John J. Healy: Frontier Adventurer &

Capitalist

An Overview of the subject of Healy’s West & Healy’s North

© Gordon E. Tolton, 2012

I want to share my impressions and enthusiasm about a prospector, lawman, trader, merchant and plainsman who has engaged me for years. Having worked at modern Fort Whoop-Up as avolunteer and employee, his local role as historic proprietor sparks my interest, but that involvement in the period where he is most often identified, was a blip in a 50-year career.

One of his own quotes illustrates Healy’s contradictory nature: “You have seen me at my worst, and at the same time my best.” He was a businessman who cast off the comfortable, most at home at the trade counter or on a mountain trail. He made no bones about the expansionist view toward aboriginal inhabitants, but was at home around an Indian council, and counted many as friends. As a lawman he bent the rules to get a job done, but was accused of ‘coddling’ crooks by building a modern new jail. He hated vigilantism, yet respected those who dealt with matters firmly. He possessed an iron nerve, always having a trap door out of a sticky situation.

Though his first two decades are a puzzle, we can confirm his birth in 1840, in the County of Cork, Ireland, the eldest of six siblings, all with varying impacts on his career. Healy’s childhood was during the time of the potato famine. The Healy family gristmill contracted with the British government to provide flour and corn meal to those affected, but the contract was cut in 1848 and the mill closed. The family immigrated to Brooklyn, about 1853. The Irish heritage influenced John’s thinking to the extent of contributing to a tough-as-nails determination, and a disdain for monoliths like the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC).

Johnny showed no interest in offering details about his New York youth, presumably finding solace in the Irish community, or the rampant gang activity that overran the city. What I am sure of is that Johnny was gifted with the word: he wrote sharp,

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frankly, and to the point, presuming a background of good education. Some presume that the teenage Healy may have been associated with the mercenary chief William Walker, whose privatearmies staged takeovers of various Latin American nations in the late 1850s.

Better documented is Healy’s 1858 enlistment in the US Army, enrolled in the 2nd United States Dragoons, posted to Fort Leavenworth and sent on to Utah Territory. The Dragoons were in Utah to reinforce President James Buchanan’s position in a dispute with the Mormon settlement. Brigham Young’s homegrown militia successfully defended the city, in a series of raids thatforced the army to encamp for the winter of 1857-58 near Fort Bridger. Healy was in a relief brigade, but did not arrive untilthe dispute was all but settled.

Healy spent long months in the saddle escorting Oregon Trail emigrants through the Rockies into the Snake River basin. On this posting, he met the greatest influence on his life: the trapper, trader and scout, Jim Bridger. Following Bridger’s example in these years in uniform, Healy learned the arts of lifeamong the Indians: sign language, horsemanship, marksmanship, andnegotiations. At first opportunity, Healy shed his blue coat at the Portneuf River crossing in Idaho in 1859, a discharge saving him from service in the Civil War. His fights would be done on his own terms, on ground of his own choosing.

As a hired scout on the Oregon Trail wagon trains, Healy signed on with an arrogant profane trail boss named Herman Beebe,in a party bound for the Willamette Valley. Johnny warned Beebe about hazards on the mountainous trail, most concerned about the Shoshone, but Beebe ridiculed Healy’s caution, threatening to take a bullwhip into an Indian camp. Healy peacefully dealt with the Shoshone, arranging safe passage without bloodshed. Healy left Beebe at The Dalles, where he learned that the same band attacked another train behind the Beebe party.

Healy spent the winter of 1860-61 in Portland, hatching a scheme with some discharged army pals to explore the north side of the Snake River for its gold potential. In the spring, Healy’sband returned to The Dalles and struggled with pack-horses into the vicinity of the Elk City-Oro Fino gold rush. The stampede wasobserved by the Nez Perce with great wariness; there were some encounters, with the miners warned to leave or fight. The miners

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withdrew to the Salmon River where Healy washed gravel at DragoonGulch.

In the roots of an old decayed tree, they found the gold they were looking for. News travelled fast– by the time Healy filed his claim at Elk City, more miners had beat him back to the Gulchand huddled on the creek where the town of Florence grew the winter of 1861-62. Healy bristled as boomtown inflation overran the crude economy; the few merchants gouged for supplies, but theinflux of miners did little but grumble and pay. Johnny pulled 300 ounces from the creek before giving up to find less occupied climes in the upper reaches of the Salmon River.

In May of 1862, Healy’s party ascended the Salmon in scows following rumors of a rich quartz ledge. Instead they nearly starved, as the serpentine nature of the river and its many portages, sapped their energy and provisions. They persevered, satisfied that they would be able to re-equip themselves at the Mormon trading post of Fort Lemhi. But Lemhi was abandoned, devoid of any food. Healy’s party was on its last legs and prepared to leave themselves as skeletons, when a passing wagon train found the miners and fed them back to health.

After their rescue, Healy never saw prospecting the same way–no shiny rock was worth life. He would calculate the risks to seek more comfortable fortunes on the peripheries of the business, as a responsible explorer or merchant. The Bannack and Virginia City stampedes were on, and Idaho miners struck out for the diggings of southwest Montana. Healy was with them, but not for long. His bout with famine, perhaps triggered by some childhood Irish memory, ruined his appetite for prospecting and he was ready to see his family, after a four-year absence. That led to Healy’s first encounter with Fort Benton in the summer of 1862, where he boarded a mackinaw, hoping to catch the last steamer of the year. After boarding the Shreveport, a firefight erupted between a nearby camp of the Gros Ventre and the Sioux. The miners and ship’s crew sided with the Gros Ventre to drive away the Sioux, but Healy helped recover a war pony–revealing a steely nerve and endearing him to the native culture of Montana.

Healy returned to a New York City in uproar over the Civil War. With no interest in the fray, on November 16, 1862, John wed Mary Frances Sarsfield. By spring of 1863, he was back in Fort Benton, though it would be sometime before Mary Frances

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herself braved that journey. In the interim, he headed to check out rumours of gold in the Fort Edmonton country.

On the North Saskatchewan River, other ideas were in his head,the germ of a long series of events that would lead to the establishment of Fort Whoop-Up. He liked what he saw at Edmonton, and informed the HBC clerks he would be sending a mining expedition later that year. He was warned to bring his own provisions if he did. For his return trip, Johnny hired Pish-kun, the Metis son of a veteran trader, to ride with him through Blackfoot lands, and assist with the many situations that could crop up.

