Bond, Marshall

Marshall Bond was born in Virginia in 1867. In 1926 he visited Lincoln County, New Mexico with his son, Marshall Jr., Miguel A. Otero (Governor of New Mexico), and Otero's wife. During this trip he interviewed and photographed the survivors of the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid's gang.

Bond was a mining engineer and mining executive from Denver. In 1897 he went to the Klondike in Canada to hunt for gold during the Alaskan gold rush. He left Canada in 1898 and became involved in gold and silver prospecting and mine speculation in the Southwest and Mexico. During the 1920s he worked as a stockbroker in California. In between his mining work Bond frequently went on camping, hunting and exploring excursions in western United States and Canada. He retired from mining in 1940.

Marshall Bond was the son of Federal Judge Hiram G. Bond and Laura Higgins Bond, and a graduate of Yale College, Class of 1888. He spent the winter of 1897-98 mining for gold in the Klondike, N.W.T, where he and his brother met Jack London, who based Buck, in The Call of the Wild, on the Bonds' dog, Jack. Bond continued to work in gold mining for the rest of his life, investing in claims, serving as a consultant to mining companies, and as special correspondent to various newspapers about mining. He was also an avid outdoorsman and big-game hunter. Bond married Amy Louise Burnett; their two sons, Richard M. Bond and Marshall Bond, Jr., are also Yale graduates.

Born in Virginia in 1867, Marshall Bond visited Lincoln County, New Mexico with his son, Marshall Jr., Miguel A. Otero (Governor of New Mexico), and Otero's wife. During this trip, in 1926, he interviewed and photographed survivors of the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid's gang. Bond was a friend of Jack London, who based his novel "The Call of the Wild" on Bond's dog. Bond reported on the gold rush in Nevada and California and investigated silver mines during the Mexican Revolution. His son, Marshall Bond, Jr. wrote an extensive biography titled "Gold Hunter: The Adventures of Marshall Bond."

Marshall Bond was the son of Federal Judge Hiram G. Bond and Laura Higgins Bond, and a graduate of Yale College, Class of 1888. He spent the winter of 1897-98 mining for gold in the Klondike, N.W.T., where he and his brother met Jack London, who based Buck, in The Call of the Wild, on the Bonds' dog, Jack. Bond continued to work in gold mining for the rest of his life, investing in claims, serving as a consultant to mining companies, and as special correspondent to various newspapers about mining. He was also an avid outdoorsman and big-game hunter. Bond married Amy Louise Burnett; their two sons, Richard M. Bond and Marshall Bond, Jr., are also Yale graduates.

Bond (1908-1983), a California independent real estate and insurance broker, was the author of "Gold Hunter" (1969) about his father, Marshall Bond, during the 1890s Alaskan gold rush, and the autobiographical "Adventures with Peons, Princes and Tycoons" (1983).

Biographical/Historical Note

American visitor to Africa.

Miguel Luna, Eugenio Salazar, Marshall Bond, Sr., New Mexico Gov. Miguel Otera, and Marshall Bond, Jr. in Lincoln County, New Mexico. Part of the Marshall Bond Pictorial Collection PICT 000-118 SC.

Marshall Bond was born in Virginia in 1867. In 1926 he visited Lincoln County, New Mexico with his son, Marshall Jr., Miguel A. Otero (Governor of New Mexico), and Otero's wife. During this trip he interviewed and photographed the survivors of the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid's gang.

Marshall Bond (1867-1941) was born in Richmond, Virginia, the second son of Federal Judge Hiram G. Bond and Laura Higgins Bond. The family moved to Denver, Colorado in 1870, and therafter continued to relocate frequently to be near the Judge's mining investments and other business concerns. Marshall Bond attended St. Paul's School, in New Hampshire, and Yale College, graduating in 1888.

After college, he worked for his father's mining company in Seattle and formed a real estate partnership with Oliver H. P. La Farge. In July of 1897, Marshall Bond, his brother Louis Bond, La Farge, and Stanley Pearce left Seattle for the Klondike gold rush, settling in Dawson City, Northwest Territories for the winter of 1897-98. There, the Bond brothers befriended Jack London, who later based The Call of the Wild on Louis Bond's dog Jack and used New Park, Judge Bond's home in Santa Clara, California, as the setting for the beginning of the novel.

Although his Klondike venture was not profitable, Bond continued to work in gold mining for most of his life, investing in claims independently and with various business partners, working as a special correspondent to several West coast newspapers from Goldfield, Nevada in 1904-05, and as a consultant to mining companies, including the Alvarado Mining and Milling Company in Chihuahua, Mexico, during a period of raids by Pancho Villa in 1918. His last mining interest was in the Mohave desert in the 1930s. At other times he worked as director of his father's companies and as a stockbroker, and seems to have served as a domestic intelligence agent during World War I. Other projects included an official visit to Mexico City in 1902 with Boer General W. D. Snyman to discuss the permanent relocation of Boer refugees to Mexico.

Bond was an avid adventurer and big game hunter. In addition to regular camping trips with friends and family, he went on at least two major hunting expeditions: one on the Stikine River in Alaska in 1911, the other an extended trip through Africa in 1927.

Marshall Bond married Amy Louise Burnett of Seattle. They had two children: Richard M. Bond, born in 1903, and Marshall Bond, Jr., born in 1908. Both sons are Yale graduates.