With the name of the ship, I began rechecking business records and historical sources. From these leads, I was slowly able to piece together the chronicle of C.H. Lewis.
I immediately discovered why I had been unable to find any information on him. He had purchased a new steamboat in early 1898 and run it aground on the Yukon River in August of that same year. The ship had remained high and dry for a year. Then Lewis left Alaska for Baltimore, where he apparently retired. I had been reading Alaskan newspapers between 1900 and 1910, years that Lewis had not been in Alaska. When I began checking documents and newspapers for 1898 and 1899, I did find quite a few references to the Evans—none to Lewis, however—and the chronicle I established raised as many questions as it answered.
On September 4, 1897, for instance, well before the wreck of the Clara Nevada, Lewis had formed a corporation in West Virginia by the name of the Lewis Klondike Exploration Company. There were five incorporators: Charles H. Lewis, Charles H. Hopkins, James H. Preston, William F. Rogers and Charles W. Lewis, all of whom were from Baltimore. The corporation was capitalized at $399,964, with C.H. Lewis as the largest shareholder with 75 percent of the stock. The corporation had been established “for the purpose of manufacturing, building, equipping, fitting, furnishing, chartering, operating, leasing or owning steam, sail or other boats,” as well as a wide variety of gold-seeking and mineral transport activities.40 This raised an important question. If Lewis, personally, had $300,000 cash to drop into a corporation to run steamboats, what was he doing on the Clara Nevada, a penny-ante tramp steamer? (There is also the possibility that the firm had no money, and that the figure of $399,964 was simply snatched out of thin air for the purposes of forming a corporation and establishing a par value of stock. If this was the case, the choice of $399,964 is an odd choice. More than likely, the dollars are accurate, for it would be close to impossible to form a corporation to do what was proposed with no money.)
Perhaps the answer was in the history of the shipping industry at that moment in time. For the maritime industry, the Klondike gold rush came at exactly the right moment. The Pacific Northwest had been experiencing an economic downturn, which reached its lowest ebb in 1897. Maritime giants were crashing like ancient trees in driving storms, and East Coast firms were moving aggressively into the maritime trade vacuum of the international market. Just as it appeared that the West Coast sea trade was issuing its death rattle, the Excelsior landed, and the industry rose like a phoenix from the ashes of its own pyre. Investment dollars poured into Seattle, and within a year, the Pacific Northwest maritime industry was once again a robust beast.
But the gold rush traffic to Dyea and Skagway was not the only route to the Klondike fields. There was another American sea passage to the Klondike gold fields, and it had its advantages: it was known as the “Rich Man’s Route” because of the cost of travel.
The route started in Seattle but then ran across the North Pacific to Unalaska. The ships would pass through Unimak Pass in the Aleutian chain of islands and into the Bering Sea. They would usually stop at Unalaska, refuel and then steam north to St. Michael and the mouth of the Yukon River. There the passengers would transfer to shallow-bottom river craft and be transported up two thousand miles of Yukon River to Dawson and the gold fields of the Klondike.
However, because the trip was so expensive, many stampeders opted to charter vessels rather than paying for passage and cargo space. With ships renting for $400 a day—and trips lasting as long as ten months if the vessel became frozen in the Yukon River for the winter—many of the Argonauts formed exploration companies to reduce their costs. Usually underfunded, these companies often came apart as fast as they were put together.
Shipping companies were making fortunes on this route, and Lewis undoubtedly realized that this was a market worth tapping. After all, the longer the sea voyage, the more he would make, and a ten-month voyage at $400 a day meant a great deal of profit.
But even with the initial investment, the Evans proved to be too expensive. As a result, more partners had to be added to the Lewis Exploration Company, including a man by the name of William H. Evans, presumably after whom the vessel was named. The company also changed its name to the Evans Klondike Exploration Company. More money was still needed, so twenty-seven smaller investors were added.
The acquisition by Evans must have been fairly soon after the arrival of C.H. Lewis in Seattle since the Master-Carpenter’s Certificate for the completion of the steamer W.H. Evans for the “Lewis-Klondike Expedition Co.” was issued on April 11, 1898.
