The Swinehart Farm – Part 3

A Going Concern (1902-1914)

By 1902 the Swinehart Farm was gaining a profile, as information about its place in the Yukon agricultural picture began appearing in newspaper articles and various types of reports. While the reports were relatively objective, the newspaper accounts, in the style typical of reporting at that time, often contained embellishments, errors, and perhaps even concoctions.

A June 1902 article in Dawson City’s Daily Morning Sun reported that “it may not be generally known, but as fine a farm as can be found anywhere is the Swinehart Farm. About forty acres of ground have been under cultivation for two years”. The article also said that “every visitor to the farm is received royally and enjoys himself in every way”.

In April 1903 the Yukon Sun published a rosy article on William Swinehart and his Fort Selkirk farm, reporting that he had 30 acres under cultivation and a large tract of meadow land. He was growing oat hay, “the finest feed that is available for horses”, as well as a large quantity of vegetables for sale to roadhouses and steamboats. In the spring he marketed potatoes in Dawson City, where he could get a good price for them by being three weeks ahead of produce coming from Whitehorse on steamboats, which had to wait for Lake Laberge to become ice-free. The article concluded with: “Mr. Swinehart has his whole family with him on the farm, and says he has as comfortable a home and as profitable a business as any man could reasonably wish for”.

A little over a month later, the same newspaper reported that William Swinehart would be arriving in Dawson by riverboat soon with five tons of potatoes for sale. The article also mentioned that Swinehart “had the distinction of having Prof. John Macoun, the eminent Canadian botanist, declare the potatoes grown on his farm at Selkirk to be the equal of any grown in America”. Macoun, the Dominion Geological Survey naturalist, had examined agricultural products from the Yukon that were sent to an exhibition in Ontario in the fall of 1902 to demonstrate the agricultural potential of the Territory.

A July 1903 article in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled “Making a Fortune on Klondike Farm” spoke glowingly of Swinehart’s five years as “a successful farmer in the north, becoming an enthusiastic believer in the agricultural possibility of the great Yukon valley”, and having “the most extensive farm in the British Yukon or Alaska”.

In the fall of 1903, Swinehart submitted exhibits to Dawson City’s Horticultural and Industrial Exhibition in the form of “oats five feet tall and heavy with grain, and wheat six feet tall”. The Dawson Daily News reported that “the specimens are among the finest of the kind ever produced in the Yukon”.

A 1903 report by the Governor of Alaska stated that on two acres the previous year, the Swinehart Farm grew 11 tons of potatoes, nine tons of which were sold within six hours in Dawson City the following spring after the river opened to river transportation. It was noted that the farm’s location was “valuable for the ease and cheapness of reaching a hungry market”.

The Spokane Press in October 1905 carried relatively detailed information on the Swinehart Farm operation, the source of which was not stated. The article said that the Swineharts concentrate on field crops such as oats, hay and hardier field vegetables, which can be planted and cultivated with “horse tools”. Oat hay was said to be the chief crop because of the steady demand for it on the Whitehorse-Dawson stage line, which had hundreds of horses to feed. The article concluded by stating that “it is an exceptional season when the Swinehart Farm does not net its owners an income of $10,000”.

An excerpt from a 1905 book by John Scudder McLain called Alaska and the Klondike, based on a 1904 trip through the region, says that “one farmer at [Fort Selkirk] is reported to have made a clear profit of $3,000 during the past year on his crops of hay and potatoes”. There can be no doubt that this reference was to the Swinehart Farm. McLain also reported that “his success is said to be encouraging others to seek their fortunes in agriculture at this point”. There may be some truth to this because Fort Selkirk soon became a center of homesteading activity along this section of the Yukon River as well as the lower Pelly River.

