacobs, like Kelly, is too common a name to assume that these two men were the same individual.

  With Paddy MacDonald, the fireman, the case for a match was closer, assuming that the census taker considered “MacDonald” and “McDonald” as the same surname. If “Paddy” was a nickname, there are three possible matches and one passenger who was obviously not the man in question. Two of the three contenders were waiters on steamers.

  The third, William McDonald, was a forty-six-year-old fireman for the steamer Humboldt. He was living at “Moore’s Wharf” in Skagway in 1900. It would be easy to jump to conclusions as this man’s last name and profession are similar, and he was residing close to the location of the shipwreck. However, I discounted William MacDonald for two reasons. First, his name was not “Paddy,” and that was the specific first name for which I was searching. Second, I found other references to the specific name “Paddy MacDonald.”

  The name Paddy MacDonald—recorded as McDonald in the Soundex—pops up a few more times in other historical sources. A man by that name appears in Teller News on August 8, 1901, as a “well known old timer.” Then there is a Paddy MacDonald who was listed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as “one of the worst criminals ever known on this continent.” On March 18, 1900, the Nome Nugget listed MacDonald and twenty other rogues who were assumed to be on their way to Nome from the Klondike gold fields. These men were considered a danger to any community they encountered and were, thus, men of which law enforcement officials should be wary. I also found an obituary for a Paddy “McDonald” in the May 31, 1935 Anchorage Times. Though this name is slightly misspelled, it is still very close to a match.35

  Interestingly, with regard to Soapy Smith, the desperado who ran Skagway until July 8, 1898, one of the men taken prisoner after Soapy had been shot was W.F. Saportas. One of the passengers on the Clara Nevada was an E.W. Saportas. Those initials are close enough to suggest a match. However, a letter to the editor later revealed that these men were brothers.

  Of no historical significance but a tidbit to titillate the imagination of the detective novel aficionado, there was a corpse on board. The “passenger,” so to speak, was William Malloy. A search of the state of Alaska archives revealed no death certificate for such an individual, but this is hardly significant. There was no requirement for the issuance of such a certificate until 1913. In fact, there are no death certificates for any of the crew or passengers of the Clara Nevada. Malloy is interesting in that there are several references to a man of a similar name. One was a William J. Malloy, who was listed in the 1906 Fairbanks’s Directory as being in “mining.” Two of the men had what could be called death certificates. One of these was a “William Maloy, of La Conner,” who was twenty-one, “a robust, healthy young man” who had died of pneumonia inland. He had only been in the northland for two weeks. His body had been brought down from Skagway by the Rosalie, presumably for transportation for burial in the United States. The other reference was to William Malloy, age twenty-two, who died of “cerebro-spinal meningitis” in the Skagway Hospital. His remains were being sent to Laconner, Washington, on the Rosalie. These two men could be the same individual.

  Another Malloy who turned up was J.S. Molloy. While this name was elegantly handwritten, there was an ironic tidbit with this appearance. In 1906, a libel suit was filed by Molloy and twenty-four other individuals. (In those days, a libel suit meant a legal action to recover monetary loss.) Two of those twenty-four were “F.M. McGuire” and “Owen McGuire.” The owners of the Clara Nevada were Harlan P. and W.W. McGuire. Could F.M. and Owen have been related to Harlan P. and W.W.—sons or brothers perhaps? I checked W.W. McGuire’s obituary, published in the Oregonian on December 19, 1937, and found his son was listed as “Frank L.” Later, I found a “P.H. McGuire” mentioned in the Douglas Island News, but there was indication that he was in the shipping business. While these are incidentals, they are clearly not matches; the names were close enough to raise this historian’s eyebrows.

  The only other George Beck I was able to find was in the papers of the territorial governors. On August 23, 1917, a George F(?). Beck wrote from Hoonah to Charles Haukesworth, superintendent of native schools, Bureau of Education, Juneau, about a case of child molesting and whiskey being sold to Indians. The middle initial, however, was hard to read and could have been a “J.”

