USA > Alaska > Among the Alaskans > Part 7
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But if the children of our Sabbath- schools were thus busy, the judicious teachers at Alaska did not allow their pupils to fall helplessly back on other people when they might help themselves. The little Indians were encouraged to pre- pare work and curiosities to be sent to the
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home societies for sale, that with the pro- ceeds books and clothes might be pur- chased. Mats of braided grass, toy In- dian hats, odd little carved boxes, and even Alaska dolls dressed in fur, went to the mission-rooms for sale.
The last day of 1880 was the occasion of a fine celebration. The missionaries had a Christmas tree. Some gifts had come from the East; the officers and their wives, tireless in kind deeds, provid- ed apples and candy. The Indian school numbered over one hundred; seventy whites were in Mr. Austin's school: all assembled together in the best of good- fellowship. Commander Glass, of the United States ship Jamestown, was pres- ent.
First came singing; then the Lord's Prayer, recited in concert; then a talk from Mr. Lyons about the great Gift, the Lord Jesus, in remembrance of whom these gifts had been sent. The Greek Church priest made a nice little talk in Russian, and the customs collector of the United States made a speech in behalf
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of education. Then Commander Glass presented each of the three leading chiefs with a red bandana handkerchief bearing portraits of President Garfield and Vice- President Arthur, explaining that these were pictures of the " American great chiefs," who were examples of the advan- tages of morals and education, following whose steps the Alaska chiefs must send their people to school. Among the pres- ents then distributed-to every one some- thing-were seventy other bandanas, but without portraits. Two lads who had never missed either church or school session were given especial rewards of pantaloons, sus- penders, kerchief and necktie, and a box with pens and pencils. It would be hard to enumerate the schools and individuals from New York, Kansas, Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that by sending gifts had shared in this happy occasion.
Although the Alaska Indians are saving and industrious, and some of them com- fortably off, it is not to be inferred that the majority are not very poor. Many of the school-children are orphans, or even
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THE MISSION AT SITKA.
slaves ; for these Indians still hold one an- other in slavery. Some of them come bare- foot and shivering through the winter snow, e exposed, almost naked, to the cold ; others come almost famished. In behalf of these Miss Austin wrote that she could be more successful in giving instruction if she gave it to less hungry scholars, and that if she could hand the poor little ones a piece of bread as they entered school, they could study better.
Speaking of slaves, Indian slavery is most cruel in its manifestations. Masters torture or shoot or drown their slaves on almost any pretext. One slave-boy ran off from a most cruel master, and hid in the long wood-house belonging to the Sitka guard-house. He slept in an old puncheon, and crept out after dark to hunt the refuse-barrels for bits of food cast out from the kitchens. Another slave- boy was shot and wounded by his master, and was saved from death only by being seized by the marines. For such boys as these it was thought needful to estab- lish a home on the plan of the girls' home
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at Wrangell. Very many of the Indian boys, after coming to school and enjoying during the day the advantages of cleanli- ness, quiet, order and instruction, dreaded to return at night to the dirt, crowding, noise and hoochinoo of the Indian quar- ters. They pleaded with the teachers to provide them an industrial home. But how establish a home, when the day-school itself was so poorly provided that there were not nearly books enough for the pu- pils, and when Miss Austin, after teaching all day, had to spend most of her evenings in supplying the lack of books and slates by printing with her pen or with chalk spell- ing, notation and reading lessons for the next day's work ?
But the boys' home started itself, just as the girls' home had done. In November, 1880, some of the boys begged to be al- lowed to live in the schoolhouse and es- cape the quarreling, carousing and drinking at home. They said they would take care of themselves, hunt their own food, sleep on the floor in their blankets and "jump about if they were cold." Miss Austin
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could only consent. The lads did as they agreed. Others joined them; they kept clean by washing in the ocean-a large- enough bath-tub-and arranging their hair
H 38
B
I L
" BOY I, IN HOUSE NO. 38."
by using a scrap of bright tin as a looking- glass. A native policeman was sent to sleep in the schoolroom with them.
