USA > Alaska > Pribilof Islands, Alaska : genealogy and census, 1870-1928 > Part 2
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The authors are especially indebted to Sonja Kromann, librarian of the NOAA Marine Mammal Laboratory Library, Seattle, Washington, who was always eager to answer our many questions and guide us through the libraries Fur-Seal Archives. Also, we are very grateful to the staff at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, Alaska; especially Bruce Parham and Diana Kodiak, who brought so many records to our attention, and labored for days at the photocopier, and Bill Greathouse at the NARA repository in Seattle, Washington.
We searched many other archives and libraries both electronically and in person. We found materials in many states across the nation. We give special thanks to the following: staff of the: Smithsonian Institution Archives, Ellen Alers; Smithsonian Photographic Services, Dave Bergevin; Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives, Vyrtis Thomas, and Susan McElrath; University of St. Andrews, Scotland, Special Collections, Norman Reid, Pam Cranston and Cilla Jackson; American National History Museum, New York City, Barbara Mathe; Kendell Institute Library, New Bedford Whaling Museum, Massachusetts, Laura Pereira, and Michael LaPides; Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Rose Speranza; Alaska State Library and Archives, Mary Anne Slemmons and Heather Hadley; University of Washington Library Special Collections, Carla Rickerson and John Paul Deley; Notre Dame University Special Collection; Cleveland Museum; San Diego Historical Museum; and Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California.
We extend a special thank you to all individuals, libraries, museums, archives, universities, and historical societies, who allowed the use of photographs to accompany the text.
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Numerous individuals contributed to the editing of the book including: Professor Dan Doyle of Seattle University; Robin Maberry; Karla Sclater, University of Washington; Jo Antonson, Deputy Director, Alaska Office of History; and Archaeology; and Bruce Parham, Director of the NARA-Pacific Alaska Region, Anchorage, Alaska. Bruce and Jo made very significant contributions toward the completeness and historical accuracy of this work. Photo archivist Gina Rappaport assisted with the identification of many of the illustrations herein. She also found the 1923 Edward C. Johnston glass plate negative portraits of St. George Island residents. The wooden crate containing the negatives was located in a warehouse comparable to the one depicted at the end of the Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark. Martha Jackson prepared the numerous census tables from Pribilof Islands' Agent's Logs. Mina Jacobs translated the 1868, St. Paul Island census from Russian to English. Kristine Kalyor of Kaylor Made Designs, Seattle, did outstanding work with the initial design and layout of this book. Kristina Worthington with Genwest Systems, Edmonds, Washington, exhibited tireless and cheerful patience attending to the innumerable edits made to the initial layout. Our thanks are also offered to Kristina for taking this project forward to publication through the Government Printing Office.
The support indirectly provided by Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young, who recognized the government's responsibility to the Pribilof Aleut people who gave so much to support their country during the commercial fur-seal harvest and World War II, contributed immensely towards the publication of this book. Also, John Rayfield, Republican Staff Director, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, worked tirelessly to ensure the reality of the environmental restoration work, the transfer of federal property to the Pribilof people, and NOAAs ability to complete its obligations under the National Historic Preservation Act.
Numerous individuals within NOAA also encouraged the publication of this book. Special thanks and gratitude are extended to Craig O'Connor, Robert Taylor, of the NOAA Office of General Counsel, and Jack Dunnigan, Bill Corso, Deb Larson Salvatore, David Kennedy, Ellen Clark, David Westerholm, Brian Julius, Aneesah Whaley, and Thomas Cox of the National Ocean Service for their encouragement and support. Our apologies go to all those other important individuals who we failed to mention, but to whom we extend our sincerest appreciation and gratitude.
Betty A. Lindsay John A. Lindsay
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PREFACE
European culture is engulfing and destroying the native peoples left in the world. Their customs and habits, legends and memories, weapons and artifacts are rapidly disappearing and there will soon be new and different developments in a large part of the human race. The oral history of these people will be lost and scientific knowledge in philosophy, medicine, and natural history will suffer from it.
