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Title: The Story of Sitka
       The Historic Outpost of the Northwest Coast

Author: C. L. Andrews

Release Date: April 2, 2010 [EBook #31862]

Language: English

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THE STORY OF SITKA

THE HISTORIC OUTPOST OF THE NORTHWEST COAST

THE CHIEF FACTORY OF THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY

By

C. L. ANDREWS

Seattle, Washington

PRESS OF

Lowman & Hanford Co.

SEATTLE




CONTENTS

          Foreword                                               1
        I Discovery                                              7
       II Settlement                                            13
      III Progress of the Colony                                27
       IV Natives                                               45
        V Churches and Schools                                  54
       VI Social Life                                           60
      VII Trade and Industry                                    66
     VIII Sitka under United States Rule                        77
       IX What to See                                           92

ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                       Facing Page
  Lovers' Lane                                                   1
  Mount Edgecumbe                                               11
  Sitka in 1805                                                 25
  Bakery and Shops of the Russians                              36
  The Ranche                                                    46
  Cathedral of St. Michael                                      54
  The Madonna                                                   56
  The Baranof Castle                                            60
  The Grave of Princess Maksoutoff                              62
  Sitka in 1860                                                 66
  Sitka in 1869                                                 77
  Sitka--East on Lincoln Street                                 93
  Interior of Cathedral                                         95
  Russian Blockhouse                                           100
  Map of Sitka                                                 108




TO MY MOTHER

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY

DEDICATED

THE AUTHOR

Copyright 1922

By C. L. ANDREWS

Seattle, Wash.




[Illustration: Lovers' Lane, Sitka.]




SITKA

Foreword


The panorama of sea, island, and mountain, which holds Sitka, Alaska, as
a jewel in its setting, is one of the most beautiful of those which
surround the cities of the world. Toward the sea from the peninsula on
which Sitka is situated stretches an expanse of waters, studded with
forest-clad islands which break the swell of the Pacific that foams and
tumbles on the outer barriers. To the westward Mount Edgecumbe lifts its
perfect cone, its summit truncated by the old crater whose fires have
been dead for centuries; to the northward Harbor peak lifts its signal
to mariners; the Sisters, with a gleam of snow and ice among their
pinnacles, lie in the distance of Indian River; to the east is the
arrowhead of Mount Verstovia; the glaciers glisten beyond; and the sweep
of mist-clad mountains, in their softness, beyond the bay to the
southeast completes the circle.

Radiating like the spokes of a wheel, waterways with historic memories
reach out from the town. Krestof Bay, where the early navigators cast
anchor; Neva Strait, commemorating the first Russian ship that visited
Sitka from around the world; Katleanski Bay, on which was situated Old
Sitka; Silver Bay, a Norwegian fjord transplanted to Alaska; Lisianski
Bay, named for the Russian navigator of a century ago; the inlet at
Ozerskoe Redoubt and Globokoe (Deep) Lake; the island-studded way to the
Hot Springs; each with its individual charm; the ocean, with the deep,
rich, marine tints of northern waters; the forest of blue, that folds
like a robe over the mountains; the mountain summits beside the
glaciers, clad in the exquisitely wonderful green of the Northland, all
are delightful. But when the sun sinks low in the west, with the long,
lingering twilight of the North, and the soft, delicate rays touch and
blend with the water and islands, the mountains and sky--then, in the
mystery of the evening, is the supreme beauty of the land. To those who
have really known and loved Sitka, there is no place on earth to
compare.

There are pleasant recollections of those who have lived there. Jovial
Edward Degroff and his stories at the Roastology Club; the Mills, whose
hospitable home is known to every resident of the town; Wm. Gouverneur
Morris, whose name recalls a leader of Revolutionary days; genial George
Barron, who upheld every good tradition of the Navy; the gallant old
soldier, Matthew P. Berry; dignified Judge Delaney, Alaska's staunchest
advocate through all vicissitudes; Governor Brady, with his neverfailing
faith in Alaska's greatness; Captain Francis, without whom the early
naval commanders thought the warships could not thread the intricate
passages; Nicholas Haley, with his optimistic dreams of El Doradoes;
Pauline Archangelsky, for whom the "Old Timers" have pleasant
recollections; Alonzo Austin and his mission; Captain Kilgore of the
"Rush"; Merrill, who caught on the photograph plate the elusive spirit
of the varying surroundings as only a true artist could; Katherine
Delaney Abrams, whose touch in watercolor delineated the glory of the
sunsets as none else could; Professor Richardson, who for a quarter of a
century returned year after year thousands of miles to perpetuate in
paintings the exquisite tintings of glaciers and mountain; George
Kostromitinoff (Father Sergius); Father Metropolski, and many others who
have made a part of the quaint old town.

There is a saying that whosoever comes to love the waters of the Indian
River will ever after yearn for them, and it seems true, for always is
that harking back to its banks with an unsatisfied longing.

From prehistoric time this has been the home of the Sitka Kwan of the
Thlingit people. For sixty-three years it was the scene of the chief
activities of the Russian American Company, who represented the rule of
the Muscovites, who, when Chicago was but a blockhouse in a sedgy swamp
on the banks of a sluggish, reedy river, and when San Francisco was but
a mission and a Presidio of sun-burned bricks, maintained in Sitka a
community of busy people who were casting cannon and bells, and who were
building ships for commerce.

In the establishment of this outpost the foundation was laid for the
title of the United States to the southeastern part of Alaska, a land
rich in fur and forest, in gold and copper, in marble and fish, the
potential possibilities of which are not even approximately forecasted
today. Enough to say of it, that in its limits are two mines, one of
which has yielded over sixty-five millions of dollars in gold, and the
other ranks among the richest of the mineral producing veins of the
world.

Some may have an interest in the story of the quaint, quiet, beautiful
village on the shore of Baranof Island. I hope this may add something to
history, keeping the events of the past bright in the memory of those
who love the Northland and its story, and add a little of interest and
information of the present to those who come as transient visitors to
while away a few days among the myriad islands of the Sitkan
Archipelago. It is a link to connect the Sitka of the past, the _Novo
Arkangelsk_ of the great Russian American Company in the romantic
days of the fur trade when it was the center of the vast domain of
Russian America and gathered to its magazines the pelts of sea-otter and
fox, with the Sitka of today with its fisheries and mines. The old
landmarks are fast disappearing, scarce a year passes without some
monument passing away, and even their location will soon be forgotten
unless some record is made for those who do not know where they stood.




