Tragedy Strikes Gold-Seekers Bound for Alaska
A family and their guide are feared lost after their small boat is found capsized following a storm while attempting to reach Seattle to prepare for an Alaskan expedition.
The latest news of the Post family is that Mr. Post's body has been found, and that their boat has been found bottom-up among the islands. The Posts left the Snohomish River the first of April to go to Seattle to buy provisions preparatory to going to Alaska on a gold-hunting expedition. It has since been learned that there were on board, beside Mr. and Mrs. Post, a son and daughter, and a woman, name unknown, who was to guide them in their search for gold. Their boat was an old one and small, and with but two men to manage it, and those men unaccustomed to the water, in the face of such a storm it would, indeed, be a miracle if any were saved.
“In the face of such a storm it would, indeed, be a miracle if any were saved.”
The lure of Alaskan gold drove many families to risk everything on dangerous waters, a precursor to the thousands who would later flood the region during the Klondike Gold Rush. This tragedy serves as a grim reminder of the human cost behind the romanticized history of the gold rush era.
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