Mankind must therefore make every effort to collect, as the most valuable knowledge of the ancient past, all the objects pertaining to the development of culture, for they are documents for the future writing of the "Book of Mankind."
[Johan Adrian Jacobsen. Alaskan Voyage 1881-1883. An Expedition to the Northwest Coast of America. Trans. Erna Gunther from the German text of Adrian Woldt. The Univ. of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1977, ix.]
IT SEEMS INCREDIBLE THAT A TREELESS, FIVE-ISLAND ARCHIPELAGO with a total area of about seventy-eight square miles, situated in the environmentally hostile Bering Sea, would be the site of some of the most significant political, economic, and social events in the United States and Alaska history. These Pribilof Islands, nearly 300 miles from the Alaska mainland, are the breeding grounds for the northern fur seal, whose valuable pelts perpetuated the "fur rush" that is largely lost to the annals of the nineteenth-century gold rush and the twentieth-century oil rush. Prior to the 1898 gold strike in the Alaska Territory, marine mammal hides-first the sea otter, and then the fur seal-represented the first great economic boom in the new territory.
On July 27, 1868, shortly after the 1867 purchase of the Alaska Territory, the U.S. government set aside the Pribilof Islands (also called the Seal Islands) as a "special reservation" administered by the Secretary of the Treasury for the protection of the fur seals. As a reservation, only resident Aleut (al-ee-ute) natives, and government personnel and contractors had access to the islands. For more than a century the government controlled and/or administered an industrial monopoly of the fur-seal industry. The Aleut residents served as the primary labor force on the islands, and the government unwittingly denied them many of their civil liberties. Only government approval allowed anyone to go ashore or leave the islands.
The history of the Seal Islands illustrates the far-reaching influence of these tiny volcanic islands. The U.S. government's administration of the islands created a myriad of documents, maps, photographs, and books that provide the foundation for late- nineteenth-century U.S. history. Conservation concerns drove the government to invest in ongoing scientific studies of the fur-seal population and the natural history of these remote islands. The fur-seal industry also enriched private business men, one of whom later put his earnings into the creation of the California vineyard, Inglenook. In the 1970s, Inglenook became the Niebaum-Coppola Winery, and subsequently Rubicon, owned by film producer and director Francis Ford Coppola, and his wife, Eleanor.
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Following a string of federal bureaucracies, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, NOAA (in the U.S. Dept. of Commerce) took over administration of the Pribilof Islands in 1970. After nearly a century of complete government control, the government acknowledged Pribilof Islands' Aleuts as rightful owners of their traditional lands. The transfer of public lands to the Aleuts took place through several federal acts and agreements, such as The Fur Seal Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-702) and its 1983 amendment; the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971; and the Transfer of Property Agreement of 1984. Sections of both islands fall within the Seal Islands National Historic Landmark, created in 1966 under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.
The transfer of lands from federal to private entities progressed slowly. In the summer of 1989, the State of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued a Notice of Violation against NOAA for an oil sheen release along a shoreline at St. Paul Island. This incident sparked concerns by St. Paul Aleuts who wanted NOAA to address other potential environmental-quality issues. Leaders at St. George Island expressed similar concerns, although all appropriate former federal property had already been transferred to them.
Responding to these concerns in 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched a preliminary investigation at each island. Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), popularly known as Superfund, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the government assessed potential contamination and liability. In 1994, the EPA issued its determination that no contamination posed an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment under CERCLA or RCRA.
Aleut leaders on the Seal Islands continued to charge the United States government with environmental quality violations despite the EPA's determination. NOAA, acknowledging a basis in fact regarding contamination, entered into a Two-Party Agreement (TPA) with the State of Alaska on January 26, 1996. The TPA coincided with a congressional mandate, Public Law 104-91, signed by President Clinton earlier in the month. Section 3(c) of the law, titled, "Resolution of Federal Responsibilities," required the Secretary of Commerce to clean up contaminants, primarily petroleum, landfills, and miscellaneous debris on properties that the government occupied during its operations of the commercial fur-seal industry.
