Josiah Edward Spurr (1870 -1950)

Josiah Spurr was born in Glouster, Massachusetts. He was unsuited for the family fishing business, but he worked his way through Harvard to become a geologist.1)

In 1896, a party of J.E. Spurr and assistant geologists H.B. Goodrich and C.F. Schrader spent four months in Alaska and adjacent Yukon by travelling over the Chilkoot Pass and out along the Yukon River. Alaska miner P.A. Wiborg [Pete Wyberg] accompanied them from Juneau to Forty Mile.2) The survey was conducted due to the growing importance of the Yukon -Tanana region, and the party investigated the placers on the Fortymile, Birch Creek, and the Rampart districts.3)

In 1898, Spurr went from Cook Inlet through the Alaska Range to the south fork of the Kuskokwim River. His party drew maps and studied the geology and biology of the country.4)

Josiah Edward Spurr wrote Through the Yukon Gold Diggings published by Eastern Publishing in 1900.

1)
“Josiah Edward Spurr.” Wikipedia, 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Edward_Spurr
2)
Harold Beach Goodrich in Josiah Edward Spurr, Geology of the Yukon Gold District, Alaska with an introductory chapter on the history and condition of the district to 1897. Extract from the eighteenth annual report of the survey, 1896-97. Part III - Economic Geology. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1898: 101.
3)
L.M. Prindle, “The Fortymile Quadrangle. Yukon-Tanana Region, Alaska” in Ron Wendt, ed., Fortymile Gold. United States Geological Survey, 1995: 3.
4)
Joan M. Antonson and William S. Hanable, Alaska's Heritage: Unit 4 - Human History: 1867 to Present. Alaska Historical Commission Studies in History, No. 133, The Alaska Historical Society, 1992: 244.