SITKA

THE HISTORIC OUTPOST OF THE
NORTHWEST




CHAPTER I

DISCOVERY


Sitka of the Russians, a century ago, was the center of trade and
civilization on the Northwest Coast of America, the chief factory of the
Russian American Company in the vast and little known land of the
Russian Possessions in America. The sails of ships from far off
Kronstadt on the Baltic brought Russian cargoes. The famous clipper
ships of New England made it a stopping place on their way to the China
seas. English traders and explorers visited it on their voyages, and in
it was centered the trade of a wide region. It was the chief factory of
the greatest rival in the fur trade of the world, with which the
Honourable, the Hudson's Bay Company, which then was the controlling
power in the English fur market, had to contend.

The story of Sitka goes back past the middle of the Eighteenth Century.
There are Russians, Spanish, English, French and Americans who have
woven each their own part of the web of the tale, and the scenes have
been as varied and strange as the people.

July 16, 1741, a Russian ship stood into a broad harbor on the Northwest
Coast of America. The commander, Captain Alexei Chirikof, had sailed
three thousand miles across the unknown Pacific from the shores of the
Okhotsk Sea. Civilized eyes had never before rested on these shores and
he was keen with the excitement of adventure and discovery as he dropped
anchor. He sent a party ashore in the ship's longboat to explore, and
awaited the result. Days passed and no word or signal came, so the
remaining boat was sent to recall the party and it was swallowed up in
the labyrinth among the green islands. Signals indicated that it safely
landed but none returned to the ship although the orders were imperative
that both boats return at once. The last boat was gone. Three weeks
passed. Captain Chirikof could not reach the shore and could no longer
lie at anchor, so reluctantly and sadly he set his course for the far
off Kamchatkan shores and sailed away from the port of missing men.

Nearly two centuries have passed since the Russian seamen landed and no
word has come from them. For more than seventy years the Russian
Government sought for some sign of their fate.[1] Tales were told of a
colony of Russians existing on the coast but each upon investigation
proved but a rumor.

There is a dim tradition among the Sitkas of men being lured ashore in
the long ago. They say that Chief Annahootz, the predecessor of the
chief of that name who was the firm friend of the whites at Sitka in
1878, was the leading actor in the tragedy. Annahootz dressed himself in
the skin of a bear and played along the beach. So skillfully did he
simulate the sinuous motions of the animal that the Russians in the
excitement of the chase plunged into the woods in pursuit and there the
savage warriors killed them to a man, leaving none to tell the story.
The disappearance of Chirikof's men has remained one of the many
unsolved mysteries of the Northland, and their fate will never be known
to a certainty.

The faulty record of the navigation of a time that counted by dead
reckoning, and without a knowledge of the currents of those seas, does
not tell us the exact location of the anchorage, but beyond a reasonable
doubt it was in Sitka Sound, and the Russian seamen died at the hands of
the Sitka Kwan of the Thlingits. In this manner Sitka first became known
to the White Man's World.

On the 16th day of August, 1775, came the Royal Standard of Spain, flung
to the breeze from the little schooner "Sonora," only 36 feet in length,
under command of Don Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra. Quadra was one of
the greatest and best of the Spanish navigators in the North. His
voyages are among the most successful of those of the mariners of his
nation in the waters of the north Pacific ocean, and his name was once
linked with that of the English Commander on the island now bearing the
name of Vancouver. Quadra came from the Mexican port of San Blas, and
after many thrilling adventures and grievous hardships he sailed into a
broad bay and dropped anchor. There was a mountain, of which he says:
"Of the most regular and beautiful form I had ever seen. It was also
quite detached from the great ridge of mountains. Its top was covered
with snow, under which appeared some gullies, which continue till about
the middle of the mountain, and from thence to the bottom are trees of
the same kind as those at Trinity."

[Illustration: Mount Edgecumbe.]

He named the mountain _San Jacinthus_, and the point of the island
that extends out toward the sea, Cape _del Engano_. No one who has
looked upon the slopes of the mountain which stands to the seaward from
Sitka can mistake the description. He anchored in what is now known as
Krestof Bay, about six miles northwest from Sitka, and he called it Port
_Guadalupe_.

Captain Cook, on his Third Voyage of Exploration, in 1778, with the
ships "Resolution" and "Discovery," passed along the coast and noted the
bay, of which he says: "An arm of this bay, in the northern part of it,
seemed to extend in toward the north, behind a round elevated mountain I
called Mount Edgecumbe, and the point of land that shoots out from it
Cape Edgecumbe." This name supplanted the one given by the Spaniard and
the beautiful cone is yet known by the title he bestowed.

The early Russians called the mountain St. Lazaria, assuming that it was
the peak seen by Chirikof on his ill fated voyage of discovery and so
named by him. The small island at the south is still known as San
Lazaria Island.

Captain Dixon, of H. M. S. "Queen Charlotte," came during the summer of
1787, on a fur trading voyage. Dixon had just departed from the harbor
when Captain Portlock, of the English ship "King George," which was
lying in Portlock Harbor, to the northward in Chichagoff Island, sent
his ship's boat through the passage behind Kruzof Island to about the
present site of Sitka, and made the discovery for the civilized world
that Mount Edgecumbe is on an island.




CHAPTER II

SETTLEMENT


The sea-otter, a marine animal about four feet in length when fully
grown, with soft, long black pelage of silky texture, is one of the most
valued of the fur-bearers. It was found abundantly all the way along the
Northwest Coast, and especially in the passages about Sitka. It is now
nearly extinct.

