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| Benjamin Totty (d. 1945) | Benjamin Totty (d. 1945) |
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| Benjamin Totty was an Anglican missionary who arrived from England via the Yukon River in 1892. Bishop Bompas arrived at Fort Yukon in the spring and met Mrs. Bompas, returning from England with Reverend T. H. and Mrs. Canham, the Reverend G. C. and Mrs. Wallis, and Mr. Totty. It was arranged that Bompas and Totty would live at Forty Mile, Mr. and Mrs. Canham would go to Fort Selkirk, and Mr. Wallis and his new bride would go to Rampart House.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North” Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, D.D.// Project Canterbury, 2021 website: http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bompas/cody1908/15.html.)) | Benjamin Totty was an Anglican missionary who arrived from England via the Yukon River in 1892. Bishop Bompas arrived at Fort Yukon in the spring and met Mrs. Bompas, returning from England with Reverend T. H. and Mrs. Canham, the Reverend G. C. and Mrs. Wallis, and Mr. Totty. It was arranged that Bompas and Totty would live at Forty Mile, Mr. and Mrs. Canham would go to Fort Selkirk, and Mr. Wallis and his new bride would go to [new] Rampart House.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North” Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, D.D.// Project Canterbury, 2021 website: http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bompas/cody1908/15.html.)) |
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| When Rev. Wallis and his wife left Rampart House, after a little less than a year, Totty moved to Rampart to take their place and he spent the winter of 1893 there.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North” Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, D.D.// Project Canterbury, 2021 website: http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bompas/cody1908/15.html.)) He stayed until the Canhams arrived to take over in the summer of 1894.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 40-41.)) Totty then took Reverend Canham’s place at Fort Selkirk.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North” Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, D.D.// Project Canterbury, 2021 website: http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bompas/cody1908/15.html)) Totty was ordained a priest in 1894.((Yukon Archives, Victoria Faulkner, 83/50 MSS 137 f.17.)) | When Rev. Wallis and his wife left Rampart House, after a little less than a year, Totty moved to Rampart to take their place and he spent the winter of 1893/94 there.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North” Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, D.D.// Project Canterbury, 2021 website: http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bompas/cody1908/15.html.)) American botanist Frederick Funston travelled up the Porcupine River with a First Nation party, leaving Fort Yukon on 11 September 1893 and arriving at Rampart House on 23 September. The Hudson's Bay Company trader, John Firth, had abandoned Rampart to relocate at Fort McPherson. A First Nation trader named David was established at Rampart, trading for fur with ammunition, tea and tobacco brought up the Yukon River. David had learned his English working for Firth and an English missionary. Funston refers to Totty in his letters but not in his official reports. Funston and David left Rampart on 17 November and travelled to Fort McPherson, arriving back at Rampart on 8 December 1893. Funston and a First Nation guide left Rampart again on 10 March 1894 and travelled to Herschel Island. Back at Rampart, Funston put together a collection of plant specimens from the Rampart area in the spring of 1894 and then set off down the Porcupine River on 18 June 1894.((Thomas W. Couch, "Frederick Funston in Alaska, 1892-1894: Botany Above the Forty-Ninth Parallel." //Journal of the West,// Vol. X, No. 2, April 1971: 293-95, 298, 299, 302.)) Totty stayed at Rampart House until the Canhams arrived to take over in the summer of 1894.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 40-41.)) Totty then took Reverend Canham’s place at Fort Selkirk.((H.A. Cody, //An Apostle of the North” Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, D.D.// Project Canterbury, 2021 website: http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/bompas/cody1908/15.html)) Totty was ordained a priest in 1894.((Yukon Archives, Victoria Faulkner, 83/50 MSS 137 f.17.)) |