In a 1907 newspaper article based on statements by Governor John Brady of Alaska about the agricultural potential of that state, Brady referred to the success of William Swinehart of Fort Selkirk as an example. He said that Swinehart had taken nine tons of potatoes to Dawson City that spring and sold them for $300 per ton. In that same year, the annual report of Alaska Agricultural Experiment Stations made a reference to Fort Selkirk, “which place has been noted for the farming of W.H. Swinehart”. It is evident that William Swinehart’s agricultural endeavors were well known not only within the Yukon, but beyond it as well.

In September 1908 an article in the Dawson Daily News explored the historic and symbiotic relationship between mining and farming; miners need farmers to feed them, and miners give farmers a market. In the article, William Swinehart provided some thoughts about the virtues of farming, outlining why he believed that being a farmer is better than being a miner: “the most independent man on top of earth today is the farmer in Yukon. … one can watch his crop maturing which will bring him more than the average miner gets with all his life-shortening excitement and struggle”.

In truth, however, Swinehart himself tells a somewhat different story. In the years that followed, he along with his son Guy, his sons-in-law, his brother-in-law Ham Kline, and Billy Thompson dabbled in mining in the nearby Selwyn River watershed. They even petitioned the government, unsuccessfully, to assist financially in putting a wagon trail into that area. In the 1914 letter Swinehart wrote to his Wisconsin home town, he stated that “I have been farming here since 1898 with varied success, and would have plenty to spare if I had kept what money I made growing stuff for the gold seekers to eat; but in Rome one does as the Romans do, speculates in gold fields of course”.

Whatever embellishments or inaccuracies may have been contained in the articles and reports on the Swinehart Farm, it is obvious that William Swinehart and those with him built a successful agricultural enterprise near Fort Selkirk that was capable of sustaining all who were involved in it.

A simple description of the Swinehart Farm operation was perhaps best provided in a letter written in 1974 by a person who had known the farm and family. The letter was sent to Dick and Hugh Bradley of Pelly River Ranch from William Watson, who had been a telegraph operator at Fort Selkirk in 1910-11. The letter included this reference to the Swinehart Farm: “… located about 2 miles out from the main settlement in a valley where they grew almost anything they needed. Had no stock, but went in strong for hay, using horses in the work”.

Updated October 7, 2023

Next:  Part 4 – The Family Reunites; End of the Swinehart Farm (1901-1914)

The Swinehart Farm – part 2

Establishing the Swinehart Farm (1898 – 1902)

The Swinehart party’s arrival at Fort Selkirk and beginning the development of the Swinehart Farm added to the swarm of activity that was occurring at Fort Selkirk in 1898 as a result of the Klondike gold rush. The small community until then consisted of not much more than an Anglican church and school, Arthur Harper’s trading post and a few cabins. In the fall of 1898 Fort Selkirk swelled with the arrival of the 200-man Yukon Field Force, along with civilian contractors, and the construction of its complex of buildings. A Northwest Mounted Police post and the Roman Catholic Church were also built in this year. The next year the Yukon Telegraph line came through Fort Selkirk and the Swinehart Farm, bringing more activity and a new communication link with the outside world.

Shortly after landing at Fort Selkirk, Swinehart began to develop his farm. The land tenure situation for the farm is very intriguing, and continues so to this day. Earlier that year, on March 2, 1898, a man from Juneau named Frank Bach had submitted an application for one square mile (640 acres) of land at an unidentified location “in the vicinity of Fort Selkirk for an experimental farm”. Bach was a prominent businessman, a judge, and for a time the mayor at Douglas Island near Juneau.

Bach had gone to the Klondike at least as early as 1897 and must have come across this piece of land off the beaten path near Fort Selkirk that appealed to him.  He returned to Juneau in October 1897 with a group that included Jack Dalton who left Dawson because of warnings of a lean winter due to lack of provisions there. Mt. Bach near the Hutchi Lakes was named that year in his honor because he “helped Jack Dalton make the Dalton Trail through here to the Yukon River”. The nature of Bach’s relationship with Dalton and what assistance he provided him is not clear.