As an ironic aside, the acquisition of the Evans was exactly two weeks before the wreck report for the Clara Nevada was officially filed. Since the Clara Nevada was registered on January 26 and its certificate was turned in on March 31, it may well have had the shortest life span of any ship in the gold rush flotilla.41
Even with the influx of money from William H. Evans, there was not enough to complete work on the Evans. It left the Ballard shipyards with interior work still to be done. That work was contracted locally but was made exceedingly difficult because many of the lesser contributors to the expanded exploration company were now living onboard, as they had no money to reside elsewhere.
Lewis and his partners apparently figured on making a killing on the steamboat trade. Toward the end of March 1898, he began advertising daily in the Post-Intelligencer. (I could find no such advertisements in the Seattle Times.) “The Lewis-Klondike Expedition Company,” the announcement stated—even though the official name of the defunct business was in error—“will dispatch the FIRST CLASS ENTIRELY NEW STEAMER W. H. Evans For All Points on Yukon River.” The advertisement further stated that the scheduled date of departure was “about April 25th,” with the Evans being in the tow of “Steamer Rival or Protection,” with connections at the mouth of the Yukon with Steamship City of Seattle. This display advertisement ran unchanged through April 22, three days before the Evans was supposed to depart. It did not, in fact, depart until two months later.
But the refitting period was not without incident. On May 25, just as the steamer was about to leave, it was hit with a libel suit. Two litigants, the Washington National Bank of Seattle and C.R. Sanborn, an equipment repair mechanic, asked the court to hold the Evans until $1,262.59 could be paid. The Bank of Seattle wanted $500 it had given to Lewis to pay for wages, and Sanborn wanted his pay for equipment repair. Lewis must have been able to raise the money quickly for the Evans, as no court order held her in port.
Ironically, while Lewis was fretting over the libel against the Evans, his former ship, the Eugene, was being sued. R.J. Young and W.D. Wallan, two former passengers, were suing the Willamette & Columbia River Towing Company and the Yukon Transportation Company for their money back.42 Both suits appeared in the same paper on the same page-one column.
Finally, on June 20, the Evans departed with the largest fleet ever to have left Seattle for the Klondike.43 Four ocean-going steamers loaded with cargo and passengers left towing twelve river steamers “identical from stem to stern in equipment, machinery and decking.” The Evans and The Northern Lights were being towed by the Noyo. Due to some last-minute changes in the towing arrangements, the Evans was eventually paired with the Alfred J. Beach.
It must have been a strange-looking flotilla, even for the gold rush traffic. The ships in tow “had been planked up, snow-plow fashion” to prevent waves from washing [their] main deck[s]” and had sack coal on deck for the journey. The trip was expected to take twenty-five days, with the convoy hugging the shoreline of Canada and Alaska rather than risking the open waters of the north Pacific and Bering Sea.44
The fact that the Evans was being towed also opened a loophole for an extra bit of profit. Government inspectors would not allow passengers on a river steamer to go across the open ocean, but since the river steamer was being pulled by an ocean steamship, it was perfectly legal to carry passengers. It was very dangerous, but it was still, nevertheless, legal.
The
re were many that were appalled at this example of greed on behalf of the steamship companies. Even the Post-Intelligencer, which was not known for its enthusiasm in dissuading passengers from using Seattle-based steamers, noted the danger in this practice. Editorially, in a news article, the paper suggested that the passengers on the Evans were surely those “whose anxiety to reach the land of gold has overwhelmed their judgment and caused them to take the desperate chances incident to such a voyage.”45
Unfortunately, the ship did not leave its bad luck on the dock in Seattle. The Evans slipped her tow lines three times between Seattle and Port Angeles. Then, shortly after leaving Port Angeles, she was damaged at the mouth of the Straits of Juan de Fuca and requested to be towed back to the dock. The master of the tow ship, the Noyo, Captain Hanson, refused to return the Evans to port. This, Lewis later claimed in a suit, was because the officers of the Noyo, “in collusion with the officers and owners of the Beach,” intended to run and therefore damage the Evans so badly it would break up, thus “lightning the load of the Noyo and hasten her arrival at St. Michael while at the same time nominally performing her contract.”
Bad weather, however, forced the Noyo to seek shelter herself at Port Angeles. But the imbroglio was far from over. Once ashore, the master of the Noyo attempted to have the Evans declared unseaworthy. This failed, and Lewis’s complaints resulted in the removal of Captain Hanson. Unfortunately, Hanson’s replacement, Captain Edgett, turned out to be just as disreputable.46
Long before the Evans even arrived in Alaskan waters, disaster struck again.47 On July 21, the Post-Intelligencer reported that the Evans and four other river steamers had gone to the bottom. Later, a more accurate picture was reported. The Noyo had been pulling two river steamers, the Evans and the Alfred J. Beach, when a violent storm came up the morning of July 2. The Beach, the last ship in tow, took on water in seas in which the waves were so high that they were cresting over the snowplow arrangement on the stern, “sweeping her main deck and carrying off portions of the light deck house.”
Unfortunately, the Beach was so poorly built that it was surprising she made it as far as she did. Five hundred miles off shore, her “hog chains parted” and her “boiler went through down through the bottom of the ship.” (The Beach was not the only ship in such poor condition. Of the thirty-two ships that left Seattle in the great flotilla, only eight made St. Michael. They averaged four knots, hardly a speed to inspire confidence in passengers and had “troubles of all kinds.”48)
By 3:00 a.m., it was apparent that the Beach was going under, so the passengers abandoned ship and boarded the Evans. Several hours later, the Evans showed signs of breaking up. The Noyo then turned and ran toward shore where she beached the badly leaking Evans at the Tlingit village of Howkan, south of Wrangell, on the Fourth of July.
The sad state of affairs was still far from over. When the passengers from the two wrecks boarded the Noyo, they discovered that the steamer’s deck was so stacked with cargo that the vessel could easily turn turtle at any moment. Worse, the hatches had not been closed upon leaving Seattle, and in the case of a storm such as the one they had just encountered, the ship might very well fill with water and sink. According to the Post-Intelligencer on July 22, the passengers rioted and began throwing freight overboard until an armed officer of the Noyo “put a stop to the trouble.”
Now Lewis wanted vengeance for being left beached. He probably also wanted back the $40,000 he had paid to get the Evans to St. Michael. While the Evans was being repaired, Lewis returned to Seattle. There, on August 20, he and his company filed a “sensation libel for heavy damages” against the Noyo, charging the master, H.W. Edgett, with “having deliberately attempting to wreck the Evans in order to nominally perform the Noyo’s towing contract without in fact doing so.”
In the suit for $24,000 in damages, Lewis claimed that the Noyo was contracted to take the Evans along a route that hugged the coastline. The master of the Noyo, however, “in collusion with her officers with the officers and owners of the Alfred J. Beach,” attempted to take both steamers “to the open ocean and directly across the North Pacific Ocean to Unimak Pass…and thence to St. Michael.”49
While Lewis must have been furious, it is ironic that the master of the Evans was suing the Noyo in August 1898 for an action that was almost identical to that of which he had performed just a year earlier with the Eugene. Perhaps Lewis had learned his lesson. Or perhaps he had no choice but to sue for damages to repair to the Evans, which had been badly damaged by the foolhardy actions of the master of the Noyo.
Further, in the suit, Lewis stated that he had protested the change in direction of travel but had been ignored. When the Noyo was about one hundred miles offshore, the Evans “signaled that she was in great danger.” The response of the skipper of the Noyo was to demand that Lewis “sign a release of the Noyo from all liabilities from her contract and pay compensation for towing her to a safe anchorage.” When Lewis refused to sign, the captain of the Noyo stated he would “tow the W.H. Evans to sea until she sank.”
Four hours later, the Noyo had no choice but to turn back because of heavy weather. Lewis was approached again to sign the release, and again, he refused. Then the Noyo cut the Evans loose and refused to tow her any further. The situation was complicated by the sinking of the Alfred J. Beach. Unburdened with any steamers to tow, the Noyo arrived, alone, in St. Michael on July 16.
Back in Seattle, considering the Evans/Noyo story to be one of those strange-but-true episodes in the saga of the steamboat frontier, the Post-Intelligencer listed it that way. “Strange Tale of the Seas,” the headline blared. The paper was so convinced that Lewis was telling the truth, it also ran the follow-up line as “Noyo’s Captain Charged with Deep-Dyed Villainy.”
Though the Evans was beached, Lewis swore that he would repair the vessel and head north again by himself. He and his crew “rigged her with a stern wheel” and repaired the ship so that they could be northbound by July 5. When the steamer had been repaired, Lewis set out for the mouth of the Yukon River some two thousand miles away, alone, in some of the most treacherous waters of the world.
But the ship’s bad luck continued to plague her. Because she was forced to hug the coastline, the trip was much longer than expected. As a result, coal was in very short supply. How Lewis expected to fuel the ship is unclear. If he figured that he could use wood, he was in for a surprise. To this day, there is a lamentable but true expression that there is “a woman behind every tree” in the Aleutians. (The Aleutians are famous for their dearth of both women and trees.) But, as the steamer chose its route close to shore, she stumbled onto two coaling locations without foreknowledge of their existence.
On July 27, 1898, the Evans took on twenty-five tons of coal at Chignik on the southern shore of the Aleutians and wrote the Alaska Packers Association a check for $750, probably knowing full well that the check would bounce. On August 11, 1898, the steamer took on an additional twenty-five tons of coal from the Alaska Packers Association, this time in Nushagak on the northern side of the Aleutians. Once again, the coal was purchased with a rubber check.
According to the Post-Intelligencer, the Evans reached St. Michael on August 30. Here they took on a load for the Alaska Exploration Company and proceeded toward the Yukon River and Dawson. This fit with the data recorded by the census taker, as both C.H. Lewis and his brother claimed they had entered Alaska in August 1898. Then the Evans headed for the Yukon River, trying to make it as far into the watershed as possible before it was frozen in for the winter.
Bad luck, however, still followed C.H. Lewis and the Evans. Lewis steamed by the mouth of the Yukon River without recognizing it. Mistaking a landmark, he headed up a shallow arm of the mighty river and ended up on a silt bar. The steamship Louise, having made a similar mistake of her own, was coming down Kwikpak Pass and saw the Evans in trouble. The Louise backed away before she grounded herself as well. Fortunately for both captains, they were not too deep into the Yuko
n Delta. With the next tide, they both rose with the tide out of the silt. The Evans backed out to sea to find the correct entrance to the Yukon River.50
The Yukon, however, was not a kind river to steamer traffic. “It’s the dirtiest river in the world,” Captain Peter M. Anderson, a seasoned Yukon River steamboat pilot, was quoted in an interview with the Post-Intelligencer. “You never know where you are at. There is not enough water in the first place, and the sand bars seem to move around in your way. The riverboats go aground, break their [two] chains and get terribly out of line.”
Going aground was a constant danger. If the steamboat went aground going upstream, the cargo was sold at a great loss. This lightened the vessel and often allowed the steamer to float free of the river bottom. But if the steamer was empty and headed downstream when it struck the sandbar, it was considered lost forever. It would have no cargo to unload, and unless it could float free before the ice came, it was doomed. By “May of the next year,” noted Captain H.L. Adams, “the ice run and breakup would [have demolished] the boat, and there would not [have been] a plank left.”
Though the Evans was able to make it to the actual mouth of the Yukon, her luck did not change once she entered the watershed. She made it as far as the Dall River and spent the winter of 1898 there. The next spring, she proceeded upriver. Unfortunately she lacked the power to proceed, and at Circle, the Evans turned its cargo over to another steamer, then turned around and started back downriver.
But now the weather conspired against her. There was record water level that year. In June, the Yukon was twenty-four feet above low water. In other places, the water was reported to be sixty-two feet above the low water line. In Dawson, the streets were flooded, and passage from one side of town to the other required a boat.51
As the water receded, it created problems for the river steamers. By mid-July, Fred Seigel of Mount Vernon, on the Hattie I. Phelps, reported that the water level was so low that “we had two pilots and four siwashes and we were constantly bumping sand bars. The bars are constantly changing and navigation is therefore very hard.” Seigel also reported that there were a number of steamboats stuck in the river, including the Seattle No. l, which was “hard and fast on a bar with poor hope of getting off,” as well as the Weare and Bella, which had been “pushed on the banks by ice.”
The Clara Nevada: Gold, Greed, Murder and Alaska's Inside Passage Page 7