They travelled close to the Porcupine Hills, never encountering the Blackfoot. After crossing the St. Mary’s River, they ran into Kootenay who demanded their horses in tribute. Healy tore into a swearing fit and proclaimed himself capable of a fight; the Kootenay relented, and invited the travelers back totheir camp. Healy noticed that the children were hungry, but was startled by the reason. This was a Sunday, the Kootenay were Christianized and would not hunt on the Sabbath. Healy recalled his own faith, and rolled back his sleeve, to show his hosts the crucifix tattoo on his forearm. On the plains, the Irishman and the local born Indians knelt in prayer to share their common faith of Rome, and share a feast of Pemmican from his saddlebags.

Upon his return to Fort Benton, Healy brought in his brother Joseph to man a prospecting party to return to Edmonton. By fall 1863, the 30-man expedition left for the north, led by Harley MacEwen, a Scot that Healy had met on his Idaho escapades. Possibly, his father-in-law, Patrick Sarsfield, financed the venture. But they went without John–he returned east for mining gear, and to spend the winter in New York awaiting the birth of his first child.

The expedition found gold, but the HBC factor, William Christie, was hostile. They were accused of ‘Free-trading’ and infringing on the Company monopoly. When the Americans tried to buy supplies, Christie refused their business, and placed the miners under post arrest, forcing them to chop wood for their keep. In the spring of 1864, the party gave up and prepared to head home to Fort Benton. Before they left, MacEwen had an altercation with Christie, forcing the Factor to sell him provisions, virtually at gunpoint, to make it home to the Missouri.

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At Benton, they found John Healy fuming–a message relating MacEwen’s travails had reached him. MacEwen told Healy the whole story, that he had lost the biggest stake of his life to that point–wholly due to the HBC’s hostility. Healy vowed revenge: “this affair put me on fire and I vowed that the minute I got $10,000 ahead I would go back up into that country and make them abandon their Fort if it was the last act of my life.”1 Healy washell-bent to destroy the HBC.

Over the next five years, the Healys established a family lifein a turbulent land. Some time was spent in the gold gulches around Bannack, amid the vigilante scourges, where the backwoods lynchings reinforced his personal code of the rule of law. A Treaty between the southern Piegan and the US government in 1865 brought steady employment, and a home on the Sun River. But Healytook his job as manager of the Indian agency’s horse farm seriously. The career allowed Mary Frances and his daughter to join him, and the family grew.

Like all in the west Healy was affected by the nation’s conflict with its first peoples, and became educated in the ways of the Blackfoot in war and in peace. His one-on-one dealing madehim aware of the economy of trade–that understanding the native value system ensured an edge on his own personal objective. With a young family, Healy chose not to rely on wages, and built a house and trading store on the east side of the Sun River ford, the crossing along the Mullan Road, a few miles from the US Army’s Fort Shaw.

By 1869, he acquired Alfred Hamilton as a trusted partner and lifelong friend. Observing the traditional trade of both the HBC and the collapsed American Fur Company where it had been the practice to sit within stockade and wait for tribesmen to bring in the furs, Healy’s business mind figured that were a trader more proactive, learn more about his customer, he could gain an advantage to the classical way of doing things in the fur trade.

But the spring of 1869 brought a setback. A party of Bloods camped near his post, when a moonlight raid was staged by the Pend d’oreille. Several horses were stolen, leaving many in the camp dead, and endangering Healy’s family. In the aftermath, a boy was left orphaned. Healy adopted the youth, Potai’na (Flying Chief), better known as Joe Healy, the first Blood to read and write English, and as an adult, a respected elder of his people.1 Healy, J.J. as told to Forrest Crissey, “Bucking the Hudson Bay Company”, Saturday Evening Post, June 20, 1903

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The raid brought indifference from the Army, and Healy retrieved the horses in a feat both daring and diplomatic. That did much to endear John Healy to the Bloods, and inspired him to develop that relationship. Coupled with arguments with the Army,punitive taxes made upon him by the Republicans controlling the County seat, and territorial changes, Healy acted out on his plans to break the HBC. Healy was keenly aware that the 200-year old HBC monopoly was a broken pact, as the British arranged to transfer Rupert’s Land to the fledgling Dominion of Canada. The result was a realm of unorganized territories, ruled from a distant Parliament that could not enforce sovereignty for the region, and brought a vacuum of power. The Rupert’s Land transferwas in the politically aware mind of John Healy as he planned hisforay into Canada.

One does not build a trade complex on Blackfoot territory without market research. Just moving in and setting up without actual contact was tantamount to suicide in the midst of the Blackfoot Wars of the 1860s. Anxiety was high, and trigger fingers itchy and nervous. Permission had to be requested, favorsgranted, gifts and food distributed; marrying into the band was part of the process. Healy had inroads into the territory–he’d scouted for other prospectors into the Belly River country in 1867 and 1868.

The significance of his ‘country’ marriage with the daughter of Many Spotted Horses cannot be understated. A trader who took the daughter of a chief gained respect within the band, and the chief himself gained stature for having a trusted trader in his family. The practice was as old as the first Europeans on the continent. Alf Hamilton stayed with his Lucy until the day he died, and current descendants of Montana traders abound within modern Blackfoot society. But Healy did not broadcast his tryst.If there was issue from Healy and the unnamed daughter of Many Spotted Horses, it has been lost to history. The facts may have been buried to spare his Sun River family, or Healy’s own morals may not have been comfortable with the collision of business and personal affairs.

In December of 1869, wagons headed for the forks of the St. Mary’s and the Belly (now the Oldman) Rivers where “Alf Hamilton and I got up $25,000 and started at Fort Whoop-up with the Indians.” 2 How Healy and Hamilton put that kind of money together

2 Hill, Alexander Stavely, From Home to Home

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is a matter of conjecture. No doubt, the Fort Benton merchants were involved–certainly on Healy’s part, there was Thomas C. Power, a staunch Healy friend, transportation czar and marketer of hides. Circumstantially, perhaps Hamilton came in with his stake from his uncle, Isaac G. Baker, a family link that gives the impression to many historians as the backer of Whoop-Up.

The trail to the Belly River crossed the Blackfeet Reservationsprawling across the top half of Montana, presenting a problem. Liquor on an American reservation was banned by law, enforced by the Army and the US Marshal Service. Healy may have had no fear in selling north of the border, but had no intention of being tarred as a bootlegger by his own government.

Political favors were called to get Uncle Sam’s permission, through the office of General Alfred Sully, Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Montana. Healy & Hamilton posted a $10,000 peace bond, and Sully granted a unique permit allowing travel across the Reservation, just as long as merchants didn’t stop andpeddle their wares in his bailiwick. “They are also privileged to take with them a party of from 20 to 30 men and six wagons loaded with supplies provided there is no spirituous liquors in the wagons except a small quantity which may be taken safely for medicinal purposes.” 3 That depended on a definition of medicine:Healy said “We took up 50 gallons of alcohol, not so much for thevalue of the goods it would bring in, as thereby to secure the Indian trade.” 4

Despite the permit, Healy believed the army would pursue and arrest him on federal lands. With no practical way to get aroundthe extensive boundaries, Healy approached Fort Shaw to announce his intent. Why the peace bond and Sully’s permit did not achieve access is not clear, but the Army indicated they would prosecute Healy if he carried out his plan. Though one officer offered to look the other way, Healy formulated an ulterior plan.

