Leon Edward Seattle No. 3 Yukon Woodpile

Mollie Walsh

Mary “Mollie” Walsh was a young Irishwoman who operated a grub tent in the Yukon during the Klondike gold rush. She was “known among the stampeders for her beauty and cheerfulness.”

One of Mollie’s suitors* was Mike Bartlett, who ran a pack train business out of Dawson City with his brothers. She moved to Dawson and married Mike in 1898.

In August of 1900, the couple welcomed a baby boy while traveling on a steamboat. His name? Leon Edward Seattle No. 3 Yukon Woodpile Bartlett. “Leon” was Mollie’s choice, “Edward” was in honor of an uncle, and the rest of it was thrown in by Mike (and others):

Seattle No. 3 was the name of the boat on which he was born, and the crew insisted on it being a part of the name. Yukon was inserted out of deference to the icy river, and Woodpile because of the fact that on the day he was born the boat was taking on a pile of wood from a big woodpile, 73 miles above Rampart.

Poor Leon wouldn’t have his parents around for long, though. In 1901, Mollie left Mike for a packer named John Lynch. In October of 1902, after an attempted reconciliation, Mike shot and killed Mollie. In late 1903, Mike went on trial for murder, and was acquitted by reason of insanity. (The newspaper coverage of the trial noted that little Leon had “only recently succeeded in memorizing his own name.”) Finally, in 1905, Mike killed himself via hanging.

At the time of the 1910 Census, orphaned Leon was living with his uncle Edward Bartlett in Seattle. By the time Leon got married in 1931, he was living in Washington state and his occupation was “soldier.” Notably, none of the later records I found for Leon included the middle names “Seattle No. 3,” “Yukon,” or “Woodpile.”

Sources:

*Decades later, in 1930, one of Mollie’s other gold rush suitors, Jack Newman, commissioned the bronze bust of Mollie above. It’s still on display in Skagway, Alaska.

Storm van der Zee

In October of 1636, Albert Andriessen Bradt and his wife Annetje boarded the Wapen Van Rensselaerwyck in Amsterdam and set off for the New World. (Interestingly, neither one was Dutch: Albert was originally from Norway, and Annetje originally from Germany.) They arrived in New Netherland in March of 1637.

During the sea voyage, they welcomed their third child. He was born on November 2nd during a violent storm, and so they named him, fittingly, Storm. (The word is the same in both Dutch and English.)

During his early adulthood, Storm adopted the surname van der Zee, meaning “from/of the sea.” This was the name he gave his wife Hilletje and their four children: Annatje Storm, Gerrit Storm, Wouter Stormsz, and Albert. (The “sz” ending in Dutch names is a contraction of –s zoon, or “-‘s son.”)

The name “Storm” ended up being passed down to many people — not just to Storm’s direct descendants, but also to Storms’ seven siblings’ descendants, and even to one of the children his widow had with her second husband (!).

What are your thoughts on the name Storm?

Sources: Storm Vanderzee – New York State Museum, Albert Andriessen Bradt – Wikipedia, Albert Andriessen Bradt (1607-1686) – WikiTree, Hilletie Lansing Vanderzee Ketelhuyn – New York State Museum, Hard to Kill (1990) – IMDb

Image: Dutch Merchant – Ships in a Storm (1670s) by Ludolf Bakhuizen

P.S. The baby name Storm saw a steep rise in usage (as a boy name) in the U.S. in 1990. The next year, it reached the top 1,000 for the first time and it remained there until 1997. Why the jump? My guess is the 1990 movie Hard to Kill, in which star Steven Seagal played Detective Mason Storm.

Baby Named for the Georgic

In 1933, during the second week of May, the ocean liner Georgic traveled west across the Atlantic from Ireland to the United States.

One day into the trip, a pregnant passenger named Alice Nolan welcomed a son — the first baby ever born aboard the Georgic (which had been launched earlier in the 1930s).

The baby’s name? George, in honor of the ship.

Sources:

  • “Baby, Born at Sea, Georgic Attraction.” Boston Globe 15 May 1933: 2.
  • “Baby Born on Liner Georgic.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 15 May 1933: 9.

Baby Named Northland for Boat

In October of 1912, as the steamship Northland was traveling northward along the west coast of the U.S. from California to Oregon, an 8-pound baby was born to passenger Mrs. Daniel Boone Conover.

The baby boy was named Orford Northland Conover: “The second cognomen given him indicates that he was born on the Northland while the first means that his birth took place off Orford reef.”

Source: “Babe One Day Old as Steamer Docks.” San Fransisco Chronicle 19 Oct. 1912: 1.

Baby Named “Cyclone Cape Dove Four Bells”

The Waipa in the late 19th century.

In November of 1878, a baby boy was born aboard the New Zealand ship Waipa, which was under the command of Capt. John Gorn at the time.

The baby, “born in a cyclone at four bells off Cape Dove,” ended up with the name Cyclone Cape Dove Four Bells Gorn Bendall.

The 1924 book I’m using as a source claims that the ship’s name was also part of the list, but the baby’s baptism record doesn’t include the word “Waipa.”

(The Waipa, by the way, was owned and operated by the New Zealand Shipping Company, which had a policy requiring ships crossing the Pacific to make a stop at the Pitcairn Islands — which is where Thursday October Christian was born.)

Source: Brett, Henry. White Wings: Fifty Years of Sail in the New Zealand Trade, 1850 to 1900. Vol. 1. Auckland, NZ: The Brett Printing Company Limited, 1924, p. 263.

Image: View of the crew in the bow of the sailing ship Waipa at Port Chalmers