Person:Samuel Harvey (15)

Samuel was involved in the Alaskan Gold Rush, and wrote several letters home to Henry County, IN:

SITKA ALASKA TUESDAY MAY 12, (18)96

My Dear Bro Eli:

Your most welcome letter of April 17th came to hand yesterday. I met it here on its way to Yakutat. I am glad to know that you are well and in good spirits and that everybody seems to be enjoying better health. I have two letter from home-the first word I have had since I left but I did not expect to hear from you often, but hope that you have time to write occasionally. I was grossly misinformed about the climate about Yakutat-for this season-and not much either-2 years since they had no snow atall. Last year only 10 inches. This year it was 10 feet deep on the beach and 7 ft when we arrived. We could do nothing but eat our grub-I sold my Tools and remaining grub borrowed $2.50 of my partner and landed here May 5th broke. I would have went directly to Cook's inlet but did not have money enough by $20, to get there. The placer field at the Inlet is a large one. Just discovered last season and just the right kind for a good one. The gold is coarse and rough, indicating that it has not been moved much from it's original home. I have seen nuggets the size of a hickory nut down to the size of wheat and there is some very very rich quartz near by that kind of nuggets. But!: it's worth a man's life to go and get it. The mosquitoes would eat a horse bodily in a day. One must keep the head and face covered with netting-day and night wear gloves to keep them off-they lodge so thickly on the netting that you must rake them off to see to work-they are a species that seem to hatch out of the snow. Soon as it, the weather, begins to turn warm-if you will consult your map and follow from the lower end of the (Unalaska) Aleution Islands-up through the Inlet, The Coffin river-to the Yukon with it's tributaries You can scan, probably, the richest mineral belt in the world and surely the hardest one known to prospect. Many men have come out with fortunes, others disappointed, and still others do no good at any thing, wherever you put them. Many things strange to me here and many things that I did not expect to see and some things I did expect are not what I pictured. Alaska is in some respects an old, old, country, as shown by the marks of past generations of Indians & Rusians. Old block houses, forts, cannon, wrecked vessels-old iron tt (crosses?). Yet Alaska is new, a regular frontier, guarded by what seems to me, an unnecessary number of Uncle Sam's Navy & Soldiers, I have seen no less than a dozen men of war & Large revenue ships-besides the regulars on guard duty at the Forts. The Indians are a source of wonder and amusement. Their attempts at civilization are ludicrous-yet many of them make a good stagger and talk fair English. I had the pleasure of getting into 40 or 50 of their houses last week. A N.Y. man on his way home from Kodiac-was buying curio-to take east and sell-moccosons-bead work-tomhawks-knives-baskets-fur garments-bone-ivory-wood-copper-silver-gold-trinkets useful and ornamental. They dug up old Chief and Doctor Toggery and outfits valued at four to six hundred dollars which was inspected and one M.d. outfit priced at $250 was purchased for $8.00. He kept on trying to buy a squaw untill finally one was offered Him and He had to back out. We are camped in a comfortable cabin close to the bay. Back of us is a narrow cedar swamp and a grave yard-then a mountain, straight up. The sun rises from behind it-It is dawn at 2 ocl good daylight at three. I saw a man walking along reading a newspaper at 9 ocl eve-The stores seem to close in the middle of the afternoon-and open awfully late in the morning-by and bye we will have no night-only twilight-The sun will rise and set nearly North. The northern lights have already appeared and will grow as the Season advances. A british man of War has droped anchor over there in the bay. Govenor Blakely has boarded her and they are firing a Salute of ten guns-Sunday 18th. Took a stroll up Indian river-jumped up a deer, and how it did run and show its cotton. Heard a dutch sailor sing "climbing up the ladder" which tickled me clear through-Heard some Indians sing "sweet by and bye" in Siwash.

(A note at the top of Samuel Harvey's letter stated: "Do not advise any friends to come to Alaska this year.")

Letters from the Harvey collection at The Henry County Museum and Research Library in New Castle, IN.

1. ↑ History of Henry County Indiana- 1884, Chicago: Inter-state Publishing Co.
   Page 760.