The wagons were loaded and ready to roll from his Sun River, beside which ran the military’s telegraph wire from Fort Shaw to Fort Benton. Under cover of darkness, Hamilton started north withthe caravan, while Healy galloped the 60 miles to Benton on a fast pony. From there, he sent a fake telegram, instructing Hamilton to meet him at the Teton River ford, directly north of

3 Overholser, Joel, Fort Benton: World’s Innermost Port, s.p., Fort Benton, MT, 19874 Hill, Alexander Stavely, From Home to Home

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Benton. Then Healy galloped off, making sure the post officer at Benton saw him leave.

Healy knew the military would intercept his message, and a patrol was sent out to confiscate their damning illicit cargo of liquor. But all the soldiers found was bald-headed prairie. The whiskey train was in fact rolling along directly north of Sun River, some 75 miles west of where soldiers scoured hill and daleat the point named in the phony wire. To further muddle their minds, Hamilton dragged poles from the backs of his wagons, eradicating the wagon ruts with the simulated dog-track of an Indian travois.

Among the eight men in that first party was Pat Heaney, who provided some of the few details known about that first expedition and their first trade. Among the most crucial was the date of departure: from Sun River the week after Christmas, 1869.5 To attempt such a journey in late December, the countryside musthave been basking in warm weather, an occurrence not uncommon where the Chinook weather systems make for warm, if windy, climatic conditions. Warm winter travel had its advantages in thematter of getting over the rivers that had to be crossed–they would be ice-free and at low levels.

At the Marias, Healy met some 20 Blood Indians in dire straits. The open winter meant that game was sticking to higher country, and they had run out of food. Healy opened the wagons tofeed the band, and let them travel alongside. Healy kept the bandfed “until they struck into a band of buffalo” and could become self-reliant again. That simple act struck a strategic friendshipfor the new enterprise. Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, a hereditary chief of great influence, was an important connection spelling the difference between failure and success, even life or death. “The Bloods appreciated what had been done for them and urged thetrio to build a post for trading.” The incident might even have dictated the location, an ideal spot at the forks of the St. Mary’s River and the Belly. “Fort Hamilton” was the original designation, but more popularly accepted as Fort Whoop-Up, the name that came to define the American free trade invasion. The road keeping the business well-stocked and active for nearly 20 years would be the “Whoop-Up Trail.”

5 Heaney, Patrick, in interview to Taylor, C.J., “Healey and Hamilton Faced Death When 500 Blood Braves Stood Between Few White Traders and Vengeful Peigans,” Dillon Examiner, Mar 8, 1922; Montana News Association Inserts 5:181, Montana Historical Society

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Johnny and Alf Hamilton were out of communication and ignorantof the Marias River massacre, where Army Major Eugene Baker attacked a camp of Piegan led by Heavy Runner, though aware it was not the camp of Mountain Chief, the hostile he was looking for. The result was the deaths of some 180 Piegan, mostly women and children, many more dying of cold exposure in escaping the scene. On a quick return trip to Sun River, Healy heard rumors the Piegan would now be heading for the British side of the line.

The Piegan warrior Cut Hand arrived to the new Fort, thoroughly angered about the Marias incident and looking for revenge. A Blood woman translating informed Healy of the intent. “Cut Hand is here,” she shouted. “He will trade only for powder and ball. When he gets enough he will kill you.” Healy and company made a slow, deliberate retreat into the incomplete cabins where crates containing new Prussian needle guns were opened, and everyone grabbed a rifle to assume skirmish positions. Sequestered in the unfinished trade room, “they waitedfor perhaps 15 minutes before a sudden knock came at the door. After some hesitation they decided to open up, and … there stood the war chief of their friends, the Bloods, Bull’s Back Fat, stripped for battle.”

Bull’s Back Fat explained: “Friends, you know the white soldiers a short time ago cleaned out the Piegan camp over on theMarias. There were no warriors in that camp… and the able-bodiedmen were out hunting for meat for their wives, babies and old people. The white soldiers came in the night and slaughtered thesick old men and women and babies…as they slept, or hunted them down in the snow and killed them. The hearts of all the Blackfeet, the Piegans and Bloods are filled with bitterness against he whites for this. Cut Hand and his Piegans have come here to kill you.”

But Bull’s Back Fat finished: “But you men have been kind to us and you are our traders. We Bloods were hungry when you met us and fed us. We are grateful. Now 500 of my warriors have joined our party. The Piegans will have to kill is before they kill you. They outnumber us greatly, but they are our cousins, and I do not believe they will force us to fight. If they do, we will die fighting for you white men.” The post was encircled by Blood warriors–their attention fixed on the Piegan.

Bull’s Back Fat addressed his uneasy rivals. Instead of a declaration of war, the Blood chief made the sign to signal the

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beginning of trade. Fort Whoop-Up was open for business. The Piegan lined up as their wives packed in their bounty of buffalo robes and small furs. The chief personally stood at the gate, allowing only a couple at a time into the stockade. Healy and Hamilton had a ready supply of trade goods on hand, but all the Piegan wanted was powder and shot. The first in line were dealt 40 rounds of powder and ball robe. When supplies dwindled Healy cut the rate to 20 rounds per robe, then to 10 rounds.

When Cut Hand finished trading, Healy and Hamilton wondered ifthey’d just armed their executioners. But Bull’s Back Fat interrupted: “You have finished trading with these white men. Now go and go peacefully. You have come to kill these white men. You will have to kill me, and my men first. If I find that later you molest these friends of mine, I will attack your camp. You will be the first I will kill.” 6 The Piegan, like the Blood, returned time and again to trade.

Besides saving their own hides, the Cut Hand exchange netted 1,600 buffalo robes. Fort Whoop-Up was a viable concern, thanks to the friendship of Bull’s Back Fat. Alf and Johnny wasted no time saying thank you, and threw together an impromptu feast for the Bloods.

After cashing in their full winter’s haul, the Helena Herald lauded the traders as local boys made good: “This venture will net Messrs. Hamilton and Healy upwards of $50,000–not so very badfor a six months’ cruise.”7 In emulation, would-be soldiers of fortune stampeded north with trade products, alcohol and firearms, founding posts at various locations in the river country in a 25-mile radius from Whoop-Up; in the Highwood and Bow River country; and into the Cypress Hills. Confidence was high enough that Healy & Hamilton hired William Gladstone, a former HBC carpenter, to construct a building on the scale of thegrand trade posts of old. As the new Fort was built, the originalwas damaged by fire.