The Russians had been gathering the skins of the sea-otter in the
northern waters for years, ever since Chirikof made his voyage to Sitka,
and they were truly an El Dorado, in fur, to the traders who plied their
trade along the coasts. Captain Cook and his sailors, when on their
voyage in these waters, bought skins for mere trifles, some for a
handful of iron nails. These same skins sold for as much as sixty
dollars each in China where they visited on their way home. The story of
the furs went over the world and English, French and American traders
thronged to these waters to sail their ships into the straits and barter
for the rich pelts. To secure a profit of $50,000 on a voyage was not
unusual. Ingraham, the lieutenant of Captain Gray whom we all know so
well for his discovery of the great River of the West, sailed to near
Sitka before his principal entered the river which he named for his
ship, the Columbia. The French ship "Solide," in 1791, sailed from
France to gather a portion of the harvest. Her captain, Étienne
Marchand, anchored in Sitka Bay, and called it _Tchinkitinay_, as
he declares it was known to the natives. To his ship flocked the painted
and skin-clad natives with their peltries for barter. On their persons
he saw articles of European manufacture, showing that other ships had
visited there, and in the ears of one young savage were hanging pendant
two copper coins of the colony of Massachusetts. His success in trade
was not such as he might have wished, so he sailed way, remarking that,
"The modern Hebrews would, perhaps, have little to teach to these people
in the art of trade."

March 31st, 1799, the Yankee skipper, Cleveland, of the merchant ship
"Caroline," sailed into the bay, dropped anchor and fired a cannon shot
as a signal. He was one of those shrewd, lean traders, skilled in
navigation, who sailed from Boston round the Horn, with their bucko
mates, who could drive a tack with the prow of a ship, so to speak, and
in those days there were no corners of the earth where they might not be
found seeking for profit. He was wise to the ways of the sharp trading
canoemen of these waters, and their aggressive proclivities, so he
prepared his ship with regard for all the possibilities of the business.
Around it as a bulwark he stretched a barrier of dry bull hides brought
from the California coast. At the stern was a place prepared for the
trading. Forward on the deck were planted cannon, shotted with shrapnel,
trained so as to rake the afterdeck, and beside each was a gunner's
match.

On the first day, for two hundred yards of broadcloth, he purchased a
hundred prime sea-otter skins, worth $50 each in Canton. Barter was
going merrily on, when a scream from amidships startled the crew. The
Thlingits sprang to their boats. The squaws backed the canoes away from
the ship's sides. Arrows were fitted to bowstrings, spears were poised
and muskets primed. On the ships the sailors lighted the cannon matches
and stood by ready to fire. A fight was hovering in the air when the
cause of the disturbance was discovered. An inquisitive Thlingit pried
between the bull hides opposite the cook's galley, and the cook had
saluted him with a ladle of hot water. In his surprise he upset his
canoe and his family were struggling in the sea. His baby was rescued by
a seaman, amends were made to his injured feelings, and the barter
proceeded as before.

The waters were filled with ships. In a stay of a month the "Caroline"
spoke the ship "Hancock," the ship "Despatch," the ship "Ulysses," and
the ship "Eliza," all of Boston; and the English ship "Cheerful," all
trading for furs among the Sitkan Islands.

The Russians, in their colony on Kodiak Island, were jealous of the
intruders on what they considered as their domain. Gregory Shelikof, a
Siberian merchant, one of the wealthiest and most far seeing of the
leaders among the Aleutian Islands, conceived the plan of combining the
whole of the fur trade in one great monopoly. In pursuance of this
policy he secured a charter from Emperor Paul in 1799, under the name of
the Russian American Company, which gave the exclusive right to all
profits to be derived from every form of resource in the Russian
possessions in America for a period of twenty years. To the management
of his business in the Colony he established on Kodiak Island he
appointed Alexander Andreevich Baranof, a Siberian trader of great
ability and experience. Baranof, the wise and far-seeing Russian ruler
of the Russian American Company, at his factory in St. Paul's Harbor on
Kodiak Island, had long planned the extension of his settlements to the
southeast. The sea-otter catch of the Russians was made by brigades of
Aleuts from the western islands, who went along the shores and to sea as
far as 20 miles, in their wonderful skin boats called bidarkas, to hunt.
When a sea-otter lifted its head from the water to breathe, within sight
of a detachment of Aleut hunters, its fate was sealed, for it seldom
escaped.

The passages between the islands about Sitka were called the "Straits"
by the Russians, and in them the sea-otter skins were taken by the
thousands. It was not unusual for a Russian hunting party consisting of
a hundred bidarkas to take on one expedition 2,000 skins of the
_Morski bobrov_, as they called the sea-otter.

The animals were becoming scarce in the seas about the western islands
and Baranof was compelled to replenish his trade by the catch of the
southeastern waters. In 1795 he sent one of his ships as far south as
the Queen Charlotte Islands and it visited Sitka on the way. Two
thousand skins were secured by the hunters while on this voyage. In the
same year Baranof himself paid Sitka a visit, coming through the strait
from the north in his little schooner "Olga," a 40-foot boat, and he
named the passage for his craft as Olga Strait. On the shore near his
anchorage he erected a cross; the bay he named Krestof Bay, and he then
selected the locality of his future settlement.

In the spring of 1799, Baranof sent orders to the toyons, or chiefs, of
the tribes on the islands around Kodiak to assemble the hunters. Five
hundred and fifty bidarkas, each manned by from two to three Aleut
paddlers, came in answer to his call, and with two convoying ships he
set sail for Sitka Sound. On July 7th he landed at a bay six miles north
of the present town of Sitka, purchased a tract of land from
Skayeutlelt, a local chief, and began the construction of a post which
he named redoubt St. Michael. The building was done under great
difficulties. Rain fell incessantly. There were but thirty Russian
workmen as most of the Aleuts returned to Kodiak, hunting as they went.
Of the men who remained ten had to stand guard constantly, for the
Thlingits were not to be trusted. Barracks, storehouses, quarters for
the commanding officer, were constructed; a bath house also, for the
Russian must have his bath, and the whole was surrounded by a stockade
and strengthened by blockhouses. Their troubles were not all with the
elements, for during the winter the scarcity of provision and other
causes brought scurvy to add to their discomfort. Their food was mostly
yuhali (dried salmon), but during the winter the hunters took 40
sea-lions, and in the spring many seals were killed in the bay by the
Aleuts.

The natives, called Thlingits at the present, were known as the Kolosh
by the Russians. They were divided among themselves in their feelings
toward the new settlers in their midst. Some looked with extreme
disfavor upon the establishment, while others were friendly. The young
and turbulent warriors were hostile. A messenger was sent to invite them
to a prasdnik (holiday) at the fort. He was taken prisoner by them and
detained until Baranof landed in their midst with an armed force and
demanded his release, when they set him free and ridiculed the incident.
At a dance at the fort many of the Kolosh came with long knives
concealed under their cloaks. Their treachery was detected and their
design frustrated. The courage and caution of Baranof held them in check
until spring when he departed for Kodiak, leaving strict instructions as
to the precautions to be observed during his absence. After his
departure the discipline grew more lax and the Kolosh became more bold.
The watchful savages at last saw an opportunity to rid themselves of
their new neighbors.

