Google now has me thoroughly confused. I’ve been trying to track down Captain Russell, presumably arriving in Port Louis in Mauritius in 1926 with a load of technical sensing equipment on a boat from Liverpool, and staying in Vacoas on behalf of the “Klondyke Company”, and hiring lots of local hands to dig a huge-sounding crater: and am getting nowhere fast.
And then all of a sudden I find three independent Dutch newspaper sources from 1926, and a German-language South American newspaper source from 1929. But Google then seems to keep arbitrarily deciding whether or not to include these in searches: it’s all very confusing.
Anyway, I don’t *think* these four articles tell us anything new, but please feel free to have a look yourself:
* Goessche Courant, 16th April 1926, p.3
* De Harderwijker, 16th April 1926, p.2
* De Gazet van Poperinghe, 2nd May 1926, page 1
* Der Kompass, 4th March 1929, page 1
I also found a short article (in Gallica) from L’Echo d’Alger 25th April 1926 that said:
Le trésor de chevalier Nageon
UNE SOCIETE ANONYME ANGLAISE LE RECHERCHE… VAINEMENT !
Londres, 24 avril. – On poursuit activement des recherches méthodiques dand l’île Maurice afin de retrouver un trésor que le chevalier de Nageon, le célèbre corsaire français, y aurait caché en 1780 et 1800, et qui contient, parait-il, des diamants, des perles et des doublons d’Espagne, pour un total de trente millions de livres sterling.
Depuis une cinquantaine d’années en tente, de temps en temps, de découvrir ce fameux trésor ens basant sur certaines instructions fournies par les descendants du corsaire. Mais les investigations n’ont été reprises sérieusement, dit-on, que depuis que l’on a trouvé un plan topographique établi par le chevalier lui-même.
On a constitué depuis lors une société anonyme, et l’an dernier on fit venir de Liverpool à l’île Maurice le capitaine Russell, qui se fait fort de déceler la présence de masses métalliques sous le sol.
Or, le capitaine Russell a signalé ls présence d’une masse de métal ensevelie à une grande profondeur et l’on creuse fébrilement à l’endroit désigné par lui pour mettre au jour le merveilleux trésor. Le malheur veut que des inflitrations d’eau gênent kes travaux et que l’on soit constamment obligé d’interrompre ceux-ci pout recourir aux pompes.
Ces jours derniers l’émotion fut grande lorsque l’on annonĉa que l’heure de la découverte était proche. On fit, en hàte, venir des camions automobiles et des sacs tout neufs où devaient être empilés les beaux doublons d’Espagne. Des brigades de détectives armés accompoagnaient le convoi.
Mais, hélas ! ce ne fut qu’une fausse alerte.
All true. 🙁
Anyway, it’s as if there’s an entire layer of documents just below where I’m looking at (and out of sight). Who went digging for this treasure in 1880, and what had the (anonymous) Klondyke Company got that made Captain Russell so optimistic? Who were the (unnamed) shareholders in the Klondyke Company? Why were its shares traded in Rupees? When did they finally throw in the towel?
This touched so many people’s lives (though probably mostly for the worse, it has to be said), there must be echoes of it in countless places. Surely?
More generally, does anyone known what the tools are for tracking defunct companies from nearly a century ago? Is there a great big ledger somewhere in an archival basement in London I can stick my nose into and have a look?
Metalloscope was created by Fisher in 1931. So I dont know how Russel can find metal at 54 feets.
See Trove: The Telegraph (Brisbane) 5th June 1926 page 18. and similar.
Hello Nick,
A quick scan of the 3 Dutch newspaper articles reveals nothing that stands out immediately, and they are basically the same text repeated, but if you need help translating them, let me know.
Byron: yes, that’s the one I corrected in Trove and copied into my previous post. 🙂
John: yes, I started transcribing one of them before realising (as I was typing it) that it said nothing of any interest. 🙂
Comment from Christophe Maggi:
Is it possible there is a connexion between Captain Russell and Joseph Russell Stenhouse, the Royal Navy Officer and Antarctic navigator ?
Between 1927 and 1929 he captained the Discovery on oceanographic and whaling research voyages in Southern Atlantic and Antarctic waters. Thereafter he attempted several business ventures which largely failed, as did an attempt to find treasure in the Cocos Islands.
source : https://www.flickr.com/photos/30597214@N05/2887393246
Christophe: thanks, I’ve just ordered a biography of him, will see what it says when it arrives here. 🙂
Hi Nick,
the three Dutch newspapers (one is actually Flemish) are from quite different locations and they clearly followed some common source. Some lines are copied verbatim. There’s a clear mention of a prototype metal detector in one of them.
This is nowhere near a ‘theory’ but the co-incidence is interesting, especially since you cannot find any trace of a man called Captain Russell.