Nobody was happier than Fort Benton, where renewed fur trade rejuvenated a depressed economy. In 1870, 5,000 robes were shipped out of Canada; two years later, 15,000; and by 1876, 76,000. The merchants Power and Baker prospered. The US government was a net beneficiary, as the collector of customs, after 1872, levied a 20% import duty on the value of Canadian 6 Heaney, Patrick, in interview to Taylor, C.J., “Healey and Hamilton Faced Death When 500 Blood Braves Stood Between Few White Traders and Vengeful Peigans,” Dillon Examiner, Mar 8, 1922; Montana News Association Inserts 5:181, Montana Historical Society7 Helena Herald, June 15, 1870

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buffalo robes. Principal dealer was Portus Weare, who picked up acommission fee on each hide directed to a leather tannery, furrier, retailer or auction house.

Healy’s trade style was proactive, financing many an independent trader doing their work out of the back of a wagon, directly in the camps. Wagon trading was risky business, both fortrader, with direct contact on unsafe ground, and for Healy, who had to trust that the trader himself would return to pay for the goods taken, or bring back the robes. Often, Healy was left holding the bag for unpaid debts.

With their success, Healy & Hamilton opened the Elbow River post in the heart of what is now downtown Calgary. The location was good, but the choice of Fred Kanouse as manager was questionable. Wherever Kanouse went chaos followed, and the Elbow post came under attack. The reputation of Kanouse and his ilk sullied the reputation of the Montana trader. After a shootout that resulted in a marathon wagon trip to a Helena surgeon, Kanouse was replaced with Donald Watson Davis, a former Army clerk.

Letters between Healy and T.C. Power in 1872 reveals that Power played a crucial role beyond the role of wholesaler. A letter in July of that year requested an extension of a mortgage held on Whoop-Up property. That would account for a counting of stock on site, informing the value of the note that Power held: “not counting horses, wagons, cattle or Fort. We said that the property at Fort, assets to near $8,000.” A week later, Healy indicated in correspondence to Power, that there was also a note held on either oxen or horse teams.8

The fortifications, heavily armed staff, and presence of artillery, enforced an atmosphere of security and superior firepower that few would challenge. Healy’s reputation as a hard but fair trader and a willingness to know his customers made Whoop-Up a relatively safe place to do business. The place never had a serious attack mounted on it, but there were tense incidents of high drama.

One such incident was that of Weasel Head, a Blood whom Healy refused to sell whiskey. Weasel Head left the trade room, and returned with “a big six-shooter … thrust into the bosom of his shirt and he carried one of those big-wicked Hudson’s Bay 8 JJ Healy to T.C. Power, signing as ‘Healy & Hamilton’, Jul 10, 1872, & Jul 18, 1872, T.C Powers Papers, Montana Historical Society

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daggers. He walked up to the counter again and said ‘I want whiskey’, and with that he drove the dirk into the top of the counter until it quivered.” Healy acted quickly, vaulted over the trade counter, grabbed Weasel Head by the ear and started forthe gate. The Blood reached for his revolver, and Healy revealed his own gun, the “Swamp Angel” derringer in his pocket. They tussled to the gate, and when Weasel Head cocked his gun, Healy “brought my pistol down smash full in the face. He fell like a hog.” 9

Like all good businessmen, Healy cultivated contacts to encourage the bands to visit Whoop-Up. That led him into the vibrant horse trade, where Healy paid cash equivalents for fresh ponies, resold to Montana ranches. That let him delve deep into the culture of the Blackfoot “big dog”, and made him a first ratejudge of prairie horseflesh. Healy employed Darwin’s belief in the vigor of wild nature: “I paid from $1 to $3 a head and generally bought a hundred at a time. Into the big corral would be driven 500 to 1,000 wild horses of uniform color. Then the gate would be opened and the first 100 animals to escape would bemine…the most active and intelligent animals would naturally be the first out.”10

As business grew, so did the Healy family. With 9 children, simple math leads to the conclusion, that Healy did get home, andthat Mary Frances was not displeased to see him. But they could not escape mortality, losing four of their babies. In business, the family tried to diversify. Johnny and kid brother Tom resurrected the ancient family trade in Sun River, and built a mill to create an end use for locally grown grain.

As T.C. Power and I.G. Baker played friendly competitors on the streets, on the prairie, rivalries heated up to the point of gunplay. The Conrad brothers, Baker’s de facto managers, were as ambitious a set of capitalists as ever produced in the west. William and Charles would upgrade simple Indian trading to new heights, with deep contacts in circles of power of Washington andOttawa. In the early 1870s, the boys were still on the lower rungs of their climb and not above a bit of knavery–to the extentof utilizing simple hired goons, a pack of wolf hunters styled “the Spitzee Cavalry.”

9 Unpuplished manuscript, “Incidents of Indian-fighting and Fur trader days in Montana, the Canadian Northwest and Alaska, related by the late Captain John J. Healy”- Tappan Adney’s Biography of John J. Healy (1937). Reposited in BakerLibrary, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. Hereafter referred as ‘Adney manuscript’10 Healy, J.J., Great Falls Tribune, November 25, 1900 & February 10, 1901

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The Blackfoot had no use for wolfers or their habit of poisoning buffalo meat to attract and kill wolves, also the Indians’ work dogs. The wolfers often were hardened and violent men, creating tense situations threatening open racial warfare. The Spitzee gang had been successful in bullying independent traders into signing a document, ceasing their trade of repeatingrifles to the Blackfoot. But a rider in the crude contract boundthe signer to exclusively purchase inventory from I.G. Baker.

The sequence of events leading up to Healy’s final encounter with the cavalry is detailed and still open to some debate and analysis. The upshot was that the gang arrived at a post on the Belly River, some 20 miles west of the Fort, where they intimidated a T.C. Power clerk to leave his post and seek shelterat Fort Kipp. Healy was aware the wolfers were coming to see him, and prepared. What does one do when an armed, angry mob comes calling to your front door? If you’re Healy–invite them into dinner.

As Healy later related to Tappan Adney, after the meal, he asked the ‘boys’ into the trade room warehouse to discuss business. As Healy enjoyed a cigar, the Cavalry harangued him with accusations. At some point, one of the wolfers let slip theinformation that he was on the payroll of Charles Conrad. At thatpoint, Healy had the admission he was looking for, that this was the frontier equivalent of a hostile takeover, with the Baker managers seeking to strong-arm the market share. Stories conflict, but the best has Healy walking over to a barrel of gunpowder and lifting the lid, threatening to drop in a lit cigar, if they did not withdraw. The Spitzee quickly evacuated the Fort, without a shot fired.