In February, 1881, Captain Glass, of the Jamestown, proclaimed compulsory educa- tion for all Indian children between five and
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nineteen years of age. The captain num- bered all the Indian houses, then numbered the children, and stamped house and indi- vidual numbers on a tin label, having "B" for a boy, and " G " for a girl, together with the number of the house. These were hung about the necks of all the children ; and if one was absent, except for illness, the native policeman caught the child, re- ported the delinquent guardian and said guardian was fined by the captain-a blan- ket or a day's imprisonment, as seemed suited to the case.
Captain Glass may be safely set down as the most wise and benevolent tyrant of modern times. The circumstances of a place left, like Sitka, without government admit only of a dictator. Probably, when laws and magistrates are accorded Alas- ka, Sitka will not be so well governed as it was by the commander of the Jamestown. Under the captain's system, the school numbered two hundred and seventy-one members. The Indians soon resigned themselves to the inevitable, and enjoyed it.
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Captain Glass next compelled the Indians to dig ditches all about their houses, to drain them on the outside, and to whitewash them outside and in. The rate of sickness and death at once remarkably decreased.
The commander's next work was to pre- pare the old Russian hospital-building for a school and boys' home. The Indian boys went to work under the superintendence and with the aid of the marines ; the filthy build- ing was cleaned and whitewashed, glass was put in the windows, partitions were put up, fences repaired, walks graveled and bunks built in the dormitory. The boys went into the forest, camped, and cut down their win- ter supply of wood, made it into rafts, towed it by canoe to Sitka, landed it on the beach before the home, cut it and carried it in, and were ready with fuel for winter. This work was begun in the spring of 1881. As soon as the fishing season opened these lads hired a net and caught and salted seven barrels of salmon for their next winter's use; they also made a good garden in the hospital grounds, and raised vegetables-cabbages, potatoes, and so on-for the winter. Mean-
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while, they studied their lessons and did their own cooking and washing. It may safely be said that no mission station has ever set a finer example of industry, econ- omy and self-help, and none deserves bet- ter of the Church.
Thus the industrial home at Sitka was begun, and named the "Sheldon Jackson Institute." At this time half the scholars had to sit on the floor, for want of benches, and two hundred and seventy-one pupils had one teacher, one blackboard, one box of chalk and six books.
Captain Glass, being responsible for the numbers at the school, sent a carpenter to make more benches, hunted up all the slates and books in Sitka and gave a doz- en tin wash-basins to the institution. Mrs. Glass was an unwearying friend. The In- dians said they were " so afraid of Captain Glass that they shook like a fit, but he had huge big heart-built them house, gave them medicine." He was particularly emphatic on the subject of hoochinoo. The Rev. Mr. Lyons sent to Portland for books, but for three months no steamer came up.
y
MISS AUSTIN AND A CLASS OF BOYS, "SHELDON JACKSON INSTITUTE."
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The teaching was of the kind practiced by Miss Kellogg and in Wrangell-much use of the blackboard and of object-les- sons. Time table, multiplication table, the Commandments and the Lord's Prayer were taught orally, and, in spite of hin- drances, progress was admirable.
The steamer of May 6, 1881, brought books, slates, pencils and boxes of clothing, also Mr. Austin's commission from the Home Mission Board as teacher of the boys' boarding-school.
Sickness had compelled Mr. Lyons to leave this field at Sitka, where he was doing excellent work, and where workers were so greatly needed. Visitors to the school declared that four teachers were necessary.
During Dr. Jackson's visit in 1881 he secured for the Presbyterian mission a building, formerly a Lutheran church, put up by a creole named Etolin, governor of Alaska in 1830. Etolin was a mem- ber of the Lutheran Church, and had se- cured for Sitka a chapel and a minister of his denomination. This building was
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deserted at the purchase, the windows were broken and part of the roof fell; it was thirty-seven by sixty feet in size, and of strong frame. By July, 1881, the old hospital was revolutionized. Ever- green trees were planted along the walks ; the garden was in fine condition ; thirty sin- gle bedsteads were up in the dormitory ; there were a bath-room, a kitchen, a dining- room, two store-rooms, a reading-room and a hospital-room. A dispensary was equip- ped, and the surgeon of the Jamestown each morning attended and prescribed for sick Indians. There were twenty-five boys in the home, all comfortably dressed in blue denim overalls and jackets, each lad own- ing two sets of underclothes. Owing to the liberality of Captain Glass and the labor of the Indians, the whole expense to the Church was but three hundred dol- lars. The much-needed organ had been sent by Captain Beardslee; the bell, and also a fine cooking-stove, were sent to this mission through Dr. Jackson. Reward- and text-cards were also given for distri- bution, and these were regarded as so
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precious that little calico bags were made and the cards carried in them about the owner's neck. The year 1881 closed with a very happy Christmas celebration for the church, the boarding-school and the day-
DORMITORY, " SHELDON JACKSON INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL."
school. Thirty boys were in the home, from a tall fellow of eighteen down to a wee one called " Baby Charlie."
