Alaska sentinel., 1905-02-09
THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE,
Life and Adventures GCI
 Rufus SSlverter.
Samuel Sylvester, in Lewiston lMoinr
 Daily sum-

SGi4IO4l liltt ~ lSN ' Itt4S IINSi liN p1 came Of age, to engage in the min ing business. This was in the days before conditions as to the mining country and the many difficulties that attended pioneer life, were well known. This was at a time when a prospector stood in need of a good physique, great courage and self reliance, time when all miners carried a gun and the man that shot first might sometimes have a chance to explain afterwards. MT. sylvester was q man that lacked nothing that other men had to ii them for such a life-self-reliant. brave, kind-hearted and above ali .Ise, honorable in everything; a man perhaps as well fitted for a life such as was before him, as
 ould be found the world over.
 MT. Sylvester followed mining, lirectly and indirectly, for fifteen ears two years in California and
 nen as a prospector he followed or ed the little bands of gold hunters
 nat sought gold among the great mountains that led to the North vest. So, in a few years, he with a little band of adyenturers, locat- I in what is called the Cassiar district of British Columbia. Here vas found gold in such quantities
 nat camp was begun and Mr. sylvester was chosen to go after the provisions and mail. He took with him on this trip nine Indians. and after many weeks of travel in tls wild, unknown country he ,anl the Indians, as well, returned bear
 1g burdens equal to their own
 eight, or even more.
 Mr. Sylvester was a man six fee, md one inch in height, straight as n arrow, weighed one hundred and seventy-fye pounds and could
 arry forty-fve pounds more than
 ne average man.
 This camp soon became camp )f note and the coming year found
 'Yeral thousand men working in ne gold fields of the Cassiar. Mr.
 ylvester owned a claim here that
 reduced the largest pan of gold nat was ever found in these dig
 lngs. In one pan of dirt 62 oz. of old were taken out by John Fin.
 tyson, Scotchman by birth, who
 still living, although several VT, )ast three score years and ten. h
 Hing me about the find the old
 lan said: We lads had left
 builder that we thought we would 'ot try to move, but it was so much in the way I says to the lads, we 'etter move it away and the lads avs John, you clean the dirt away
 nd we'll try and move it. And I found in the bedrock a seam few
 jches wide and only few inches in length, filled with gold The
 rst pan l took out contained G. 'nnces of gold, and I found in all that day, over one hundred ounces of gold around the boulder" John is spending the winter of 1904 , in Victoria, B. c.
 Mr. Sylvester took out the gold dust and the mail for the camp for some years. After time the min CTS asked the government to look after the mails. Mr. Sylvestcr's Did was accepted and for some v1s he was in the service of the gov 4rnment making a trip of 3SO or tlmost 400 miles, nine times a year ;amping wherever night found him passing many nights in deep snows with at times, in the extreme cold weather, the thermometer running IS low as 50 deg below zero. h he spring and fall he had to ford rivers where the waters were icv old, uncertain and dangerous te he inexperienced. Along this trai n the wilderness, the only time the ,ound of a human voice broke the Solitude @as when some Indian hunters came at the season when he fur of the beaver or marten was prime. This man, who was born II land which had all that civili- zation promises for happiness, we
 nd taking upon himself all that j.is land must mean to the soli- ary voyager on liie's trail, this
 i'd uninhabited land with unsta- '.e climate, where the will beast. he bird, the cataract and the lountain slides made the only sounds to wake a dreamer from h.- -leep, After many years of this life he commenced trading with the indians. Some of the maps, made recent years of the region south Aast of Dawson, B. C., show his name in places, bearing the names of "Sylvester's Lower Post" "Syl- "ester's Post" "Svlvcster's Land-