Frank Bach submitted his application for the Fort Selkirk land, likely from Juneau, at the same time that William Swinehart was preparing to leave there for the Yukon.  The two men must have had a fairly close relationship in Juneau, as Swinehart left his daughter Vivian there to live with the Bach family.

There is no record of what happened with Bach’s land application of March 1898, but it is clear that William Swinehart began developing his farm on the land that summer. He started living at the site on June 21, 1898, within a week of arriving at Fort Selkirk, so there seems little doubt that Bach told Swinehart about the parcel of land he had applied for and encouraged him to occupy it under some sort of arrangement.  Three years later, on July 18, 1901, Swinehart applied for 80 acres at this location west of Fort Selkirk “in lieu of [Bach’s application] of 2^nd March 1898”. The story behind this substitution of land applications, as well as for the three-year gap between them, is not known.

In July 1902, Swinehart paid the balance of the purchase price for the land to the government, and in August the parcel called Lot 7 Group 4 was surveyed for him. Later that year, on November 26, 1902, a Dominion Lands Grant (title to the land) was issued, but surprisingly it was not to Swinehart.  For whatever reason, perhaps the agreement with Frank Bach, the title was issued to Bach, and Swinehart never owned the land he developed, lived on and farmed for 16 years, and died on.

The valley containing the Swinehart Farm has a trail from Fort Selkirk running through it that connects back up to the Yukon River about eight kilometers downstream from the settlement. It was part of the winter trail between the coast and the Klondike region before the Whitehorse-Dawson Overland Trail was in place. This trail became upgraded to a road to the Swinehart Farm and beyond, likely in 1899 to support the Yukon Telegraph line that was being built through to Dawson City. Rather than following along the Yukon River as it normally did, the telegraph line took an easier route west through the valley and across the newly-developing Swinehart Farm.

There is no known arrangement with Swinehart for the telegraph line crossing the farm land, and he had no land tenure to bargain with, but he may have welcomed the improved access as well as the clearing provided by it. When the Overland Trail from Whitehorse to Dawson City was built in 1902, it bypassed Fort Selkirk by several kilometers, but this route through the Swinehart Farm was surveyed out as a road allowance for what was called the Selkirk cut-off. This was a road to connect the community to the Overland Trail further to the north and across the Yukon River.

The 1902 survey plan for the Swinehart Farm property shows a cabin, the road allowance, and about 15 acres fenced and under cultivation, a portion of it off of the property. This field, though now completely overgrown, still shows up plainly against the surrounding vegetation on modern air photos. Therefore it appears that this may be the extent of the land that was ever developed for farming, even though other sources quote somewhat more acreage in production. Some of these sources also reference meadow land, so it is possible that a large meadow on an adjacent lot to the west was also used by Swinehart, perhaps for harvesting of wild hay.

The choice of this site three kilometers from the river for a farming endeavor might seem curious when almost all other such enterprises in the central Yukon are located beside the rivers. On a visit to the Swinehart Farm site with Dale Bradley, owner of the nearby Pelly River Ranch, his answer to this was immediate. The location had good soil, a nearby water source for irrigation, and good access to Fort Selkirk, where riverboats and winter stages could take the farm produce to markets in Dawson City and roadhouses on the Overland Trail. Equally or more important, the farm’s elevation likely provided a buffer from late spring and early fall frosts in the river valley bottom, a condition that Fort Selkirk was known to be susceptible to.

It is not known how much all four men, William and son Guy Swinehart along with William’s brother-in-law Ham Kline and William “Billy” Thompson, were involved in the establishment of the Swinehart Farm. Not a lot was produced at the farm as it was being developed and it wouldn’t have paid much during those early years, so some men appear to have taken on occasional other work. In 1899, Ham Kline was one of the first discoverers of gold on Nansen Creek west of Carmacks. Billy Thompson worked for a time during the gold rush piloting boats through Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids.