Pierre Berton’s Prisoners of the North contains a detailed history of Joe Boyle (b. 1867), who founded the Canadian Klondyke Mining Company.
As a teenager in New York, he had taken to the sea on a ship called the Wallace in 1884 (bear with me about the date) spending three years away, or three years on the Wallace and some more time aboard the steamer which brought him back to New York – Berton doesn’t seem quite sure.
We know he’d been to the Indian Ocean and Pacific, because he told of one incident which happened in the former, and in later life his best friend, Edward Bredenberg, spoke of how they’d constantly “sit back and dream of [their] sailor days in the Pacific”.
Boyle never became captain, only quartermaster.
But what struck me was that when he did go to the Klondyke, he brought with him just the same attitudes – huge scale, latest science.. “”he proposed to build huge dredges…the system using electricity… building a hydroelectric power plant…” and he had enormous personal presence.
It also mentions his staying at the Russell, the greatest hotel in Ottawa, and the Canadian equivalent of the old Ritz or Dorchester apparently. I suppose he could have heard of it long before he stayed there himself.
His life went on in the same larger-than way, and even after he died. Not only rumour but some historians believe that the mysterious, veiled woman who left flowers on his grave, year after year, was the queen of Romania.
About the year 1880. There is more than one Klondyke of course – but why would any ‘Klondyke Mining Company’ have been founded before the big strike of 1896? And though that’s the official date, it didn’t hit the world news until the following year – 1897. Which is when Joe went north.
The earliest reports of the treasure hunting Russell occur in the 1920s. And meanwhile he’d met a descendant of Isaac Newton.
Berton also makes the interesting comment that even while managing, wheeling, dealing and all the rest in Dawson,
“Boyle was out of Dawson for months, sometimes for years, but it is clear that he thought of himself, first and foremost, as a Klondyker”
– so what if the 1920s reports all stem from the same ‘wire’ copy, and there was an error in it, either deliberately put there, or just a typo?
Whatever – the story of Joseph Whiteside Boyle is a ripping yarn.
And while his English partner sounds like a real bully, this Irish-Scottish lad was deemed Saviour of Romania.. what a life.
And another from 21 April 1926 : http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=NZH19260421.2.66
@D.N. O’Donovan : There is bay in Mauritius who is called Klondike Bay : vintagemauritius.org/discover/flic-en-flac-klondike-baie-du-corsaire-1920s/
I remember that Mauritius was french in 1926, maybe it’s possible to find clues of Russel in french press who was distributed in colonies at this time. Maybe.
Another question : Klondyke Company is a british company ?
One of my favorite authors , James Michener, wrote a book about Alaska and the Klondike gold rush. I shall check with my local library to see if a copy of his book is available.
I might be rambling far far away from your latest discussion; please alert me if so.
Meanwhile, my husband just dug up (from my enormous book collection) James A. Michener’s book titled: Journey” (publisher: Random House: copyright 1988 and 1989). I shall re-read it this evening ( just to check if my post is at all relevant to Nick’s latest presented puzzle.
bd
Pity that Joe died in 1923, of course. 😀
This many be something of a side-line, but have a look at the last few paragraphs of this forum post: http://www.thunting.com/smf/legendary_treasures/buried_treasure_on_maritius-t8663.0.html
This seems to date the story of a Black River treasure-hunting syndicate forming back to 1905 – possibly one of the “number of attempts have been made, at intervals since 1880, to find the treasure” mentioned in your 1926 Brisbane Times article. I’ll try to dig up the 1905 piece mentioned in the post when I have a moment.
I don’t think there’s anything peculiar going on with the currency – the Mauritian rupee was introduced in the late 19th century and pegged to the Indian rupee until the mid-1930’s when it was pegged to the pound sterling. There’s a more discussion about colonial investment, the pound, and the rupee these articles, but they’re a bit heavy going unless you’re a fan of historical finance:
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfsp/journal/v2/n2/full/imfsp19519a.html
http://www.lemauricien.com/article/historical-perspective-exchange-rate-regimes-rupee-part-ii
Helen: I didn’t know about the Black River syndicate, an interesting story! 😉
As far as the rupees go, I suppose my point was that this would tend to imply that the anonymous company was Mauritian or indeed Seychellois rather than British, but that this also seemed to run counter to the story.
bdid1dr: you’re… certainly not particularly close at the moment. 😉
Here’s the (short) article on the 1905 syndicate: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/4957860?searchTerm=Mauritius%20%22black%20river%22&searchLimits=l-decade=190|||l-title=34
I think here was a lot more cross-over in currency usage during the colonial era, and rupees in various countries appear to have been something of a de facto currency for British investors – for example, I believe the Indian Government sold securities in both sterling and rupees in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Total guess here, but a British (or other) company might choose to raise capital in the local currency that would be used to fund the majority of the project.
