Honoring Melvin Dempsey: Part II

A continuation of the story of Melvin Dempsey, a half-African-American, half Cherokee prospector who contributed much to the establishment of early Valdez.

by Andrew Goldstein

With George Hazelet and A.J. Meals, Dempsey discovered gold on Chistochina River in the fall of 1899. Starting for the interior via the glacier route, he arrived at Chisna, placing numerous claims along the Chistochina River between 1899 and 1901. In March 1898, Dempsey became the center of a controversy. Since 1897, the Valdez town site had been a part of the Prince William Sound Mining District, located on Bligh and Busby Islands where the population of prospectors was then centered and the district recorder made his home. Melvin Dempsey and others who at that time had decided not to go over the glacier began staking claims in Port Valdez. In the face of criticisms about the legality of these claims, Dempsey and others called a meeting at the Christian Endeavor Hall to declare the formation of a separate mining district. Nancy Lethcoe writes, “On January 16, 1899, the Port Valdez Mining District was formed. All claims within Port Valdez would be filed with the new district, those outside the Port with the Prince William Sound Mining District.”

Map of claims in Chisna district placed by Melvin
Dempsey, most likely hand-drawn by Dempsey
himself. Photographed by P.S. Hunt c. 1905.

In 1900, Dempsey was elected recorder for Chisna (Cherokee) Mining District, as most of Dempsey’s claims were on Slate Creek trail. Dempsey became the postmaster of the new mining town of Chisna, which was renamed Dempsey in his honor. In 1902, Dempsey had accumulated enough wealth to warrant an expansion of the Christian Endeavor Church in Valdez, and became the chairman for the Valdez Mining District the following year. Dempsey also helped to form Valdez’s first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This achievement was well warranted, as the treacherous conditions of travel to the Interior applied equally to horses and dogs as well as the prospectors who owned them.

Beginning in 1903, Dempsey’s involvement with Valdez waned. A falling out with the church over financial matters led to him stepping down from his post as the Valdez Christian Endeavor Society president, and resigning from the church altogether the following year. Dempsey spent some of his time traveling between Alaska and the mainland U.S. during the following years, trying to interest investors in his property. Curiously, he was reported as having drowned in the Chistochina River in 1915.

Melvin Dempsey helped to establish the “Everyman’s Clubhouse”,
Alaska’s first free reading room. The room housed newspapers,
religious publications, popular contemporary books, as well as
games and musical instruments.

However, Dempsey’s story doesn’t end there. In 2006, descendants of Melvin Dempsey arrived at the Valdez Museum to learn about Dempsey’s adventures in Alaska. In attendance was Melvin Dempsey’s nephew, Avery Chandler, Sr., an elderly gentleman with childhood memories of having met his uncle. According to Mr. Chandler, Dempsey did travel back and forth between Alaska and his family in Michigan in the late 1910s and early 1920s. At one point Dempsey had stopped writing home to his family, and the family hired the law firm of Wilkes & Stone to investigate. The story of the Chistochina drowning may have been fabricated by the firm, based either on hearsay or to cover up a lack of findings. Whatever the reason, Mr. Chandler clearly remembered Dempsey staying with his sister Sarah Chandler, of Battle Creek. Dempsey attempted to get family members to join him in his mining operations because he “couldn’t find an honest man” to help him.

The sad coda to this story is that Dempsey, despite his numerous contributions to Valdez history, was regarded as an outcast by his sister, culminating in her burning a large stack of the letters he had written home. This information is truly heartbreaking to any historian. As the saying goes, “History is written by the winners,” but it is the mission of scholarship to recover that which has been lost. Who knows what may have been revealed by these valuable documents? We may never know.

Do you have questions or answers about Dempsey’s story? Contact Andrew Goldstein, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Valdez Museum, at curator@valdezmuseum.org, or call 907-835-8905.

Honoring Melvin Dempsey: Part I

by Andrew Goldstein

In recognition of Black History Month, we’d like to honor one of Old Valdez’s fascinating and influential early residents. Melvin Dempsey was a prospector of African-American and Cherokee descent and an educated man who remains an “unsung hero” in his accomplishments establishing the town’s early infrastructure.

