http://www.cooganresearchgroup.com/crg/index.htm 29 September 2012 COOGAN story ____________________________________________________________________ appearing in "Boom and Bust in the Alaska Goldfields: A Multi- cultural Adventure" (pub. ____), by Steven C. Levi, PAGE 78: [...begins with story unrelated to Captain Coogan...] ...By October of 1897, the West Coast was electrified with word of the Kotzebue Strike. "Richer Field Than Klondike," the "San Francisco Call" announced on October 29. Supposedly some "Indians" had come to Captain [B.] Coogan of the steam whaler "Thrasher" with some yellow stone and wanted to know if these stones "were the same kind of stuff as the miners were looking for [in] the Yukon." The gold was about "the size of guncaps and and worn smooth," Coogan reported, which had been scooped "from the river bottom with their paddles." The Eskimo - Coogan apparently did not know that Eskimo live along the coast while Athabaskan Indians live in the Alaskan Interior - had also reportedly led a white man by the name of Jackson to the Eldorado who they then killed when he refused to pay their wages. Of course, if Jackson had been killed, this would have caused some doubt as to how word of the Eldorado would have leaked to other white men. [Credit for the Kotzebue Country has also been attributed to a whaler by the name of Cooper - perhaps the same man. Cooper had deserted his whaling vessel in Kotzebue Sound and made his way up the Kobuk River to Ambler where he found 21 nuggets. Cooper, a mason, showed the nuggets and a map to some other Masons in Seattle and this led to the formation of a "Moonlight" syndicate. Cooper never made it back to the Kobuk River. He was alleged to have drowned off Valdez on his way north.] http://books.google.com ____________________________________________________________________ appearing in "Boom and Bust in the Alaska Goldfields: A Multi- cultural Adventure" (pub. ____), by Steven C. Levi, PAGE 212: Notes: 59. "Return of the John Riley," "Teller News" [AK ?], July 25, 1901. This author was able to state categorically that captains Coogan, Cougan and Cogan are the same man with different spellings by the newspapers and diarists. Interestingly, Captain [B.] Cogan was the Captain from which Erik Lindbloom escaped and subsequently discovered gold on the Snake River in what became Nome. According to at least one source (NOME AND SEWARD PENINSULA, page 210), Lindbloom jumped ship because he heard from whalers that there was no gold in Kotzebue. http://books.google.com ____________________________________________________________________ appearing in the "San Francisco Call" [CA], 22 AUG 1902 and the "Salt Lake Herald" [UT], 22 AUG 1902: SKIPPER INSANE ABOARD HIS BOAT Captain Coogan a Pris- oner on the John Riley [the "Salt Lake Herald" headline: INSANE AND A PRISONER ON HIS VESSEL] SEATTLE, Wash., Aug. 21 - Captain Coogan, master of the little steamer, John Riley, is reported insane and a prisoner on his own vessel in the Kobuck river, 200 miles to the interior from Kotzebue sound. John Huff, a miner, carried the news to Nome. Huff saw Captain Coogan in March. Being at times violent then, the captain was tied in a chair aboard the vessel. Captain Coogan two years ago shipped the John Riley in knock-down shape aboard the bark Alaska, to St. Lawrence island, Bering sea. There the craft was put together, and in it Captain Coogan, heading an expedition which he had organized, proceeded in Kotzebue sound and up the Kobuck in search of a rich quartz ledge of which he had been told by the natives. Last fall his son, a member of the party, died, and this, together with the usual exposure and hardships incident to searching for gold in Alaska, deprived him of reason. Captain Coogan was for many years master of Arctic whaling vessels which operated from San Francisco. He is about 65 years of age. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov ____________________________________________________________________ appearing in the "Seattle Star" [WA], 23 OCT 1902: CAPT. COOGAN IS DROWNED NOME, Oct. 8 - Capt. Coogan accidentally fell off the deck of the schooner Volante during a squall off the Diomede islands at 8:30 p.m., Oct. 1, and was never seen again. He was about 70 years of age, being well known in Arctic countries. During the past four years he has been searching for a wonderful quartz ledge the natives told him about, but disappointment and [revenues ?] were wearing his life away, and he was going home "broke" when the accident ended his misery. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov ____________________________________________________________________ appearing in the "San Francisco Call" [CA], 24 OCT 1902: SEA SWEEPS SKIPPER FROM SMALL SCHOONER SEATTLE, Oct. [22] - Captain Coogan, one of the best known mariners of the Pacific Coast, was drowned recently off the Diomedes Islands during a heavy gale. He was on the schooner Volante, making his way back to San Francisco. A sudden wave struck the little boat and the captain, losing his footing, was swept away. He was never seen from the moment he left the deck. His son, who was also on board, cried like a child. Captain Coogan was about 70 years old and had followed the life of a seaman on the Pacific Coast all his life. He was known in every port from San Francisco to Nome. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov ____________________________________________________________________ appearing in the "Atlanta Constitution" [GA], 08 MAR 1903, PAGE ?: ...a search for which Captain John Coogan lost his life has finally... ____________________________________________________________________ appearing in the "Richmond Times Dispatch" [VA], 08 MAR 1903, PAGE 7: ANOTHER GOLD FIND The famous gold ledge north of Cape Nome, during a search for which Captain [John] Coogan lost his life, has finally been discovered by two men of Coogan's last party. The ledge shows exceedingly rich out croppings and will be opened up by the prospectors this Spring. The existence of the ledge was reported to Coogan by an Eskimo. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov ____________________________________________________________________ appearing in the "Oakland Tribune" [CA], 08 SEP 1912, PAGE 19: [...begins with story unrelated to Captain Coogan...] When questioned as to where their jade came from the natives always replied that a long time ago a tribe that had been wiped out in a tribal war had found a mountain of this material, but all of the natives who knew of the location were dead. Capt. [James] Coogan, an old whaler, for many years searched the Kobuk Solawik and many other streams for the source of the native jade implements but without success. Coogan, in [1905 - should be earlier than 1903], reported to some miners at Kotzebue Sound that he had found the deposit, and had brought some of the material out with him. Returning to Nome, the sailing vessel in which he was traveling, encountered a squall. The boom swung around, struck him on the head and knocked him overboard. His body never came to the surface. Prospectors in the North came to believe in the existence of the mountain of jade described two progenitors of the Eskimo race was a myth, but the amount of material brought here by Koen indicates that the tradition was founded on fact. ____________________________________________________________________