LARS HAAGENSON

NORWEGIAN MINER

BISBEE, ARIZONA PROSPECTORS

Recorded by C.C. Beddome, Field Reporter 1938

The youth of this man is somewhat obscure for the reason that he was very reticent about divulging any information about his history before arriving at Bisbee back at the close of the century.

I knew him possibly as well as any local citizen, for the reason that my interest was aroused in him several years before he passed away in 1937; having come in contact with him each month as he paid his monthly subscription to the local paper where I officiated as circulation manager. Invariably, he would arrive at the office the same day and hour each month, so I got to know him rather intimately.

It seems that Lars left his home in Stavenger, Norway, when a mere slip of a youth and shipped aboard a boat as a sailor, traveling over the world with his ship’s master, visiting ports of call in every clime. Along about the year 1887 while the good ship was sailing on the west coast of Mexico, a heavy storm blew in from the northwest and tossed the old barque upon a reef, sinking the vessel. The only survivors were Haagenon and two others out of a crew of 38 men.

For the best part of a month these three wandered around the wilds of the Mexican country subsisting upon whatever edible roots and berries they could discover. An occasional bird would be trapped and once they were fortunate in capturing a large fish which they ate raw.

At the place where they camped near the shore, they put up a distress signal consisting of a torn shirt hoisted upon a century plant stalk. This signal was observed one evening by a passing ship and a shore boat rescued the three men. The captain of the ship outfitted each of them in a change of clothing and continued on the San Francisco. Two of them remained with the ship, but Mr. Haagenson decided he had had enough of that life. He got a job laying paving blocks on the San Francisco streets; blocks of wood being the mode of surfacing streets in those days. Lars remained at this job for a couple of years, then hearing tales of the glamorous gold fields to the east, Lars decided he would like to take a whirl at this sort of thing. He was fast learning the language and could be now shift for himself, so he set off for Goldfield, Nevada. The very first night he arrived in that hurly burly hot spot he inadvertently became the target for a couple of drunken miners when they began shooting up a saloon. This was something that he had never experienced before and the talk occurred to him that he was the subject of the wild shooting; whereas he was merely a bystander. At least he had the desire to put miles between himself and these rip-snorters so he took to the hills. Well, anyone familiar with that part of the country will understand that this is no place for a total stranger to meander around in, but fortunately, he met up with a prospector and together they worked a placer claim for the better part of a year. Going into Tonopah one day to revive their spirits, they learned about the big strikes that were being made in Arizona. So, after a spree that lasted a couple of days, and spending most of the money they had realized from their year’s labor, they set out for the Arizona territory, with their two burros and pack outfit. After a ten day trip from Tonopah they arrived at the Colorado River. Here they built a make-shift raft and tied the burros on behind forcing the animals to swim behind the craft and using the current of the stream to propel them, they landed safely on the eastern shore. Another ten day trip put the partners in Prescott, Arizona. Haagenson and his partner worked around the Prescott area for a while then he heard about the Bisbee mines and decided to come here.

He traded off his burros and other gear and bought himself a bicycle. Tying his few personal effects to the handle bars and behind the seat, he rode and walked the six hundred miles into Bisbee in exactly fourteen days time. Needless to say, he created quite a stir as he came down the Mule Mountain Pass with his load of belongings. He claimed to be the owner of the first bicycle in Bisbee. Shortly after his arrival he went to work in the mines as a mucker and worked, more or less continually for forty years at mining.

One night as Lars came into our office to pay his subscription he could not find his pouch, so he decided to run a classified advertisement in the paper to see if he could recover it. I tried to dissuade him, thinking perhaps it contained only a few paltry coins and believing him to be in rather poor financial circumstances. His general appearance would lead one to think he was on starvation and I felt like donating the monthly coast of the paper to him.

“Where did you lose your pouch?” I inquired.

“Vell, I yust leave de post-office minute ago,” he responded.

“Then why do you not retrace your steps and see if perchance it isn’t still around there some place? You see if it is, then should you be unable to locate it, we will gladly run a little ad for you.”

Haagenson left and in just a minute or two he returned carrying an old greasy tobacco sack bulging full of paper bills. To my amazement he unwrapped a ten dollar bill, and believe it or not, that ten spot seemed to be about the smallest denomination in the roll. I asked him, “How much money did you have in the pouch?”

“Ay tank Ay got more dan sefen hunnert do’llars,” he replied.

“Great Scott, man, you shouldn’t carry that much money around with you, someone might rob you.”

“You thank you be robber?” He smilingly asked.

“No, of course not,” I answered.

“Vell, you and me ise de only ones know diss”, was his rejoinder.

That was the beginning of a friendship which lasted until his death, just last year. We worked out a good many little philanthropy deals among the under privileged here in Bisbee, for Lars told me that he had great wealth stored away in trunks and in the bank. I do know that he had more than thirty-five thousand dollars worth of grade one stocks, but as to his bank account, he never would discuss it with me. One day I mentioned to him that I thought it would be a good idea to endow a hospital or children’s home with his money, or at least a part of it, and I received the most astounding reply imaginable.

“No, Ay tank Ay leave it to the President of the Bank (Lem Shattuck, owner of the Miners and Merchants Bank, and President of the Shattuck-Denn Mining Co., of Bisbee).

“Why gracious sakes man”, I said, “that fellow has millions now, he doesn’t need any more”.

“Yust de same, he do me a good turn couple times when ay was sick, ay neffer forget mine old friends.”

The disposal of his wealth was a very touchy subject and I saw there was no use to try to have him change his mind.

“What were the good things Shattuck did for you?” I asked him once.

“He gave me a yob, and ven ay vass sick he paid de bill, und py golly von time he buy me a pair of pants ven my……. was sticking outside.”

Why Lars Haagenson lived to be eighty years of age is somewhat of a mystery for he loved garlic and would eat it by the pound; one could smell him coming a block down the street. On top of this peculiar habit he also would smoke the strongest tobacco in a dirty old pipe; then, when the bowl of the pipe was almost closed, he would take his knife and scrape out the accumulation which he would chew for an hour or so. These two habits, it would seem, must have surely killed almost anyone else, but it seemed more to add to his longevity.

When they had him laid out in his casket, his clothes that had hung in his shack fairly reeked with a strong tobacco odor.

Lars Haagenson worked and saved, was a friend to many during his lifetime, never was in trouble with the law, but often went bail for his drunken acquaintances. It was indeed quite an entourage or cosmopolitan element that followed this old Norseman to Bisbee’s Evergreen Cemetery. There they laid his remines away, near the mines he toiled in for so many years.

Copied from microfilm by Wilola Follett, transcribed by Vynette Sage, made available and maintained on the internet via Jean Walker.

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