Healy claimed that he got his revenge on the HBC, that Whoop-Up cut-off the flow of pemmican to their posts in the north. The Blackfoot need not travel north to sell their crop. “Before the company folks at the Fort woke up to what was on foot, I had every pound of meat in that whole country bought up.” Healy bragged, “the old King at the company Fort had plenty of opportunity to remember how he had starved our boys.”11 The ‘old King’, William Christie, had every reason to wish the Americans gone.

The Missouri River brought goods directly into the territory of the Blackfoot. Without a competitive transportation network, 11 Healy as interpreted by Foreest Crissey in “Bucking the Hudson’s Bay Company”, Saturday Evening Post, _______

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the HBC were victims of their own complacency. The old Company re-opened Rocky Mountain House, on the upper North Saskatchewan, but it withered without customers. In the Cypress Hills, the Baymen sent Isaac Cowie to build a post and try to pull off some of the trade. But their best tactic came politically.

The HBC bent the ears of the Canadian government, lobbying to rid the country of their problem, with some help from the missionaries. The Methodist Parson John Macdougall had been to Whoop-Up and his sensibilities were offended by life at the Fort,where someone told the Reverend how things are done around their parts–that those who interfered with the likes of Healy–“are under sod. We did not let any really bad men stay in this Whoop-Up Region.” 12

Seeing a common foe in the American trader, MacDougall told HBC Factor Richard Hardisty, that some Blackfoot saw the presenceof such products as a detriment, and reiterated the words of Crowfoot: “The whiskey brought among us by the traders is fast killing us and we are powerless before the evil… totally unable to resist the temptation to drink when brought in contact with the white man’s water. We are also unable to pitch anywhere that the trader cannot follow us. Our horses, buffalo robes and otherarticles of trade go for whiskey, a large number of our people have killed one another and perished in various ways under the influence.”13

In 1873, the wolfer element massacred some 30 Assiniboine in the Cypress Hills. This strengthened the resolve of the federal government to assume authority over the land they’d ignored since1870. The North West Mounted Police (NWMP) was barely signed intoexistence when word of the debacle reached the government throughdiplomatic channels. The massacre shocked the masses of the east–not because the victims were native, but that the perpetrators were “American.” As the NWMP mobilized, columnists denigrated Montana traders as the villain.

When the NWMP arrived at Fort Whoop-Up, they found one-legged Charles Schaft, trader Dave Akers, and no Healy. Where he was on that mythic day has never been determined, but Col. James Macleodfound no alcohol whatsoever on the premises. Healy was no fool; he couldn’t run anything from prison, and altered his trade practices to conform with the new regime: “I was never intending

12 McDougall, John, On Western Trails13 Letter, McDougall to Hardisty, Oct 20, 1874

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to resist them or the law in any shape, so on the arrival of the police...I gave up all the whiskey there was, and it was spilled,and the whole thing came to an end.”14

Others, like J.D. Weatherwax, Fred Kanouse, William Bond, or Harry Taylor, were not sly enough to leave a regulated substance out of their inventory. Healy scoffed at the notion the NWMP had run the traders out of the country–arguing in his politically incorrect way that the Mounties owed their survival to independent merchants. But ever the advance man for Manifest Destiny, Healy killed his own argument: “Instead of cut-throats they found the best band of prairie men the west ever produced; more like brothers doing a legitimate business, scattered all through the different posts. They were the men who taught the Indians how to behave and made the country safe for white people to travel through in search of life and health.” 15

Healy’s first encounter with NWMP Inspector James Walsh was riotous. Walsh laughed at and said “Is it possible you are the man there is so much said about? ...I expected to see a man aboutsix feet, four inches with six shooters!” Healy and Walsh remained good friends for nearly 30 years. Alfred Hamilton was gone, having taken up business with at the Blackfeet Agency on the Teton River, but Healy traded at Fort Whoop-Up until the spring of 1876. The previous year, he had even rented rooms to the NWMP, where the Force operated a detachment until 1888.

Business in Benton kept Healy away from Whoop-Up in the post-Police days. By the fall of 1875, Healy was having trouble selling his own hides in Benton, due to a surplus. Disagreements with T.C. Power, to whom he was highly indebted, degenerated intolawsuits.

For traders who kept their activities above board, the NWMP years were bounteous in trade, as one anonymous Mountie reported:“At the present time [spring 1876] the traders on Old Man, Belly,and St. Mary’s Rivers have on hand ready for exportation over 30,000 robes…John Healy, of Whoop Up, also traded for about 5,000” 16 for 1876. But Fort Benton, and other shipping points on the Missouri, had gathered 211,000 hides.17 Healy’s take accountedfor less than 2%. Healy was being squeezed by Baker and Power, who could afford to take less, in order to capture market share. 14 Hill, Alexander Stavely, From Home to Home15 p. 349, Overholser, Joel, Fort Benton: World’s Innermost Port, s.p., Fort Benton, MT, 198716 Manitoba Free Press, Apr 22, 187617 John Lepley in Blackfoot Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri

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Both firms had monopolies on overland and river shipping, and a tight connection to the buyers. Healy considered shipping to Winnipeg, but that meant an overland journey of three months.

Healy cut his losses, dumping thousands of robes onto the Benton docks for shipment to Montreal, but charged that his furs were mixed in with Power’s, resulting in further losses. Healy cried foul: “My relations with T.C. Power on the shipment of robes to Canada has resulted disastrously for me, for the reason that T.C. has gone into the swindling business”18 In a letter to Winnipeg merchants Gerrie & Co., he lamented not selling in Manitoba, and committed to do so the following year. The letter hints alignment with the Wetzel company, another Benton merchant,and relocation to Fort Macleod, using Tom Healy’s name to keep anyone from garnisheeing his inventory. Next year never came.

In August of 1876, he blamed Power for his decline, the economy and even a plague of locusts: “I am a total wreck financially, and have none to blame but Power for it. The grasshoppers got away with everything this year …I made a fine trade last winter, but owing to the fearful decline in the robe market this year, I have lost $12,000, which… has swamped me. 19 With that, John Healy was out, and sold Fort Whoop-Up to Dave Akers.

Healy retreated to his Sun River operation. The years at Sun River were Healy’s happiest, where he could have the best of bothworlds–a family life and the frontier experience. As much as we identify Healy with Fort Benton and Whoop-Up, the center of his universe was Sun River. But trade reversals caught up with him: he lost the gristmill to public auction.

