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Berry
Excerpt - Berry
Luckiest Man on the Klondike
… A few years before Lady Luck showered riches on Clarence Berry, the “luckiest man on the Klondike” didn’t have enough money to pay his room rent. Caught in the panic of 1893, he was flat broke. He couldn’t even ask his sweetheart, Ethel Bush, to marry him and saw no particular prospect of ever being able to do so.
 Berry joined a party of 40 men climbing the Chilkoot Pass trail in 1894 – all but three of them turned back after storms destroyed their provisions.
Photo courtesy of University of Washington
Asahel Curtis Collection, CUR1449
In the Fresno Valley of California where he raised fruit, Berry appeared destined to a life of hard, plodding work for a bare living. So when he heard about riches coming out of the earth in the North, he jumped at the chance to try for the “gold ring.”
That he succeeded in his quest, and held onto his wealth, was attested to by the Gold Room built at the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks. Built with money provided through a special grant from the Berry Holding Company of Fresno, Calif., it was a “belated gesture by family members in recognition of the part that the frozen frontier and mining industry has played in our fortunes,” according to company spokesperson C.J. Bennett.
 The Berry brothers, who later joined the group, cleaned up on No. 4 Eldorado.
Photo courtesy of University of Washington
Asahel Curtis Collection, CUR1482
The benefactors of the museum wanted to display rocker boxes, gold scales and other early day mining equipment, as well as gold like the $130,000 worth of nuggets Berry brought “Outside” when the historic gold ships Portland and Excelsior landed at San Francisco with news of the gold strikes. That news electrified the nation and started the gold rush of 1898.
Not many other original prospectors who located gold on Eldorado and Bonanza creeks held on to their riches. Berry not only held on, but added to his wealth. The “sober, honest, hardworking, ambitious, home-loving Californian,” as folks described him, wasn’t spoiled by his good luck. And Mrs. Eli Gage said he was the “most modest millionaire I ever saw.”
Berry borrowed money to head north
But before good fortune changed his life, the young man had to scrape up the money for his trip north in 1894. He borrowed his capital, which has been estimated between $40 and $60, at an exorbitant rate of interest, and it took all but $5 to reach Juneau.
 It took Clarence Berry and his new bride, Ethel, three months to travel from Juneau to Fortymile by dog sled, a distance of about 900 miles.
Photo courtesy of Alaska State Library
Dr. Daniel S. Neuman Collection, ASL-P307
During the early 1890s, Juneau was alive with men on their way to the goldfields. Berry, a giant of a man with the biceps of a blacksmith, joined a party of 40 attempting to make it over Chilkoot Pass. His two big arms, sturdy legs and courage to spare brought him through, although 37 of the original party turned back when storms destroyed their outfits. Borrowing bacon and other supplies to get through, Berry and two others pushed on, arriving at Fortymile with little more than the clothes on their backs.
Berry didn’t find riches at first, but he did find work at $100 a month, and soon he secured a claim. His prospects looked bright enough that the following year he returned to California to marry Ethel.
The “Bride of the Klondike’s” novel experience of going over the Divide, and her life in a mining camp in the frozen North, made her advice to other women travelers valuable….
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