Paul Moran (b. ~1860)
Paul Moran was Born in New York City, a brother to Robert Moran, owner of the Moran Bros. shipbuilding company. Robert Moran moved to Seattle in 1875, and after he was settled his mother and siblings joined him. Paul was sixteen when he arrived. Robert and his brother Peter and William started the marine repair and machine shop that became the Moran Brothers Company incorporated in 1889. He company was swamped with orders to build boats during the Klondike gold rush. Between January and May 1898, the Moran shipyard built fourteen sternwheelers. Twelve steamer and two barges were launched from Seattle and steamed north. Two of the boats were dismantled and shipped to Dutch Harbour, Alaska where they were reconstructed under the direction of Paul Moran.1)
Paul Moran was in Dawson in 1898. He left town on the sternwheeler Cudahy, a boat that he built. Moran had not been home for more than a year, his duties keeping him in Dutch Harbour, superintending the construction of the steamers that made the Yukon trip in 1898, the Power, Hamilton, Cudahy and others. The Pilgrim, the eleventh of the twelve Moran boats to leave Seattle for St. Michael that summer, arrived safely in St. Michael in mid-September 1898. Of eleven Moran boats, only one was lost and the rest sold at Yukon prices, so the Moran Bros. were on a high wave of success. In the year of his absence, Paul received the news of the death of his wife and child back in Seattle.2)