Yukon who is who

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Frank Densmore aka Dinsmore (1855 - 1898)
	
Frank Densmore was born in Auburn, Maine.((“Yukon Pioneer’s Funeral.” //San Francisco Call// (San Francisco), Volume 84, Number 160, 7 November 1898.)) Densmore came over the Chilkoot Pass and into the Yukon River drainage with a group of other prospectors in the summer of 1882.((Leroy McQuesten letter to Albert McKay dated 1 July 1905. 11pp, Alaska State Library, MS 13, Box 5, #5 AHC)) Edward Schiefflin [Schieffelin] may have given the group some financial support for the trip.((Alfred Hulse Brooks, //Blazing Alaska's Trails.// Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1953: 327.)) Densmore’s group included Thomas Boswell, John Dougan (Duggan), Robert Robertson, D. Bertrand, John Riley, Preston Cloudman, Robert Fox, Thomas Curney (Kernan, Kiernan), and Levy [Larry] Herod.((Ed and Star Jones, //All That Glitters: The Life and Times of Joe Ladue, Founder of Dawson City.// Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Books. 2005: 70; Yukon Archives, Snow Papers #47.)) Densmore, Herod, and Winn are referred to as Cassiar miners and the first successful miners in the Yukon River drainage.((Yukon Archives, Snow Papers #47)) “Slim” Jim Winn may have been part of that group, as well as William Moore.(( Leroy N. McQuesten, Recollections of Life in the Yukon, 1871-1885. Dawson: Yukon Order of Pioneers, 1952: 12.)) The group prospected on the Pelly River for the summer but found little.((Ed and Star Jones, //All That Glitters: The Life and Times of Joe Ladue, Founder of Dawson City.// Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Books. 2005: 70.)) They ascended the Pelly as far as Hoole Canyon.((Harold B. Goodrich. "History and Conditions of the Yukon Gold District to 1897" in Josiah Edward Spurr, ed., //Geology of the Yukon Gold District, Alaska.// Washington: Government Printing Office, 1897: 110.)) A dozen prospectors reached Fort Reliance in September, and they included Frank Densmore, Thomas Boswell, Joseph Ladue and Howard Franklin. They wintered at Fort Reliance with Jack McQuesten and the following year they prospected on the Sixtymile and Fortymile rivers.((Alfred Hulse Brooks, //Blazing Alaska's Trails.// Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1953: 325.))
	
Densmore was in Juneau for the winter of 1884/85. He travelled back into the Yukon River drainage in the spring of 1885 with John Hughes, Ike Powers, Steven Custer, and brothers Al and Hugh Day. They were rocking on a bar twelve miles up the Stewart River when Jack McQuesten came past with the //New Racket// taking Thomas Boswell upriver. McQuesten told them about the good results further upstream on the Stewart and offered them a ride if they would work on the boat. Powers, Custer and the Day brothers took him up on the offer, but Densmore and Hughes declined having decided to leave the Stewart River.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 23, 26-7.)) They might have prospected on the Tanana River after that. Densmore told a Sitka newspaper that he had met United States Army Lieut. H. T. Allen, F.W. Fickett and Sgt. Robinson there after that party had crossed from the Copper River with the intension of reaching the Yukon River and following it to its mouth. Densmore ran out of provisions that summer and had to leave the country. The ferry stopped at Sitka, and he reported that his placer claims were paying from $15 to $20 per day per man.((//The Alaskan// (Sitka), 7 November 1885.)) He made it back to Juneau that year and told others of his success on the Yukon River.((Henry David, “Recollections” in Herbert Heller, ed., //Sourdough Sagas,// New York: The World Publishing Company, 1967: 30.))
	
In June 1886, Densmore, Tom Boswell, and John Hughes met Chris Sonnickson, French Charley, Henry David, and French Joe on a bar in the Yukon River [at the mouth of the Teslin River]. Sonnickson and Charley were doing well and had invited David and Joe to join them. Henry David and French Joe had so much black sand that they couldn’t tell if they had any gold. Densmore and Hughes cleaned up for them, working for three days. Frank had a small set of gold scales, and they weighed out 123 ounces including the quicksilver [mercury]. The amount was a big surprise. David and Joe paid Densmore and Hughes six ounces for the cleaning and bought some of their extra flour, tea, and sugar. Water in the Yukon River was rising over the bar, so they all moved down to the Big Salmon River to prospect in July and August. They saw Mark Russell, Arkansas Jim, Missouri Frank, and Bill Eagle at a camp at the mouth as they went by. John Hughes and Henry David shot a bull moose and Densmore took the tallow and made a plum duff. The next day they split up. Densmore, Hughes and Boswell took the north fork of the Big Salmon and Henry David, French Joe and Jack Tremblay stayed on the main river. They found some gold but did not have supplies or the right tools for the rocky creek and turned back to the coast.((Henry David, “Recollections” in Herbert Heller, ed., //Sourdough Sagas,// New York: The World Publishing Company, 1967: 35-36.))
	
