The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-08-20
BACK FROM CAPE NOME.
Brother of Representative Kennedy

Brother of Representative Kennedy in
] Derby-Talks of the Gold Fields
Says That the Paying Claims Have
Long Ago Been Worked and the
Stories of Fabulous Quantities of the
Yellow Metal Are Untrue-Many Peo-
pie Allured to the Place Are Des-
titute.
j. S. Kennedy, a brother of Repre-
sentative A. X, Kennedy, is in town.
Mr.. Kennedy has just returned from
the Cape Nome gold fields to which
place he was attracted along with
thousands Of others by the alluring re-
ports of rich finds, which were sent
out by lucky prospectors and were cir
culated and exaggerated by the steam
ship companies which wanted to at
tract travel to that section. Like thou
sands of others Mr.. Kennedy failed
to strike gold in paying quantities.
He left Seattle the latter part of May
and reached Cape Nome toward the
middle of June, after the ship had bat
tied with the ice, which had not then
gone out of Behring sea. He had been
told by presumably responsible parties
that there was gold in amazing guam
titles along the Cape Nome coast for.
eighty miles, but upon arriving at the
point he found that the evidences of
gold We're confined to a much shorter
strip.
Last winter there were about 5000
people in the Nome district, but the
thorough advertising that had been
done completely filled the streets of
Seattle with people anxious to reach
the field early in the spring All the
boats Were crowded when the first trips
were made and before Mr. Kennedy
left he says it was estimated that there
We're between 10000 and $4,000 people
in and around the town.
He says the sights that one sees
passing up and down the beach tell
the story of disappointment and blast
ed hopes. Many men with money put
SO much faith in the reports that they
invested in machinery of all kinds for
working claims, and now all along the
beach may be seen the machinery,
thrown up there where it was landed,
and practically abandoned. Some of
the machinery, which was taken up.
was never unloaded, but that which
was has never been set up and is SIM
ply rusting away. There has been and
is now no use FOR It,
The gold that is found along the
coast is very fine and the quantities
are so small that a man can barely
make days wages That is not suf-
ficient for the average gold hunter, who
to work a claim unless he can
get considerably more than a days
wages out of 1t.
Mr. Kennedy says the best paying
claims were all taken up long before
the rush from the states reached Nome.
coming down from Dawson
City, over the ice, got there early in
May and had most of them worked out.
but Notwithstanding that fact the nu-
merous stories which have come in con-
corning fabulous finds have not been
true He Judged from from what he
learned on the ground that there were
no great paying claims found.
He says that the people at Nome
are to-day in serious condition. 1t
is estimated that there are between
5000 and 100000 destitute and, as every
thin gs very high, there is little chance
for these people to improve their con-
dition. Many people who went to the
gold fields spent every dollar they had
to get there and when they ran up
against hard luck there they were in a
bad way. They have no money to get
home and he thinks the suggestion that