On a June day of 1802, the exact date is not recorded, a horde of
painted savages burst from the forest, clad in all the paraphernalia of
war masks and barbaric armour. A fleet of war canoes landed warriors on
the beach in front of the redoubt. In the attack that followed the
stockade and buildings were reduced to smoking ruins, the magazines were
robbed of rich stores of furs, most of the defenders died on the spears
of the Kolosh or were tortured till death relieved their sufferings, and
the women and children were made slaves. Skayeutlelt, the false friend
of Baranof, directed the battle from a nearby knoll and his nephew,
Katlean, was one of the principal actors in the bloody tragedy. A few
survivors who were hunting in their bidarkas or were in the forest,
escaped to the ships of the English and American traders which were in
the bay.

Captain Ebbetts on an American ship and Captain Barber of the British
ship "Myrtle" were in the harbor. Some of the survivors on reaching
these ships asked them to rescue their countrymen. Captain Ebbetts
ransomed several prisoners, but Captain Barber adopted a more effective
course. Chief Katlean and Chief Skayeutlelt came on board his ship to
trade. He at once put them in irons and threatened to hang them to the
yardarm of the ship if the captives remaining in the hands of the
natives, and also the plundered sea-otter skins, were not immediately
surrendered to him. The threat was effective, the greater part of the
sea-otter furs and several captives were brought on the ship and
delivered to him. He then took the ransomed captives from the other ship
and sailed for Kodiak, where he demanded a ransom of 50,000 rubles from
Baranof for the captives. The ransom was later reduced to 10,000 rubles
which was paid by Mr. Baranof.

Two years passed before much is again known of Sitka. English and
American captains sailed their ships into the harbor and gathered the
furs which Baranof had endeavored to garner in the storehouses of the
Russian American Company. In the summer of 1804 Baranof gathered a force
at Kodiak with which to cross the Gulf of Alaska to re-establish his
post. There were one hundred and fifty bearded _promyshileniks_, or
fur hunters, and over 500 Aleuts in their skin bidarkas. With him were
the ships "Alexander," "Ekaterina," "Yermak," and "Rostislaf." When they
reached Sitka they found there Captain Lisianski of the Imperial Russian
Navy, with the ship "Neva," one of the first Russians to circle the
globe, and who came to help to recapture the post.

The Indian village of Sitka was almost in the same place as the present
town, grouped around the Baranof hill which was called by the Russians a
_kekoor_. On the top of the kekoor was a redoubt, and a stronger
fort was near the mouth of the Indian River, or _Kolosh Ryeku_.

On the morning of September 28th the Russian ships moved to a point
opposite the village, the "Neva" being towed by a hundred bidarkas. The
Sitkans abandoned their village and the fort on the hill and withdrew to
the stronger fortification near the river. Baranof landed a force and
occupied the kekoor, planted cannon on the top, then opened negotiations
for the surrender of the other fort, but his overtures were rejected by
the Indians.

The ships were brought near the river fort and the cannon were trained
on it. The fort was built of thick logs in the shape of an irregular
square, with portholes on the side next the sea, and inside the breast
works were 14 barabaras, or native houses.

The walls were of such thickness that the cannon shot from the "Neva"
made but little impression on the structure. Baranof was impatient and
urged an attack. Reinforcements were landed from the ships under command
of Lieutenants Arbusof and Polavishin. The hunters, sailors, and Aleuts
flung themselves against the fortifications, but meeting a murderous
fire were driven back in disorder and only saved from disaster by the
protection of the fire of the ships. Ten men were killed and 26 wounded,
and among the wounded was Baranof.

Captain Lisianski then took command and moved his ships nearer the
shore. A canoe with reinforcements and a supply of powder for the
Indians approached among the islands but a shot from the "Neva" struck
it, the powder exploded, and the Indians who were saved from the wreck
were taken on board the Russian ship. The bombardment was steadily
continued until the 6th of October, when the Kolosh proposed to
surrender, and a parley was held, but during the night they evacuated
the fort and went over the mountains to the north. In the fort were left
the bodies of 30 warriors and also the bodies of five children who had
been killed to prevent their cries making the retreat known to the
Russians. The only remaining survivors were two old women and a little
boy. A few straggling warriors remained lurking about, seeking revenge,
and a few days later they killed eight Aleuts who were fishing on
Jamestown Bay.

How the Kolosh went over the mountains was long a mystery to the
Russians. They reached the shore of Peril Strait and crossing to the
north shore placed a fort near the entrance to Sitkoh Bay which was
stronger than their old fort at Indian River and where over 1,000 people
gathered. A tradition among the old Indians says that the fugitives
first went to Old Sitka, then over the mountains to the northeastern
side of the island. On the way they suffered extremely from fatigue and
hunger, and one Sitka Indian who lives on Peril Strait relates that his
father was a child at the time of the exodus. His father carried him
till exhausted, when he abandoned him, and his mother then took him up
and carried him the remainder of the way.

The property left in the fort by the Kolosh was taken out, the
fortification was burned and the canoes on the beach were broken to
pieces. There was enough remaining of the structure that some of the
remains of the foundation may yet be seen in the forest which has sprung
up around it in the Indian River Park, although more than a century has
since elapsed.

[Illustration: Sitka in 1805--From Lisianski's Voyage.]

Then began the restoration of the post, on the present site of Sitka,
and with energy and despatch the building of a new Russian settlement
proceeded. Around the kekoor the native houses were removed, and along
with them more than a hundred burial houses with the ashes of the bodies
which had been burned. The great tribal houses, or barabaras, as they
are called in the Russian accounts, were spacious, some measuring 50
feet in width and 80 feet in length.[2] In their place rose the town of
New Archangel (_Novo Arkangelsk_,) and on the kekoor was built a
redoubt. This was the official name and generally recognized by the
Russians, but the name Sitka was early used by them. Baranof frequently
used the term Sitka in his letters, and in the letter of the Minister of
Finance to the Minister of Marine, from St. Petersburg, April 9, 1820,
Sitka is used in several places. The name Sitka, or Sheetkah, in the
Thlingit language, means, in this place, that this is the place, or the
best place, implying superiority over all other places.