NOAA directed its Chief of the Office of Response and Restoration, David Kennedy, to address environmental restoration on the Seal Islands. Kennedy appointed John Lindsay to manage the restoration efforts. The environmental cleanup required extensive research into the history of petroleum contamination, infrastructure development, industrial debris, and solid waste landfills on the islands. Both the cleanup and the
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transfer of lands also demanded compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, to determine if cleaning up the contamination would adversely impact any historic properties. NOAA then contracted with Betty Lindsay, a genealogist and researcher, to investigate and compile historical records pertaining to the history of contamination on the Pribilof Islands.
Betty Lindsay's research uncovered volumes of documents on the science and management of the northern fur seal, and numerous sources concerned with Aleut civil rights abuses. Much of the material overshadowed the Aleuts' heritage and the individual sacrifices contributing to the history of the islands' fur-seal industry. Census records kept by U.S. federal agents assigned to the islands, however, set Betty Lindsay on an independent eight-year investigative project conducting genealogical research that took her to national and international archival collections (including some via the internet) and ultimately shaped the format of this book.
The available sources for this book largely came from government documents or "headquarters history" as opposed to material generated by Aleuts, or other non- governmental sources, what anthropologist William S. Laughlin termed "grassroots history."1 This fact created research challenges. For example, the popular practice of identifying government officials in documents only by their initials, and the frequent failure to identify Aleuts in written documents as well as photographs proved frustrating. Creative research techniques and diligence brought success in identifying many people "lost" in anonymity in the documents.
The genealogies and censuses presented here span from the United States purchase of Alaska in 1867 to 1929, and approximates the seventy-two year limit on public access to census records. This book helps illuminate the Unaa}in, or Aleut, history of the Pribilof Islands. The Pribilovians have an outstanding heritage upon which they can build and guide their own lives for a better tomorrow. We hope this work will serve them well as they continue to make history.
1 William S. Laughlin. Aleuts: Survivors of the Bering Land Bridge. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1980.
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-- INTRODUCTION -
Outline of Census Years
This book addresses the people of St. George Island and St. Paul Island, Pribilof Islands, Alaska. The vital statistics for births, marriages, and deaths for the residents of these islands were acquired from the islands' agent logs, annual island censuses (when taken from 1868-1929), agent annual reports that included census information, and Alaska federal census reports from 1900-1930. When additional information was written in the agent's log about an individual such as the date of death, it was included herein.
The government agent on each island served as the record keeper of vital events. The "Agent's Log Book," also occasionally referred to as the "Official Journal," functioned as the official record and primary source of information about births, marriages, and deaths of the Pribilof Islands' people. These logbooks and journals were compiled by government agents on both islands from 1870 to 1961. Collectively, they are known as the Pribilof Islands' Logbooks. Each island had its own log with entries typically made on a daily basis until 1962. At that time, the daily log was replaced by a monthly report and each island's City Government Records. The Russian Orthodox Church on each island also kept records written in Russian of vital events.
The spelling of surnames is a historical study in itself, whether focused on the Pribilof Islands' natives or any other ethnic group in American society. In 1916, however, an official communiqué from the United States Secretary of Commerce at Washington, DC, directed the standardization of the given names and surnames of the islands' native inhabitants retroactively to 1914. A uniform spelling was created using a phonetic system worked out between the Russian priest, government agent, and island resident families. Each island family from that point on adopted the name spelling that largely remains in use today. The census records included at the end of this chapter enable interested readers to follow the variation of name spellings from 1871 to the 1914 standardization.
1
Agents on the Pribilof Islands took two basic types of census schedules: one of seals at each of the rookeries and the other of the people on the two inhabited islands. While the seal census, like the human census, had a rough beginning, they both became routine and provided scientifically reliable population data through the present day.
