By
Steven Wade Veatch
It began with a letter that Augustus Dominick Bourquin, a Colorado
prospector, wrote to warn Winfield
Scott Stratton, the Cripple Creek mining mogul and owner of the Independence
Mine, about one of his employees at the mine.
 |
| W. S. Stratton (1848-1902) came to the Cripple Creek Mining District in 1891 when he was 42 years old and staked the Independence Mining claim on July 4, 1891. The Independence was among the major producing mines in the district and made Stratton a multi-millionaire. This image is in the public domain in the United States. |
Bourquin’s letter is an exceptional
illustration of a primary source that offers a first-hand eyewitness account of
events. It helps us take a front-row seat to the unfolding of history.
Bourquin’s letter is among Stratton’s historic papers that are stored at the
Western Museum of Mining and Industry in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
In his letter, Bourquin warns Stratton that one of his
employees, John Stark, is a thief. According to Bourquin’s letter, John Stark was
an unscrupulous man that committed acts of larceny wherever he went. Stark even
raided the caches of clothes and supplies miners left covered with rocks along
the trail on their way to the Klondike goldfields, depriving those miners of
necessary supplies. Bourquin’s letter also mentions the problem of high-grading
or theft of gold in the Cripple Creek mining district. Here is his letter:
Aspen,
Colo. Oct. 17th, ’98.
W. S. Stratton
Victor, Colo.
Dear Sir—
I
feel that it is my duty to give you a little of the history of a man who is now
in your imploy [sic].
A man who has proven himself a thief on every occasion where he has had an
opportunity to pilfer from others. That man is no other than John Stark. Mr. Stratton,
I returned in Aug. from the Klondike and was a partner during the winter with
Stark. There was [sic] four of us in
partnership on a lay, or lease, on Bonanza Creek.[1]
Stark began pilfering aboard the steamship Cleveland on his way north from
Seattle.[2]
Stole his winter supplies from one of the Mercantile Co’s at Fort Yukon.[3]
He robed [sic] one of our partners of
every dollar of gold dust he had, on the pretense, that he, Stark, would take
it down and deposite [sic] it with
his own in Dawson.[4]
Stark skipped the country between two days and carried off all the dust,
leaving our partner stranded in Dawson where he is today.
Stark
robed [sic] caches of
clothing and provisions whenever he had an opportunity, against my
protest. He stole clothing and provisions from the cache of some poor
fellows who had to walk out of the country during the winter on account of a
shortage of food. Stark robed [sic] me
of nearly $200 of which I cannot recover as the theft was commited [sic] in Canadian Teritory [sic]. [5]
The Mercantile Co. who he robbed in Fort Yukon were [sic] on his track in Dawson, when he, under an
assumed name, left Dawson between two days in a small boat, about June 1st.
Stark
often spoke of his work on the Independence mine. Said he has some rich ore
from the mine; one piece worth eighty dollars. Spoke of your keeping detectives
around all the time but they were not sharp enough to catch anyone. Said he had
cut a rich streak of mineral fifteen inches thick and timbered it in, with the
help of the Super, hoping someday to get a lease on the ground. According to
his statement the superintendent stood in with him, but his name I have
forgotten. This unscrupulous scoundrel spoke very disrespectful [sic] of you at different times. Said you had
nicely furnished rooms in Cripple for no other purpose, that he knew of, but to
take lewd women and have a good time. Mr. Stratton, I have given you simply an
outline of the methods practiced by that scoundrel, that you may not be
deceived by him. I regret to hear that he has secured a trusty position on your
property when there are more worthy people to be had. I can make an affidavit
to thease [sic] statements should you
desire.
Very respectfully,
A.D. Bourquin
Although it is clear from the letter that Bourquin had a
negative attitude toward Stark based on his alleged dealings with him, perhaps
we can judge the veracity of his claims by studying Bourquin’s life story. Augustus
Dominic Bourquin was born in 1852 in Tidioute, Pennsylvania. Known as “Gust” to
his friends, this free-spirited young man craved adventure and excitement.
 |
| Figure 2. Photo of A.D. Bourquin (1852 to 1899). His father was Swiss and his mother was French. Bourquin was noted in the Aspen newspapers as being a principal in the Austin Mining Excavating Company. Photo source: Robert Clark (great-grandson). Used with permission. |
In 1875, Bourquin first moved west and worked a placer
mine in Arizona. Later, he worked in the mines at Red Bluff, California and
Reno, Nevada. Bourquin returned home in the fall of 1877 and worked on the family
farm in Pennsylvania (Bourquin, 1951) . Next, he traveled
to Kansas in 1879, where he homesteaded (Bourquin, 1951) . Bourquin moved to
Kansas at a bad time—a drought held Kansas in its dry and dusty grip. The Manhattan Nationalist, on April 25,
1879, had this to say: “The wind made the bleeding soil of Kansas sift through
a pine board on Monday [April 21]. The poor housekeeper that had just shaken
carpets and cleaned windows, sighed mournfully as they [sic] saw the sand heaps
on windowpane and floor” (Malin, 2018) . This relentless
drought ended his days of homesteading, and in the spring of 1880, Bourquin,
along with his two brothers George and Jess, traveled west as they drove a team
of mules and a wagon to Denver (Clark, 2018) . The brothers then sold
the mules and Bourquin trekked to Aspen, Colorado. He operated several mining
claims in the area and served as councilman for the City of Aspen (Clark, 2018) .
