One of the most commendable acts that has come to the attention of the Sun for some time is the promptitude with which the telegraph operators on the river division of the government telegraph service has made arrangements for erecting a monument over the grave of one of their craft.
W. S. Langtree, the operator at Yukon Crossing, was drowned in the Yukon Thursday, June 9th, while shooting the Rink rapids in company with Ralph Creighton, mining recorder at Selkirk. On Sunday, June 12, two men in a small boat found the body near Minto, and after putting it ashore continued on their way until they met the Casca, the officers of which being informed of the location of the remains, stopped to pick them up. At Yukon Crossing, Charles Langtree, a line man and brother of the unfortunate operator, got aboard and accompanied the remains to Whitehorse, where interment followed.
Immediately after the funeral the operators from Whitehorse to Fortymile began to talk by ticks of what they should do for their lamented fellow craftsman. There was no hesitation in the first suggestion offered that a monument worthy of the man and themselves be ordered for his grave.
There is now on the way from Vancouver a granite headstone, weighing
1,000 pounds, suitably inscribed, which will mark the resting place of Langtree. On account of the deceased having been an operator in the employ of the White Pass before he entered the government service, A. B. Newell has given orders to transport the monument free of charge from Skagway to Whitehorse.
There is a lesson in this which it would do others good to follow. A man
drowned on June 9, and already his fellow laborers have a suitable mark of esteem on the way for his grave. - Yukon Sun.