  Then there were the passengers. While there was not a single close match with any of the passengers, other than E.W. Saportas, there was a solid match with two men who may very well have been stowaways. William Hemming and George Kasey, whose names were associated with the lifeboat that was discovered by the Seaolin, did appear in the historical record. George Kasey appears in the 1900 census as a laborer at the “Juellin Gold Mine” in Berners Bay, a few miles from Comet across the neck of a peninsula. The community of Jualin, the correct spelling, is about ten nautical miles from Eldred Rock.

  In an effort to identify Kasey and Hemming, I contacted the newspaper in Rockport, Indiana, the city listed on the letters found in the bundles of clothing in the lifeboat. That letter resulted in correspondence from the youngest granddaughter of William Hemmings—the newspaper had left off the final “s” in the name. She revealed that both Hemmings and Kasey had left their families in Rockport and headed for Alaska in late 1897. Both returned shortly after the turn of the century. Hemmings died on February 10, 1917, in Rockport at the age of fifty-nine. His neighbor and friend, George Kasey, also returned to Rockport and later served as a township trustee for Spencer County, Indiana, for many years. He died in Rockport in 1936. Obviously, both men survived the wreck of the Clara Nevada. But were they even onboard? According to most newspaper accounts, “seven Klondikers” were onboard the Clara Nevada, but the names were not recorded. Were these two among the Klondikers?

  But because the men’s belongings appeared in the steamer’s lifeboat, Alaskan historian Bob De Armond suggested that these men might have been stowaways. The lifeboats were, after all, a favorite place for men to ride free. Considering that the trip between Skagway and Juneau might have been six or seven hours at the most, the voyage would have been a short but uncomfortable one. That Kasey and Hemmings returned to Rockport broke is a good indication that they may very well have been stowaways. Considering that Kasey and Hemmings survived the wreck, they may very well have been in the only possible place to survive such a catastrophe—a lifeboat.

  As to the possibility that Kasey and Hemmings might have simply discovered the abandoned boat and had never been on the Clara Nevada at all, it is important to point out that the articles in the Dyea Trail and the Alaska Miner both stated that the lifeboat had been “stove in and had evidently been on the beach for some time.”36 It would seem unlikely that the men had accidentally discovered the boat and used it for pleasure, wrecked it on their own accord and then left it so close to where flotsam from the wreck of the Clara Nevada had accumulated on the shore. The Lynn Canal is hardly the place to be pleasure rowing in February, March or April, particularly for landlubbers from a farming community in America’s breadbasket. In those three months respectively, the average temperature is 27.8, 31.2 and 39.0 degrees Fahrenheit.

  But there was still the question of a solid match. So far the connections have been tenuous. While Paddy MacDonald, George Kasey and William Hemmings are good candidates for survivors, without rock-solid proof that anyone at all survived, any discussion would be purely academic.

  But there was one solid match: Captain C.H. Lewis. Between December 18 and December 24, 1899, census taker George P. Morris was traveling up the Yukon River, recording the residents who lived in the area. On the “Yukon River between Circle City & Halfway Island,” he registered eight people. One of them was “C.H. Lewis” of Baltimore, Maryland, emp
loyed as a “sea captain.” The other people on the frozen river listed their occupation as “woodchopper.” Living with Lewis was his brother, George G., also of Baltimore.

  Is this the same Lewis? Probably. In the 1900 census, there were only five Lewises; none of the others was close to C.H. Lewis by name or occupation. In other nautical records, more than one Lewis is mentioned, but none that are close to C.H. Lewis. The nearest are a Captain S.E. Lewis of the “North Star Line,” who appears infrequently in the historical record, and Fred J. Lewis, who was a mariner as well. S.E. Lewis was mentioned once by name in the Nome Nugget on August 19, 1903, as being in town transacting business. Fred J. Lewis has been written up frequently but appears to be no relation to C.H. Lewis of the Clara Nevada.

