Help with Swedish Genealogy: Mad Trapper Mystery

[Robert]

He is on the social security applications and claims index for 1936. This seems to rule him out?

I only have the Ancestry transcription.

Arthur Manfred Nelson

Male

White

24 Dec 1892

Sweden

Nels J Nelson

Maria Johanson

523053794

Dec 1936: Name listed as ARTHUR MANFRED NELSON

[Trapperologist]

Yes, Robert, you've definitely ruled him out. Maybe I should return to trusting the science that said the Mad Trapper was a corn-fed Midwesterner. That would put him in the 1910 US Census around 10-15 years old.

[Trapperologist]

Canada remained popular with draft dodgers well into the 1960s.

The science seems to put the Mad Trapper in the US (and likely a citizen eligible for the draft) around 1900 to around 1910 and then the records of "Arthur Nelson" seem to put him in Canada as early as 1917, so he could have left with the war on the horizon or when the US entered the war in April 1917.

Sigvald Pedersen Haaskjold was put forth as being the Mad Trapper. He evaded conscription in Canada and lived paranoid the rest of his life, thinking the authorities were coming after him. DNA eliminated him but there might be a leitmotif here that applies.

[Trapperologist]

Working backward to the Immigration "Arrival" date of 1913 leads me to this Wisconsin possibility:


U.S., Border Crossings: From US to Canada 1908-1935


Name: A Nelson
Age: 19
Estimated birth year: abt 1894
Arrival Port: North Portal, Saskatchewan
Date of Arrival: 16 Apr 1913
Birth Location: Wisconsin
Gender: Male
Citizenship: American
Occupation: Farmer
From: Wisconsin
To: Fall Lake, Sask.
How much money: "Empl"

[Trapperologist]

I read that the Arthur Nelson said he worked at the mine in Anyox before going up to Dease Lake in Northern BC. Anyox is on the coast at the east tip of the Alaskan Panhandle, and the mine started in 1912.

It's not accessible by land. The best way to get there is by boat from Vancouver or Prince Rupert. If Arthur Nelson immigrated in 1913, maybe that's where he entered the country and not across the 49th parallel.

[Trapperologist]

Then again he could have just taken the train to Vancouver. Here's a possible:

A Nelson
in the Border Crossings: From U.S. to Canada, 1908-1935

Name: A Nelson
Age: 21
Estimated birth year: abt 1892
Arrival Port: Emerson, Manitoba
Date of Arrival: 22 Feb 1913
Birth Location: North Dakota
Gender: Male
Citizenship: American
Occupation: Farmer
From: ND
To: Man
How much money: $50

I'm not sure where he got the money for his expensive dental work (tooth colored fillings etc.) or in what "metropolitan" area.

[Trapperologist]

I've reread Dick North's book and it says Arthur Nelson showed up in Anyox on the eastern tip of the Alaskan Panhandle in 1923 and that was when he made his first foray into the interior of BC with a sledge and a pony - Robert Scott style rather than Amundsen. So he wouldn't be the Arthur Nelson trapping in the Cariboo listed in the directory from 1918 onward.

[Trapperologist]

I’m still sticking with the name Arthur Nelson but I’m looking at Danes and Finns now.

[Trapperologist]

I think it’s time to give up on the name, Arthur Nelson.

[Trapperologist]

Forensic Genealogy thinks it’s time to start on this name:

Halvor Larson

[Trapperologist]

Arthur Nelson said he worked in the mines in Anyox and a man named Ozzie Hutchins remembered him being there for a short time circa 1923, and being Norwegian although he didn't recall his name.

Norwegian-born Halvor Larson worked in the mines in Anyox for 1 1/4 yrs and left there Oct 1, 1923 on a boat for Juneau, after the forest fire in July that virtually wiped out Anyox. Arthur Nelson showed up circa 1926 in Dease Lake, BC, which is right across the panhandle from Juneau.

The Alaska Passenger Manifest lists Larsen as fair haired, blue eyed and 5' 10" so he fits the description albeit an inch taller which could be in boots or own estimation. He worked in the mines in Anyox and as a farmer and a railroad worker in the past, just like Arthur Nelson said he did, although Halvor was on an Alberta farm.

In the 1921 Canadian Census, Anyox, BC, had 15 Swedes the right age (21 to 31) and 3 Norwegians, just to show everyone the size of the cherry tree here. The 1923 Passenger Manifest record is the last one of him I can find.

[Scott Nelson]

No Harriet in this story?

[Trapperologist]

No, no Harriet, Scott. Only an Ozzie Hutchins. And no Nelson. No Chicago Gangsters, or Bank Robbers or Train Robbers either.

But I don't think it matters since the ID satisfies the "Rule of Three" as set out in Jewish Kabbalah, James Bond and Blues Clues.

Ripperology got me into "Forensic" Genealogy so I thought I'd put this here.

[Trapperologist]

It appears that a Halvor Larson was buried in Kennicott Cemetery near Wrangell Alaska in April of 1924 after suffering some fatal injury in the mines. He dies 6 months after the Halvor Larson I tracked left Anyox BC and went to Alaska. I can't find an alternative so it looks like Halvor Larson is not the Mad Trapper of Rat River.

http://www.wsen.net/wsen/AR/SO1996.pdf

https://www.alaska.org/detail/wagon-road-trail-kennicott-access

[Trapperologist]

With only a 2 or 3 Norwegians in Anyox in any one year, I think there’s a good likelihood that Halvor Larson could be the one Ozzie Hutchins was remembering in 1923 and thought was the Mad Trapper if his dates are correct.

The real Mad Trapper was probably in Anyox around 1926 though. I have a Finn from Sweden in mind now. An American of Finnish ancestry suggested doing some racialistic profiling on his nose. I always thought it was unique for a Scandinavian.