All winter there was cutting of logs in the forest and by the spring of
1805 there were eight substantial buildings, the space for 15 kitchen
gardens had been cleared, the livestock brought on the ships were
thriving, and an air of prosperity pervaded the place.[3] Surveys of the
harbor were made by Captain Lisianski who also made the first ascent of
Mt. Edgecumbe, and who then sailed for Kronstadt, Russia, by the way of
Canton, with a cargo of furs for the China trade valued at 450,000
rubles.[4]




CHAPTER III

PROGRESS OF THE COLONY


The courtly Chamberlain of the Tsar, Nicholas P. Resanof, son-in-law of
Shelikof who was the founder of the first Russian colony in America,
came to Sitka in 1805, via Petropavlovsk, Siberia, on the "Nadeshda,"
one of the first Russian ships to circumnavigate the world, and was a
special representative of the Russian American Company, of which
organization he was one of the founders.

In his report to the Company he tells us: "The fort is on the high hill,
or kekoor, on a peninsula in the gulf. On the left side of the kekoor
close on the peninsula is built an immense barracks with two projecting
blockhouses or towers. All the building is made from mast timber from
the top to the foundation, under which is a cellar. Besides this
building are two warehouses, a material magazine and two cellars, also
two large sheds for storing food, and under the sheds are the quarters
for the workmen. On the side opposite the fort is a shed for storing
cargo, at the right side is the kitchen, bath, and quarters for the
servants of the Company, clerks, etc., and on the shore are the
blacksmith shops and other workshops. On the top of the kekoor is a
building five sazhens[5] long and three sazhens wide, with two rooms. In
one I live, and in the other there are two shipmasters. There are still
some old Kolosh _yourts_, in which live the _kayours_ and the
Kodiak Americans (Aleuts, they are generally called).[6]

"Our guns are always loaded, everywhere are sentinels with loaded arms,
and in the rooms of each of us arms constitute the greater part of the
furniture. All the night the signals from post to post continue, war
discipline prevails; in a word, we are ready at any minute to receive
our dear guests, who generally profit by the darkness of night to make
an attack."

The additional number in the garrison owing to the arrival of the
Chamberlain and his suite made it more difficult to procure provisions
for the winter. The hostile Kolosh made hunting and fishing dangerous.
In the autumn there was but flour enough for an allowance of a pound a
week for one month for the 200 men in the fort. For other food supply
they were dependent on the fish caught in the bay, the dried
_yukali_ and sealion meat from Kodiak, and the dried seal meat from
the Seal Islands.

Baranof bought the ship "Juno," an American sailing ship of about 250
tons, from Captain George D'Wolf, of Bristol, Conn., with its cargo of
flour, sugar and other articles, for the sum of 68,000 piastres
(Spanish), equivalent to about the same number of dollars. This relieved
the immediate necessity, but before spring the supply became so low that
the scurvy, that dread malady of the seas and of outlying localities,
attacked the garrison. This scourge often fell heavily on the early
Russian expeditions, and in 1821 the Russian ship "Borodino" lost 40 men
through its ravages in a voyage from Sitka to Kronstadt.

In March, Resanof sailed for San Francisco in the "Juno" to purchase
breadstuffs and other supplies. He also wished to examine the coast with
the view of making other settlements farther south, at Nootka, at the
Columbia, or even farther south in California. He secured a cargo of the
products of the south and returned to Sitka in June.

On his southward journey Resanof reconnoitred the mouth of the Columbia
River, seeking a site for a future settlement. He was unable to enter
the river owing to contrary winds; and the condition of his crew,
debilitated by lack of proper food and suffering from scurvy, caused him
to hasten on. He heard that a party of U. S. soldiers were building a
fort there. This rumor doubtless came from the presence of Lewis and
Clarke near the present Astoria.

While on this visit to San Francisco Resanof met the Spanish beauty,
Dona Concepcion de Arguello, of whom one of the visitors said, "She was
lively and animated, had sparkling, love-inspiring eyes, beautiful
teeth, pleasing and expressive features, a fine form and a thousand
other charms," and he lost his heart to her. The romance of the Russian
courtier and the fair Californian furnished to Bret Harte the theme for
some of his most beautiful verse. Resanof, hurrying home to Russia to
gain the Imperial permission to his marriage, died at Krasnoyarsk,
Siberia, and Dona Concepcion waited for years for the coming of her
lover, not knowing that he lay dead under the Siberian snows. When the
news of his sad fate came to her she donned the habit of a nun and
devoted herself to charitable works.

This visit to California was the beginning of a trade that continued for
many years, through all the period of Russian occupation. During the
days of the gold discoveries in California large shipments of goods were
made from Sitka to San Francisco, and after the sale of the territory to
the United States great quantities of merchandise were shipped from the
warehouses of the Company to the California metropolis, amounting to
over a quarter of a million dollars in one year.

The breadstuffs for the colonies were procured from California, from San
Francisco and from Ross Colony, or from Peru, until 1840, when a
contract was made with the Hudson's Bay Company under which the supplies
were brought from the farms of the Nisqually or from Vancouver, in
Oregon Territory.

Until the time of the arrival of the "Neva", 1804, all trading goods
were brought across Siberia to Okhotsk, and thence by sailing vessel to
the colony, or were purchased from the American or English trading ships
which came to the coast for furs. To the natives the English who came to
these waters became known as "King George Men," and the Americans were
called "Boston Men," the latter being from the great number of ships
that sailed from the great shipping port of New England. From these
traders goods were purchased by Baranof at lower rates than those cost
which were brought from Russia. John Jacob Astor was one of the first to
engage in the trade. He sent the ship "Enterprise" to Sitka in 1810, and
the "Beaver" in 1812. From Washington Irving we have the description,
through the account of the Captain, of the "Hyperborean veteran
ensconsed in a fort which crested the top of a high rock promontory,"
which is well known to all readers of stories of western life, and in
which the impression of the character of Baranof as given to the reader
is very erroneous. The traders exchanged their goods with the Russians
for furs, sometimes going to the Pribilof Islands to receive the
seal-skins; sailed to China, where the furs were traded for silks,
nankins, and teas; they then voyaged on around the world to their home
port.

