Benjamin Heartz
	
Benjamin Heartz came from a well-established Prince Edward Island family. His father, Richard Jacob Heartz, started as a tanner and general merchant and in 1865 formed a dry goods business with his son Benjamin. Richard Heartz was a director of the Charlottetown Gas Light Company and the Charlottetown Mutual Fire Insurance Company. In his later life (he died in 1908) he had an interest in agriculture and the Heartz Farm was a showcase dairy and stock operation just outside Charlottetown. Richard maintained an interest in his son Benjamin’s and grandson Frank’s business affairs.((George W. Brown, Ramsay Cook, and Jean Hamelin, eds., “Heartz, Richard Jacob.” //Dictionary of Canadian Biography,// Volume 12. 1966: 458-459.)) 
	
In 1898, professional butcher Barrett Henderson of North River, Prince Edward Island took his wife and family to Winnipeg where he purchased cattle for sale in the Klondike. Henderson and his partner Benjamin R. Heartz and his son Frank R. Heartz, of Charlottetown, planned to take forty cattle over the Chilkoot Pass to Dawson. Benjamin Heartz, president of the Merchants’ Bank of PEI and co-owner of the Ibex Gold Mining Co. of Leadville, Colorado, financed the expedition. They were joined by another man in Vancouver who came highly recommended by a brother in Charlottetown but unknown to the Heartzs. They had the cattle shod at Dyea to protect their feet on the trail. A week before their arrival in Dawson, the recommended individual and some drovers made off with half of the herd. Henderson thought the stolen beef would drive down the price of beef in Dawson, so he waited a considerable period of time and fed and looked after his cattle some distance outside of Dawson. Only after much difficulty was Henderson able to sell his cattle but the partners were able to avoid a loss. Henderson left Dawson on 5 July and was back in Charlottetown by 4 August.((J. Clinton Morrison, //Chasing a Dream: Prince Edward Islanders in the Klondike.// Summerside, PEI: Crescent Isle Publishers, 2004: 132-33.))