Thomas Boswell
Thomas Boswell was born in Quebec. He married a French-Canadian girl with a temper, and they separated. Boswell went west to become a miner.1) In 1882, Boswell came over the Chilkoot Pass with John Dougan (Duggan), Robert Robertson, D. Bertrand, Frank Densmore, John Riley, Preston Cloudman, Robert Fox, Thomas Curney (Kernan, Kiernan) and Levy Herod.2) They arrived at Jack McQuesten’s post at Fort Reliance in September and wintered there. They prospected on the Sixtymile and Fortymile rivers the next year but were not able to winter again at Fort Reliance. McQuesten’s steamer carrying supplies broke down before reaching the post.3)
In the late spring of 1883, Boswell come in over the pass with seven men including Howard Franklin, Henry Madison and John Fraser. They ascended the Pelly to Francis Lake, prospecting as they went, and they found enough gold to pay their expenses. The group had a disagreement and came back down to the Yukon River where Boswell discovered a gold-bearing gravel bar. In 1884, Boswell, Franklin, and Madison were working on that bar, about seventy-five miles above Fort Selkirk. They were waiting for the water to go down as they wanted the fine pay silt at the edge of the lower rim rock of the bar. The silt was run through the rockers to recover black sand and gold that would be then washed out in gold pans over a mass of quicksilver. The amalgam was put in a buckskin bag and squeezed until the soluble mercury ran out through the pores. The result was put in a frying pan over a hot fire to dry out into a mass of yellow grains. The bar was said to pay $15 per day per man and the party took out $2000 worth of gold dust in six weeks. Boswell and his party planned to spend the winter of 1884 at Fort Reliance.4)
John Fraser and Thomas Boswell were among the first to do any mining on the Stewart River. They started in May 1885 and made about seven thousand dollars each that summer.5) According to Mercier, in 1885 a party of miners who could have been Bertrand of St. Martine, Quebec, and Caselais of Montreal, Boswell, Charly Powell, and Frank Mondffalt [Morphet] recovered fine gold on the banks of the Stewart River totalling from $30 to $100 each per day. During the summer each one recovered from $5000 to $6000 in gold dust. McQuesten names the 1885 prospectors on the Stewart as Jerry Bertrand, Frank Morphet, P. Wilboring [Wyberg] and [Richard] Poplin. He also mentions C. Powell who prospected with Joe Ladue in 1883. Brooks says the 1885 group included August Boswell, Joseph Machiel, Frank Moffitt [Morphet], Richard Poplin, John Fraser, and Peter Wyberg. An 1885 article in The Alaskan (Sitka) identified Thomas Boswell, Jeremiah Berthold [Bertrand], Frank Moffatt [Morphet], Richard Poplin, Peter Welberg [Wyberg] and Frances Frazer [Fraser]. Bertrand and Boswell may have prospected on the Koyukuk River, but they apparently found little gold.6) Boswell found several rich bars on the Stewart River in 1886, and he took out $6,000. He went down the Yukon River and took the steamer Bear to San Francisco. He was looking for his wife and travelled east to Cleveland to be told that his wife was in Juneau. He hoped to find his wife and try his luck in Alaska again in 1887.7)
Thomas, his brother, and another miner spent most of the summer of 1887 on the Teslin River and Teslin Lake. They talked to Ogilvie about the area.8) There was a creek and a bar on the Hootalinqua [Teslin River] named after Boswell because he used to go there to use a rocker box. Tom Boswell rocked out $6,000 on the Stewart River in 1888 and he wrote his brother [George] in Idaho. That decided Ray Stewart to go to the Yukon.9)
In 1888, Boswell and his brother started out from Juneau and visited Lake Ah-c-Klain. He joined 400 [40] miners at Chilkat who wanted to make the trip. After several days they reached Boat Lake and started using sleighs. The 6-foot sleighs were made in Juneau and cost about $15. They could be used with a sail. They crossed to Lake Tahkishe [Tagish], passed Marsh Lake and were then in open swift river. Six men, including Boswell went overland to the Teslin River and boated down to the mouth. One in the group went back for the cached goods at Marsh Lake. Thomas's brother George had been in the Coeur d“Alene mining district and he joined the party at this point. The men parted company and George, Thomas, and Duncan McCloud went back up the Teslin River to where they had wintered. They placer mined on the bar and recovered $100 a day. George and Thomas poled up the river to Teslin Lake and then came back down the river where they met McCloud and they built a raft to go down the Yukon River. They met Dr. Dawson at the mouth of the Teslin River. Boswell's party wintered at the mouth of the Tanana and in the spring, they took sledges and dogs and went northwest 200 miles to the Koykuk River. George got scurvy and on his trip back to the winter camp he went snow blind. He managed to travel down the Yukon River and reached Seattle.10)
McCloud and Thomas Boswell travelled to the Russian Mission at Koscrisffky, went over to the Kuskokwim River and then down to the coast. At Bethel they got skin boats and went to Bristol Bay where McCloud got passage out. Boswell wintered at Egekick Bay and in the spring, he went down to Nougashuk and took passage on a Columbia River fishing boat. At Moller Bay he discovered coal and after prospecting for some time he took the Mafturnies for Unalaska and then on to Seattle.11)
In the fall of 1897 at Moller Bay in western Alaska, Boswell had an encounter with a bear and had to have his leg amputated at Unalaska. He intended to return to the Yukon as he was engaged as a guide by a local syndicate.12) The bear encounter is luridly described in a November 1897 issue of The Alaskan. Boswell and J. A. Scheffelin left Seattle in the fall of 1897 and supposedly encountered a polar bear near “Port Mulford.” This is probably Post Moller, the site of a historic salmon cannery known for the quantity of brown bears living nearby.13)
In 1897, Boswell was getting around on a peg leg. He showed Jack Ross’ mining engineer boss a poke of Yukon gold, and the engineer grubstaked them to return to the Stewart River. John Alexander, Jack Ross, and Thomas Boswell came into the Yukon over the Chilkoot Pass. When they arrived at Chapman's Bar on the Stewart, Boswell told Ross that he had lied to get the grubstake. Ross stayed for a few days and then left for Seattle. Boswell bought his outfit but said he would have killed him for it if he had refused to sell.14)