  Tracing C.H. Lewis through historical documents after the wreck of the Clara Nevada proved to be exceedingly difficult. There were some tantalizing historical minutia, but the solid evidence was elusive. There was, for instance, a suit filed by a “G.H. Lewis” in 1905. Earlier than that, in 1901, a suit was filed against a “John Doe Lewis.” While this was obviously not a match, what attracted my attention was that the other defendants include “John Doe Barlow” and “John Doe Green.” This was tantalizing but by no means definitive. A George Lewis shows up in the Tanana Directory in 1907, possibly C.H. Lewis’s brother, but, again, there was no solid connection.

  Another discovery that raised my expectations was a company doing business in Alaska by the name of Allen & Lewis that had been formed in Multnomah County on November 13, 1897. The company was incorporated to perform a wide variety of functions though primarily to “export and import domestic and foreign merchandise” with regard to wholesale groceries. The company was registered to do business in Alaska, and it began with capital stock for the corporation listed at $400,000, not a paltry sum in those days. While there was no Allen in the initial filing, a C.H. Lewis did join in the firm in November 1907. This C.H. Lewis, however, signed documents as late as June 1942, so it was unlikely that this was the same man.

  Later, I discovered that this particular C.H. Lewis was Cicero H. Lewis Jr. and of no relation to the C.H. Lewis that I was researching. A check of signature of Charles H. Lewis clearly showed they were not the same person.37 I even found a woodcut of Cicero H. Lewis Sr. but nothing of Captain C.H. Lewis. (Cicero Lewis, oddly, was distantly related to George Foster Beck.)

  Surprisingly, a check of maritime records revealed nothing either. According to the National Archives, there was no record of a C.H. Lewis in the “List of Officers Licensed” by the Steamship Inspection Service between 1896 and 1902.

  If these records are correct, and the census records for 1900 were also correct, what had happened to C.H. Lewis?

  Chapter 6

  What Happened to C.H. Lewis?

  The discovery of a survivor of the Clara Nevada disaster—and a significant individual at that—led to two obvious questions: how did C.H. Lewis survive and what happened to the $165,000 in raw gold?

  I was haunted by those questions. For two years, I checked archive holdings, government reports, diaries, personal correspondence, business records and court files and sent letters to genealogical societies and maritime museums. I contacted historical archives on both the East and West Coasts. Starting at the Z.J. Loussac Public Library in Anchorage, I read every day of every Alaskan paper from 1900 to 1910. Every source material on the Klondike and Alaska gold rushes was examined. I contacted Canadian sources, as well as the United States State Department, federal records centers, state record centers and private museums. But everywhere I went, I drew a blank. If Lewis had been in Alaska during that time period, I couldn’t find him.

  Then fate interceded, lending me a hand. In May 1990, the United States government opened a Federal Records Center in Anchorage. Alaskan historians have always had a difficult time doing research on Alaska because the critical historical documents were usually scattered across the United States. Territorial officials were appointed by the president, but when they were replaced, they took their personal papers with them—back to New York, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco or to wherever else they retired. Business records could be anywhere, depending on the home of record of the parent company.

  But finding personal records was easy when compared to state and federal documents. Since Alaska did not become a state until 1959, there was a scrambling of material. Some federal records were left in Alaska where they became de facto state records. Other federal records were scattered and filed on the basis of their subject. Court records could be in Seattle, Juneau, Anchorage or Nome. Indexing was rare.

  Researching Alaskan history was made even more difficult by the tremendous cost of travel. The State Library is in Juneau, 600 miles from my home in Anchorage. Seattle and the Federal Records Center are another 600 miles south, and the National Archives are in Washington, D.C., an additional 2,500 miles east. It costs Alaskan historians as much to see the federal records in Seattle as it would a California historian to fly to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

  To allow Alaskans access to their own historical records, it was decided that a small records center for Alaskan-related federal documents would be opened where they would be more accessible to Alaskans. Thus the center was opened—a little less than six miles from my home.

