Peter “Pete” Pemberton was born in Massachusetts sometime between 1859 and 1862. He first shows up in Alaska records in at the turn of the 20th century when he was performing some sort of military service in Anchorage, Alaska. In 1909 he had a mining claim at Rosie Creek, near Tanana. Skookum Creek is a tributary of Rosy Creek. Pete Pemberton held claim No.2 above as of 17 February 1909. (Fort Gibbon, Mining Locations, 1:34.)
At the time of the US Census in 1910, he was a prospector living at Fort Gibbon, a U.S. army base at the confluence of the Yukon and Tanana rivers, near the community of Tanana. He was listed as being 54 years old and his father was from Massachusetts and his mother from Canada. He had a mining partner, John Pinkham, living with him.
Fort Gibbon was one of six US Army forts in built in the Alaska Territory at the end of the 19th century in response to reports of lawlessness. It was built in 1899 and abandoned in 1923. During the late 1800s, the large ships that travelled the Yukon River would unload cargo at Tanana and smaller vessels would carry the cargo up the Tanana River for delivery. Fort Gibbon was able to monitor trade along the Yukon and Tanana rivers and restore order among the gold rush miners and the Natives. The necessity of maintaining order in the Territory decreased as the gold rush began to wind down. However a new purpose for Fort Gibbon developed with the creation of the WAMCATS. Construction of the WAMCATS telegraph line began in 1903 and eventually connected the Territory of Alaska with the continental United States via an underwater cable. Shortly after completion of the telegraph line wireless radio began to augment and replace the telegraph lines. Fort Gibbon evolved into a wireless station. Fort Gibbon was closed in 1923. Fort Gibbon appeared once on the 1920 U.S. Census as an unincorporated military installation. Owing to its deactivation in 1923, it was not reported again.
In 1920 Pete Pemberton was in Nenana working in the US Commisary shop.
The next story about Pete comes from Ed Brooker, Jr. son of Ed Brooker who was U.S. Commissioner and Postmaster in Kantishna in the 1920s. Ed Jr. went to Alaska to visit his parents and in the summer of 1922 Ed and his dad built a log cabin on Friday Creek. Later Ed accompanied Joe Quigley and “Dirty” Pete Pemberton on a trip out to the railroad and Fairbanks so he could visit old school friends. “Joe was a regular mountain goat in hiking, and Pete and I were dragged out at the end of each day. We went light and ate light. This was the way Joe traveled.” Joe stayed on in Fairbanks so Ed and Pete traveled back without him over the still unmarked trail through the park. They carried a rifle for bear protection but didn’t need it. “We saw all manner of wild game which was a thrill.”
The next time we catch up with Pete is through the 1930 U.S. Census. Pete was in Anchorage, working as a watchman at a salmon cannery. At the time he died in Seldovia on December 26, 1940 he had been ill for several months. His death certificate listed his occupation as”miner”. He is buried in the Seldovia City Cemetery, Plot #123.