Melvin Dempsey, circa 1905

Dempsey was born a slave in 1857 in North Carolina, the son of a Cherokee plantation owner and an African-American slave. He moved around in his early life, living in the Michigan towns of Allegan, Holland, and Battle Creek. As a young adult, Dempsey moved to Colorado, where he became Deadwood’s first barber; one Deadwood newspaper described him as “…one of finest men in the hills” and a “model man.” It was around this time that Dempsey established the interests which would influence his life in Alaska: politics, business, firefighting, ministry, and mining. Becoming involved in various mining interests and the 1898 Klondike gold rush, Dempsey turned his attention to Alaska, arriving in Valdez in February of 1898 on the S.S. Alliance.

Dempsey’s family was religious, which may have gotten him involved with the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, a nondenominational evangelical society founded in Portland, Maine, in 1881 by Francis Edward Clark. Its professed object was "to promote an earnest Christian life among its members, to increase their mutual acquaintanceship, and to make them more useful in the service of God." By 1906, 67,000 youth-led Christian Endeavor societies had been organized worldwide, with over four million members. Various causes championed by both the Society and Dempsey included the education of African-Americans, literacy, youth ministry, and temperance.

Months within his arrival in Valdez, Dempsey had founded the Valdez branch of the Christian Endeavor Society and was appointed a town trustee. Among Dempsey’s numerous accomplishments during his stay in Valdez were the founding of Alaska’s first free reading room, founding Valdez’s first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, establishment of a relief station on Valdez Glacier, and proprietorship of one of the town’s first restaurants, which also outfitted prospectors heading over the glacier route. In October of 1898, Dempsey was elected a marshal and justice, and was a member of both the town’s volunteer fire department and the Pioneers of Alaska.

Dempsey in front of the Christian Endeavor meeting hall.

The relief stations founded by Dempsey’s group were modest 10’x12’ huts located both on the beach used as a debarkation point for prospectors, and on glacier’s 5th bench, with food, fuel, and bedding. Establishment of the relief stations was a town-wide effort, with contributions from corporations and the military. A 1906 publication by Reverend James S. Dennis, titled Christian Missions and Social Progress: A Sociological Study of Foreign Missions, had this to say:

"Alaska has also seventeen Christian Endeavor Societies, the one at Point Barrow being, it is stated, the most northerly Christian Endeavor group in the world. An interesting statement is made concerning the heroic services rendered by the intrepid members of the Endeavor Society at Valdez. It was organized in 1898, and among its charter members was Melvin Dempsey, a Cherokee Indian. Nearby is the great Valdez glacier, twenty-eight miles long, with an average of over two miles in width. This became the pathway of the venturesome prospectors in their attempts to reach the Copper River Valley. It was a journey of terrible hardships and perils. Fierce winds, with the thermometer from fifty to seventy degrees below zero, bewildered the traveler, and in many instances doomed him to perish without hope of rescue. The brave members of the Endeavor Society at Valdez, acting upon the suggestion of Mr. Dempsey, built a series of rescue stations, with the Red Cross flag as a signal of encouragement and cheer. At these relief stations the society provided stoves, fuel, provisions, and medicines, for the imperiled travelers, and has thus been the means of saving hundreds of lives. When men are lost in the snow-storms this valiant Endeavor band attempts a rescue, but, alas! often too late to save life; in which case it provides for a Christian burial, and makes special efforts to communicate, if possible, with the friends of the deceased. It is a reproduction, in the wintry wilds of Alaska, of the humanitarian work of the Alpine rescue stations."

To be continued…

Anchorage 100 Lecture Series

Under the banner “Celebrating a Century of Anchorage History,” the Anchorage 100 lecture series features Friday evening talks by a number of local experts now through April 26. Here are the remaining lectures in the series. The series is hosted at UAA’s Chugiak-Eagle River Campus at the Eagle River Center Building, Room 150. All lectures begin at 6:30 pm and are open to the public.

Friday, February 22

“Captain Cook in Alaska and the North Pacific,” Jim Barnett

Jim Barnett is an attorney and former deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of National Resources and elected member of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly. He currently serves as the longtime president of the Cook Inlet Historical Society. Jim will be discussing his latest book, Captain Cook in Alaska and the North Pacific.

Friday, March 1

“A Salmon Cannery in Cook Inlet,” Katie Ringsmuth

Katie Ringsmuth is a historian with the National Park Service and a history instructor at UAA in Eagle River. She will be discussing the history of a Cook Inlet salmon fishery and the multicultural and mixed gender cannery crews who labored within it. The lecture provides an overview of her book, Beacon on the Forgotten Shore: Snug Harbor Cannery, 1919-1980.

