Moise Lorenz (d. 1886)

Moise Lorenz was a Russian Jew originally from Odessa, Ukraine.1) He was an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company for the St. Michael district.2)

Lornz married a beautiful and refined woman from Maine who brought all the trappings of civilization north with her.3) Mrs. Lorenz arrived in St. Michael with her husband in June 1880 just a few months after their marriage. She travelled on the steamer Yukon as far as the White River, about 100 miles downstream from Fort Selkirk, in 1882 and on the same trip travelled up the Tanana about thirty miles from the station founded by Arthur Harper in 1881.4)

Adrian Jacobsen met Lorenz and his wife on August 20, 1882. Lorenz, the head agent at Fort St. Michael, was on his way back from a 1,800 mile tour up the Yukon River as far as Fort Reliance travelling on the steamer Yukon. The boat also carried a number of agents and traders including Mr. Leavitt, the signal officer from Saint Michael, Mr. Frederiksen from Anvik, and Mr. [Al] Mayo of Nuklukayet/ Noochuloghoyet [near the mouth of the Tanana River].5) Lorenz and his wife left Alaska for a year in 1883 and then returned in 1884 for two more years. Moise took ill in 1886 and died several months after returning south.6)

1) , 3)
Melody Webb, Yukon: The Last Frontier. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985: 68.
2) , 4) , 6)
Francois Xavier Mercier, Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885. Edited by Linda Finn Yarborough. Anchorage: The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: 22-3.
5)
Johan Adrian Jacobsen, Alaskan Voyage 1881-1883. University of Chicago Press, 1977: 98-99.