Bourquin caught a bad case of gold fever and joined the
Klondike Gold Rush. After spending a season in the Klondike washing gold-laden
gravels in Bonanza Creek, he returned to Aspen, Colorado.
Bourquin died a few months after he mailed his letter to Stratton. He
had caught the flu while working on a mining claim and died five days later, on
Jan 14, 1899, at the age of 46 (Clark, 2018) . The Woodmen of the
World, a fraternal benefit society designed to provide insurance and financial
security for its members, buried him in the Aspen Grove Cemetery in Aspen,
Colorado. Bourquin’s family then moved his body to the Red Butte cemetery after
it opened in 1900. His mother Celestine is buried in the same plot, along with
his brother Amos, Amos' wife, and their daughter.
And so,
a letter reveals a first-hand account of an episode in the writer’s life. The
letter led to research that painted a portrait of the writer, A.D. Bourquin,
who spent a life well-lived as a miner and adventurer. He followed the trails
that pointed to gold and silver deposits, no matter how difficult the passage. All regarded him as fine man and a pioneer who
guided his family to the West.
Although
we will never know if Stratton answered Bourquin’s letter, it is known that
John Stark, after his adventures in the Klondike, returned to the Cripple Creek
Mining District and worked as Stratton’s foreman at the Independence Mine.
Eighteen months later, Stark was promoted to superintendent of the Independence
Mine (The Fortunes of a Decade, 1900) . It seems that
Stratton did not read Bourquin’s letter or believe what it said about his
foreman, and as a result, we may never know the facts
that surrounded Stratton’s decision to ignore the warning in Bourquin’s letter.
References
Andrews, C. L. (1916, January). Marine Disasters of
the Alaska Route. The Washington HIstorical Quarterly, 7(1), 21-37.
Retrieved December 2, 2018, from www.jstor.org/stable/40428352
Bourquin, G. M. (1951, October 22). Letter to Edna
Florence Bourquin Reynolds.
Clark, R. (2018, December 2-5). Great-grandson of A.D.
Bourquin. (S. Veatch, Interviewer)
Malin, J. C. (2018, December 1). Dust Storms: Part Two,
1861-1880. Retrieved from Kansas Historical Soceity:
https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-quarterly-dust-storms-part-two-1861-1880/13031
McLaughlin, L. (2018, Devember 7). Yukon History.
Retrieved from Hougen Group:
http://hougengroup.com/yukon-history/yukon-nuggets/year/1897/#STARVATION
The Fortunes of a Decade.
(1900). Colorado Springs: Sargent and Rohrabacher for the Evening Telegraph.
What Was the Klondike Gold Rush? (2018, June 28). Retrieved from Klondike Gold Rush
National Historic Site: https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/goldrush.htm
Woodin, W., & Spude, C. H. (2016). All for the Greed
of Gold: Will Woodin's Klondike Adventure. Seattle: Washington State
University Press.
Notes on the letter
[1] On
August 16, 1896 prospectors discovered gold on Bonanza Creek, a tributary of
the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory. The watercourse became the
center of the Klondike Gold Rush (1897-1898). This discovery triggered a
stampede of thousands of prospectors and fortune seekers to the area (What Was the Klondike Gold Rush?, 2018) .
[2]
The Cleveland, operated by the North
American Trading & Transportation Company, was one of many steamships that
carried passengers to and from the Klondike goldfields (Woodin & Spude, 2016) . The company sold
fares only to the “hardiest of men.” The demand for a ticket was high. After
leaving Seattle’s docks, the Cleveland went
as far as Fort St. Michael, where a connection was made with river steamers
that took passengers and goods up the Yukon River to the mines. Fort St.
Michael was established by the US Army in 1897 to establish order during the
Klondike Gold Rush and served as a major gateway through the Yukon River to the
area. In 1903, the Cleveland was lost
in the Bering Sea and was never recovered (Andrews, 1916) .
[3]
Fort Yukon, during the Klondike Gold Rush (“Starvation Winter” of 1897–1898)
took in 200 prospectors from Dawson City who were short of supplies (McLaughlin, 2018) .
[4]
Dawson City, the center of the Klondike Gold Rush, began in 1896, where it
displaced a native encampment. The city grew into a busy place of 40,000 by
1898. A year later, after the gold rush ended, its population plummeting to
8,000 people.
[5]
The stolen $200 is equivalent to $2,855 in 2018 dollars.