When Henry David and his companions started back into the Yukon later that fall, they met Densmore and Hughes coming out for grub. Densmore helped David take his boat through the canyon and they made it to the bottom with the boat full of water.((Henry David, “Recollections” in Herbert Heller, ed., //Sourdough Sagas,// New York: The World Publishing Company, 1967: 39.)) By this time the Stewart River had gained a reputation as the best place to placer mine. Densmore helped to publicize it when he wrote that one gravel bar in the Stewart River yielded about $15,000 in gold in both 1885 and 1886.((Frank Dinsmore, “More about the Yukon Country.” //The Alaska Free Press// (Sitka), 26 February 1887.)) Densmore was among the second group of men to make it back to Sitka in the fall of 1886. He returned with J. E. Chapman, J.T. Hughes, Charles Brassbar, Charles Clarke, Jere Bertrand, Leroy McQuesten, Charles Grook, Fred Hutcheson, Fred Markus, Jack McCormick, John Ledger, Tom Wilson, Jas Rowen, B. F. Soloman, Jack Boyle, Jim Kane, Charley Gilg, Billy Moore, Aleck Madboe, George Ramsay, and N. Tremble. Some of the last worked on Cassiar Bar, twelve miles this side of the Salmon River, and others worked on the Salmon itself.((//The Alaskan// (Sitka), 13 November 1886.)) Densmore spent the winter of 1886/87 with Henry David and others, and he was suffering with scurvy in March.((Henry David, “Recollections” in Herbert Heller, ed., //Sourdough Sagas,// New York: The World Publishing Company, 1967: 39, 45.))
	
Densmore wrote a letter to the //Alaska Free Press// in Sitka and it was published in February 1887. He describes a trip into Yukon from Juneau, over the Chilkoot Pass where Indigenous packers charged "the extortionate price of $13 per 100 lbs. and up," building boats/rafts and floating down the Yukon River. He reported that placer mining starts about May 1st and is good to October 1st and noted mosquito and permafrost difficulties, but lots of naturally thawed ground to mine.((Frank Dinsmore, “More about the Yukon Country.” //The Alaska Free Press// (Sitka), 26 February 1887.))
	
The news that coarse gold was found on the Fortymile River reached the camp at the mouth of the Stewart River in March 1887. The men divided their outfits equally among all and decided to start down the Yukon River at 5am. In the morning everyone was ready but Densmore, who wanted to shave and take a bath.  He told Hughes to tell the others to go and he would catch up. Hughes told him the others would not start without him and Densmore threw him out into the snow. Al Mayo, who was manning the Fort Nelson trading post at the site, created a diversion and then threw pepper down the chimney and covered the stack. Densmore, smoked out of the cabin, started to Forty Mile with the rest.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 23, 26-7.))
	
Gordon Bettles met Frank Densmore on Troublesome Point on the Fortymile in 1888. He was the most prominent man on the bar. A blacksmith by trade and a general all-handy man, he weighed 225 pounds and was the most powerful man in the country at that time. He packed a pump weighing 250 pounds across the summit - that was 150 pounds above the average weight carried by the average man.((Gordon C. Bettles, "Why I Came to Alaska." Introduced by Candy Waugaman. //Alaska History,// Vol.10, No.2, Fall 1995: 4.))
	
In 1889, Densmore and several others, including George Langtry, portaged from the lower Tanana River to the Kuskokwim River by way of Croschket and Lake Minchumina.((Golden Places: The History of Alaska-Yukon Mining, “Kuskokwin,” National Park Service. 2018 websites: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/yuch/golden_places/chap7.htm) and https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/yuch/golden_places/chap14.htm)) Densmore saw and described a mountain that became known locally as Densmore’s Mountain or Densmore’s peak.((Alfred H. Brooks, //The Mount McKinley Region, Alaska.// United States Geological Survey, Washington 1911: 25.)) The mountain was renamed Mount McKinley in 1896 and that name became official between 1917 and 2015 when it was renamed Denali.((2018 web site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denali))	
	
In the 1890s, Densmore and partners William McPhee and Harry Spencer opened saloons and dancehalls in Forty Mile and Circle, Alaska.((George E. Pilz, "Reminiscences: Pioneer Days in Alaska." Copied from the original manuscript property of Mr. Charles E. Brunnel, College Alaska, 1935.)) Frank Densmore is named as the owner of a saloon in Forty Mile in 1894.((2018 website: http://www.yukonalaska.com/pathfinder/gen/rhse_ownersDG.html)) 
Kate McQuesten and Frank Dinsmore were leaders in organizing dances at Forty Mile. The dance would stop at midnight and the First Nation women would go home. The men would have a few hot rums and a song or two and then Frank Densmore would tell them tomorrow was Sunday and advise them to go to church in the morning.(("Early Social Diversions at Fortymile.” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 2 March 1994 from Michael Gates, //Gold at Fortymile Creek,// UBC Press, 1994.))

