Clarification was requested from a reader regarding the story in last week’s paper "Gold, Greed, Murder — the Bergman murders remembered." The first question was in regards to the financial arrangements involving the Bergmans and Hal Page when Page was working for the Bergmans in Alaska. The second question was in regards to the location of the "dispatch house" mentioned in the story.
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Mark Bergman provided the following information by email:
"The financial arrangements were as such, Hal and I were paid $10 per hour and from the money I received I was required to pay for any needed supplies other than fuel and the main food bill. I was required to provide receipts for any and all expenses. That is why I received the $350 at the end. It was almost impossible to keep track of the receipts with as many hours as I worked. I normally worked the night shift alone. What I would do is stockpile the dirt for the next days run, but then seeing how we could not trust Hal to operate the sluice, I ended up working a lot of double shifts. Oh, well, I was an 18 and full of energy.
Now, Hal was paid after he made each trip to and from Alaska. He made three complete trips before he started working on the mine site. He drove up the equipment from Smithton. Dad has told me the Hal was paid in full for the entire summer just as they were about to leave for the trip home (the night before the wreck). He was also given $2,000 in cash to pay for the gas on the way home. Only Hal did not keep the $2,000 on him and that night Hal left the $2,000 in the truck and it was stolen along with a rifle that was left hanging in the window of the truck. He kept his wages on him nonetheless.
Plus, after the truck was wrecked dad had to pay for the airfare to fly him home and clean up the mess left on the side of the road. Now, dad can’t remember ever telling anyone that if the mining claims sold that they would get a bonus, but he said he might have said something like that. I was never told anything about a bonus. Nonetheless, because the gold was gone now those claims were un-proven claims and they would have only sold for about $4,000 or $5,000 each and we had three. Dad never was able to sell the claims and they went back to the state two years later.
All of us were promised 5% of the net gold, but then there wasn’t any of that left after the wreck. So that was all a bust, but Hal was the only one that got his full wages that summer. Plus, my dad remembers giving some money to Hal’s wife Jane before Hal left the first time.
Because I was family my dad rarely ever paid me and I knew that going in, but I would not have changed anything. The adventures I had as a young boy were some of the best things that could have happened to a kid. My dad was always very good to our help whenever we hired anyone. So I am sure Hal was blowing smoke when he told me he wanted $20,000 as his cut on the sale of the claims. Even if dad had sold all the claims Hal’s bonus never would have equaled $20,000, but then that does not matter either as we never sold any of the claims. I guess we will never know as Hal is dead.
The only people that had a real stake in the claims were the investors and Hal did not invest any money.
I have talked to several people from Gallatin now and everybody says that I must have been taken to Ron Hood’s house on that night. If that was dispatch or not, I’m not sure."