The sloop-of-war "Diana," the first Russian warship to reach Sitka,
arrived in 1810 under the command of Captain Vasili M. Golofnin, who was
widely known for his adventures while a captive in the Kingdom of the
Nipponese, where he was carried about in a bamboo cage and exhibited to
the populace. His description of his visit to Sitka is entertaining, and
of it he says:

"In the fort we met nothing so unusual or costly as to be worthy of
special remark; the fort consisted of solid log towers, and high strong
palisades, with apertures or embrasures, in which were set guns and
carronades of different calibres. The interior construction, barracks,
storehouses, house of the commander and other buildings were made of
thick logs and were very solid, these being very common in this place,
around which grows, so to say, within reach of a windlass, a multitude
of most beautiful trees suitable for structures of every description.

"In the house of Mr. Baranof were ornaments and furniture in profusion,
of masterly workmanship and costly price, brought from St. Petersburg
and from England, which corresponded with his position as the head
official of a great company. What astonished us most was an extensive
library in nearly all European languages, and many pictures of
remarkable merit. I must confess, that I badly judge in painting, and
only could know, that in the uncultivated wild border of America, there
would be none except Mr. Baranof to value and understand them, unless
there might happen to be educated travelers, or masters of United States
trading vessels visiting this place, there would be no one to appreciate
the fine art. Mr. Baranof, noting my astonishment, explained the riddle,
saying, that the pictures attracting our attention were gifts of the
Company and of distinguished persons in St. Petersburg, for the
establishing of a library, and the Directory sent them out. On these
works he commented with the following remarkable view: 'Better that our
directors had sent us a doctor, for in all the Company's colonies there
is not one doctor, nor one doctor's assistant, nor one doctor's pupil.'"

Golofnin soon left Sitka to return to St. Petersburg. His successful
voyage, together with that of the "Neva" and the "Nadeshda," encouraged
the shipment of goods by sea from Russia, and from that time onward
ships came regularly, laden with supplies of every kind for the post,
and returned with rich cargoes of peltry.

By 1825 surgical and astronomical instruments of the best quality were
sent to the colony, an apothecary shop of three rooms provided
medicines, and four Creole boys, under the charge of a doctor, attended
to the dispensing of the potions. A hospital was in connection and the
sick received fresh food, tea, sugar, and medicines, free, upon the
order of the doctor.

An observatory, equipped with the most improved magnetic and
meteorological instruments was later provided and there was kept a
record of natural phenomena, while a museum of objects of interest from
the surrounding country was open for the instruction of all.

The library was brought from St. Petersburg in 1806 by Resanof. Mr.
Khlebnikof tells us that it contained more than 1,200 volumes, valued at
7,500 rubles, and they were in the Russian, French, German, English,
Latin and other languages.

When Mr. Resanof was preparing for his journey he addressed letters to
many of the leading men of St. Petersburg, soliciting their contribution
of books to promote the beginning of education in the far off possession
of the Czar. Many sent a response in writing accompanied by one or more
volumes, and the letters so sent were richly bound in a separate volume
and placed with the library in the building at Sitka. Among the patrons
were the Metropolite Ambrosia, Count Rumiantzof, Count Stroganof,
Admiral Chichagof, Minister of Justice Dimitrief, Senator Zakarof and
others. The sentiments were varied, but many agreed in voicing the
desire to "sow the seed of science in the breasts of the peoples so far
outlying from the enlightenment of Europe." Some of them reflected the
personal character of the donors: The Metropolite Ambrosia sent books
for church services; the Minister of Marine sent plans of ships; and
Count Rumiantzof contributed works on husbandry.[7]

Mr. Kyril Khlebnikof, the accountant of the Company, who was in charge
of the counting house at Sitka from 1818 to 1832, to whom we are
indebted for many valuable writings relating to the early history of the
settlements, tells us that when Mr. Baranof left the colony the
buildings had become badly decayed and much new construction had to be
done. In 1827 there had been built, three sentry houses, a battery of
thirty guns on the kekoor, and below them magazines, barracks and other
buildings, a bakery, wharf, arsenal, etc. In the shops were blacksmiths,
coppersmiths, locksmiths, coopers, turners, rope spinners, chandlers,
painters, masons, etc.

At the Ozerskoe Redoubt, on Deep Lake, were barracks and a fort, a
flouring mill, a tannery, and other buildings. A zapor, or fish trap, in
the stream took sixty thousand fish each year.

[Illustration: The Bakery and Shops of the Russians--Later the Sitka
Trading Co.'s Building.]

The workmen got out timber from the forest for the building of ships,
they cut fuel and burned charcoal in large quantities; kept the
buildings in repair and did other duties required on the factory. The
work of the gardening was chiefly done by the Aleuts, who were paid a
ruble a day for their services.

The Russian Captain Lutke came to Sitka about this time and he tells us
that there were many pigs and chickens raised by the inhabitants, and
that a pig might be had for 5 to 7 rubles, a hen for 4 to 5 rubles, and
eggs at from 3-1/2 to 10 rubles per dozen. The chief drawback to the
chicken industry was the presence of the great black ravens that carried
away the young chicks and sometimes even the old hens. The ravens were
such successful scavengers that they were called the New Archangel
police, and he says they even bit the tails off the young pigs, so that
all the hogs of the place were tailless.

He mentions the abundance of deer on the islands and also says that
mountain sheep were killed by the Aleuts and brought to the fort. He
must have confused the sheep with the goats, for the sheep never
approach the coast so closely, and he speaks of the wool being used for
weaving the blankets for the ceremonial dances of the Kolosh. This would
indicate that the animal in question was the mountain goat. A later
writer says that 2,700 game animals were brought into Sitka for sale
during the winter of 1861-62.

A shipyard was established as soon as the necessary buildings to house
the garrison were completed. It occupied a part of the present parade
ground near the Russian Barracks and included a portion of the present
street. Many vessels were built in the yard during the Russian
occupation, the first, being the tender "Avoss," launched in 1806,
followed by the brig "Sitka," built by an American shipbuilder named
Lincoln, and for which he was paid 2,000 rubles as a royalty upon the
completion of the ship. A frigate of 320 tons was the largest vessel
built before 1819, and at that time construction was discontinued until
1834, when work was resumed and continued until the close of the Russian
regime.

