The Cordova daily times., 1917-10-11
ALASKA P|ONE EER SAYS HE |S
 LONESOME

James Grey. now at the Home in Sitka. is a typical pioneer. He has | been there for four years, having gone | from Cordova in December, 1913. There are many others like him in Alaska, and the incidents of their lives | would make an Interesting book.
 James NJ. Grey was born in CoIum- | bia county, Missouri, May %, tS42. He 1 left there about the beginning of the Civil war and went to Nebraska City. near Council Bluffs, Iowa. He left there g few years later with four yoke of cattle bound for Fort Bridges. Utah. In the fall of 'G3 he left Fort Bridges and went to Salt Lake city. arriving
 there by horseback. He remained there that winter. and then with a six
 mule team he drove to Logan. a small
 town in Utah. and there loaded with
 butter. eggs and other produce. and
 started for Montana. He next landed
 in Virginia City, and finally in Alder Gulch. Here he sold his team and
 went prospecting. From here he went to the place where Helena now stands. and later went to Confederate Gulch
 and staked a claim. From there he
 went to Silver creek prospecting. and got into a fracas with some Indians and received a bullet in his leg. leav-
 ing a bad wound.
 After recovering he went back to Confederate Gulch. That was in 1865.
 This time he and his partner staked
 claim that they sold for S10,OO0 in
 gold. He wandered back to Helena,
 and bought six yoke of cattle, went to
 Fort Benton and continued to freight
 until the railroad came and put him
 out of business.
 When he left Fort Benton he con.
 cluded to try British Columbia. and Handed in East Kootenay; from there
 he went to Slocan and with six others started for the Peace river; stopped
 for a while at Ashcroft railroad sta
 tion on the c. P. R. Here they outfit
 ted for Peace river. Afterward he and his associates concluded not to go to Peace river and turned off toward
 the Stikeen river and landed at Tele- graph creek. They were on the trail all winter between Telegraph and Tes- lin lake. Here they prospected for some time. This was in the spring of '97. Later they drifted down the Yu- kOn to Pelley river, and from there down to LOuse Town, one mile above 1 Dawson. Here he met old Captain ]. | J. Healey. Tried to get some grub | from him. but failed. Later he went l down to Forty-mile to make a grub | stake, but did nothing all summer. In | 1898 he boiled back to Dawson, met Al | Williams and then went back to | Chicken creek. He could not find any | thing and went up to Dawson. In | 1899 he went back to Forty-mile again and worked the summer of '99 for | wages. Rocked that summer on Napol- | con bar; then back to Dawson again, and went to work for Frank Morrison, on 76 below on Dominion. This fall | he went to Tenakee Hot Springs and remained there nine weeks. Then he went to Juneau, and from there to Se- attle. Couldn't stand that and came back to Katalla, where he remained one summer. That fall he came to Cordova and remained here until he went to Sitka, where he now is.
 That's his history. If you would write the incidents of the life of any other old-timer in Alaska it would read much the same. What a hard rough life to lead without any success. He tried, but fortune did not favor him. He is now an inmate of the Home for aged prospectors. He asks us to an swer his letter, for he says he is lone some" That word expresses the feel ings of many of the men who have in Alaska and found 1t not The life of several of the mem- bers of the United States senate, for the first twenty years was much the same as Uncle Jimmie's," but fortune at that time favored them and they went to the top. Some must fail. others win. Nevertheless a United 1 States senator killed himself and left a note that he did the rash act be- cause he was Lonesome" Whats the