James T. “Big Jim” Pendergast (1879 - 1975)
James Pendergast of Kensington, Prince Edward Island was six foot four inches and weighed 235 pounds. From 1898 to 1902, he taught school in western Prince County before heading to Boston where he was employed as a motorman with the Boston Elevated Street Railway. He made a name for himself as an athlete in track and boxing and established a new world record for height in throwing the fifty-six-pound weight in 1904 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In the fall of 1905, he met his friend and former neighbour James Higgins who had just returned from the Klondike and who was a part owner of claim No 11 on Eldorado Creek.1)
In early February 1906, Higgens and Pendergast left for Seattle via Boston and Montreal. Jim did some boxing in Boston and persuaded his brother Will, who was also a motorman, to go with them to the Yukon. His more affluent brother travelled by train from Skagway, but Jim and Higgins made a four-day trip by dog team and arrived in Whitehorse in April 1906. Jim left for Dawson by foot and stopped at many of the roadhouses along the way.2)
In 1906, Jim fought Jack “Twin” Sullivan in a ten-round draw in Dawson and used the proceeds to finance a prospecting trip to Cold Creek near Circle City with a partner. In October, he struck gold and formed a partnership with ten others. Several years later he left the north after a partner lied about him not paying his share of the representation work. Jim subsequently defeated the attempt to defraud him of his share of the claim.3)
In 1908, Jim retired from boxing after being defeated by Jack “Twin” Sullivan in their third bout at Saint John, New Brunswick. He returned to Dawson where he joined the sixteen-man Dawson Fire Department under Chief J. A. Lester. In the winter of 1910-1911, he left the Yukon but continued to box and was in Alaska and the Yukon in 1912. In 1972, he was inducted into the Prince Edward Island Sports Hall of Fame at the age of ninety-three.4)