In 1877, the family moved to Fort Benton, where Healy threw himself into busy public work. He chaired the Choteau County Democratic Committee, was appointed Sheriff, offered to form a militia to chase Sitting Bull and avenge Custer, did form a militia to chase Chief Joseph and witnessed the Nez Perce surrender. He wrote editorials for the Benton Record, and saved murder suspect Kootenai Brown from committing suicide in the county jail. Wearing twin hats, as scout and as journalist, Healyattended the Terry conference at Fort Walsh where the US Army tried to convince Sitting Bull to return to America. When the

18 J.J. Healy to Congressional Delegate Martin Maginnis, Aug 4, 1876, Maginnis file, Montana Historical Society19 J.J. Healy to Congressional Delegate Martin Maginnis, Aug 4, 1876, Maginnis file, Montana Historical Society

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conference failed, Healy rode a non-stop 24-hour marathon to Helena to get the news on the wires for the New York World.

As Sheriff, Healy was hardly a gunslinger, and never even worea sidearm on duty. One would think the lack of a weapon in a townlike Fort Benton foolhardy. But a small accessory of his attire was unknown to townsmen. His Derringer was always in his pocket, an insurance policy kept secret until Tappan Adney revealed it inthe draft of an unpublished biography. Johnny’s other fearsome weapon, was what Adney called his ‘hypnotic’ eye, an astigmatism that kept one eye wide open in a powerful glare that on its target–be it across a desk, trade counter or down a gun barrel–that, and a steely nerve made Healy a formidable, intimidating, and respected lawman.

Unlike previous officials who dabbled in illegal activities orturned their back on vigilante justice, Johnny Healy ran County affairs seriously and fairly, if not always to the letter, comingdown hard upon offenders. In 1878, Healy ran for re-election on the platform of “don’t vote for me if you plan on stealing any horses,” on the promise of a quick trial and hanging. He won the election, and there are many stories of unusual justice. A Blood horse-thief received a hair cut instead of the rope or jail time–Healy knew the embarrassment received when he returned to his camp was a fit punishment. Healy even threw political insurgent, Louis Riel, into jail for qualifying Canadian Metis in a Congressional election. In five years with the badge, Healy transformed Fort Benton into a town as peaceful as any north of the border. Such results never come without controversy. His actions, sometimes bold or arrogant, cost him political friends.

In 1881, Sheriff Healy commissioned the construction of a brick frame jailhouse. Determined not to have jailbreaks on his watch, he forced the need for a new jail, and stormed ahead with construction. Taxpayers of Choteau County saw the matter as a needless frill, and political enemies spun Healy’s position as the ‘coddling of prisoners.’ Further embarrassment was caused theSheriff when the completed jail couldn’t even hold prisoners. Theiron cages Healy ordered never seemed to arrive, and when they did, Healy was embarrassed to discover a locksmith had to be brought in from New York before he could even use the cells.

One of Healy’s last acts in office was to levy import customs duties on buffalo robes to a camp of Canadian Metis living on theMilk River. Healy had paid taxes on his robes in his cross-border

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endeavor, and considered the levy his right. The Metis disagreed and took Healy and his deputies captive. It was a humiliating incident in which the Army had to be called in.

In 1882, Healy’s position came up for renewal, but he failed to even get the nomination. James MacDevitt won the election and the right to sit in Healy’s chair. But a Sheriff can deputize whomever he wishes to assist him, and swore in his predecessor. As a Deputy, Healy was given the role of jailer, ironically in charge of the very facility that cost him the top job. He could also pursue his other business interests without the glare of theCounty ratepayer.

Those interests included his penchant for the written word in his friendship with Benton Record proprietor and editor, William Horace Buck. The Record logged on March 27, 1878, that one its favorite subjects had bought into the paper as “Local Editor and Business Manager.” Dual positions as lawman and newsman may seem inappropriate in an elected office, but in the times, not unusual. The position of Sheriff, while having some cachet, was nearly in the realm of volunteerism–dependent on fines to make a living. With a family to feed, it was not looked down upon to have a side business. Healy had several projects, including the Sullivan Saddlery, an auction house and the Overland Hotel. But the Record was a project close to his heart.

As generous as his position was with providing news, he was careful not to publicly confuse his positions. County politics were rife with traps, and Healy shied from using a soapbox from which he would be an easy target. Most of the content was Buck’s responsibility, but when it came to speaking of cross-border politics, especially the Sitting Bull affair, there was no doubt that Healy scribed a few of the unsigned editorials.

Buck was more interested in Healy himself. The Record had featured on its front page, pulpy melodramatic serials. After Healy came aboard, Buck thought something better could be done. Why pay some New York dramatist for purple prose, when the words of Montana’s very own dime novel hero–its very own serial historian–were available?

Buck pestered Healy for yarns of his days in the mountains andprairie. On Feb. 15, 1878, the first chapter of a “Made in Montana” adventure appeared. Frontier Sketches ran on the front page of the weekly for four years, providing a glimpse into his era and the people he’d encountered. Smart enough to know a newspaper

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is an archive of the past, he wanted to provide the settler with some context of what the prairie and mountains of the 1860s were like in his mind’s eye.

As Healy ‘s popularity waned, he had less to do with the Record, as townsmen tired of a public servant with influence over the media’s editorial policy. The last Sketch appeared at the beginning of 1880–before he got around to saying more about Whoop-Up. Twenty years passed before more of such recollections appeared.

Finances were becoming serious. The Record was sold, and Buck moved to Choteau to start the Calumet. The Hotel and auction housewere failing, and the Sun River ranch was past that point. Brother Tom became the Town Marshall of Fort Benton. Mary Franceswas named a partner in the ranch, indicating Johnny was trying toshelter his assets.

But that ploy failed when Mary Frances died in January of 1883. The loss devastated him as their planned house on the southbank of the Missouri went unfinished. The Blood step-son Joe had returned to his people. May Flanagan, a family friend, said he all but forgot his children. The eldest daughter, Maria, became aschoolteacher to support her younger siblings. Flanagan also tells a gossipy story of “a lady detective” living in a tent on the banks of the river near town, often visited by “Mr. Healy.”

With his life in shambles, Johnny was the perfect pigeon when wandering brother Joseph came calling. A Stoney Indian had got his attention with a boulder from the base of Castle Mountain, onthe upper Bow River. Joseph brought the specimen to Fort Benton for assay, and it proved rich in copper, an element gaining valuewith the steam industries. Joseph followed John’s instructions to return to where the specimens came from, stake a claim, and work it. Eventually, someone dubbed the site “Silver City”– situated just off the right-of-way of the fledgling Canadian Pacific Railway. For two years Joseph sat beside the claims, andscratched a pick at the rocks. In 1883, the CPR arrived in the Bow Valley, and so did the boomers. A few companies blossomed, including the Healys’ Alberta mine, and Johnny travelled to Winnipeg to raise capital. But when serious work began on the mountain, it was found copper extraction meant an expensive smelting process was needed. Silver City’s gleam tarnished amid rumours of inflated shares and mine salting. The poor pickings inthe mine, coupled with the scandal, killed Silver City as fast as

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it had grown. Among the bag holders were the Healys. Silver City did more than separate their money. It caused a serious rift, andJohnny never spoke of Joseph again.