On an intensely cold night (January 24,
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1882) this flourishing home was entirely destroyed by a conflagration. This was not the result of carelessness. The build- ing was very old, and the flues were de- fective; the extreme cold required, large fires, and the real state of the chimneys in the ancient Russian house could not be known. The flames broke out at six in the morning-in that latitude, long be- fore sunrise in winter. There was no fire- apparatus of any kind in Sitka, and the hospital burned like tinder.
Aroused from sleep by the terrific cry of "Fire !" the boys of the home showed remarkable courage and presence of mind and a self-sacrificing spirit which cannot be too highly commended. The Hon.
William G. Morris, who was present, says :
" The Indian boys battled manfully with the
flames : they worked like young Trojans, seemingly entirely destitute of fear. I have been particularly impressed with the progress already made by the boys, and should consider it a public calamity if the school should be suffered to die now for lack of support. The management is, in
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my judgment, especially to be commend- ed." This, from the United States col- lector of customs in Sitka, is high praise.
Mrs. Austin writes: "One of our boys, of whom we are very fond and proud, worked like a hero. He said, ' I will save Mr. Austin's furniture if I die in the flames. I am not afraid to die.' He worked with all his might, stayed till the fire was all about him, and then jumped from the second-story window." Miss Austin's letter states : " The boys rushed through the blinding smoke to save us." Mr. Austin tells that one of the boys, resolved on saving his teacher's watch, left in the bedroom, accomplished his wish at the expense of being badly scorched.
The fire broke out in the schoolroom, above the boys' dormitory. Instead of devoting themselves to saving their own clothes, trinkets and little treasures re- ceived as prizes and on Christmas trees, the lads first hurried out the small boys and looked to see if the teacher's family were safe, and then set themselves to res-
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cuing Mr. Austin's furniture. The pianos of Miss Austin and Mrs. Willard were taken out; Mrs. Willard's piano was wait- ing to be carried to Chilcat, and its box was burned. Mr. Austin's furniture was saved, but in a badly-damaged condition. The Indians and the townspeople, as well as the school-boys, worked heartily, but faith- fully, to save the building. The organ, sent by Captain Beardslee, was burned.
Mr. Austin succeeded in rescuing most of the bedding belonging to the boys, but their clothes, except what they hastily put on, were all lost. The fire breaking out on the boys' side of the building, their effects were first destroyed. The lads saved the cooking-stove, also the cooking-uten- sils.
The grief of the boys as they saw their first and only real home swept away can- not be described; they had lost their all. The Indians from the ranche wept in sym- pathy and made most touching expres- sions of their interest in the school and its teachers.
The Hon. Mr. Morris at once prepared
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some rooms in the old barracks for the Austin family, moved their furniture there and made them as comfortable as he could. Mrs. Captain Beardslee had just sent a present of clothes and blankets, and prom- ised a sewing-machine. Mrs. Captain Glass, who had returned to San Francisco, volun- teered aid from her friends, and Mrs. Lieu- tenant Symonds was already working for the home among her friends in Ogdens- burg.
Some of the children were taken back to the Indian village, or ranche, by their friends ; but, as the influence of Indian life was especially to be avoided, Mr. and Mrs. Austin as soon as possible fitted up a dormitory and continued the school. The boys wrote several letters to the Board of Missions, entreating that their home might be rebuilt.
The dormitory fitted up was an old stable building, under which, at high tide, the water rose to within a foot or two of the flooring. Mr. Morris and others acquainted with the situation, while they deplored the calamity and the consequent hindrance to the school,
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yet declared the building itself no loss, for, from its ancient use as a hospital and its decayed condition, it was unsafe and un- healthy. Mr. Morris says: "I have never been of the opinion that the hospital-build- ing was of any value to the United States for such purposes or to reside in. Had the government ever contemplated using the land again for hospital purposes, the first thing to do would have been to burn the building down. A much more suitable edifice for educational use could be erect- ed at reasonable cost."
