1917-1918 Henry Bradley Parkin

Henry Bradley Parkin 1917-1918

Fairbanks

Henry Bradley Parkin was born on November 1871 in Quebec, Canada to John B. and Ann Parkin. He moved and lived in Ontario around 1891.

In the Dawson City Polks Gazetter 1903 Directory, he was listed and his occupation as a miner. In 1904 he entered the United States. On February 8, 1907 Parkin married Edith Walsh in Seattle, Washington. In 1910 Henry and Edith were in Fairbanks, Parkin listed his occupation as a clerk. Their son John B. Parkin was born in 1910 in Alaska.

Parkin was a manager of Waechter Bros., a wholesale and retail store dealing in cured and fresh meats in Fairbanks. He was part of the Alaska Loyal League, a small group of Fairbanks businessmen who were instrumental in supporting early Tanana Valley agriculture and enterprise. Parkin was with Fairbanks Meat Company as a transportation agent.  

He was one of the eight original regents appointed to the board in 1917 by Governor John F. Strong.

Parkin was bound for Seattle when he was listed among the 350 passengers who lost their lives when the Canadian Pacific steamer “Princess Sophia” was wrecked on Vanderbilt reef in Lynn Canal on October 25, 1918. The steamer has been sent to Skagway to bring out a large number of Fairbanks, Yukon River and Dawson passengers who were stranded there due to lack of transportation, thus the passenger list consisted of nearly all well-known Alaskans. Parkin was either an employee of the White Pass Yukon Route or a dependent of an employee.

In the News-Miner of October 28, 1918, noting Parkin’s death, the paper referred to him as a “pioneer of the North.”

John A. McIntosh, Fairbanks businessman, was appointed to take his place on the board.

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Sources:

BOR file

Coates, Ken, and Bill Morrison. 1991. The Sinking of the Princess Sophia. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.