Sutherland, Daniel Alexander, 1869-1955

Daniel Alexander Sutherland (1869-1955), son of John and Mary (Gwinn) Sutherland, was born in Pleasant Bay, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. In 1876 the family moved to Essex, Massachusetts, where Daniel attended public schools. On finishing his schooling, he worked in grocery stores and the fish business in Boston and Salem until lured to Alaska by the gold rushes of the late 1890s. In 1898 he reached Saint Michael, Alaska, as a deck hand aboard a ship that had sailed from Seattle, and spent that winter mining in the Koyukuk district. In the spring of 1899 he went to Nome and the following year partnered with John J. Sesnon in a lighterage business there. From 1902 to 1909 he mined successfully in a number of locations (Council, Cleary Creek, Nome), but gave it up to accept an appointment as U.S. marshal in Juneau. In less than a year he fell victim to a political war, was removed from office, and returned to mining in the Iditarod district and at Ruby. However, his political career was far from over. When Alaska elected its first territorial legislature, he was chosen as senator for the Fourth Division and served in that capacity from 1912 through 1920. He then won election on the Republican ticket as territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress, in which he served from 1921 through 1931. On his retirement from Alaskan politics, he became purchasing agent at the Ogontz School, a private school in Pennsylvania that was headed by his sister, Abby A. Sutherland. He remained with the school until its closure in 1950. He died in Abington, Pennsylvania, in 1955. (From: Earle C. Jameson, A Glimpse of the Second Alaska Territorial Legislature [Juneau, Alaska: Empire Printing Co., 1915] and Evangeline Atwood and Robert N. DeArmond, Who's Who in Alaskan Politics [Portland, Oregon: Binford & Mort for Alaska Historical Commission, 1977].)