Robert Henderson (1857-1931)
Robert Henderson was born in Pictou, Nova Scotia. He was fourteen when he left home for the mines in New Zealand, Australia and California. In 1876, he sailed to London to get a vessel for South America but returned home instead and got married. In 1880, he and his wife travelled to Colorado where he worked in a mine at Aspen.1) He came over the Chilkoot Pass in 1894.2) Henderson first met George Carmack at Carmack’s trading post above Five Finger Rapids.3)
Henderson was grubstaked by Joe Ladue, the trader at Ogilvie Island, who recommended working in the Indian River tributaries. Henderson and Al Mundson [Monson] crossed the divide into the Hunker Creek drainage.4) Henderson worked for D.E. Griffith first, and then Jack Conlin and Henderson went to work for William Redford for two or three months in 1895. Conlin remained with Redford but Henderson got itchy feet and left for Australia Creek after he earned enough money for a grubstake.5) In 1896, Henderson and Al Mundson [Monson] crossed the divide into the Hunker Creek drainage. Henderson had a daydream of digging down to a layer of gold like the streets of New Jerusalem and so named this creek Gold Bottom.6) [Frank] Swanson, [Charley] Monson and [Al] Dalton worked with Henderson opening up his claim on Gold Bottom.7)
In the summer of 1896, Henderson fell and injured himself at the confluence of Dominion Creek and the Indian River. He made a skin boat to travel from there to Wounded Moose. He was deciding which way to go when he met a black bear coming from a fishing expedition with a large salmon in his mouth. After this he drifted down to Quartz Creek.8)
In late July 1896, Henderson returned to his claims on Gold Bottom Creek and talked to George Carmack, Skookum Jim and Dawson Charlie at the mouth of the Klondike River. Henderson told George he could stake at Gold Bottom but the First Nation men were not welcome on the creek. After cutting some logs to sell at Forty Mile, George Carmack, Skookum Jim, and Dawson Charlie prospected up the creek that became known as Bonanza. They found good prospects and carried on to Henderson’s camp on Gold Bottom where they told Henderson about the results. Acting on Henderson’s suggestion, Carmack staked a claim below Henderson’s but did not stay to work it after Henderson refused to sell Carmack some tobacco.9)
On the way back to the Klondike River, Carmack, Jim and Charlie stopped near their last camp on Bonanza and Carmacks panned out the coarse gold that would start the Klondike gold rush.( (James Albert Johnson, Carmack of the Klondike. Epicenter Press and Horsdal & Schubart, 1990: 76.) On 17 August they staked Discovery Claim and No 1 Below as the discoverer was allowed two claims. No. 1 Above was staked for Skookum Jim and No. 2 Below was staked for Charley. They did not consider going back to Gold Bottom to tell Henderson of their find.10)
Henderson missed staking an early claim on Bonanza. He also missed staking the discovery claim on Hunker Creek when Andrew Hunker recorded a claim on another branch of the creek ahead of him. Henderson staked a claim on Bear Creek but was only able to record one of his three claims, the one on Hunker. He was laid up with his old injury that winter and in the spring he prospected on Flat Creek and then on a creek two miles below the Stewart River which is now called Henderson Creek. He went up the Stewart River as far as the mouth of the McQuesten and then returned downriver, intending to leave for the winter. He was frozen in at Circle, Alaska and needing money sold his Hunker Creek claim for $3,000, much less than it was worth.11)
Gold Bottom was never a big producer of gold. Henderson did not record his claims there, and “Big Alex” MacDonald over-staked him.12) The Canadian government eventually recognised Henderson as a co-discoverer of gold in the Klondike and granted him a small pension.13)
Henderson’s family lived in Colorado, but he returned in the 1900s to work in the Mining Engineer’s office.14) In 1907, Canadian Geologist J. Keele engaged R. B. Riddell, J. M. Christie, and Geo. Ortell in order to explore the Pelly, Ross, and Gravel rivers, and the unmapped region from the Pelly to the Mackenzie River. Keele also obtained Henderson’s services in his role as assistant mining engineer to the Yukon government. Henderson was accompanied by his two sons and had his own boat and outfit.15)
In 1915, Henderson was on board the Barrington steamer Hazel B. bound for the Ross River area to prospect.16) He spent much of his life, even to near its end, prospecting and looking for new strikes.17) He prospected up the Macmillan River to Henderson Slough and working on Cassie Creek, named after his daughter. He would go there every summer, grubstaked by Yukon Consolidated Gold Corp.18) In 1932, the year before his death at age seventy-six, he flew into the Pelly River to inspect another prospect.19)