William Galpin (1850 - 1925)
William Galpin was born in Portsmouth, England.1) He came north to the Klondike in 1898.2) He staked claims between 1899 – 1913 and mined on Quartz Creek.3)
Galpin and Alice Rollins-Crane started a relationship in Dawson. Galpin was an author and a miner. In 1903 she launched a lawsuit against him for assault after a dispute over the authorship of The Widow of Dawson. She sent the manuscript to publishers and he ordered it sent back.4) The trial was a sensation in the newspapers and involved a “Count” Moracewski, a rival for Rollins-Crane’s attention.5) The charges were dismissed in May 1903. Galpin later charged Rollins-Crane with perjury and, in 1903 wrote to her stockholders to say that she was not working in their best interests.6) Rollins-Crane and the Count left Dawson, and at Russian Mission on the lower Yukon River, Galpin confronted the pair saying they had stolen his diary and account books. The Countess tried to shoot Galpin in the face, but he had removed the powder from the cartridges. The Count and Countess were arrested and taken to Nome where they were charged with attempted murder. The Countess was charged with contempt of court three times during the preliminary hearing. Their bail was set at $5,000.7)
Captain William Galpin was also the Anglican lay reader at Grand Forks, on Bonanza Creek. He worked in connection with the newly opened gold field at Quartz Creek, thirty miles from Dawson.8) He taught school in Dawson around 1906-1910 and then in 1923 till his death in December of 1925. Galpin also taught school in Quartz and Bonanza Creek between 1906 -1918 and was the principal at the Whitehorse school from about 1917-1923, before returning to teach school in Dawson in 1923 to his death in 1925.9) Galpin died in St Mary’s Hospital at age 75 and is buried in Dawson’s 8th Avenue Cemetery.10)