Thomas Cunningham
Thomas Cunningham came into the Yukon in the spring of 1898 as the purser of the sternwheeler Yukoner.1) The boat left St. Michael on 25 September 1898 and was grounded off the mouth of the Yukon River the next day. The injectors, which supply the boilers with water, became clogged and the crown sheet of one of the boilers burst. The Yukoner continued on to Dawson with one boiler when the tide brought in enough water to move. It only made fifty miles a day on the river, making it impossible to reach Dawson that fall. There were no passengers, so the crew settled the boat and its barge into a slough above Russian Mission for the winter. They covered in the decks with canvas and used a cargo of mattresses to insulate the cabin walls. The Oil City wintered about fifteen miles downriver from the Yukoner, and the Portus B. Weare was fifteen miles below the Oil City.2)
Even with visits to the other boats, the crew became irritable over the long winter and the captain and the purser did not get along. After the river broke, steam was raised in the boiler on May 27, but the crew refused to work for the bad-tempered Captain Morine. John Curtin, representing the owner, agreed to appoint Barney Larson as the captain. Morine, his wife, and former mate, left the boat and called it mutiny. 3)
The Yukoner started upriver on June 2 and reached Dawson on June 22. They were met by the owner Pat Galvin, the dismissed Captain Morine, and the Mounted Police. The officers and most of the crew were taken to jail. The charge of mutiny was dismissed as the crew had not signed articles and so were not a legal crew. They were, however, charged with piracy. The men spent sixteen days in jail before being freed on bail. The charges were never acted upon due to the complexities of international law, citizenship questions, maritime law, and the fact that a legal representative of the owner had agreed to the change in captain.4)
In October 1899, a Dawson newspaper reported that purser Thomas Cunningham was instrumental in the revolt against the outrageous behavior of the captain. The crew were compelled to remain in the country to answer the charges but were acquitted and exonerated at a hearing in the late summer of 1899. In the meantime, Cunningham found employment as the city editor of the Sun newspaper. He left Dawson on the steamer Clara on 13 October 1899, bound for his home in San Francisco. He promised to return to Dawson and bring one of his sons who had just returned from service with Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.5)