March-April 2020
Unloading caches on the ice shelf at the head of Valdez Bay, March 9, 1898. A ship is moored just to the left, see anchoring ropes in the ice. This is described in the sidebar, page 29. Photo by Neal D. Benedict. [Alaska State Library, Neal D. Benedict Photograph Collection P201-012]
Early Settlement of Valdez The Pathfinder is the official publication of the Pioneers of Alaska, a fraternal group which traces its history to the Yukon Order of Pioneers, organized at Fortymile in 1898. The following article on the early settlement of Valdez is from The Pathfinder, February, 1920. The issue is available to read or download, see Sources, page 48.
On the 22nd day of September, 1897, the schooner Laninfa sailed from San Francisco with 33 passengers aboard enroute to the mouth of the Copper River in Alaska. They had been told that they could navigate this river with small power boats and were fully equipped to make a trip up that turbulent stream. On their arrival at Orca they learned that it was impossible for them to ascend the Copper River with any kind of boat, so about 20 of the men in the party chartered a cannery craft and came on up to Valdez Bay having been told that men had gone to the Copper River by that route thus landing above the glaciers and rapids of that river. The cannery boat carrying 22 men came into Valdez Bay on the 10th day of November, 1897 and landed its passengers at the place now known as Swanport, just below where Fort Liscum now is built. This was the first settlement on the shores of Valdez Bay. Prior to this time Tom Olson, a trader and agent for the Northern Trading Company had built a cabin over in what was afterwards known as “Hangman’s Town,” but at the time of the landing of the Swanport party this was abandoned and not a soul lived in the then “weird wild whiteness” of Valdez Bay. “Bald-headed Cris,” now dead, at times occupied the cabin at Hangman’s Town, but at this time he was “not at home” and had been gone for some time. W. C. L. Beyer, who was a fur
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