Digital Bob Archive

JUNE 20, 1881-Prominent among our townspeople is Pierre Joseph Erussard who is familiarly known as ?French Pete.? He arrived here early last December in the little sloop known as the ?Flat Iron.? With it he had been trading with the Indians in this part of Alaska and doing some prospecting on the side. A year ago he and one or two others staked coal claims at Kootznahoo Inlet, Admiralty Island, and these are thought to have some future value.

After he arrived here, Pete claimed waterfront lot Number 6, threw up a little cabin on it and brought his trade goods ashore, opening the first store in the camp. Unfortunately, when the streets were laid out last spring, part of Lot 6 proved to be Seward Street and he had to move his cabin toward the south.

French Pete is an avid prospector. He has some placer claims on Gold Creek and has teamed up with Richard Dixon, John Dix and Hugh Campbell to stake a number of claims along Sheep Creek, including the Erussard, the Mountain Sheep and the Arctic Grouse lodes. More recently he has been prospecting on Douglas Island and early last month he staked what he recorded as the ?Parris Lode? on the island. Later, with Henry Borien and Mike Hayes he located a number of placer claims along what Pete calls ?Parris Creek? and partly on top of his Parris Lode. The placers were staked because the surface of the lode is deep with loose, decomposed quartz, some of which is very rich to judge by samples he has been showing in his store.

Several other miners, including Edmund Bean and William Moore in addition to Henry Borien, have joined Pete in making location on the island. Borien, while crawling around in the underbrush looking for a likely outcrop, ran into a sow bear and her cubs. He beat a hasty retreat, only to run into another bear from which he also escaped. Later in the day he did find an outcrop, staked a lode claim and named it ?The Bears? Nest.? Henry also staked the Auk Lode as an extension of the Parris, while Moore and Bean staked in the same area. This is half a mile or so north of Ready Bullion Creek where Billy Meehan and others found placer gold along the beach last winter. French Pete is very enthusiastic about his Parris Lode and asserts that it will some day be the biggest mine in the United States if not the whole world.