Books & Manuscripts, including Americana

Leatherette pocket diary with entries spanning April 1907-July 1908, 108 pp. text with 3 sketches depicting an overhead layout of the Lizzie Colby and maps of the Aleutian Bay, Alaska region, approximately 5 3/4 x 3 1/2 in. (146 x 89 mm) (heavy wear and separation with front cover barely attached at spine, significant portions of spine ends worn away, chipping along extremities). Provenance: G.M. Scott (ownership inscription on inner front cover); Lowman and Hanford Stationery and Printing Co. of Seattle (bookseller's ticket).

"We tried to make Everett but when we had gone a mile the engines stopped. Then we were six miles or more from Ballard and luckily we had a pair of oars and oarlocks."

The Nome Gold Rush began in September 1898 with the discovery of gold on Anvil Creek by the "Three Lucky Swedes", Jafet Lindeburg, Erik Lindblom, and John Brynteson, who then established the Nome mining district to protect their claims. By this time, the Klondike Gold Rush was winding down, but upon news of their discovery reaching the outside world in the winter of 1898-1899, Nome became inundated with prospectors seeking to make their fortunes. Within a decade, Nome was considered exhausted, with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) publishing a notice in the May 1910 issue of the Industrial Worker to unemployed miners stating that "All the rich mines are practically worked out."

The Lizzie Colby was a 150-ton schooner built in Essex, MA, in 1882. With the discovery of gold in the Alaska territory, new markets opened up in the region as prospectors settled in Nome and the surrounding areas. Businesses based in the Pacific Northwest began to ply the Bering Sea for fish, with disappointed prospectors seeking an affordable way back home, thereby providing a steady supply of sailors. As one of the northernmost American cities on the Pacific coast, the town of Mount Vernon, Washington, was a key beneficiary of this industry and served as the primary point for the Lizzie Colby. The ship was wrecked on 29 June 1907 in Anadyr Bay just off the coast of Siberia, with all ten crew members aboard surviving. It is unclear whether Scott was still serving aboard the Colby at this time, as the entries relating to his time aboard end on 20 June 1907 and resume on 18 May 1908.