Digital Bob Archive

OCTOBER 2, 1886-When the Ancon arrived here on September 11, just before she was wrecked at Glacier Bay, her disembarking passengers included three Sisters of St. Ann, from Victoria, B. C. They are Sister Mary Zenon, Sister Mary Bon Secours and Sister Mary Victor. They have come to assist Fr. John Althoff in setting up a hospital and school. Fr. Althoff first came here in the summer of 1882 and offered the first mass to be celebrated in this camp. He was later recalled to Victoria but returned to Juneau last year and started to build a church. The three Sisters of St. Ann are now living in the unfinished church and have converted the small dwelling next door, also built by Fr. Althoff, into a six-bed hospital. The first patient, Daniel Foster, entered the Hospital on the 26th and is said to be doing well. Dr. Hugh Wyman, physician for the Alaskan Mill & Mining Company, is the only doctor now on the channel and will serve the hospital.

OCTOBER 18, 1886-What has been described as ?a small riot? took place at an early hour yesterday morning at the Music Hall in Douglas, a drinking and dancing place frequented by whites and Indians. As a result of the fracas, one Indian is dead and a white man is in the hospital with a bullet wound. Walter Pierce, a longtime prospector and miner who recently returned from the Yukon, has been running the place for the owner. Saturday night was unusually busy, and by early Sunday morning the crowd was getting drunk and unruly. Pierce decided it was time to close. He asked all to leave and those who did not leave of their own accord he ejected forcibly, receiving some cuts and bruises in the process. The ejected parties showed their unhappiness by smashing some of the windows. Pierce got a pistol, leaned out one of the broken windows and reportedly fired two shots. There may have also been some other shooting. At any rate, Klu-keetz, a Kake Tlingit, is dead and Frank Mehrwalt, captain of the mine company tug, Lucy, is in St. Ann?s Hospital with a bullet in his chest. He is being attended by Dr. Wyman and is not in serious condition. Klu-keetz is employed at the mine and is said to be a steady worker and not to drink. He was some distance from the Music Hall when struck. Mehrwalt had been sitting in Hawthorne?s Saloon when he heard the disturbance and stepped to the door to see what was going on. That is also some distance from the Music Hall and it is said that a pistol fired by Pierce would not carry that far. Pierce, however, has been placed under arrest by deputy Marshall Weittenheiller and will be charged with the shooting of Klu-keetz.