Densmore was the first vice-president of the first lodge of the Yukon Order of Pioneers at Forty Mile.((Yukon Archives, V. Faulkner MSS 135 83/50 f.5.)) The first meeting was held on 1 December 1894 with Jack McQuesten as president, Wm McPhee as treasurer, G.T. Cooper as guard, and Frank Bateau as warden. The group passed a motion that 1888 was the latest date that a man could arrive north and be called a Pioneer.((Lulu M. Fairbanks, “I’ve Been Thinkin’.” //Alaska Weekly// (Seattle), 9 September 1938. YA Coutts mss 080 78/69 f.41.))
After gold was discovered on Bonanza Creek, Densmore & Co. opened The Pioneer Saloon in Dawson.((George E. Pilz, "Reminiscences: Pioneer Days in Alaska". Copied from the original manuscript property of Mr. Charles E. Brunnel, College Alaska, 1935.)) Spenser, Densmore, and McPhee’s saloon had a large adjoining room where dances or meetings could be held.((William Douglas Johns, "The Early Yukon, Alaska and the Klondike Discovery as they were before the Great Klondike Stampede swept away the old conditions forever." Yukon Archives, William Douglas Johns Journal, pages 136-137, 181. Coutts 78/69, Box F-89, Folder #20.))
	
Densmore had been in the country for about thirteen years without a break when he took a trip outside in the fall of 1897. He took $20,000 with him, bought every dissipation known to man and had to borrow money to get back to the Yukon. He acquired twelve police shields, by whatever means, while in San Francisco. He arrived back in Dawson in July 1898, a total wreck.  He weighed about 250 pounds when he left and about 165 when he returned, and he was reported to have every ailment that mortal man could have and live. They took him to the hospital and Skiff Mitchell, John Lind, Harry Spenser, and “Grizzly” McFee were sent for. It was decided that John Lind should take him back to San Francisco for treatment.((Yukon Archives, John Grieve Lind MSS 166 81/58.))
	
During the fall of 1898, the owners of the Pioneer Hotel recruited a man named Fuller as a booster. They paid for his meals and trip from Juneau to Dawson and when he arrived, he owed $650. To get his money back, Densmore put him to work cleaning bedrock, but his mine manager fired him for putting too much gold in his pockets. Fuller had a talent for making money and he made a lot by buying up rich claims for J. Healy of the NAT&T Company and making side deals with McPhee. Fuller was hired by Densmore & Co. as the accountant for the Pioneer Hotel. When Densmore got sick and McPhee took him outside Spencer, a three percent owner, was left to run the business with Fuller, who apparently knew nothing about bookkeeping. The Pioneer was running three shifts with four bartenders and four helpers to the shift and all exchanges were in gold dust.((George E. Pilz, "Reminiscences: Pioneer Days in Alaska". Copied from the original manuscript property of Mr. Charles E. Brunnel, College Alaska, 1935.))
	
Densmore was sick in San Francisco, but he wanted to get back to the mountains, so they compromised on Denver. Lind stayed for a week until Densmore appeared to be getting better, but a week later Lind received  a wire that Densmore was dead.((Yukon Archives, John Grieve Lind MSS 166 81/58.)) The story went that in the fall of 1898, Spencer drank himself sick and died on Thanksgiving Day, and Densmore died at the same hour. Fuller was left running the saloon, a half dozen claims, and the telephone exchange owned by Densmore & Co. He was appointed administrator for both Densmore and Spencer.((George E. Pilz, "Reminiscences: Pioneer Days in Alaska." Copied from the original manuscript property of Mr. Charles E. Brunnel, College Alaska, 1935.)) 

William Douglas Johns says Densmore was a noted musher and he died of tuberculosis brought on by a lifetime of hardships and exposure.((William Douglas Johns, "The Early Yukon, Alaska and the Klondike Discovery as they were before the Great Klondike Stampede swept away the old conditions forever." Yukon Archives, William Douglas Johns Journal, page 140. Coutts 78/69, Box F-89, Folder #20.)) An article written after his death says that he was a strong, powerfully built man who had recent bronchial problems. He was one of the most prominent men in the Yukon, invested in a number of the richest claims, and he left an estate valued at half a million dollars. His body was shipped back to Auburn, Maine.((“Yukon Pioneer’s Funeral.” //San Francisco Call// (San Francisco), Volume 84, Number 160, 7 November 1898.))