Friday, March 8

“From Tents to Towers: Anchorage’s Built History,” Jo Antonson

Jo Antonson is Alaska’s State Historian, assistant State Historic Preservation Officer, and Executive Director of the Alaska Historical Society. She is the author of numerous articles and co-wrote the textbook, Alaska’s Heritage. Jo will be discussing how Anchorage evolved from a railroad construction camp to Alaska’s urban center.

Friday, March 29

“Attu Boy and the Lost Villagers project,” Rachel Mason

During WWII, Attu village residents were captured by the Japanese and taken to Hokkaido, where they were held prisoner. Dr. Rachel Mason, a cultural anthropologist at the National Park Service, will talk about her collaboration with Mr. Nick Golodoff, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese when he was six years old, and the compilation of their book, Attu Boy.

Friday April 12

“Anchorage and the 1964 Earthquake,” Kristen Crossen

Dr. Kristine Crossen is the head of the Geology Department at UAA. She teaches numerous classes that explain how geology shapes the northern landscape, and how those geological features and forces influence the course of Alaska’s human history. Dr. Crossen’s lecture will look at how Alaska’s largest recorded earthquake transformed Anchorage nearly 50 years ago.

Friday, April 26

“The Dena’ina of Cook Inlet,” Karen Evanoff

Karen Evanoff is the editor of the book Dena’ina Elnena: a Celebration, Voices of the Dena’ina, a linguistic and cultural treasure trove of Dena’ina history. She grew up in the Lake Clark / Lake Iliamna region of southwest Alaska, but currently resides in Eagle River where she works as the cultural anthropologist for Lake Clark National Park and Preserve.

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Litigation Records Appraisal and Processing Project

This announcement provided by the Alaska State Archives. The website is available at:

http://www.archives.state.ak.us/valdezProject.html

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a decisive event in world history. It permanently changed the lives of those who live in Alaska; especially people in the spill region. Lawsuits between the State of Alaska, the United States government and Exxon and Alyeska Corporations and other defendants lasted five years. All state and federal cases were eventually combined as a federal case presided over by Judge J. Russell Holland and a state case presided over by Judge Brian Shortell.

Alaska State Archives, Record Group 1,

Office of the Governor, series 801,

Exxon Valdez oil spill records.

The Alaska Department of Law Environmental Litigation Section, led by Barbara Herman and Craig Tillery, tried the case on behalf of the State of Alaska. Over the years the State accumulated a huge case file – testimony, filings, evidence and miscellaneous other material – as many as eight million pages! Storing and managing files was and continues to be a significant cost to the People and State of Alaska.

Final litigation settlement with the State of Alaska came in 1993. (This doesn’t include private plaintiff cases nor the State’s current Reopener Clause litigation, which covers unforeseen additional damages, which were tried and settled separately.) State records policies required the Alaska Department of Law to retain the file for fifteen years. That ended in 2009, and the Alaska State Archives subsequently began to evaluate the records.

But 8,000,000 pages is a lot of material, and portions were spread among several locations in Anchorage and Juneau. Making decisions about these materials was a full time job, only one of many for the State Archives. Fortunately the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC, the National Archives grant agency) provided funds for a special project to address these materials and to hire a project archivist. The State Archives provided one of its permanent staff to act as project director.

The two-year project began October 1, 2011, and will terminate September 30, 2013. It allows archivists to determine what permanent Exxon Valdez litigation files to keep in the State Archives and what files no longer need to be kept. Project staff will sort through, dispose and organize records in Juneau, then move to those located in Anchorage. Records without permanent value will be disposed. Permanent records will be organized and added to the State Archives catalog, then publicized around the world via an online bibliographic catalog.

To assure participation by Alaskans who were most significantly impacted by the spill, project staff has assembled a seven-member Oversight Task Force. The Task Force will meet four times, at about six month intervals, and will review and comment on project activities, and most importantly, will advise project staff on significant issues historians don’t usually deal with – issues like legalities and restrictions, science and technology, community and regional affairs, and how to best keep the public informed and involved.

For more information on the project, contact the Alaska State Archives: archives@alaska.gov; (907) 465-2270.