James Daugherty (1863 - 1924)
Jim Daugherty was born in Ozard, Alabama. He was in Forty Mile and Circle as early as 1895 and was among the first to reach the Klondike after the news of the strike. He succeeded in staking a rich claim.1) He went to London and Europe in 1897 where he spent a fortune acquired by selling his claims. He returned to Dawson hoping to gain another fortune. During the winter of 1898/99 he grubstaked four or five prospectors and the report of one of them prompted Jim to go with his friends Billy Chappell, [Skip] Mitchell and Charley Anderson to stake claims.2)
Jim's infamous stampede happened just after New Year’s Eve in 1899. A prospector in the Coal Creek area did not find gold, but he took a map and a gold poke of dust and found Jim in Tom Chisolm's saloon thumbing a pack of cards. He convinced Jim he had all the gold he wanted and sold the map to him for a thousand dollars. Chas Dumbolton was mining and running a market on the waterfront. He finished his day underground on Bonanza and he banked the fire at the head of the drift. Jim was waiting when he came to the surface and he asked Dumbolton to pilot the way to the find. Dumbolton had the best dog team in the camp and Jim wanted to be the first in a stampede situation. Twelve men of Jim's choosing left the camp separately at midnight and met at the Twelve Mile Cabin, eighteen miles downriver. Each of them had a friend who they told and they in turn also told a friend. It happened that that night there was also another stampede that was gathering at the Twelve Mile Cabin to head downriver. Dumbolton stowed Jim out of sight and he and Sam Stanley hooked onto Jim's sled and dashed down to the river. They passed the mouth of the Twelvemile where they were supposed to turn and raced down the Yukon until they came to an island. The leaders hid in the willows and a pack of men passed them and headed on right over the American border. Dumbolton went back to Twelvemile to find fifty men and more coming, but they raced up Twelvemile as fast as they could. They took the well-travelled left fork instead of the right and cut back through the bush, but the pack saw them and followed. They travelled to the headwaters and the mountains where they had to break trail. They stopped for the night, crossed a pass of 2500 feet, followed a creek and found themselves at the top of Coal Creek. Jim dug out the map he had paid a thousand dollars for, and it was clear that Coal Creek was the marked spot. The men laughed at Jim until he got mad. They started back with little food left and mushed through the night. They put two of the dogs and a man in the sled and kept changing, going at a dead run. Later they met the North-West Mounted Police and helped those still struggling out. Some were wet and had frostbite.3)
Mary Hitchcock described Daugherty as a handsome fellow with a sombrero on the back of his head, a cigar in his mouth, and the most debonair air imaginable. He owned the Hoffman House which he named for a hotel of the same name in New York. A stage at the end of the room held five musicians playing Cavalleria Rusticana as well as Hitchcock had ever heard it, the violinist being particularly good.4) Daugherty was tall, stalwart, handsome, erect and energetic.5) He prided himself on never wearing a coat. He had a beautiful silk London-made shirt, but a vest covered the greater part of it. He was surrounded by a dozen men and women who he entertained in the grandest style known to Dawson.6) He married actress Lottie Oakley [1899], one of the well-known Oakley Sisters and they had a daughter, Lottie.7) Jim had a derogatory nickname, referring to black-face performing on stage.
Daugherty was mentioned in the Klondike Nugget on 28 January 1899 when he left for Victoria in the interests of his company, The Yukon Gold Fields Mining. Henry Berry held a farewell dinner for him on Claim No. 6 Eldorado. John and Sam Stanley were among the thirty odd guests. Daugherty was soon back looking after his saloon, the Pavilion, but by 6 December 1899, the saloon was in the hands of new owners. On 6 June 1900, he was reported to have attacked the attorney C. M. Woodworth over a lawsuit of the previous winter. Pierre Burton says (Klondike Fever, page 418) that Jim Daugherty was broke by 1900.(Dale L. Morgan, Notes: Jeremiah Lynch, Three Years in the Klondike. Chicago: The Lakeside Press. 1967: 312.)) Lottie divorced him in 1906 and joined the Australians, a theatre troupe travelling around Alaska. She eventually married Durwood Casley and retired to San Francisco.8)
Daugherty left the Klondike in 1905 and moved to Fairbanks where he stayed until 1908 when he went to Seattle and started logging. Four or five years later he returned to Alaska. He was employed by the Alaska Railroad at one time. He lived in Cook's Inlet and worked as a day labourer from 1914 until he died ten years later at Harry Kane's camp in Fairbanks.9)