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| Reverend Totty either came north with an ear infection, or developed one soon after his arrival, and the resultant deafness apparently made him less effective, or at least less willing to travel the country as Bompas did.((Ken S. Coates, //Best Left as Indians.// Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991: 77, 119-120.)) Al Mayo and his family lived at Forty Mile from around 1888 into the early 1890s. Mayo’s daughter, Selina, was about sixteen in 1895.((University of Alaska, “Notes: Mayo Family.” Project Jukebox, 2019 website: http://jukebox.uaf.edu/Rampart/html/mayon.htm)) She fell in love with a miner that her father and Bishop Bompas considered inappropriate. Totty needed a wife, and Mayo and Bompas arranged for Selina to marry him, without much enthusiasm from either party.((Cheryl Gaver, “Solitudes in Shared Spaces: Aboriginal and EuroCanadian Anglicans in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in the Post-Residential School Era.” Thesis submitted for a Ph.D. in Religious Studies to the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa, 2011: 233.)) Selina proved invaluable to her husband’s work as she spoke the Hän and Gwich’in languages and he had trouble hearing the words.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 34.)) | Reverend Totty either came north with an ear infection, or developed one soon after his arrival, and the resultant deafness apparently made him less effective, or at least less willing to travel the country as Bompas did.((Ken S. Coates, //Best Left as Indians.// Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991: 77, 119-120.)) Al Mayo and his family lived at Forty Mile from around 1888 into the early 1890s. Mayo’s daughter, Selina, was about sixteen in 1895.((University of Alaska, “Notes: Mayo Family.” Project Jukebox, 2019 website: http://jukebox.uaf.edu/Rampart/html/mayon.htm)) She fell in love with a miner that her father and Bishop Bompas considered inappropriate. Totty needed a wife, and Mayo and Bompas arranged for Selina to marry him, without much enthusiasm from either party.((Cheryl Gaver, “Solitudes in Shared Spaces: Aboriginal and EuroCanadian Anglicans in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in the Post-Residential School Era.” Thesis submitted for a Ph.D. in Religious Studies to the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa, 2011: 233.)) Selina proved invaluable to her husband’s work as she spoke the Hän and Gwich’in languages and he had trouble hearing the words.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, //A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.// Whitehorse, 1991: 34.)) |
| Totty may have remained at Forty Mile after his marriage. He was in charge, with the Bishop, in 1897. Children were in attendance at the school and a large number of First Nation congregants attended regular services.((“Letter from the Right Reverend Bishop Bompas.” Fort Yukon, 4 August 1897. Yukon Archives, PAM 1898-130.)) | Totty may have remained at Forty Mile after his marriage. He was in charge, with the Bishop, in 1897. Children were in attendance at the school and a large number of First Nation congregants attended regular services.((“Letter from the Right Reverend Bishop Bompas.” Fort Yukon, 4 August 1897. Yukon Archives, PAM 1898-130.)) |
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| In 1898, Totty succeeded Frederick Flewelling, who had been ministering at Moosehide from 1896 to 1898.((Manuscript "Summery of the Anglican Church in Yukon" by Archdeacon Allan Haldenby of Dawson in 1957 and updated by Lee Sax and Bishop Ronald Ferris in 1991.)) Bishop Bompas was concerned about the health of his congregation during the gold rush and he moved the seat of his diocese from Forty Mile to Moosehide and he stayed there for the winter of 1899/1900.((Heather Green, “The Tr’ondek Hwech’in and the Great Upheaval: Mining Colonialism, and Environmental Change in the Klondike, 1890-1940. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, 2018: 145-146.)) Bompas was established in Carcross by 1900.((Craig Mishler and William E. Simone, //Han People of the River.// University of Alaska press, 2004: 11.)) | In 1898, Totty succeeded Frederick Flewelling at Moosehide. Flewelling had been ministering [in the Dawson area] from 1896 to 1898.((Manuscript "Summery of the Anglican Church in Yukon" by Archdeacon Allan Haldenby of Dawson in 1957 and updated by Lee Sax and Bishop Ronald Ferris in 1991.)) Bishop Bompas was concerned about the health of his congregation during the gold rush and he moved the seat of his diocese from Forty Mile to Moosehide and he stayed there for the winter of 1899/1900.((Heather Green, “The Tr’ondek Hwech’in and the Great Upheaval: Mining Colonialism, and Environmental Change in the Klondike, 1890-1940. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, 2018: 145-146.)) Bompas was established in Carcross by 1900.((Craig Mishler and William E. Simone, //Han People of the River.// University of Alaska press, 2004: 11.)) |
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| In 1907, Totty requested whitewash and two brushes to disinfect the cabins of those in Moosehide who had contracted tuberculosis. Bishop Stringer visited the community in 1913, prepared to lecture on the benefits of cleanliness, and was surprised to find the community cleaner than Dawson.((Heather Green, “The Tr’ondek Hwech’in and the Great Upheaval: Mining Colonialism, and Environmental Change in the Klondike, 1890-1940. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, 2018: 151-52.)) | In 1907, Totty requested whitewash and two brushes to disinfect the cabins of those in Moosehide who had contracted tuberculosis. Bishop Stringer visited the community in 1913, prepared to lecture on the benefits of cleanliness, and was surprised to find the community cleaner than Dawson.((Heather Green, “The Tr’ondek Hwech’in and the Great Upheaval: Mining Colonialism, and Environmental Change in the Klondike, 1890-1940. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, 2018: 151-52.)) |
