The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-10-22
SOLD THEIR SUPPLIES.
Serious Charges Against Manager ".
II. J frey.
disposed OF KLONDIKE SUPPLIES
TO OUTSIDERS.

~ w
Took Money and Came7H ONE, Leaving His
Men to Look After Gold Mines-Jeffrey
Says as Manager of Expedition He
Had Right to Sell Goods.
| The Boston Herald prints the following
from its Portland correspondent:
| Five of the % persons who composed
the Maine expedition to Alaska, which
left Portland last Spring, have returned
home. The first to return was William
H. jeffrey of this city, organizer and
general manager of the expedition. Frank
d. Barr and wife of Brockton, Mass,
have lately returned, BECAUSE of Mrs
Barr's ill-health.
| The return of Fred A. jackson, we'll
known citizen of Winthrop, who was one
of the first to enlist in the Klondike en-
terprise, and who bore prominent part
! in the. preliminaries of the trip, occasioned
not little surprise among his townsmen.
| One of his legs in which a blood vessel
was ruptured a year ago, was seriously
affected by the rigorous climate, tut that
is not the only reason he gives for turn
| ing his back on the Alaskan country.
| He says he was discouraged by the pros
pect that confronted the Maine party.
| They prospeoted on Big Salmon river for
| 20 miles and worked about 20U miles up
| the Stewart river, prospecting some on
Black hill, but they found no pay dirt.
| In order to gel money enough to get
home, he and Mr.. Barr sawed wood for
one of the transportation companies.
| But there is a sensational feature to Mr..
Jaoksou's story. He charges Manager
Jeffrey with mismanagement :. :,
"Whil, we were at Bennett lake, SAID
Mr.. jackson, .'Mr. jeffrey called the men
| together and told t EN- they must stop
using butter or that commodity would
not last them through. We noticed. now
ever that Mr. Jeffrey was hearty on but
ter. So the boys said that when jeffrey
stopped eating butter they would shut
off, too. But butter eating was not
stopped. ra
and informed him that we were out of
pitch and nails to complete work on the
scows. He said he would get some to us
by Monday noon. That night Lew Car.
ron happened into one of the stores and
saw one of our butter boxes. 1t contained
100 pounds of butter and was branoed
with our mark, A. Y. Z. g. S. Mr.. Car.
ron f.rthwith went to Jeffrey and asked
him if he had sold any of our butter
Jeffrey replied that he had not. Lew
questioned him sharply, and jeffrey tried
to send him to Lindemann lake ON an
errand. Carron and the rest OF us sus.
pected that this was for the purpose of
getting him out of the way while story
was Matched up with the trader to &C.
count for the presence of the butter. But
Carron, after consulting the other MEM
bers of the party, refused to go on the
errand.
ave then looked around the stores and
found two more traders who had pur-
chased goods of Jeffrey, though at nrst
they denied the impeachment. But they
owned up after they had seen us talking
with some officers outside their stol es,
The traders made list OF goods that
they purchased of jeffrey, and signed
their names to it.
"Then we went to our manager and
gave him the privilege of explaining. At
first he denied the charges, but on seeing
the signed statements he admitted that
he had sold the goods, but said that as
manager OF the company he had a perfect
right to sell whatever he chose of th >
goods belonging to the company. But
we looked at the matter in different
light. We considered that the fact of our
having paid in $1,000 each for stock in
| the company gava us some rights In the
matter.
Jeffrey seemed to be much disturbed
| by the threats which the men took no
| trouble to suppress, and he agreed to fix
up the matter satisfactorily. To do this,
he ayerred, would take till the next Mon
day noon. He said that when he went
| for the pitch and nails he would attend
| to the affair. The boys gave him the
chance he asked for.
"That night some men who watched
him say that Jeffrey put three revolvers
under his pillow. At 2 O'Clock the next
morning Jeffrey arose and. accompanied
by Dr. HARDWOOD of Saoo, left, as the men
supposed, for the pitch and nails. But
he had gone for good and all. We were
accompanied him. About noon, however,
we began to suspect that something was
wrong and two of our men set out, armed
to the teeth. They had instructions to
bring back either the manager or the
money.
latter the men had rowed across Lin
demann lake they found DR.. HARDWOOD,
who said the last he saw of jeffrey he
was going after the pitch and nails. The
men kept on and traced jeffrey 40 miles
Just as they reached the wharf at Ska
quay, the steamer bearing their manager
was proceeding out of tie harbor. When
! we took account of stock there were five
tons of provisions that could not be ac-
counted for, and the gold pans and many
of the picks were missing"
Practically this same story is told by
Mrs, Thomas e. jackson of Manchester,
Me-. another member of the Alaskan ex-
pedition, in letter written from Lake
Bennett to her brother. She also makes
fine accusation that the manager had
personally .profited By receiving from the
Dawson traders a commission of 10 per
cent on supplies purchased for the Maine
party.
william H. Jeffrey, the organizer and
manager of the Maine Klondike expe
dition, was called upon today by the Bos-