The letters from Mr. Morris and Mr., Mrs. and Miss Austin were immediately published by Dr. Jackson, and, agreeably to Mr. Morris's request, he " took the ros- trum himself" and pleaded for funds for rebuilding. The ladies of the Woman's Executive Committee of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church entered into the work with their usual whole-souled courage, and funds, clothing and school- paraphernalia began to go to Sitka as fast as steam could carry them. The Executive Committee had no hesitation in
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THE MISSION AT SITKA.
assuming the rebuilding and the proper furnishing of the school-home; in no way could money be more usefully spent. The mission of the "fire at Sitka" was to strengthen faith, zeal and charity and put all the work in that locality on a better foundation. So troubles fell out for good.
Dr. Jackson reached Alaska on the Sep- tember steamer on his fourth missionary- tour, and part of his work while there was to select a new location and supervise the rebuilding of the "Industrial Home for Boys" in Sitka. The Rev. Mr. Brady presented the mission with his claim to one hundred and sixty acres.
The new building, furnished, cost some Six thousand dollars. It accommodates one hundred boarding-pupils of both sexes and the mission family. It is one hundred feet long and fifty deep.
One great need at this home is a teach- er of the mechanical arts, especially car- pentry and shoemaking. A practical teach- er in these branches would not only make the institution self-supporting, but would enable it to send out self-supporting young
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AMONG THE ALASKANS.
men. Dr. Guthrie, in his ragged schools, always had teachers of mechanical arts. The English and German missions in Af- rica have been greatly benefited by send- ing out with their stations godly mechanics to teach trades to the natives. The Sitka boys show a remarkable aptness, even un- instructed, in mending and making shoes, and Dr. Jackson sent them leather from Portland on returning from his trip in 1882.
In September, 1882, a form of "black measles " ravaged Southern Alaska. Many Russians died-forty in Sitka alone-and many wild Indians. But, though the dis- ease invaded the schools in Sitka and Fort Wrangell, not one pupil died; nor were any cases lost at the Indian ranche at Sitka, where Mrs. Austin supervised the nursing of the sick and directed the administration of their medicine.
At present the entire force of mission- aries at Sitka is represented by Mr., Mrs. and Miss Austin, with occasional help from Mr. Brady.
The gratitude of the Sitka Indians for all
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favors received is one of their most pleas- ing characteristics. When Captain Glass, who had been so staunch a friend, sailed away, the home-boys crowded to the shore, and, with tears rolling down their faces, cried, "Good-bye, Captain Glass !- Good- bye, Jamestown !" and for several days were too unhappy to eat. When the school was burning, one woman said, weeping, to Mrs. Austin, "I sick at heart for your trouble. I love you same as my own." At the time of the fire the man- of-war Wachusett, Captain Lull, had gone up to Haines, among the Chilcats. As soon as the Wachusett left, the hoochi- noo troubles broke out in Sitka.
CHAPTER IX.
MODERN HEROES.
H EROISM-a spirit of self-sacri- fice and superiority to danger-is one of the good qualities that seem to have survived the fall of man, and it finds its development in all families of the hu- man race. This quality of heroism may be more or less excellent in its exhibitions, but in any form commands, according to its degree, the admiration of men. Every century has had its heroes whose spirit has taken its stamp from the circumstances of the age which produced them. Thus, one epoch has produced heroes of war, and another heroes of religion; a third, those of political opinion. The first century after Christ was an age of remarkable religious effort, as then all the world was missionary ground and every preacher of the faith was
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MODERN HEROES.
a missionary : it was an age of Christian heroes and heroisms. The present cen- tury is another great age of gospel-spread- ing, and has been wonderfully rich in he- roes of the faith. Like Paul, the chronicler of the Church may suspend his pen, saying, "Time would fail me to tell of-"
{ It is not needful that a name should be noised abroad and receive the ac- claim of the world as a patent of bravery before we inscribe it among the heroes. Deeds, not the trumpetings of praise, stamp heroism. Some of the most courageous acts are but little known, and some daunt- less lives have been but little seen of the public, and so found few to praise.
