Looking for Gold
Despite the fact that his health was deterioating and that he was 56 years of age, at some point in 1898, Consider Flower made the decision to join the goldrush in Alaska. <height of the Klondike gold rush from the summer of 1897 until the summer of 1898>
According to a local historian's account, Flower was one of a dozen men who banded together on the East Coast to go to the Klondike - <He clearly passed through Denver - there in October and November 1898 for affidavit and surgeon's examination, and form forwarded from there to Sitka> travelled to Puget Sound, had a small steamer built, started north - but split up at Sitka for unknown reason - Flower and two others -- E W Merrill and Frank Woodcock -- stayed - Flower worked at odd jobs.
Flower may have opted to stay in Sitka because his heart trouble worsened. <Flower affidavit #502 11/16/1899 - trouble with heart "has been more pronounced for the last two years probably by reason of my change of occupation from a studio to the goldfields of Alaska."
Whatever caused him to abandon his trip to the Klondike, in 1900 Flower followed another goldrush, this time to Nome, where gold had been discovered that summer. When the US census was taken in Sitka in August 1900, Consider was not in town. His wife, Lucy, however, does appear in the census, having journeyed from Vermont (where she may have stayed while Flower made his initial journey to Alaska).
The local newspaper reported that Flower returned unsuccessful to Sitka sometime in August or Spetember 1900: "Major S E Flower recently returned here from Nome and reports that while some creeks are very good, little ground is open to newcomers and there are many disappointed prospecters."