John Emmett Ferrell (1888 - 1941)

John Ferrell was born in Frankton, Indiana.¹⁾ He bought Lansing Post, on the Stewart River, from Frank Braine and Percival Nash in 1908 and he and his wife moved to the site.²⁾ He traded with the First Nations people on the upper Stewart River, supplying stoves and beds among other items.³⁾ In August 1909 Ferrell was at Fraser Falls to trade with the First Nations and planned to stay on the upper Stewart River until fall.⁴⁾ Helen Baird Ferrell was a skilled surgical nurse and had hoped to find a position at the Dawson hospital but the duties of a nurse in Dawson were more like housekeeping. She put her skills to good use at Lansing in 1909 when Jim Christie was brought to the post by his partner after being mauled by a grizzly bear. She patched Christie up, setting his broken arm and jaw, and then nursed him for two months until he was able to travel by dog team to the hospital at Dawson. John sold Lansing Post to Jim Mervyn in 1915.⁵⁾

The Ferrells moved to Mayo where John and Jack Alverson ran a general store. In August 1918, Ferrell became the Mayo Landing Mining Recorder just when government services were being cut back after the First World War. The office was closed, and all the records moved to Dawson when Louis Bouvette struck high-grade silver on Keno Hill. Ferrell acted as the government official and recorded his claim. The subsequent staking rush to Keno Hill caused the Mayo Mining Recorder’s office to reopen in September 1919 with Dick Gillespie in charge. Ferrell was Mayo’s real estate agent, he served on the Mayo Landing School Board, and, in 1921, he was president of the Yukon Order of Pioneers. Ferrell and Jack Alverson shared an interest in a hard rock property on Galena Creek.⁶⁾

The Mayo Board of Trade was formed early in 1921 with Ferrell as president. The executive included former Yukon Councillors Archie Martin and Maxime Landreville. The organization wanted improvements for navigation on the Stewart River, and roads from the silver mines to the wharf at Mayo Landing. They also wanted the Overland Trail to Dawson rerouted so it came directly to Mayo.⁷⁾ In 1922 Ferrell was appointed to the location committee for a hospital in Mayo and, after the hospital was built, he served on the Board.⁸⁾

In 1922, Ferrell was acclaimed in the Klondike district as a member of the Yukon Council. The federal government had turned down the Council’s recommendation for more members to serve the Mayo district and Ferrell was the first Councillor with Mayo residency. In 1923, the Council elected Ferrell Deputy Speaker. Several issues were hotly debated in Council including Ferrell’s successful motion to permanently move the territorial assay office from Whitehorse to Mayo. He argued that the year-round mining in the Mayo District required continuous service.⁹⁾ In 1923, after a good deal of lobbying, a radiotelephone system of communication was put into Mayo. The federal government paid $19,000 to install a wireless station at Mayo as part of a relay system that included Dawson, Fort Simpson, and Fort MacMurray. The first wireless communication to Mayo was between J.E. Ferrell and the Yukon Gold Commissioner, G.P. MacKenzie, in Dawson.¹⁰⁾ In the 1925 election, the nominations for Dawson and Klondike were contested. Ferrell did not finish out his term when Andrew Taddie won the Klondike seat as the incumbent. Mayo did not have its own seat on Council until 1928.¹¹⁾

Even as a senior, Ferrell stayed busy in the community and, in 1938, he was assisting in the Mayo Taylor and Drury store.¹²⁾ He suffered a lingering illness in the local hospital before he died of heart failure. J.E. Ferrell is buried in the Pioneer plot at Mayo.¹³⁾ After his death, Helen moved to Oregon. Before she left, she buried boxes of his photographs and a number of odd items, including the hide of the grizzly that mauled Jim Christie. The photographs are probably glass plates and might be in decent condition, but their exact location has not been found and they could be buried ten feet under the surface.¹⁴⁾

Thanks to Kathy Jones-Gates for her contributions to this biography.