By the end of 1885, in a mid-life crisis, Healy needed a new challenge. Leaving his children in Maria’s care, John longed for a world of rugged individualism. In January of 1886, he started over in the embryo town of Juneau, Alaska. Healy was not getting any younger, and gold fever was out of his system. More promise was to be had by outfitting miners than actually looking for the mineral itself. The hints of colored metal being found in the streams and creeks of this frozen wilderness would lead to a major discovery. With his talents in organization and negotiation, John gambled on a remote inlet at the base of the Chilkoot Pass. Licensed as a coastal trader, Healy went into partnership with Edgar Wilson of Ohio and built a post at the head of Lynn Canal in Dyea Inlet, the key to entering the Yukon from the Alaskan panhandle. Despite the early development he faced stiff competition from the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) that had transportation on the Yukon River sewn up.

Healy & Wilson built their own monopoly: after equipping and provisioning the miner, Healy cornered the market on the servicesof the Chilkat Indians and the mountain packers whose services were essential for gold-seekers to get their gear over the Chilkoot Pass. Healy’s relationship with the Chilkats was similarto that with the Blackfoot. He was paternalistic to the locals, and conflict was rare. If he had any racial issues, they were offthe trade table–business was first. Healy ran a schooner servicein the inlet between Juneau and Dyea, granting him the honorific of “Captain”. But while Healy could dominate the Chilkoot, the ACC held the Yukon River with their fur post, Fort Reliance.

In 1886, gold strikes on the Stewart River brought interest inthe Yukon, and the ACC was poised to capitalize, but circumstances landed the first news of the Stewart River strike right into Healy’s hands. The ACC sent two men on dogsleds to carry the word to Juneau through the Chilkoot Pass. Beset by blizzards and numbing cold, and knowing they were going to die, the messengers cached their letters. One man succumbed in Dyea inHealy’s quarters; the other, an Indian packer, grabbed a hand full of dry beans from a barrel in the store and gathered enough English words to explain: “Gold! All like this!”

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Healy found the cached letters, and could have created a lot of mayhem by hiding them. Instead he sailed his schooner into Juneau to deliver the letters to the ACC. Who got the news out wasn’t important to Healy–there would be business enough for all.The following summer saw accelerated traffic, all of them outfitting from Healy & Wilson. Healy served many roles: arbitrating labor disputes, and generally keeping the peace on behalf of the US Navy, the legal authority in Alaska. But Healy was not paid to mediate; he was there for profit. His respected position with the local natives was strained when he decided to upgrade the Chilkoot trail to make it more suitable for pack mules, and establish a toll to pay for the improvements. The Chilkat were canny businessmen and saw their jobs as mountain porters evaporating.

The Chilkat leader, Klanot, complained to the Navy, but Healy retaliated by hiring the rival Tagish for all his store’s custom packing needs. But that job action resulted in a knife and gun melee that left both Klanot and the leader of the Tagish, “Big Tom,” dead on the ground right in front of Healy’s store. The Dyea residents were forced to barricade themselves in the store in anticipation of an attack. Healy soon abandoned his plans.

The Chilkoot Pass route had competition from a new overland route, which Healy may have suppressed public knowledge of. The White Pass was longer in mileage but lower in elevation; a pack train or dog sled travelled with greater ease and less cost than having to hire Healy’s porters. A town sprang up at Skagway in 1887 to facilitate a coastal access to the White route.

The spring of 1888 brought marriage. Isabella “Belle” Boyd accepted Johnny’s correspondence proposal and arranged to marry him in Juneau. She may have been the “lady detective” spoke of inFort Benton. Belle seemed to have a lot of secrets and told of a dead husband. But in Dyea, she proved a willing and worthy partner, gaining favor with the local natives and minding the store while Healy opened another at a remote Indian village a fewmiles from Dyea. In 1890, Johnny’s grown son T.C. came to help out.

The Klanot affair proved that the Navy was not enough to maintain order, so Healy was appointed a Deputy US Marshal. That enabled Healy to collect customs, and control the liquor trade among the locals. He also sided with native fishermen against overharvesting of salmon by commercial net fishermen and cannery

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operators. He’d learned from the near-extinction of the buffalo and saw parallels.

In 1889, the ACC built Forty Mile post on the Yukon River, 1500 miles by steamer from the ocean port of St. Michaels. River navigation changed the whole trade dynamic of the Yukon, and madepossible a sense of permanence. Healy knew how lucrative having control of river transport was. By 1892 he was ready to retrench and take on the ACC. Healy knew that a bigger strike was coming, and wanted to be in a better position to benefit, and to oppose the ACC.

But he needed money–to go further north, Healy had to return south. First stop was Helena, Montana, where Johnny called on hisold business associate Thomas C. Power, now a United States Senator – with whom it was hoped that the bad blood could be forgotten. Healy explained his scheme, and the Senator couldn’t believe his ears, that after all this time, the old plainsman wasstill in the game: “You don’t mean to say you are still at it, with your hand on your gun and the border life around you?” Powerheard him out, but committed only political aid.

They parted amiably, but Healy recalled another player. PortusWeare, the buffalo robe dealer from Fort Benton days had parlayedhis profits into the booming agri-processing business in Chicago.Stirred by tales of a wild, vacant frontier, Weare did some research and found that the ACC, were more interested in exploiting the seal-fur trade in the islands off Alaska, and developed Forty Mile only to discourage others from getting into the inland fur trade. As Healy suspected, the ACC was a sleepinggiant in a country ripe for the plucking.

Weare plunked down $50,000 to found the ambitiously named North American Transportation & Trading Company (NATT), and tapped into Chicago business to raise another $50,000. The charter called for a string of stores to be built along the YukonRiver, and a fleet of steamboats to supply them, all in opposition to the ACC. The NATT had an extraordinary field of operating circumstances, operating in the virtual unknown frontier of two nations. It was a lean operation, its central home on the Bering sea port of St. Michael, at the mouth of the Yukon. John Barr, a Missouri river Captain, was hired to commodore the navigation branch, and construct the NATT’s fleet of sternwheelers christened for NATT associates, including the SSJohn J. Healy.

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In the spring of 1893, the NATT built Fort Cudahy at Fortymile, directly across the river from the ACC post, a spit-in-the-eye at the monopolists. Healy personally operated this crucial post to supply a remote mining community, and Belle Healyjoined her husband. On Canadian soil, Fortymile was a village of 1,500 with many amenities–but no law. Prospectors make poor anarchists, and legal proceedings took the form of the ‘Miners Meeting’, an ad hoc citizens tribunal to oversee disputes and dispense penalties.