The human census suffered primarily by its weak naming conventions for the first four decades. We have located within various government documents the human inhabitant census records beginning with 1868. The census records herein include the following years for each respective island:
A. Census of inhabitants on St. George Island, illustrated 1871; 1877-1895; 1897-1899; 1900; 1902; 1904-1905; 1907-1908; 1914; 1920; 1922
B. Census of inhabitants on St. Paul Island, illustrated
1868; 1870-1875; 1887; 1890; 1892-1895; 1900; 1902; 1904-1929
The annual census records for St. George and St. Paul Islands, respectively, covering the years 1868-1929 appear in the Pribilof Islands Logbooks, 1870-1961, that are available at the National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific Alaska Region, located in Anchorage, Alaska. Census records were published randomly in various government documents. These records are reproduced herein, and the published source is acknowledged with each. Federal population schedules for the Alaska Territory cover 1900-1930 and include the Pribilof Islands. The census schedules are publicly available from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) through regional archives located in major cities throughout the country and in the Washington, DC area, interlibrary loan through libraries that may own a copy, and digitally through fee-for-subscription services such as Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest. The population schedules are statutorily sequestered for 72 years after the census is taken to protect the privacy of the individuals enumerated in them.
Standardization of the native population names on the Pribilof Islands challenged the non-Aleut and non-Russian speaking agents responsible for keeping such records. The British encountered similar difficulties when they asserted authority over the French in eastern North America, and it was commonly encountered when non-English speaking European immigrants entered the United States at Ellis Island, New York and other points of entry. So for four decades, the majority of Aleut names lacked uniformity within the government records. As noted above, in 1916, an official directive from the Department of Commerce Bureau of Fisheries commanded that uniform spellings be decided by the islands' residents.
Details regarding the impact of three disease epidemics on the St. Paul Island population occurring during 1882, 1890, and 1900 also are included in this book.
2
STANDARDIZATION OF PRIBILOF ISLANDS' NATIVES' NAMES1
St. Paul Census Special Enrollment, November 1, 1916
Memorandum of explanation:
Because of the confusion in the spelling of the names of natives, not only as contained in the various official records of the station, but also among the people themselves, and because of the expressed wish of the Bureau of Fisheries, in its letter dated August 9, 1916, which states: "The office desires that in connection with all oficial matters the names of natives of the Pribilofs shall be written with precision, and that they shall not be varied from time to time through individual caprice," an effort has been made to standardize the spelling of these names.
The acting priest of the local Russian church, which institution maintains a carefully written record of all its members, produced the parish register and transliterated from Russian into English the names of all the native persons present on St. Paul Island on the date upon which the work was undertaken, viz: November 1, 1916. As a check in transliteration the language key published in the back of the Standard Dictionary (Funk & 'W'aguall Company, New York, 1904) was painstakingly employed.
Sheets were then prepared with the names of the various members of each family set forth, after which the adults were called in and questioned as to what they might know regarding the correct spellings of their respective family names, and as to any preference they might have regarding the forms of the given names-whether they preferred to retain the exact 'Russian forni or to adopt permanently an English equivalent.
In the case of family names terminating in 'Russian in "ev," which is pronounced, in English "off," and "ov," which has the sound of "off," it was left to the natives to decide which they would adopt. Except in the case of the Melovidov family, which has long used the 'Russian ending, no others wished to use v as the terminal letter. Until a few years ago, when someone arbitrarily decided that a single terminal f was invariable on St. Paul Island, and all expressed a desire to resume the use of that form. It was accordingly adopted.
On August 24, 1916, the necessary papers having been granted by competent authority to a number of natives who wished to adopt the children of others, and all having expressed a desire to give the adopted children their own family names, the changes requested have been authorized tentatively, pending the issuance of papers by the proper courts. In such cases the children have been directed to retain their original family names as middle names, with the idea of thus preserving a record of their lineage. The present enrollment shows these changes.