The Swinehart Farm must have held some attraction or allegiance, however, because three years after arriving in the Yukon all four men were there when the 1901 Canada Census was taken. While William was listed as the ‘head’ of the household and Guy as his son, Kline was listed as a partner, Thompson as an employee, and another man, 40-year old Frank Chapman from Kansas, also as an employee. Also present at the farm were William Swinehart’s two oldest daughters, Leta and Vivian, an interesting sub-plot to the story that will be explored later.

The involvement of Frank Chapman and Billy Thompson in the Swinehart Farm is an interesting side note because this led to further pioneer farming in the Yukon. Frank Chapman went on to own the well-known Pelly Farm (also known as Pelly River Ranch) with his partner Peter Oleson beginning around 1910, and is thought to be the primary early developer of that farm. Billy Thompson encouraged his younger sister Lura and her husband J.C. Wilkinson to join him in the Yukon, which they did in 1917. The Wilkinsons also later owned the Pelly Farm and, along with their two sons and daughter, became well-known trappers, hunting guides and river outfitters in addition to being farmers.

Updated October 7, 2023

Next:  Part 3 – A Going Concern (1902-1914)

The Swinehart Farm – part 1

Discovering the Swinehart Farm

There is a long-abandoned and overgrown farm in the bush near Fort Selkirk that seems to be little known and overlooked in Yukon history. It was a pioneer farming enterprise established by William Swinehart and his family during and following the Klondike gold rush. It operated for 16 years until Swinehart died while working in his field. He is buried at the Yukon Field Force cemetery at Fort Selkirk.

Some sources referred to Swinehart as “the pioneer farmer of the Yukon” and “the potato king of the Yukon”, titles that may ignore others who were doing similar things at the same time. Nevertheless, they are indicators of Swinehart’s status and role in early Yukon agriculture.

I have known of the Swinehart Farm for many years from my time spent with the Bradleys at Pelly River Ranch, but not much seemed to be known about it. Oral history projects conducted at Fort Selkirk in the 1980’s make it clear that the farm was known locally, but it is virtually absent from published reports on early Yukon agriculture. When I began researching the Swinehart Farm a few years ago, three very helpful things fell into place.

The first was finding the legal survey plan and field book for the farm property, which were dated August 3, 1902. The parcel was 80 acres and “surveyed for W.H. Swinehart”, leaving no doubt it was the right property and where it was located. A further look at the lot in greater context showed that it still exists, totally surrounded by Selkirk First Nation land except for a road right-of-way surveyed out to maintain legal access to the property. This meant the lot was perhaps still owned by somebody, and a little more digging confirmed it, an interesting situation that will be discussed later.

The second event was very fortuitous, when a lady in California named Susan Coltrin posted a query on Murray Lundberg’s ExploreNorth blog looking for information about the Swinehart Farm. Ms. Coltrin, a history teacher who was married to a Swinehart descendant, had a keen interest in the Swinehart Farm from both historical and genealogical perspectives. Thanks to Mr. Lundberg’s assistance, I was able to communicate directly with her, which resulted in an exchange of information about the farm and family, including historically valuable photographs.

The third good thing was making contact with Heather and David Ingrams of Ottawa, who are great-grandchildren of William Swinehart. They also provided valuable photographs of the Swinehart Farm, the Fort Selkirk area and other locations, as well as some additional family information.

With these photos and information, things had lined up for a visit to the Swinehart Farm to learn what I could on site. I have been there several times, by three modes – walking, ATVing and snowmobiling. Two of the trips involved hauling a long ladder there to get into the tops of trees for views of the surrounding hillsides. This was to try to match up hill profiles that appeared in some of the old photos in order to prove that they are of the Swinehart Farm. A later trip to the farm involved the use of a drone, rendering the previous ladder efforts unnecessary and a little comical.

I have to acknowledge the interest and efforts of Ron Chambers, Dale and Ken Bradley, and Neal Allison in accompanying and assisting me on the trips to the Swinehart Farm. I’m very grateful to have people like this willing to humor me in carrying out these ventures.

