Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1901 — FOUNDER OF DAWSON CITY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FOUNDER OF DAWSON CITY.

Joseph Ladue, the founder of Dawson City in the Klondike, died last Week at his home In Schuyler Falls, N. Y. He had not been well since his return from Alaska and spent last winter at Colorado Springs in a vain search for health. He fell a victim of consumption, contracted In the severe northern climate. He leaves a widow and one son. The adventurous career of the prospector was begun on a farm near the northern lend of Lake Champlain, where he was born. In his early manhood Mr. Ladue went to the far northwest and finally located on the Upper Yukon, having been attracted by the fine woodland in the neighborhood. Here he bought 160 acres of land, built a sawmill and established an embryo trading post. It was upon his land that gold was first discovered in the Yukon region, and Ladue’s trading post became the prosperous city of Dawson, the northern city of gold. His estates In the Klondike region, with the property that he has solfilire said to be worth several millions of dollars. Mr. Ladue returned to his home near Plattsburg in July, 1897, and told strange stories of the gold-mad colony In the North, Love for Miss Anna Mason of Schuyler Falls, ]T., led the gold king back to civilization. She had been engaged to Mr. Ladue for many years, and the marriage had been postponed from time to time, awaiting the day when the lumber business on the Yukon would Justify the union. Fortune was the ally of romance and Mis 3 Mason became Mrs. Dadue a few weeks after her fiance’s return in 1897. Before Mr. Ladue strayed into the Yukon Valley, in 1882, he had spent

several years in the Black Hills during the gold excitement in that region, and in Arizona and New Mexico. Upon his return from the Klondike in 1897 he brought with him gold nuggets worth $3,000. He carried them about with him and made no secret of it. As he was passing through Chicago on his

return West a pickpocket stole the nuggets and they have never been found. Mr. Ladue was 46 years old. He was a typical miner In speech and dress. Uneducated, but naturally of keen intellect, he was a leader in each mining camp that he visited.

THE LATE JOSEPH LADUE, FOUN DER OF DAWSON CITY.