J. E. Hansen. (~1864 - 1905)

Captain J. E. Hansen was hired as the superintendent of the Alaska Commercial Company (ACCo) in Dawson in 1897.¹⁾ In the late fall of 1898, Hansen received word that one of the company steamers, the Sarah, was aground near the Martin River.²⁾ Hansen ordered the company stevedore to go down to Fort Yukon to get a light load of food that the Sarah’s crew had stashed there. Walden took a crew of men and Captain Hansen decided to go along for the trip.³⁾ They chartered the little steamer Aquilla and took J. F. Burke, proprietor of the Yukon Saw Mill Co., and J. A. Chute, who had business at Forty-Mile. The Aquilla left Dawson at 3 pm and an hour later and ten miles down-river she was stuck on a gravel bar. Burke, Chute, and Hansen abandoned the Aquilla and took a canoe down river to look for the Sarah. That evening the upcoming steamer Pingree was hailed, and they were told that the Sarah was free, and on her way back down river to St Michael. The men returned to Dawson, arriving at three in the morning.⁴⁾

In October 1898, the Dawson Post Office was flooded with letters to the United States with US stamps, or no stamps at all. Hansen heard about the problem and paid to have the letters shipped down river for free.⁵⁾ While he was in Dawson, Hansen became the power of attorney responsible for the activities of the Harper and Ladue partnership. When the ACCo merged with the Northern Commercial Co., he became the manager of its mercantile department.⁶⁾ Hansen was headquartered in Nome in 1900.⁷⁾ He later became the captain of the ocean-going fleet of the Northwest Fisheries Co. in Alaska. In May 1905, he committed suicide by jumping from the deck of the company’s steamer Dolphin while enroute to Seattle.⁸⁾