St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-01-05
STAID AWAY TOO LONG.
A Captain Returns From a Tril
to ALASKA to Find His Wife Man
ried

A Captain Returns From a Trip
to ALASKA to Find His Wife Mar
ried.
Globe-Democrat.
SEATTLE, WASH, Dec. 16.-Capt.
Peter Bayne has returned from Alaska
to find himself veritable Enoch Arden.
In 1878 he married in Tulare county,
Cal, the beautiful daughter of Rev.
Vandeventer, who afterward preached
in Kent, Wash, and is now located in
WiDnemucca, New. In 1887 he located
on homestead in Whatcom couDty,
this state. Wanting money to prove
up on his claim, he decided
on a whaling trip to Alaska.
Upon the advice of his father-in-law he
left his wife on the claim with a Young
Canadian named William j. Forbes.
Capt. Bayne was fitted out in the
schooner Ino by FL. S. Frand q Co., of
San Francisco. and sailed from there as
captain of the schooner in April, 1887,
for the Arctic ocean. He was unsuc-
cesSful, and while establishing supply
stations in shore near Point Barrow,
the most northerly point on the Amer
lean continent, storm came up and
the schooner was totally wrecked,
though the crew and every
thing on board were all saved.
The shipwrecked crew commenced
whaling from the shore, and during the
summer captured twelve whales, which
Melted profit of $4,000. Seevral
hundred walrus and sealskins and ivory
were taken, which increased the profits
aJout $4,000. The colony of ship
housed during the two winters they were
in the Arctic regions. During the sec
ond summer the Indians notified Capt.
Bayne of large ledge of coal on the
beach, $50 miles South, and thirty miles
North of Cape Lisbon. The vein of coal
was nearly forty feet thick, and was
visited by Bayne and ten men during
the summer. He proposed to return at
some future time and develop the
mines. On the evening of Oct. 8, 1855,
the whaling bark Little Ohio was
wrecked near where the schooner Ino
was lost, and out of forty souls only
nineteen were saved. The colony now
| numbered forty-five people, and some
of them commenced capturing frost fish
for extra food. They remained there
until last July, when the revenue cut
ter Thetis found them. Enough pro-
visions were left behind until the
| Thetis could send word to the owners
of the wrecked schooner Inc i'll San
Francisco. They sent up the steamer
William Lewis to bring down the ship
wrecked mariners, whale oil and furs.
| After settling with his owners, Capt.
Bayne found himself worth about
$4,000. He fastened back to his What
com county farm, and found it de-
serted. He fastened to his father-in-
laws home, and there learned that his
wife, supposing him shipwrecked and
dead, had married the young Canadian
| Forbes. Continued searching showed
that Mrs. Bayne had obtained divorce
from her husband in Whatcom for
| fear he should still be alive. Capt.
Bayne still searched, and to-day he
found his children, girl and boy, aged
respectively nine and seven years, in
Port Townsend postoffice. They had
| called for their mothers mail. The
father broke down completely and has
tened to his wife. She declares young
Forbes was blameless and that she
thought her husband was dead. The
whole question is to be left to eX-Chief
Justice Roger S. Greene, of Seattle, a
cousin of Senators Hoar and Evarts,
who will arbtrate between the parties.
Capt. Bayne, his wife and her relatives
are we'll known Oh Puget sound and the
case is therefore creatinga considerable
sensation.