Martha Grace (Caithness) Watson

Matthew Watson (born in 1863) and Martha Grace Caithness (born in 1865) were born and grew up on the east coast of Scotland, where they married in 1884. Matthew was a metal worker by trade.

Over the years to follow, they moved numerous times including to Boston, Tacoma, Atlin, and Whitehorse. They had seven children of their own and one foster child (Matthew Jr., John Bruce, William who died at 14 months, William, Grace, Charles, Kenneth, Norma who was adopted).

Matthew and his eldest son went to Dawson City in 1897 and returned to Dyea later that year. Martha and the three other children joined them in Dyea in early 1898; then in the spring of 1899 the whole family headed to Atlin with supplies, a horse and two dogs.

Martha’s diary excerpt:

Chilkoot Trail to the summit: “The horse went by spurts about twenty yards at a time and every time he stopped it took three of us to…keep the sled from coming down again. We had not reached half way when the horse fell and began to roll down. I thought for a minute he was to go to the bottom. Matthew (Sr.) had the hardest work to hold him. If the rope had broken we would have been minus our horse. Whenever he fell, Matthew (Jr.) cut the sled loose, while Bruce and I held it…. We were all in a flurry.

Going down from the summit:  I lost my footing. I still held onto the rope attached to the sled but I was quite a little while before I got my feet again. The next day she wrote: I did not sleep well. My limbs ached so and when I got up in the morning my face was swollen so bad I could hardly open my eyes.

A tramline took their goods over the steep part of the Chilkoot Trail. They then had to haul the goods from there to Lake Bennett by horse and dogs. They remained one night at Bennett and then began their journey to Atlin.

Martha gives an account of the stove that her husband had made for her.

“My stove bakes just the very nicest. Matthew (Sr.) made it just to suit me. It is quite large, having four holes on top and lots of room to spare.” 

When cooking on the lake ice, the heat of the stove would naturally melt the ice underneath and form a puddle. The stove was evidently on legs of some sort and one time when little Grace was standing by it to get warm, her feet slipped and she slid almost completely under the stove into the icy water and had to be pulled out.

On the trail to Atlin Martha relates another incident in which they sent their 13-year-old son back 40 miles to pick up a forgotten item.

They finally arrived in Atlin a month after leaving Dyea. The Atlin Claim, a newspaper wrote:

If Martha Grace Watson wondered why she was floundering in ice and snow on the Chilkoot Trail with four children aged 2 to 13, no one ever knew. If she had misgivings about the strange journey she was on, she hid them beneath an amazing sense of humor.

Martha trudged on, though, sometimes as far as 22 miles a day, in spite of aching limbs and eyes swollen from the strain of bright sun reflecting from the snow. She kept little Grace in sight and gave young Bill an occasional boost along the trail. It would not have occurred to Martha to turn back, and in the middle of April, 1899, she and her family walked off the ice and onto the streets of Atlin City.

The family made the trip from Atlin to Whitehorse in 1900. They lived in a tent at the corner of Main Street and Second Avenue. Their son Charles was born in that tent. Their son Kenneth was born when they had a house at Second and Elliott. Matthew set up his metal shop and then sold it a year later and went gold mining on Burwash Creek with his son Matthew Jr.

Unfortunately, Matthew Sr. began to drink and finally took off leaving his family behind. Matthew Jr. carried on with the mining until 1909.

Martha took on an active life of volunteer service and hosting events, particularly during the war when she raised funds and organized care packages for Yukon soldiers overseas.

In 1907, Martha’s three eldest sons joined a newly formed brass band called The Whitehorse Band.

In late 1911, Martha’s eldest son, Matthew Jr. purchased a general store in Carcross. Her next two sons were telegraph operators. Her daughter Grace attended a nursing school in Vancouver.

At this time, Martha was asked to care for a five-day old baby (Norma) because its mother had died. The father kept trying to care for the child but finally allowed Martha to adopt it.

In 1920, Martha, along with Norma and her two youngest boys, Charles and Kenneth, left the Yukon to live in Chilliwack., B.C. Kipp family members were pioneers there.

Years later Grace Watson, who by this time was a nurse in Seattle, discovered that her father had died in San Francisco and was buried in a pauper’s grave.

Martha Watson moved on to Vancouver in 1926. She made trips back to the Yukon over the years to visit her sons, Matthew Jr. and Bruce. One trip included her very first airplane ride.

Martha died in Whalley (Surrey) in 1957 at the age of 92 and is buried in the Burnaby Heritage Cemetery.

Matthew Watson’s General Store in Carcross remains in business today, one of the oldest stores in the Yukon.