  I was the first patron through the door on the first day of the records center’s operation. I was quite a surprise to the archive staff. They were still putting on drawer labels as I began pawing through the spools of microfilm, looking for a clue as to the fate of C.H. Lewis. It was historical heaven. Here were all of the primary documents I needed—and on microfilm!

  Thus I proceeded through the Coast Guard and Revenue Cutter Service records. Then I went through customs service files, wreck reports, inspection records, sealing inventories, burial lists and government receipts. After that, it was military records, State Department correspondence and miscellaneous files. Roll by roll, I proceeded through the primary documents, hoping—with each rotation of the crank—that C.H. Lewis would have made some mistake, like selling whiskey to the Indians. Or that he had been arrested for a minor offense. Or that he had filled out some federal forms, paid a customs fee or gotten married. What I needed was the name of the ship on which he was a captain. From there, I could find where it was registered and then trace the ownership documents to find out who was a partner on that ship and, perhaps, who had paid for the ship.

  But I found nothing. Nada. Niento. Zip. Goose egg. Roll after roll showed me that C.H. Lewis had kept his nose very clean. Then I got a break.

  After unending hours of microfilm, on the second-to-last reel on which it was reasonable to expect to find any documentation, the name C.H. Lewis suddenly “popped up.” On September 25, 1899, three members of the crew of the William H. Evans, registered in Baltimore, Maryland, filed a demand for back pay with the American Consulate in Dawson. The men had left the ship with the permission of the ship’s master, “Charles H. Lewis,” because “there was a shortage of provisions, and the steamer was on a bar in the Yukon River near Halfway Island between Circle City and Fort Yukon, Alaska.” (This was probably in Alaska.) In the documents, Moses Murphy had demanded wages for the previous eighteen months at “$751.67 less $118 and a pair of moccasins [valued at $6.00].” Robert J. Dungan had filed for his wages for eleven months at $687.50. The third seaman, John J. Manton, asked for one year’s worth of wages ($1,184.l7) plus $200.29, which, he claimed, “I advanced to said Captain Charles H. Lewis…to buy wood for said steamer William H. Evans.” (Later, after I had discovered the name of the ship, I discovered that at least five crew members had abandoned ship for a rush to Koyukuk country.)

  Suddenly the search for the elusive sea captain was over. But this only marked the beginning of yet another journey. Now that I had found him, what would the documentation reveal?

  According to the statement of Moses Murphy, he had been hired as a fireman by Lewis for the Evans on June 20, 1898. Dungan had been hired
on June 1, 1898, and Manton on June 15.

  This was odd. According to the Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States, a United States Department of Commerce publication and the standard source for general information about vessels, the “W.H. Evans” was built in 1898 in Ballard, Washington. Yet, the ship was registered in Baltimore, Maryland. Considering that the Clara Nevada went down on February 5 and the first crew member that can be documented was hired on June 1, it appeared that Lewis was able to survive a sinking, find passage back to Seattle, buy a steamboat for cash, cross the United States to Baltimore where he registered the steamer, return to the West Coast to outfit the ship, hire a crew and be back in business in a mere 116 days. This seemed hard to believe.

  With the name William H. Evans, I discovered a court case at the Alaska State Library that resulted in actual documents from the Federal Records Center in Seattle. It was a libel suit filed by the Alaska Packers Association. Though the shipping articles themselves were dated June 20, 1898, the assembled documents revealed a far stranger story.

  One of the documents, written by hand, was notes indicating wages due for the time period prior to August 1, 1899, for the purpose of calculating back pay. Captain Lewis was listed as having gone on payroll on “2/9/98.”38 That was only five days after the Clara Nevada went down. That was very quick. Even today, the ferry between Haines and Bellingham takes four days. Most of the crew was listed on board on June 20, 1898. No crew member on the Evans, incidentally, matched any name on the Clara Nevada.39