When the spelling of the names was finally settled upon, new sheets were filled out with the family name and the proper given name of each member thereof, and these sheets were then signed, in the presence of the Agent, the senior schoolteacher, and the acting Priest of the Russian church, by each member of the family. Those persons unable to write their names,
1 U. S. Department of Commerce. Record Census of St. Paul Island, Alaska, from June 30, 1906, to Dec. 31, 1928, pp. 182-183. [Note: 1914 published tables are found in census schedules section]
3
even infants in arms, were required to touch the pen while a cross was made to represent their signatures. The papers were prepared in triplicate, one set being retained for the station files, another going to the Bureau of Fisheries at 'Washington, while the third will be kept by the local church.
Carefully prepared lists were then published and delivered to all employees of the 'Bureau on St. Paul, who were directed "that henceforth no other names shall be used, officially, ... in designating, referring to, or addressing native persons."
In order that future confusion may not arise in connection with the spelling of the names of children yet to be born, a form for a certificate of christening, to be filed with the vital-statistics records of the Bureau, both here and at 'Washington, has been adopted. This certificate is first signed by the Priest, who informs the Agent that a certain child has been given a Russian name, which is set down in English characters approximating as closely as possible the correct 'Russian literation. The parents of the child then indicate, over their own names, signed in the presence of competent witnesses the manner of spelling in 'English which they desire to be used.
.The following tabulation, of the names of all native persons resident on St. Paul Island on November 1, 1916, shows the accepted correct spellings of both family and given names, together with those by which the persons concerned have been designated in the published list of June 30, 1914 (Bu. 'Fish. "Doc. No. 819, pp. 74-75).
'Future census enrollments will naturally follow the new spellings, which should thus become permanent, and put a stop to further confusion.
H. O. Fassett, Agent & Caretaker. St. Paul, Pribilof Islands.
December 15, 1916.
Merra line
Mercubar, Piw
Nasssur I'aut.
4
regine Martha
A làs Lind
Kosherelžal
Kruže/ Katherine
Fra la, hamhall
Han Nin
Pant Labe
10
--
Nochhil Alstan
-
ENQUA, EIPIA
1, Thardart
Masestin, A usa
under & years of biff
Total Mit,
is abers the age of Je years
Total Mentaler
4
Bithplus
CENSUS of NATIVE INRASITANTS AT PAUL JALAND, ALASKA JUNE 10
Priori Alesandr
The
Kaslol kastina
Current lore has it that the spelling of Pribilovian names became standardized after Reeve Aleutian Airways began dropping mail in 1949 at the islands. "In April 1949, biweekly airmail service was established between the mainland and St. Paul Island."2 Subsequently, " ... airmail drop service was initiated on St. George Island on January 6, 1952, and during the year 23 mail drops were made near the village of St. George."3 The story goes that because extended families living on both islands would receive each others' mail, a better system was needed. The following editorial posted in Alaska Magazine recounted one version:
As we lifted off from the new runway, Jack Merculief, who grew up in St. George, leaned across the aisle and introduced himself. "People call me Crazy Jack," he said with a smile. "Merculief, with one F. That's how you can tell which island I'm from. The St. Paul Merculieffs spell it with two Fs. Do you know why?"
I didn't. So, as we passed between the lesser Pribilof islands, Walrus and Otter, on the way to St. Paul, he explained. When Jack was young, Reeve Aleutian Airways delivered the mail by flying low over the islands and dropping mailbags out the door. With a few extended families constituting most of the population of the two islands, letters and packages frequently reached the wrong destination because often people on different islands shared the same name. To solve the problem, the mail carriers decided to differentiate the islands by spelling their inhabitants' names differently. Merculieff remained Merculieff on St. Paul, but became Merculief on St. George. The Stepanofs, Lestenkofs and Philemonofs got similar treatment, and it stuck.+
1. Mail Drop, August 1961, St. George Island [Courtesy of Ann Baltzo-slide 22]
2 Thompson. 1952. Alaska Fishery, p. 56.
3 Thompson. 1954. Alaska Fishery, p. 54. 4 Hall. 2007, 73 (1). "One f or two," Alaska Magazine, p. 4: published with permission of Alaska Magazine.
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