Yukon who is who

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Alfred Henry “Al” Mayo (1847-1924)	
	
Al Mayo was born in Bangor, Maine. He was a thin, short, and wiry youth and at one time performed as a professional circus clown.((“Alfred Henry Mayo.” Alaska Mining Hall of Fame, 2024 website: Alfred Henry Mayo (alaskamininghalloffame.org) )) McQuesten and Mayo were trading for furs in the Great Slave Lake area in 1871 and wintered with James McKniff up the Hay River. In the spring of 1872, McQuesten, Mayo, and McKniff crossed to the Liard River and travelled as far as the Nelson River where they wintered. In the spring, the original three plus Harper, Hart, Finch, and Kansellar travelled to Fort Simpson.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 17-20.)) They heard stories from a former Fort Yukon trader of potential gold and easily caught marten in Alaska and decided to explore the new American territory. McQuesten and Mayo had business near Great Slave Lake so Harper and his companions went ahead. McQuesten and Mayo took the old Hudson’s Bay Co. route over the mountains to the west and then rafted down the Bell River.((Melody Webb, //The Last Frontier.// University of New Mexico Press, 1985: 60.))

McQuesten and Mayo arrived at the Peel River in July 1873. They travelled to LaPierre House with George Nicholson where McKniff was waiting with lumber to build a boat. They arrived at Fort Yukon in August and wintered forty miles downriver at Beaver Slough. In the spring of 1874, Moses Mercier took Mayo and McQuesten from Fort Yukon to Tanana to trade, and they met Harper and his party who had wintered at the mouth of the White River. They travelled to St. Michael where McQuesten, Mayo, and Hart were hired by the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC). The three left St. Michael for Fort Yukon on the sternwheeler //Yukon// in July 1874.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 17-20.))
	
Al Mayo met his future wife Margaret (Neehunilthnoh) at Kokrine’s store, about 80 miles west of Tanana, when he was coming up the Yukon River from St. Michael. Margaret was the daughter of the chief at Nuklukayet / Noochuloghoyet, a  located upriver near the present village of Tanana.((“Alfred Henry Mayo.” Alaska Mining Hall of Fame, 2024 website: Alfred Henry Mayo (alaskamininghalloffame.org) )) Margaret was taking care of Andrew Kokrine’s little boy. Mayo went up to Old Station (Noukelakayet) and asked Margaret’s mother for permission to marry Margaret and her mother made Al promise he would never leave her. Al sent word down to the store that Margaret’s mother was sick, and Margaret paddled up to Old Station by herself. Al and Margaret were married and had twelve children. The first five were born at Old Station and the oldest, Clinton Victor, was born in 1875.  Selina, their third child married Reverend Benjamin Totty, an Anglican minister at Moosehide.((University of Alaska, “Notes: Mayo Family.” Project Jukebox, 2019 website: http://jukebox.uaf.edu/Rampart/html/mayon.htm))
	
Mayo established a trading post at Tanana in 1874.((“Alfred Henry Mayo.” Alaska Mining Hall of Fame, 2024 website: Alfred Henry Mayo (alaskamininghalloffame.org) )) In the spring of 1875, Mayo, Harper, and McQuesten made a new deal with the agent for the Alaska Commercial Co. as percentage traders. Mayo and Harper left St. Michael to manage Fort Reliance from 1875 to 1878, coming down every spring for supplies. McQuesten had moved from Fort Yukon to Tanana Station when Mayo and Harper joined him there in 1877, saying they were having trouble with the First Nation people at Fort Reliance. McQuesten went to Ft. Reliance, and Harper and Mayo took over Tanana Station. The three bought the little sternwheeler //New Racket// from the Scheiffelin party in 1883. The //Yukon// had sunk in a slough near Fort Yukon in the spring breakup. During the winter of 1884/85, Mayo was at Fort Reliance, Harper was at Eagle, and McQuesten was in San Francisco.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 17-21, 24, 27, 414-15.))

In 1886, McQuesten, Mayo, and Harper established the Fort Nelson post at the mouth of the Stewart River and Mayo ran the store. When news of the gold strike on the Fortymile River in the fall of 1886 came to Fort Nelson, the ones who were there, plus the miners who came in country early, left for the Fortymile with all the supplies that Mayo would give them. Forty-five to fifty men were left with few provisions, and Harper and Mayo bought flour from men who came in from Juneau that spring. The rest of the miners stampeded to the Fortymile in March 1887. When the ice broke, Mayo took the //New Racket// to St. Michael to get supplies and on his return, work began on a new post at Forty Mile. ((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 17-21, 24, 27, 414-15.)) 
	
Alexander MacDonald of New Brunswick prospected the Mayo Lake area in 1887 and named it after Captain Mayo.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 45.)) Mayo travelled up the Stewart River in 1889 on the //New Racket.// He attempted to mine with a steam pump powered by his boat.((Michael Gates, //Gold at Fortymile Creek: Early Days in the Yukon.// Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994: 55.)) 
McQuesten and Mayo had the //New Racket// tied up at Forty Mile during the first week of September 1889. The supply boat from St. Michael was delayed for the season at Steven's Village. Captain Mayo took the //New Racket// to Steven's Village, with Frank Densmore and Joe Ladue as engineers, and as many of the eighty prospectors stranded at Forty Mile as the boat could carry. They towed the rest in small boats behind.((Gordon C. Bettles, "Why I Came to Alaska." Introduced by Candy Waugaman. //Alaska History,// Vol.10, No.2, Fall 1995: 12, 17.))
	
Gordon Bettles took Mayo on as a partner in 1893. Bettles established Artic Village and Mayo stayed at Old Station for the winter. A flood in the spring of 1894 made Bettles decide to relocate the Old Station post to Tanana. They built a store and a dwelling. Mayo and his family lived upstairs and Bettles and his family lived on the main floor. They called the station Mayo's Landing. Mayo was not known as Captain at this point but took that title later. The post was ultimately called Tanana. When J.J. Healy took over the post in 1895, he called it "Weare" in honour of his backer. ((Gordon C. Bettles, "Why I Came to Alaska." Introduced by Candy Waugaman. //Alaska History,// Vol.10, No.2, Fall 1995: 12, 17.))
	
Al Mayo, Jack McQuesten (president), Frederick Harte, Rudolph Newman, and Arthur Harte attended the first meeting of the Yukon Order of Pioneers held at Forty Mile on 1 December 1894. They all attested to arriving in the Yukon River basin in 1873.((Lulu M. Fairbanks, “I’ve Been Thinkin’.” //Alaska Weekly// (Seattle), 9 September 1938. Yukon Archives, Coutts mss 080 78/69 f.41.))
	
In 1898, Mayo was operating a store for the Alaska Commercial Company at Tanana.((Mary E. Hitchcock, //Two Women in the Klondike.// New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1899: 77.)) Mayo opened a store in Rampart in 1894 to supply the miners in that area and then sold Rampart to the Northern Commercial Company in 1899.((L.D. Kitchener, //Flag over the North// or Alaska Commercial Co. records on microfilm.)) When Mayo retired, he and his wife Margaret continued to live in Alaska on a small farm overlooking the Yukon River. He died at age 76 at his home in Rampart leaving eight children and twenty-three grandchildren.((Linda E.T. MacDonald and Lynette R. Bleiler, //Gold & Galena.// Mayo Historical Society, 1990: 17-21, 24, 27, 414-15.))