A Brief Note From 1899 About A Lost Party

From the June 20, 1899 New York Times:

Circle City, Alaska (via San Francisco)–A story of possible cannibalism and death on the Yukon trail has just reached here. Three men who left Dahl River on December 5 for Jimtown were not heard of again, and they were supposed to have been lost. Nothing was heard of them till the steamer Rideout, which arrived to-day, brought a terrible tale of suffering and horror.

The men were Michael Daly, Victor Eldair and M. Provost. They were from Providence, R.I.; Woonsocket, R.I.; and Brockton, Mass., respectively. There bodies were discovered seventeen from the mouth of Old Man’s Creek, they have in all probability having lost the trail and become bewildered. They left Dahl River with only three weeks’ food, which was amply sufficient for the 150 miles to Jimstown, but they soon were reduced to starvation.

Daly’s partially eaten body was found on the stove in the tent just as it was left when death overtook the others. Some scraps of moose hide and moccasin, of which they were endeavoring to make a stew, were also found. Daly’s body was identified by means of the clothes. The other two men were found dead five miles away from the tent. The fact that the tent flaps were shut down would seem to preclude the possibility of Daly’s body having been eaten by animals. The other men were doubtless driven to the awful extremity of cannibalism by hunger. Four hundred dollars were found on the body.”

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