Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct 19, 1900, p.2

BROOKLYN MAN BACK FROM GOLD FIELDS
William E. Danforth Tells of His Many Interesting Experiences in Cape Nome.
4,000 PEOPLE STRANDED THERE
There is Plenty of Gold in the Region, but All the Property Is Claimed

A bronzed, robust, broad shouldered man of middle height sat in the drug store of Thomas A. Beard at 168 Rutledge street, in the Eastern District, for an hour this fore-noon and told an Eagle reporter a weird, even entrancing, story of two years’ life at Cape Nome—the great gold mining settlement on the Arctic shore of Alaska. The man was William E. Danforth, who up till two years ago lived at 85 Driggs avenue. He had lived in Greenpoint for thirteen years and is well known in the Eastern District. He arrived from Cape Nome Wednesday, coming overland from Seattle. From Nome to Seattle he traveled by the steamer Kimball, the voyage taking altogether about thirty-five days.

“I am 44 years of age and started for Alaska April 2, 1898,” said Mr. Danforth. “I traveled overland to San Francisco, where I took the brigantine Harry G., which had gone around the Horn. There were on board thirty-one men from Brooklyn and Manhattan, one party representing each the Continental Mining Company and the Manhattan Mining Company. We started May 24 bound for Keokuk, about 600 miles up the Yukon River on the north bank. At St. Michaels, sixty miles from the mouth of the Yukon, we took the river boat, but in October, at Andrefaly, the Russian mission station, 200 miles up, the engine broke down and we were towed ashore. We had made preparations to stay there all the winter when the stampede for Nome began. Some Indians brought news to the Alaska Commercial Company that there we gold at Nome and they sent a squaw man—a white man named Blatchford, who was married to an Indian, with a dog team to report.

“Blatchford came back and reported that gold could be found at Nome under the grass roots. Ninety-five of the company’s men thereupon started across country at once with dog teams. Esquimaux dogs were soon at a premium, some of them selling as high as $75 or $100. Our company went down the river again to St. Michael’s, where we secured dog teams and followed the north shore. The temperature was then about 42 degrees below and generally unbearable unless great precautions were taken.

“An did you find gold when you reached Nome?” the reporter asked.

“We found nearly all the property staked, either by power of attorney or by individual men as squatters,” Mr. Danforth replied. “Some of it had been staked by the Alaska Commercial Company men and by people from St. Michaels who were nearer than we. We managed to secure seventeen claims well inland. I did not fare very well myself, but I am going back again next spring. It is worth a man’s while to go there for the experience, even if he gets nothing. But only one out of a hundred ought to go. They can-not stand the rigors of the climate. But Nome is all right. There is plenty of gold there yet, although litigation has tied it up to some extent this year. Laborers this year were getting 50 cents an hour. Last year they were getting about $2. On the beach last year individual men were taking out as much as $250 worth of gold in a single day. But, as the beach was dug late, a portion of it was spoiled, for the water ran into the holes made and, the gold being almost as fine as dust, floated away on the surface of the water.”

“Yes, I can tell you of some good finds. A man named Johnston came in May, 1899, and staked a bench claim in the Madelaine mine. He ultimately got a man named Ericson from Unger, one of the smaller Aleutian Islands, to stake alongside of him, and every twenty-four hours, with only two rockers, they brought out 300 ounces. At the end of fourteen days, and after they had taken out $75,000 worth of gold, they sold their claim for $165,000.

“I don’t know what the population of Nome is, but last summer there were thousands of tents along the beach. These people had to build houses with four feet turf walls when the winter came. By the way, when the census taker came I remember he took a photograph of the house we lived in.

“There was an epidemic of typhoid fever last summer. There were people dying so fast that we could hardly handle them. There was also some smallpox. Uncle Sam will have to bring out 4,000 from there this winter. They are people who are broke. We met the transports going for them when we were on the way home.

“By the way, there are now a great many women in Nome. Some of the men who brought their wives there, made the greatest mistake of their lives. When they reached Nome they found that having to go far inland, perhaps 400 miles, to stake, they could not leave their wives in Nome. Neither could they take them with them.”

“Amusement during the long nights? Well, we sometimes had fights in the cabins to pass the time. Sometimes there are stampedes to claims inland several hundreds of miles. The principal articles of food are canned meats, bacon and beans. But, as I said, there is still plenty of gold in Nome, and I return there next spring.”