Yukon who is who

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Thomas Williams (d. 1887)
	
In December 1886, Tommy Williams offered to take the mail from McQuesten and Mayo’s trading post at the mouth of the Stewart River to Dyea on the coast. The letters would be picked up and delivered south. McQuesten was in San Francisco on a buying trip and Mayo wanted to tell him that coarse gold had been discovered on the Fortymile River. McQuesten would need to buy more and different supplies for the expected influx of prospectors and miners.((Thomas Stone, //Miners' Justice: Migration, Law and Order on the Alaska-Yukon Frontier, 1873 - 1902.// New York: Peter Lang, American University Studies Series XI, Anthropology and Sociology Vol. 34, 1988: 40-41; Stone footnotes Harold B. Goodrich, "History and Condition of the Yukon Gold District in 1897" In Josiah Edward Spurr ed.// Geology of the Yukon Gold District.// Washington: Government Printing Office, 1897: 115-116.)) 
	
Williams and Bob, his eighteen-year-old First Nation companion, left from Stewart River with a sled and three dogs. One dog died on Lake Laberge and the second died in the coastal mountains. The two men stayed in a snow house at Stone House on Chilkoot for five days during a storm. On day six, Bob had to carry Williams on his back. After five more days on the trail they were found by some Chilkats who hauled them down to the coast on a sled.((//The Alaska Free Press// (Sitka), 9 March 1887.)) 

Tom Williams died at Healy's store in Dyea and the mail was lost during the ordeal.((//The Alaska Free Press// (Sitka), 12 February 1887.)) The abandoned mail was recovered and included letters by Frank Densmore who wrote about the gold strike on the Fortymile River and reported scarce provisions. J.C. Stitt wrote that half of the men were going to stay at the mouth of the Stewart and the other half were going down to the Fortymile. An editorial in the Sitka //Alaska Free Press// called on the letter recipients to publish them so others would know the good news and a proper rush could develop.((//The Alaska Free Press// (Sitka), 19 March 1887.)) 
	
Williams kept a diary of the trip from the interior and Jack McQuesten gave it to George Snow. Snow thought it of no use and offered it to G.H. Barnes of Juneau in 1911.((Dawson City Museum, Yukon Order of Pioneers collection, microfilm.))