In addition to the on-the-land explorations, I have done archival, genealogical and other research to try to piece together tidbits of information to help tell the story of the Swinehart Farm. Here is the story as I have it so far.

From Wisconsin to Alaska (1896 – 1898)

William Swinehart was born into a farming family in Wisconsin in 1855, but his early adult years did not foreshadow his future as a Yukon pioneer farmer. He attended a classical and musical academy, graduated from a business college, and became a bookkeeper and a county treasurer. By the late 1880’s William and his wife Rhoda had four children, a son and three daughters. Rhoda died in 1889 shortly after the birth of the last daughter, who was subsequently named Rhoda.

In February 1896, William and Guy, his 14-year old son, left for Juneau, Alaska, leaving the three daughters behind in Wisconsin, likely in the care of their Swinehart grandparents. William went to Juneau to join his younger brother George, who was established there as editor and publisher of the Juneau Mining Record newspaper. Guy attended the Sisters of St. Ann School in Juneau for the 1896-97 school year.

Sometime within the next year and a half, William’s two oldest daughters, Leta and Vivian, at aged 17 and 12 respectively, came to Juneau and attended the Sisters of St. Ann School for the 1897-98 school year. Vivian remained in Juneau for the following two school years, but Leta returned to Wisconsin and rejoined her little sister Rhoda, who had been left alone with her grandparents.

In the summer of 1897, after boats loaded with Klondike gold arrived at Seattle and San Francisco, the gold rush was on. In Juneau, the brothers William and George Swinehart and William’s son Guy mobilized to head for the goldfields the following spring. They were joined at some point by two other men, a fellow Wisconsinite named William Thompson and Ham Kline, a brother-in-law of William Swinehart. The 1901 Canada Census shows them all arriving in the Yukon in April 1898 and still being together at Fort Selkirk three years later, so it is reasonable to assume they travelled into the Yukon together.

Into the Yukon (1898)

In the spring of 1898, the Swinehart entourage joined the gold rush horde along the Chilkoot Trail and into the Yukon. On April 3 they were at Sheep Camp on the Trail when deadly snowslides occurred that claimed around 60 lives. The Swinehart party made it as far as what is now known as Carcross before they had to wait for the ice to go out of the lakes.

While most gold rush stampeders were bringing mining-related equipment and supplies over the trail, the Juneau newspaper man George Swinehart brought printing equipment. While waiting for the ice to go out, he put out the one and only issue of the Caribou Sun on May 16, 1898, one of the earliest newspapers printed in the Yukon. When the lakes and Yukon River were open to travel, George headed for Dawson City rather than go to Fort Selkirk with the rest of his party. On June 11, 1898, he published one of the first Dawson newspapers, called the Yukon Midnight Sun.

Like his brother, William Swinehart apparently also brought equipment for a Klondike venture other than mining. In 1914, in a letter to his Wisconsin home town, he wrote this: “I came to Yukon in 1898 from Juneau, Alaska … with the big gold stampede of over 20,000 people on the trail at the same time. I claim distinction as being the only man in that big crowd who came for the purpose of farming. I had four horses, plows, harrows, seed potatoes, cultivators, and provisions for a year and a half. In fact, our party was quite a curiosity because we were not seeking gold.” It would have been a sight to see all this farm equipment and supplies being transported over the Chilkoot Pass and then on some sort of watercraft on the journey across the lakes and down the Yukon River.

A 1903 Yukon Sun newspaper article told it differently, that William Swinehart intended to go mining, but decided to venture into farming after seeing the prices being paid for hay, grains and garden produce in the Yukon. Where this information came from is not known, but whatever the case, when the Swinehart party arrived at Fort Selkirk on or about June 15, 1898, they stayed to pursue the agricultural possibilities they saw there. About three kilometers into the bush west of Fort Selkirk, they set to work clearing land, building a house and barn, and digging an irrigation ditch from a nearby drainage.

Updated October 7, 2023

Next:  Part 2 – Establishing the Swinehart Farm (1898-1902)