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The Sunday Gazetteer Sunday, July 25, 1897  Approximately
seven months later, John Knaur, along with John H. Cummins and Tom
Boldrick left for the gold fields, spending about six and a half months
on their aventure for wealth. Dallas Morning News February 22, 1898 "Party
Off for Klondike — Four Prospectors Leave Denison for the Gold Fields of
Alaska" DENISON,
TX -- February 21. E. C. Royce left this afternoon with Messrs. Boldrick, Knaur,
and Cummings for the Klondike country. Mr. Royce has been running an engine out
of Denison on the Katy for many years. He will chance his fortune on the Klondike,
hoping to return laden with gold. This
was a touching scene at the depot this afternoon when the Klondike party bade
farewell to their friends and families and took departure. John S. Knaur, Tom
Boldrick and Dave Cummings left this afternoon for Seattle, where they will buy
the outfit that they will need to make the trip to Alaska and proceed as soon
as possible to get to the mining country. The
three men are all well known to Denison. Tom Boldrick has been in business ever
since it has been a town. John S. Knaur has also been in business here a long
time. Mr. Cummings is a young Missourian who has been in Denison for some
years, engaged in the cattle business with F. A. Utiger. All of the three are
plucky, earnest men, and if there is gold to be got in the Klondike country,
they will bring back their proportionate share.
DENISON, TX — Sept 3. — J.
S. Knaur, a Denison businessman, who has just returned from Klondike country,
where he went last winter, does not tell a very glowing tale of wealth in the
new El Dorado, neither does he descent with particular eloquence on the beauty
of the scenery, excellence of the fare, and charms of the climate in the far
north. There is plenty of gold there I guess, replied Mr. Knaur in a non-committal sort of way, but it is hard work to get it. The season in which work can be done is short, the mosquitoes are bad, food is scarce, there is more or less sickness in the working season, and altogether it is a pretty hard combination to run up against. Our party got in the Klondike country early in the spring and got a good start. No trouble to get claims, but it is some trouble to get anything out of the claims. We worked hard, but never struck it as rich as some. WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THE GOAT TRAIN YOU TOOK UP WITH YOU FROM SEATTLE? The goats worked all right. We had no trouble with them and took
them clear to Dawson with us, but we neglected to take any shears with us. If
we had had shears and could have clipped them, we could have fattened them and
sold them for $50 apiece, but as they were, when the warm weather came, they
shed their long hair and had little but naked hide left. This gave the
mosquitos a good chance and they almost ate the goats up. In the Klondike country
the fat get lean and the lean get fat. I lost 35 pounds of my flesh. W. A.
Grant, an old Denison conductor on the Katy, lost 65 pounds and looks lean and
hungry now. A Mr. Hunter of Dallas and Mr. Grant were together when I left. Hunter
went to the Klondike country fat and well-fed looking. When I saw him the other
day I didn't recognize him, he had grown so thin — looked like a knife had been
worked down his front, trimming him up for a foot race. That water up there
doesn't agree with the people who go up from this country. It makes them sick
and causes loss of flesh as a rule. You see a man round-faced and plump going
to Klondike; you see a lean, hungry-looking man coming away, and sometimes his
best friends don't recognize him. All the mining up there is
placer mining. The country has been well worked over. Sometimes a man makes a
strike and comes out with $50,000 or perhaps more, but such cases are becoming
more infrequent. The men who go there to work for wages could do well and come
out after awhile with plenty of money, but they won't do it. They get from $10
to $15 per day, but as soon as they draw their money, they go to town and the
dance hall and gambling house get it all. Of course, there are cases where
these men save their money, but they are not in the majority. I suppose that
quartz mining could be carried on successfully, but they haven't reached that
stage yet. It is too much work and requires too much expense under present
circumstances. I was there for two months
and heard of no phenomenal strikes of gold by anybody. Some men were finding
good-paying streaks of gold and were making money, but nothing of the
phenomenal. Dawson is building up, and a great many houses are being erected
there for permanent residence for miners in the severe winters, but that is no
place for me. Too many mosquitoes, scarcity of food, and rigors of winter. The Klondike country is
not much different from this. There are many who work all their lives and never
lay up anything, and there are others who strike it rich and come out all
right. It is a game of chance, and the chances are desperate. On the return trip back,
we came down the Yukon River to St. Michaels. I left Dawson on the 29th of
August, fared well in the boat going down the river to St. Michaels, but from
that point it was very rough. We expected to come down to Seattle from St.
Michaels on the St. Paul, but the steamer had been impressed by the government
to take troops to Manila, and we had to take what we could get. The fare was
rough and the actions of the officers rougher. Arriving at Dutch Harbor we
stopped for awhile, and to an American warship at that point one of our party
made complaint of treatment. An investigation of affairs was made by officers
of the warship, and after that we fared some better coming into Seattle. I left the Denison contingent,
and many that I met from Paris, Dallas, and other points in Dawson. They were
all in good health, but the fat ones have grown lean, and the lean ones have
taken on flesh, the change being so great in some instances that their friends
would not recognize them if they should see them.
Mr.
Knaur brought back a little gold dust with him, just as a sample of what the
country has in it, but the sample he brought back was small compared with the
expense he had.
 Thomas Boldrick's Diary Knaur Family History Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson CountyTXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |
