Dawson City - A History of Growing Pains 1896 - 1906
As prepared by Dawson Historian, John Gould.
THE YEAR 1899
SCHOOLS
A letter to the Klondike Nugget in November 1898, stressed the fact that Dawson needed a school and that according to aNorth West Territory ordinance that a school board it self is a incorporate body and does not depend on a town of municipal council for its existence.
In the summer of 1899 the Territorial Government ordered school supplies
with the intent to open a public school that fall, as it happened the steamer.
Willie Irving, which was bringing the supplies sank with all of the school
supplies.
COUNCIL DOINGS
The incorporation of the city of Dawson was then touched upon. The ordinance is partly completed and the governor explained that he had been in no hurry as it was desirable that every one should have ample time to think it over and also Ottawa might be heard from on the subject. The government had expressed itself and there was no objection from Ottawa to incorporation.
When the ordinance has been approved by the council, will then be submitted to the public for discussion. The governor said it was not obligatory upon the council to submit the ordinance for ratification by the people before their passage.
Can an objectionable incorporation ordinance be passed by this council and we be compelled to accept it? He was asked.
Well, I guess if the people didn't like the ordinance they could refuse to work under It- could refuse to vote and so on. (Klondike Nugget January 12,1899)
At a Territorial Council meeting in January 1901, a petition signed by a large number of property owners stating that they were satisfied with the way the city was run and asked the commissioner and council not to pass the incorporation ordinance. To incorporate the city of Dawson, it was laid on the table.
REV. FATHER JUDGE IS DEAD
Such was the headline in the January 18 issue of the Klondike Nugget in 1899. Father Judge spent less than two years in Dawson, arriving there in March of 1897.
Naayof the stampeders moving rrom rorty mile up the Yukon to the Klondike remembered overtaking a solitary and feeble old man with a single sled rope and only one dog to help haul his sled load of supplies. Few realized who he was, he had only been in the town of Fortymile a very short time.
He was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1850 of a well to do family. He joined the brother hood, afer a few years his health wasn't good enough to carry on. He went in for architecture and worked at this for 12 years, his health improved and he went back into the brotherhood and soon became a teacher. Three of his sisters joined the sisterhood and one brother became a priest.
In August 1890 he arrived at the Holy Cross mission on the Yukon river,
bout 300 mile" up the river from its mouth.
He worked among the nativesiand three whites at this place, men in 1893 he
was sent among the Dennih Indians on the Shaegaluk river and worked here for
two years, m 1896 he was sent to Forty-mile district to care for the spiritual,
m March of 1897 he landed m Dawson. (Klondike Nugget Jan. 18,1899)
Re. William H. Judge S.J. considered the saint of Dawson City.
He was buried under the altar of his newly built church at the far north end
of Front Street.
©John Gould
(This is copyrighted material and under no circumstances is allowed to be copied or used without the express permission of the author)