Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-08-14
HE TALKS OF ALASKA
w. Fl. McNair is Interested in Terri
tory Where He Was Once
Deputy U. S. Marshal.

Hal McNair was much interested
this week in two dispatches which
were going the rounds of the city
press. One of them related to the
pardoning of John Fitzpatrick from
the federal prison at Leavenworth
where he had served fifteen years Of
life sentence for murder in Skag-
way Alaska. Hal was deputy United
States Marshal there at the time and
took Fitzpatrick and eleven other
prisoners to San Quentin to begin
their respective sentences.
Fitzpatrick and an ex-convict by
name of Corbett waylaid a gambler
for the purpose of robbery. Corbett
hid y the loft of the gamblers cab
in and Fitzpatrick in the brush out
side and waited for the gambler to
come home late at night. The gam
bler saw Corbett peering from the
loft and a gun fight started as soon
as he stepped into the cabin. Fitz-
patrick came out of the brush and
shot the gambler dead.
Corbett had friends while Fitzpat-
rick, mere boy who had gone to
Alaska as hauler on one of the
boats, had none. AS a result Cor
bett got off with ten years while
Fitzpatrick got life sentence.
Another item that greatly inter
ested Mr.. McNair was the following,
which we clip from the Oregonian
of August first: Joseph Macdon-
aid, who has just been acquitted of
the murder of N. G. Jones at the
Treadwell mine eleven years ago.
will go from here to Washington to
remain there indefinitely pending
restoration of order in Mexico Mac
donald is general manager of the
Consolidated Mining & Milling COM
pany at Guanajuato, Mexico, which
is said to employ 1000 men in nor
NAL times"
Mr.. McNair was we'll acquainted
with Macdonald and others connected
with the case. Jones was a religious
fanatic who bounded Macdonald day
after day in an effort to force him to
close the Treadwell mine Sundays.
He finally told Macdonald that he
had vision in which the Lord told
him to kill Macdonald if he did not
close the mines.
AS Macdonald stepped from his
residence one morning Jones was pa
trolling the sidewalk in front of the
house carrying a gun-having been
there for several hours. Jones and
Macdonald were both big men but
Macdonald was crippled up with
rheumatism.
He did not want to kill Jones and
when the gun fight started he mere
ly tried to cripple him-being a
crack pistol shot He shot Jones
through both arms but the fanatic
still kept coming until Macdonald
put two bullets through his chest
from which he died soon after. Mac
donald was exonerated by the cor
oner's jury and the courts as then
constituted.
Nothing further was done in the
matter until early in the current year
after Macdonald had gone to Mexico
as manager of a big mine there.
Some of his enemies in Alaska then
got busy and had him arrested and
placed in a Mexican prison. Failing
in their efforts to have him extra
dited Macdonald agreed to pay all ex-
penses of extradition and return for
trial, which he did with the result
above stated,
Mr.. McNair saw some of the stir
ring times \of Alaska and when he
can be induced to talk he tells some
very interesting tales of the notori-
Gus "Soapy' Smith and his gang of
outlaws as we'll as other noted char
acters of that day. But for the fact
that he was in Sitka on business at
the time Mr., McNair would undoubt-
edIy have been in at the killing of
Ssapy Smith when he and his gang
of dozen thugs tried to break up a
meeting of citizens which was dis
cussing ways and means for ridding
the town of him ahd his vicious Asso-
ciates.
The meeting was held on the wharf
the approach to which was guard
| ed, By a civil engineer named. Reid
4 and one other. When Smith and his
gang approached Reid blocked the
way and Smith shot. Reid returned
his fire and both were killed, The
result was that the entire gang was
railroaded to the penitentiary and
Skagway was cleaned up.