The "Politofsky" was one of the last vessels to be built at Sitka, and
it was sold by Prince Maksoutoff to H. M. Hutchinson and Abraham Hirsch
for $4,000 in 1867. The next year it was sold to Hutchinson, Kohl & Co.,
and later was sold to a firm that ran it to Puget Sound, and from Alaska
to San Francisco. It was built of Alaska cedar timber, the _dushnoi
dereva_ or scented wood of the Russians, and was spiked with
hand-made copper spikes. It was taken to Alaska in the gold rush of
1898, and found its last resting place, very appropriately, in the land
where it was built, in the harbor of St. Michael, the old Russian port
on Bering Sea.

The fear of shipwreck, and of death at sea hung over every soul of the
community. The long voyages in uncharted and unlighted waters with
sailing ships--more than six months at the shortest from
Kronstadt--often three months or more against baffling winds from
Okhotsk--the voyages to the redoubts and _odinoshkas_ (detached
posts with one man only) of the Bering Sea and of the Gulf of Alaska, to
collect the fur catch of the year and bring it to Sitka; the long
journey via Canton on the return to Russia--all held many dangers for
the sailing ships of those days. The "Phoenix," the first ship built on
the Alaskan shores, foundered with all on board, including the Bishop
and his retinue, in 1799, on the return voyage from Okhotsk; the "St.
Nicholas" went ashore on the coast of Washington in 1808, and those who
survived the waves were held in bondage for years by the savages of that
coast.

During the latter part of August, 1812, the ship "Neva" left
Okhotsk--contrary winds delayed her in the Sea of Okhotsk--storms beat
her back along the Aleutian Islands till it was November before land was
sighted in Alaska. The storms damaged the rigging and ship until it was
necessary to put into Voskresenski Harbor (Resurrection Bay) for
repairs. She arrived off Sitka about December 1st. After four or five
days Mt. Edgecumbe was sighted but a storm drove the ship to sea where
she beat about for weeks before again nearing the port. Scurvy afflicted
the passengers and crew and added to the general distress. On January
8th, 1813, Mt. Edgecumbe again appeared. In trying to make the harbor
the ship grounded on the rocks under the cape on the morning of the 9th
and speedily broke to pieces under the terrific pounding of the seas.[8]
Some of the people on board reached shore after incredible suffering and
hardship.

After several days two of the sailors wandering along the shore met a
Kolosh boy and persuaded him to take them to Sitka, where they arrived,
cold, exhausted, and almost starving. Boats were at once fitted out by
Mr. Baranof, the survivors were rescued, brought to Sitka, and their
sufferings relieved. From those on board the ship, 38 had perished,
including Kalinin, the commander, Boronovolokof, the intended future
chief manager of the Company, and five women passengers. In the cargo
was food and clothing, the messages of the year for the exiles, and rich
vestments and furnishings for the church that was soon to be built in
Sitka, all scattered for miles along the wild coast of Kruzof Island.
This was one of the worst disasters of the sea that visited the colony,
although many others are part of the records of the time.

It is said that Chief Katlean tore his hair with rage when he learned of
the wreck, because he did not find it and destroy the survivors out of
revenge for his defeat and expulsion from his home at Sitka.

There are many traditions among the residents of Sitka concerning the
wreck of the "Neva." Among them is that there was a vast treasure of
gold for the use of the garrison and the traders. This is erroneous, for
there was no gold used in the colonies, the trade being by barter or
conducted with scrip, called _assignats_, issued by the Company for
the purpose. The story of the gold has been so generally believed that
serious plans have been made for attempting the salvage of the treasure.

The term of office of Alexander Andreevich Baranof as the chief manager
of the Russian American Company came to a close in 1818. He had been 28
years in the colonies, leaving Russia in 1790 for the post of Three
Saints on Kodiak Island, which at that time constituted almost the only
Russian establishment in America, the other stations being little more
than outlying trading posts. He left their dominion an empire in extent,
reaching from the Seal Islands in Bering Sea, at the edge of the ice
pack of the Arctic, to Fort Ross, among the sunny hills of Golden
California. Captain Hagmeister came to relieve him, and in his 72nd year
the old chief manager, bent with the weight of years and of long and
arduous service, closed his accounts and set sail on the "Kutusof," one
of the Company's vessels, for his far-off home in Russia.

When the time arrived for Baranof to take his departure from the land he
had made his home for so many years, sorrowfully he took his leave of
the associates with whom he had so long shared the dangers and hardships
of the uncivilized land. Upon being relieved of the duties of his office
he first considered building a home at the Ozerskoe Redoubt and spending
the remainder of his days in the place he had learned to love. Later he
decided to return to his native land and sailed on the "Kutusof" for
Kronstadt. A delay at Batavia in the tropics proved too severe for his
advanced years. The day after leaving Batavia he died and was buried at
sea in the waters of the Indian Ocean.

Captain Leontius Andreanovich Hagemeister succeeded to the office of
chief manager but remained only a short time at Sitka, then sailed for
Russia, leaving Captain Simeon Ivanovich Yanovski in charge.

Captain Yanovski became enamored with the beautiful daughter of Baranof,
and if you search the old records of the Cathedral of St. Michaels at
Sitka you will find the entry as made of the marriage of Simeon Ivanof
Yanovski "with the late head governor of the Russian American
possessions, Collegiate Adviser and Cavalier Baranof's daughter Irina,
one of Creoles."

In 1830, Baron Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangell, scientist and explorer,
came to administer the office. He had sailed the frozen ocean along the
northern shores of Siberia as an explorer, and Wrangell Island,
Wrangell Strait, etc., on the maps of today perpetuate his name.

Under Baron Wrangell, as assistant to the manager, served Adolph
Carlovich Etolin, a native of Finland, who came to the colony as an
officer on the war sloop "Kamchatka" in 1817, who sailed in the service
of the Company to nearly every port from the Seal Islands of Bering Sea
to Chile, who made several voyages around the world, and who was made
chief manager in 1840. In 1846 he returned to Russia to accept the trust
of Commercial Counsellor in the head office of the Company in St.
Petersburg.

About fourteen miles to the southwest, across the bay and facing
Edgecumbe, with a beautiful view of the peak and islands, is the Hot
Springs, well known for their medicinal properties by the natives before
the advent of the Russians, and frequently resorted to by both as a
panacea for many ills. In the Place of Islands _(Chasti Ostrova)_
is reputed to be a spring with a sour taste, while almost within the
limits of the town of Sitka, Dr. Scheffer, a German physician who made a
sojourn in the place about 1815, claimed to have found a medical spring
whose waters were equal to some of the famed watering places of Germany.




