Item #3830 [Diary and Correspondence of Alaskan Prospector and Miner George Wiswell, Kept During the 1896 Kenai Peninsula Gold Rush]. Alaska, George E. Wiswell.
[Diary and Correspondence of Alaskan Prospector and Miner George Wiswell, Kept During the 1896 Kenai Peninsula Gold Rush]
[Diary and Correspondence of Alaskan Prospector and Miner George Wiswell, Kept During the 1896 Kenai Peninsula Gold Rush]

[Diary and Correspondence of Alaskan Prospector and Miner George Wiswell, Kept During the 1896 Kenai Peninsula Gold Rush]

[Cook Inlet, Ak.]: 1896. Pocket diary, [64]pp. of entries; two "Notices of Location" for Wiswell’s claims in the Turnagain Arm Mining District, with two related Power of Attorney documents; a manuscript letter addressed to Wiswell at "Hope City, Cook’s Inlet, Alaska;" and a receipt for Wiswell's return passage to Seattle; all dated "1896." Very good. Item #3830

A historically-significant collection of materials documenting George E. Wiswell's experiences during the little-known Kenai Peninsula Gold Rush (1895-98), which started a year earlier than the famous Klondike Gold Rush and, in some ways, became its forerunner. Gold had been found in the Kenai River already in 1849, but major interest in the area started only in the 1880s, with more discoveries in the neighboring creeks. The 1894 gold discoveries in the Bear and Palmer Creeks flowing to the Turnagain Arm led to the rush of local prospectors to the Resurrection Creek basin. The major discovery on the Mills Creek in 1895 caused the next year’s largest stampede of the time to the easily accessible Kenai Peninsula.

George E. Wiswell joined the 1896 stampede. Originally from East Machias in Maine, he travelled in April 1896 to the Turnagain Arm on board the steamer Utopia from Seattle. Together with another steamer, the Lakme, the Utopia had difficulties with proceeding up the inlet full of floating ice and was stranded for about two weeks, with the rations for the passengers significantly cut. After his arrival at the mouth of Resurrection Creek where a new mining camp named “Hope” had just been established, Wiswell prospected his claims on the Resurrection Creek and its tributary Fox Creek and made two trips to the Canyon and Mills Creeks’ basins where he worked on several other claims. His gold prospecting turned out disappointing, and he left for Seattle on board the schooner Sophia Sutherland on August 26. His diary accurately records the events of practically every day from April 4 through September 13, 1896, covering his voyages on the steamships, trips to the Resurrection, Fox, Juneau, Kenai, Mills, Canyon Creeks, and gold prospecting. Concise but full of content, the entries create a captivating picture of the life of an Alaskan gold prospector. Writing with numerous spelling mistakes and abbreviations, Wiswell talks about his gold panning, prospecting with a rocker, building a dam, going on strenuous hikes along rough mountainous trails, accidents and thefts in mining camps, and more. He regularly notes the weather (“plesent,” cold, rainy), shooting game for food and the menu of his meals, annoying “misquitos” and “moos flys,” other noteworthy events (an earthquake, the first white woman in the camp, a $42 dollar gold nugget he was shown). His entry for July 4 contains the familiar refrain of an Alaska prospector: “Abandoned the crick at 10 a.m. No good...." His entry for June 11 mentions seventy-five prospectors leaving Hope on a steamer, writing “lotts disgusted & going back.” Separate pages of the diary contain Wiswell’s list of supplies which included among others “2 cloth bags, 1 hunting knife, knives & forks, 6 pairs socks, cheese cloth, claim bills, buttons, pack straps, rubber goods, 1 tent, 1 pairs overalls...beans, bacon, sugar, salt, peaches, pepper, rice, milk, apples, coffee, tea, flower”, and more. The diary also houses several dried and pressed Alaskan flowers inserted between the leaves. One is captioned “picked on the sumitt [sic!] 7.000 feet above sea level, July 26, 1896, Cook’s Inlet, Alaska.” There is also a ptarmigan feather Wiswell found on a “sumitt” during his hike.

Also included in the archive are two hand-written “Notice of Location” filings, each for acres of placer mining ground in the Turnagain Arm Mining District, and two hand-written notes appointing John Newland to act as Wiswell’s "true and lawful attorney to locate and record any placer ground or quartz load that he may see fit so to do." Wiswell’s August 26, 1896 receipt for paying the amount of $27.50 "For passage to Seattle on Schr. S. Sutherland" is also included here, along with a three-page letter to Wiswell from his nephew which was mailed in an envelope addressed to "George E. Wiswell, Hope City, Cook’s Inlet, Alaska." This letter reads, in part: "You are certainly up among the polar bears and polar regions! Perhaps you might find the north pole and bring that down when you return! But without joking you are certainly 'roughing it.' We all hope that all the snow about you there will be the peculiar treasure for which you are seeking so persistently. The Republican national Convention has adjoined with a firm platform for gold, and McKinley and Hobart on the presidential ticket. People seem on the whole pleased, and the fight turned out much as was expected. Can’t you make a little sketch of your country and show us where you are. Cook’s Inlet on the map looks like this: [a small hand-drawn map]. Perhaps you can correct the map if wrong and locate your claim approximately...."

“Several thousand men, some state the number as high as 3,000 are said to have landed at Tyonok en route for Turnagain Arm. This was the banner year on Canyon Creek, 327 men being engaged in mining its gravels during the summer. A second rush into the Turnagain Arm field took place in 1898. This was partly an overflow from the Yukon stampede. A majority of the men who first entered the field (1894-95), as well as a few of those who took part in the stampedes of 1896 and 1898, were experienced miners. On the other hand, most of the later comers were inexperienced in any kind of mining and many were scarcely able to take care of themselves. It is doubtful if there is any other part of Alaska where time and money have been wasted in a more enthusiastically ignorant manner than some places in the Kenai Peninsula. The field did not justify the presence of any such numbers as came, and disappointment was the only result possible for most of them…” (Moffit, F. Mineral Resources of Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Gold Fields of the Turnagain Arm Region (Washington, 1906), p.9).

Overall a unique private archive with a vivid first-hand account of gold prospecting during the 1896 stampede year of the Kenai Peninsula Gold Rush. Born in East Machias, Maine, in the family of a shipbuilder, George E. Wiswell went to Alaska to seek fortune during the Kenai Peninsula Gold Rush (1895-98) and prospected there from May to September, 1896. Apparently, he never returned east and never married. In the 1900s-1910s, he lived in Washington State (for some period with his nephew Thomas Wiswell, whose letter is a part of the archive), and died in Los Angeles in 1938. Further excerpts from the diary available upon request.

Price: $6,750.00