Financial history is quite a way out of my area, but I want to have a poke around at some point to see if I can start to understand what the term ‘company’ might mean in that era. I have a vague feeling (probably from unreliable historical novels) that there were all kinds of speculative syndicates getting together, where shares weren’t sold on an exchange – something between a non-listed private company and a gentleman’s agreement. It would help to know if a regulatory paper trail would have been in place by the 1920’s (and if so, the agencies and record keeping bodies responsible).
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From the article the little we know of Captain Russell is that he is a captain of some sort, that he has connections to Liverpool and that he was looking for pirate treasure. Stretching it a bit, given that the article doesnt feel a need to introduce him it suggests that he was relatively well known in the area of whatever local newspaper it was first printed in. Finally, maybe I am reading too much into it, but the article gives me the impression he was an agent of the company, not an employee.
Based on this very limited data, a possible candidate for Captain Russell is Edward Russell, 2nd Baron Russell of Liverpool. He survived WW1 as a decorated captain in the Kings Regiment (Liverpool), then went on to become a prominent lawyer. The interesting thing is that he is the published author of a book titled “The French Corsairs”…
Its not much, but what little there is is a good circumstantial fit
Apologies, I’m totally spamming the comments section tonight. The British National Archives return a number of names of companies liquidated before 1932 containing ‘Klondyke’, such as Klondyke Bonanza Ltd, Klondyke Estates Corporation Ltd, Klondyke Contract Syndicate Ltd and the like.
Unfortunately, everything on their list was incorporated in the late 1890’s, and so hardly likely to be a company incorporated just to pursue the Mauritius project (although I suppose the founders could always have picked up an inactive company to use as a legal body).
I suspect that there are records elsewhere of companies incorporated in the 1920’s but haven’t come across them yet. Additionally, I don’t think any of the company records been digitised yet, so it’s a bit difficult to check them up.
I’d also love to have access to the British Newspaper Archives, but unfortunately they’re paywalled. There are a few suggestive articles that, although almost certainly related to mining, would be worth a look. For instance:
“SEARCH FOR KLONDYKE TREASURE. PROSPECTING VENTURE TO START THIS WEEK. Five men will arrive at Liverpool on Friday to embark on the …”
Tuesday 24 March 1925 , Dundee Courier , Angus, Scotland
“QUEST FOR RICHES .. Paragon Station this morning n small party of men caught the 8.55 train for Liverpool, which was to take them the first stage of a tremendous adventure. John Riley, …”
Friday 27 March 1925 , Hull Daily Mail , East Riding of Yorkshire, England
I’m quite curious as to why this is getting coverage in Australian newspapers, but seems to have flown under the radar elsewhere. Definitely adding it to my list of puzzling little projects to look into when I have some spare time.
Nick, I’m extracting (partially) from page 6 of James A. Michener’s book “Journey”:
“Proper businessmen also smelled opportunities; actors out of work visualized theaters with dancing girls, and a few born explorers of untested regions, like Lord Evelyn Luton and his military cousin Harry Carpenter of London, made immediate preparations to rush to the gold fields for the sheer adventure. ” (end of quote)
More discussion reveals why the ‘pitiful little stream’ (Klondike) was the next available choice for getting to the gold fields because the much larger river (The Yukon river was frozen almost solid from early October through the first weeks in June.
(End of extract)
There is more discussion of the many dangers and blocked passages (‘dreaded Chilkoot Pass, and White Pass, rapids, gorges) …. and eventual town of Dawson City near the spot where the little Klondike emptied into the wide Yukon.
There is much more discussion about various noble families: Lord Evelyn Luton, Marquess of Deal, Bradcombe ancestors — Queen Elizabeth. Luton had wanted to write a travel book : An Englishman in the Far Corners…….
My copy of James Michener’s book was published by Random House – New York
Michener explains why I can find no ISBN He writes of a mysterious woman gold-miner who was later identified as a Mrs. Garner (later identified as Mrs Garner from Fresno California (accompanied with a party of eighteen men. (and 80 horses).
Oddly, the German-Brasilian newspaper article tells the same story, without mentioning Russell’s name, but places it in the year 1928. So either the newspaper got this wrong, or the people behind the company repeatedly publicized the same story to attract investors.
Just so you know there were hundreds of “Klondyke” and/or “Klondike” companies. People from other countries would form small ‘companies of miners’. So if a huge piece of mine equipment was made ‘anywhere’ , how did it get to the various ‘strikes’?
ps: Michener’s book also describes one wannabe Canadian Klondike Gold Miner who modified a very large piece of farm equipment (delivered by rail) by welding spikes onto its large metal wheels. He managed maybe several yards of forward motion before realizing that spiked wheels were digging a very deep ‘ditch’ which the contraption could not reverse and climb out of. Apparently he found no gold. Poor soul.