Healy was wary of such homemade peacemakers, and ran afoul by refusing to carry miners’ accounts past a month, declining creditto some altogether. Secondly, John and Belle locked out and fired their housekeeper after she kept late night company with a miner. Sympathies were with the servant, and it was decreed that Healy owed the girl a year’s wages and passage back to Chicago for her dismissal. Healy grudgingly complied, but felt extorted. He wrote a letter to Ottawa and the department of Interior, whichhad the eventual result of the NWMP’s dispatch to the Yukon. Healy had brought about the birth of the myth of the Yukon Mountie, much as his own reputation had led to the Force’s creation in the first place, twenty years earlier.

The NATT branched out, with stores, hotels, barges, warehousesand more steamers. When George Carmack and his Tagish Indian relatives made the landmark strike at Rabbit Creek in August 1896, the NATT opened for business at the legendary boomtown thatsprang up in Dawson City–casting a very large role for Healy in the Klondike gold rush. By 1897, thousands tramped in from aroundthe world looking for the golden grail. This was the strike for which John Healy had waited a decade. But in his mid-50’s, the stress of managing the NATT’s crucial role in the boom was makinghim cantankerous.

Few of the 4,000 rushers had counted on spending a winter where established storekeepers did not have the provisions to carry them into the spring. The throngs brought cash, but there was little food to buy, and famine loomed. The boats of the rivalcompanies, the NATT and the ACC, both full of provisions for Dawson were creeping inland when the Yukon began to ice up. Healysent word to jettison the trade goods, hardware and liquor, and bring only food.

At Circle City, the ship was held up at gunpoint by miners, forcing the NATT president who was aboard, Ely Weare (Portus’

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son), to sell them most of the stocks of food. When the ship docked, an impatient Healy elbowed his way up the gangplank. Weare warmly threw out his hand, but Johnny refused it, demandingto know the contents of the boat. Smugly, Ely answered, “why, only all the whiskey and hardware that the ship could carry;” theorder to load only food was not received. Healy flew into a rage,angered that famine was imminent on his watch. He grasped Weare by the throat, and might have choked him to death had bystanders not intervened.

The NWMP commandeered the boats to return to St. Michael with as many people as they could load. Healy regained his composure, and addressed Dawson: “There will be no starvation. Some may go hungry, but no one will starve.” If there is starvation, it will not be until spring.” Healy was correct–nobody starved that lonely winter, due to voluntary evacuation and measures put in place to conserve food.

The Yukon was a magnet for eclectic vagabonds, and Healy rubbed shoulders with gunfighters like Arizona Charlie Meadows, Frank Canton and Wyatt Earp–and old friends like Sam Steele, James Walsh, and his Whoop-Up Manager D.W. Davis. He played cardswith Joe Boyle and Swiftwater Bill Gates. Journalist and author Tappan Adney became one of his best friends and an unsuccessful biographer. His youngest daughter, Alfreda made the trip north to join her dad, and a young wanderer named Jack London was smitten with her and modeled Alfreda, and her father as characters in his first novel, A Daughter of the Snows.

Healy reveled in Dawson. He invested in hydroelectric schemes, and bought up failed claims to exploit the gold fields with hydraulics. Many trips were made back to Montana to see old friends, and he was reunited with his stepson, Joe. His son, T.C.ventured into business for himself. But his downfall fall was near, and there were many ready to help push.

The first to turn on him were Dawson’s newspapers. The big companies were accused of price gouging, planned shortages and the manipulation of gold prices. As the public face of the NATT, Healy took the brunt of the attacks. Yellow journalists knew thatcontroversy influenced circulation, and what better target than the big boys who held the notes of itinerant miners? When wintered in New York, the Nugget blared that he had been dismissed. When he came back in the spring, the paper retracted. There were self-inflicted problems, as his gruffness grated on

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many. Profit margins dropped, and Healy could not turn them around in time to satisfy his Board of Directors. In March of 1900, John Healy was shown the door of the company he founded.

Personal losses were harsh. First, T.C. died in Seattle in 1901. The next years were a cloud of intrigue, far-fetched schemes and a litany of litigation. Fishing deals were flipped over into mining deals that turned into railroads that never drove a spike. There was a parade of questionable partners with great vision but no cash. Belle divorced him for infidelity, but the case revealed that her first husband was still alive, making her marriage to Healy bigamous. She sued him for personal assets,based on the growth of his personal NATT stock, and won.

Still, by 1904, Johnny was ready for the ultimate deal. The task of becoming a railroad baron was daunting, but spectacular windfalls awaited the completion of such ventures; many an omnipotent overlord had started as over-financed promoters of transcontinental concerns. Healy dreamed larger. His railroad wasto be an inter-continental, and no amount of arctic ruggedness, crippling distances or pesky frozen ocean was going to stop him. Healy looked to the frigid Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia, and imagined he could connect the continents. For years Johnny had dealt with peoples whose ancestors had travelled the land bridge; now he wanted to do what every explorer since Columbus attempted: connect the Old and New Worlds.

The rail line he earlier envisioned across Alaska would be extended, a tunnel would be built beneath the Bering Strait and connect with the Trans-Siberian railroad. The project was seriously discussed in boardrooms around the world, and considered by everyone from Teddy Roosevelt to Czar Nicholas. Healy’s partner was the French engineer Loicq de Lobel, who petitioned European capital, as Healy did the same about America.The scheme was as troubled as it was visionary. There were promises for Russian land grants and assistance, but the scope was too grand–Healy and Lobel raised only $6 million, far short of the $250 million needed.

Healy invested over $40,000 of his own cash and remaining NATTstock. In January of 1907, he left Dawson City by dog sled with asurvey party into the White River region. That was his last adventure. By the time he returned to Seattle, the Czar had pulled the pin on his promised concessions. The dream was dead and the money spent on travel, engineering studies, and promotion

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spun down the drain. As the last of his mining prospects that were to complement the viability of the project vanished, Healy was left without enough money for a packhorse.

The last days in San Francisco were anti-climactic for the rogue who spent nearly 70 years on the edge. He should have died by gunshot or arrow or an exploding powder keg a dozen times, or froze on a trail, or been shot by a jealous husband. He was too much of a survivor–death was always bamboozled by a flip of the card. Who could have guessed that the man who spent four months in a dogsled on a winter survey in Alaska was so ill?

His liver, battered by years of straight whiskey, could strikeno trade with the Reaper. In his last year, he spent time with the daughters he’d missed, and his grandchildren. He watched another child, Alfreda, die before him. In September of 1908, bed-ridden, he succumbed, with a whimper, not a bang–his descent so sudden, he was unattended by friends or family. Likely that was how he wanted it. Healy left the west as he had entered it, alone, and crossed the Great Divide on September 15, 1908.

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