Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-08-21

John t. Lowell, the Owner of Lowell
Alaska, Tells People to Stay Mt Home

L ii.
Alaska, Tells People to Stay Mt Home.
From the Boston Traveller.
The Alaskan gold fever was raging in
this neighborhood. Bucksport. Me. and
four young men had quit work in the saw
mills preparatory to an early start for the
klondike, when John T. Lowell, who set
tied in Alaska in 1870 and Owls and con-
trolls the village of Lowell, 300 miles north
of Sitka, came here for short visit to his
surviving kindred and related the story of
the Yukon mines as they appeared to him
when he visited the place late last fall.
Lowell IS an old sailor, who served through
the war and went to Alaska soon after it's
purchase by the United States, marrying
one of the native women, and getting liv-
ing by fishing and hunting until his boys
grew I'D and were able to support him.
Having amassed considerable property and
having built small village and named it
Lowell, h. has spent the last two sum-
mers in running trading schooner be-
tween his home and San Francisco. bring
ing down seal skins and dried fish and
taking back supplies for home use and
to sell to the residents. This year, while
his vessel was in port, he slipped across
the continent to give his sister a suit of
seal skins and to distribute few ounces
of gold dust among the friends of his
youth.
After reaching home last August he took
party of miners over the mountains and
conducted them down the Yukon far as
Circle City. making n very rapid passage
all the way. Believing the Yukon would
freeze up before he could get out, he went
up to the Klondike regions, where a few
miners were picking the half-frozen mud
and washing out gold. While the yield was
good, netting an Industrious miner from
$l5 to $40 day, the climate was very cold
even in September, food was hard to get at
gloomy and orbidding that he made haste
to get back to Circle City, where few of
the rich miners could afford to burn kero-
sene oil to light their cabins. Soon after
he reached Circle City party of twenty
one men, who had collected q good lot of
gold, offered him so a day and board 20
lead them out to salt water The Yukon
was frozen 2 foot deep at Circle City, and
no boat could get out. Dressed in furs and
carrying condensed food they assembled the
Yukon beyond Miles canon, where eight of
the company became discouraged and turn
ed back. The rest went on. crossing the
lakes, ascending the mountains in binding
snow storms. and finally reaching the coast
late in October. OF the twenty-one men
who started, eight went hack to Circle
City, five died of cold and exposure, and
one fell down a steep bloff and was dashed
to pieces. The seven who gained the coas,
were frostbitten and nearly furnished.
The man who quits good work in the
United States and goes to Alaska for gold"
said Mr.. Lowell. rs fool, a blamed fool
who ought tC be shot or locked up before
he gets chance to start. A man who even
gets 81 a day on a Maine farm, or 81 day
running a street car in Boston or New
York, stands a better chance of getting
rich than the prospector who goes to Alas
ka- 1t seems a big thing for a man to
wash out an ounce or an ounce and half
of gold In a day. 1t would be a big thing
here, where food and clothing are cheap,
but up there you have to pay 81 pound
Tor flour, 90 cents a pound for salt junk
and s. a pound for tea. and no matter how
much You earn you can never buy half the
stun you need. Two-thirds of the men
who go In are SO exhausted by the time
they reach the diggings that they can do
little work, and generally stay there and
die or get sick and go cut before they have
earned enough to pay their expenses. The
few who are tough enough to stand the
climate and the work are mostly gamblers,
who lose their money as fast as they earn
1t to the professional sharpers who hang
around Circle City and all the mining
camps l tell you, the man who has a roof
ever his head and a coat on his back in
the United States is darned sight better
of than the best of them are in Alaska"