Elias W. Johnston (b.1859)

Elias Johnston was born in Chicago. Through the early and mid-1880s he sailed cargo on Lake Michigan. He moved to Seattle in 1886 and in 1898 he owned the Seattle Lighterage and Floating Dock Company. Learning about the Klondike strike, he and four partners formed the Seattle Clipper Line to run between Puget Sound and Alaska. He left Seattle in 1898 with a flotilla of boats, men and supplies, and the expectation of making a small fortune. Captain Johnston established the earliest freight and passenger hauling business at Skagway. In the summer of 1899 he operated a steamboat on the lakes of British Columbia during the Atlin rush. He made a handsome return on lighterage business at Nome. In 1902 he married Maud, the daughter of Joseph L. Pidgeon, a Canadian prospector. In 1905, he was the first person to attempt Nome's harbour development. He abandoned that project as not economical and became a miner which made him rich. By 1908 the Johnstons were back in Seattle, this time living in a mansion.¹⁾