Yukon who is who

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Edward Lawrence “Ed” Schieffelin (1847 - 1897)
	
Edward Schieffelin [also spelled Schiefflin) was born in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, the son of a prominent New York and Pennsylvania family associated with the Schieffelin & Somerset liquor import house. At thirty years old he was in California looking for gold in a very remote and dangerous area. He was told that all he would find there would be his tombstone. In 1877, he discovered silver very near an old partner’s grave and named his mining claim Tombstone. He formed a partnership with his brother Albert (Al) and mining engineer Richard Gird in a deal that made them all very rich. Over the next twenty years, Ed showed up at nearly every boom town in the west, and he became convinced that there was a continental belt of minerals that extended through South America, Mexico, United States, and British Columbia. In 1882, he prepared for a three-year survey, starting on the Yukon River.((“Ed Schieffelin.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Schieffelin))

Geologist Alfred Books theorized that Schieffelin knew of, or even grubstaked, the Bean party’s exploration in 1880. Schieffelin would have known about Holt’s claims for gold on the Hootalinqua [Teslin] River, and Harper’s discovery of gold on the Tanana River was widely known. There is apparently some evidence that Schieffelin gave financial or other aid to the prospectors that crossed the Chilkoot Pass in 1882. If true, then Schieffelin’s exploration on the lower Yukon would have been part of a larger plan to explore the entire length of the river.((Alfred Hulse Brooks, //Blazing Alaska's Trails.// University of Alaska Press, 1953: 327.))

Schieffelin chartered the schooner //H.L. Tiernan// in the spring of 1882 and set out for St. Michaels with six companions: one of Ed’s brothers (Effingham or Albert), Old Charlie Farciot, Charles Sauerbrey, Jack Young, ethnologist John Adrian Jacobsen of the Royal Berlin Museum, and correspondent Henry de Wolfe. A little paddle wheeler called the //New Racket,// built on the west coast and disassembled for transport, was lashed to the deck.((Ed and Star Jones, //All That Glitters: The life and times of Joe Ladue Founder of Dawson City.// Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Books, 2005: 71; Francois Xavier Mercier, edited by Linda Finn Yarborough, //Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885.// The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: 30, 34-35.)) They had a letter of credit directed to agents of the Alaska Commercial Company in Alaska. They stopped at Unalaska and spent a week at St. Michael near the mouth of the Yukon River. They travelled up the Yukon to [Al Mayo’s] post at Noukelakayet, eighteen miles below the mouth of the Tanana River, where they wintered. They prospected on nearby creeks in the fall, and in the summer of 1883 they continued up the Yukon River and prospected on Minook and Little Hess creeks above Rampart.((Hon. James Wickersham, //Old Yukon.// Washington Law Book Co., 1938: 102.))

Schieffelin was searching for placer gold and the //New Racket// was equipped with pumps to lift gold bearing gravel from river bars along the rivers and creeks. Al Mayo later used the boat and equipment to mine the bars on the Stewart River in 1886.((Alfred Hulse Brooks, //Blazing Alaska's Trails.//  University of Alaska Press, 1953: 327fn.)) The Schieffelin’s party had little success in 1883, so they returned to St. Michael where they sold the //New Racket.// ((Hon. James Wickersham, //Old Yukon.// Washington Law Book Co., 1938: 102.)) The traders McQuesten, Harper, and Mayo bought the little steamer for less than it would cost in San Francisco.((Francois Xavier Mercier, edited by Linda Finn Yarborough, //Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885.// The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: 30, 34-35.)) 

Schieffelin’s party was the first to prospect in the middle Yukon watershed. He returned to California without making a major strike but the bit of gold he found supported his theory of a mineral belt extending through the western Americas.((“Ed Schieffelin.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Schieffelin)) Schieffelin’s engineer, Charley Farcint [Farciot], remained in the country and continued to prospect until 1885.((Francois Xavier Mercier, edited by Linda Finn Yarborough, //Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885.// The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: 30, 34-35.))