Julia “June” Horsfall, nee McQuesten (1880 -1959)
Julia McQuesten was the fourth child of eleven born to Jack and Kate McQuesten. The McQuesten children were all educated in Alaska or in Berkeley, California where the family moved after leaving the Yukon River basin.1) When Julia was young, she spent her summers with a missionary at Fort McPherson who taught her to read and write and where she learned cooking and domestic work. In the fall, spring, and winter she was with her family, hunting and trapping.2) Julia was already married to Joseph Horsfall when her parents and siblings moved south.3) Joseph Horsfall and Julia McQuesten were married at Fort Yukon, Alaska in the late 1890s. Their oldest child, Jane was born at Chandalar, Yukon-Koyukuk, Alaska in 1899, the next oldest Ada Margaret was born at Fort Yukon in 1901, and the next child Lily was born on the Pelly River in 1903.4)
Charles Sheldon met Joe and Julia Horsfall on the Pelly River in 1905. The sternwheeler he was travelling on, the Vidette, picked up the Horsfall family as they were tracking a long poling boat loaded with a year’s supplies upriver. They were going to trap and spend the winter at Kalzas Creek on the Macmillan River. Sheldon noted that Julia had great bush skills, and that all who knew her loved and respected her.5)
Joseph and Julia’s child Rose [Rosalie Brown] was born at Fort Selkirk in 1906. Horsfall took over running the Fort Selkirk post office from the RNWMP in 1907.6) In 1908, their son Joseph Charles died as a four-day old baby.7) The Horsfalls had eight girls and one boy. The majority, if not all of the girls, went to school in Dawson.8)
In 1929, Julia Horsfall was living at Minto Landing and working as a midwife.9) Joe and Julia Horsfall are buried in Whitehorse.10)