Courage and martyrdom have glorified our foreign missionary-annals ; and, equal- ly, martyrdom and courage have glorified our home missionary-page. Alaska has been a field not wanting in examples of high fortitude. Any of our stations there might worthily have written its history of intrepidity.
It is not through any invidious neglect of other localities that, where all cannot
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be enumerated, we next select Haines, the mission among the Chilcats, as worthy of especial interest.
When Dr. Jackson made his second visit to Alaska, he took a canoe-trip to visit Met- lahkatlah. Some of the Chilcat Indians ac- companied him to Fort Simpson ; and when an interpreter was procured, a council was held and two of the chiefs assured Dr. Jack- son of their desire for teachers, and for the establishment of a mission among them. They said they were all ready to give up their heathen practices, which were doing them no good, and inquired when a teacher would come. This was in August, 1879.
The canoe in which Dr. Jackson traveled was thirty-five feet long, and in it, besides the Fort Simpson Christian Indians, were twelve wild Chilcat Indians, one of them a chief and a shaman. All the Alaskan In- dians are fond of singing, and these boat- men beguiled the way with songs, the Chil- cats singing tribe-airs; the Tsimpseans, hymns.
"Who is this Jesus you sing about ?" asked the shaman.
HD Nicholsão
DR. JACKSON TRAVELING WITH INDIANS.
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Our missionaries in Alaska have been able to follow the paths which St. Paul preferred, going where Christ has not been so much as named .. The Church cannot allege that these missions are needless and entering into ground occu- pied already by Christian teachers, for Presbyterian missions have opened the way and are the only ones occupying the ground in Alaska.
. The Chilcat tribe numbers about nine hundred, though any census of these no- mads is uncertain, especially as they them- selves are unable to count correctly beyond the hundred. The Chilcat country is the farthest north yet reached by our mission- aries, and from the school-building no less than fifteen glaciers are visible. The Chilcats had occasionally visited Fort Simpson, Met- lahkatlah, where one of the most remarkable of all missionary enterprises is located (con- ducted by devoted missionaries from Great Britain), and also Sitka and Fort Wrangell, and they had carried to their friends won- derful tales of Indians "become white," who could "talk on paper" and "hear
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paper talk," and who wore white folks' clothes, and lived in houses with windows, and forsook the shaman, and ate no more dog-flesh, and no longer killed one an- other.
The tale of tribes that increased, instead of withering away under the deadly simoon breath of their own vices, had created a strong desire in the Chilcats for the same helpers and teachers. Mr. Young and Mr. Brady had already had some conversation with their chiefs who visited the southerly stations, and there was a strong desire to send a preacher to this promising tribe. Indications of great mineral wealth in and above the Chilcat country afforded an- other reason for establishing stations there at an early day, to be ready to meet the incoming of the inevitable mining pop- ulation.
The impetus which the home-missionary spirit had received from the wonderful suc- cess already reached in Alaska, and the amount of information disseminated in re- gard to the work and need there, were clearly witnessed in the energy and lib-
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MODERN HEROES.
erality displayed in providing for the Chil- cat mission. It is true there was delay. Dr. Jackson's canoe-trip with this tribe was in August, 1879, and it was April, 1881, before any missionaries started for that distant port. But a step so import- ant and so difficult is not to be hastily taken.
The Rev. Eugene S. Willard, of the Allegheny Theological Seminary, offered himself for this work, and with his wife and child took the June steamer for Fort Wrangell. The church of New Castle, Pennsylvania, gave them a farewell meet- ing on April 29th, and testified their in- terest by valuable gifts-among others, of a sewing-machine and an upright piano.
On the 10th of June these missionaries arrived at Sitka, making glad the hearts of the workers there.
On the July steamer Dr. Jackson ar- rived, with a missionary for the Hydahs and materials for the mission-buildings among both Chilcats and Hydahs. Sub- sequently a lady in Zanesville, Ohio, gave one thousand dollars toward the Chilcat
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mission. Dr. Jackson, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Willard, with as little delay as possible went on to Juneau, and then passed forward to the country of the Chil- cats. A site was selected and a building ' commenced. The new station was called " Haines."
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