CHAPTER IV

NATIVES


Most of the Sitkan Kolosh kept aloof from the Russian settlement after
the establishment of the new fort on Chatham Strait, near the entrance
of Peril Strait. All the kwans, the Khootznoos, the Hoonahs, the
Chilkats, the Auks, Stikines, Kakes and others, joined with the Sitkas
in the hatred of the Russians. Parties going out from the fort at Sitka
for hunting expeditions, for cutting of wood, for traveling to the Hot
Springs, had to be on their guard and with arms at hand prepared to
fight at a moment's notice.[9] Small groups were often cut off and
murdered. As it was impossible to decide which of the many kwans did the
act, and as there were those in each kwan who were peaceable, with whom
it was desired to keep the peace, revenge against any village was
inadvisable. Even as late as the date of the lease to the Hudson's Bay Co.
the Russian ships that sailed among the islands to trade with the Kolosh
were compelled to act with the strictest caution. Only a few natives
were admitted on board at a time, the trading was done in a space near
the stern, and was conducted under the muzzles of loaded cannon
concealed in the fore part of the ship.[10] The conditions were thus
until 1821, when the Sitkas were invited to reoccupy the site of the old
village and to live in what is now known as the "Ranche," under the guns
of the redoubt.

The Thlingit nation is a strange, warlike, shrewd people, physically
strong and enduring, and possessed of many excellent qualities. Hunters
and fishermen by nature and training, they are skillful boatmen, and in
those days they built wonderfully beautiful canoes of the red cedar,
some of them large enough to carry sixty men at the paddles. Each spring
more than a thousand men gathered together in Sitka Bay, coming from the
different villages, to fish for herring at the spawning time, when those
fish run in countless myriads in those waters. Hemlock boughs were
placed in the water, and on them the herring roe collected until they
were encrusted with the eggs which were then stripped off and dried for
future use.

[Illustration: The "Ranche"--Looking north from the top of the Baranof
Castle. The Steamer at the left is the "Coquitlam," noted for her
participation in pelagic sealing and she was under seizure by the U. S.
Government.]

In 1807 there were over 2,000 hostile natives gathered in the harbor at
the herring season and they threatened an attack on the settlement.
Kuskof, the most trusted and able lieutenant of Baranof, was in charge,
and it put his wisdom and watchfulness to the test to avert disaster.
The strictest discipline was maintained. The tribesmen waited outside
day after day, hoping for news of some relaxation of the precautions of
the defenders to be brought to them by the women of the tribe who were
married to the Russian promishleniki (hunters). Day and night the
sentinels paced the beats on the stockade and along the waterfront,
till, weary of waiting, the Kolosh finally dispersed to their homes.

In the great tribal houses several families lived, sometimes as many as
fifty or sixty persons. Over the door of the house was painted the
family totem, for the Sitkas did not raise the house totem in a pole in
front as did many of the kwans of the Thlingits, and as the Hydahs do.
In these houses were held the potlatches, or gift parties, which were
made by the wealthy chiefs.

The potlatches were of different kinds, although all partook of the
nature of a feasting or merrymaking and were distinguished by the giving
of gifts. In the ordinary visiting potlatches, or in the berry
potlatches, the visitors came in their canoes with which they formed a
line off shore opposite the houses, put planks from one canoe to another
and on these planks danced the tribal dance. Those on shore danced the
welcome dance and invited the guests ashore. Then the visitors
disembarked and each family became the guest of their kinsmen of their
totem or they went to the guesthouse of the kwan. All the people of the
same totem are supposed to be blood relations, so all those of the wolf
totem go to the _Gooch-heat_, or the dwelling blazoned by the rude
heraldry with the wolf rampant. In the great social potlatches a wealthy
chief invites his friends from many villages and entertains them for a
week or more with dancing and feasting and makes presents varied and
valuable, from Hudson's Bay blankets to bolts of calico or of flannel,
and in primitive days, copper tows,[11] Chilkat blankets, and even
slaves were handed over with a lavish hospitality.

On special occasions in the olden time, with great ceremony the visitors
landed at a distance from the village, drew their canoes ashore and
proceeded to the village dressed in festive garments adorned with
sealion heads or other strange headdresses, in which they danced the
rare and picturesque "Beach Dance," in acknowledgement to the Spirit of
the Sea for the bountiful supply of salmon and herring of the past
season--for the native American is a thankful being and omits not to
show it when occasion offers to acknowledge it to the Giver of all good
and perfect gifts.

During the earlier years of the colony the Kolosh were implacable
enemies. War parties of young men constantly haunted the islands of the
bay, lying in wait for any unwary hunter or fisherman from the fort.
Later, when they were settled under the walls of the fort they became
more tractable, for their homes and families were commanded by the guns
of the fortress, but on the least provocation the savagery in their
blood would boil, from their great tribal houses they issued forth,
faces blackened to the semblance of devils, war masks grinning, and the
howling mob shouted defiance at their neighbor over the stockade. Many a
bloody tragedy was enacted in the "Ranche" for their code was primitive,
"an eye for an eye," and a life for a life.

Feuds raged between the different totemic families. About 1853 a party
of Wrangell Indians (Stikines) visited Sitka, and while being
entertained in the guest-house were murdered and their bodies piled into
a canoe which was then paddled to Japonski Island. On striking the shore
it was so heavily laden with the bodies of the dead that tradition says
the canoe split from end to end. It is said that the bones of the dead
are still to be seen in the undergrowth along the shore. In retaliation,
about 1855, the Wrangell Kolosh made an attack on the Hot Springs
settlement, burned the buildings, stripped the inhabitants of property
and clothing and left them to make their way over the mountains around
the head of Silver Bay to Sitka, where they arrived more dead than alive
from hunger and exhaustion. This feud was not settled until 1918, when a
peace treaty was consummated between the kwans on Armistice Day, a
coincidence which is much made of by the tribesmen.

The Kolosh were as firm believers in witchcraft as any of the more
civilized nations. They resorted to their shamans (_ekhts_) or
medicine men in case of illness. If his weird incantations failed to
relieve the sufferer, his resort was that the victim was bewitched and
some poor unfortunate paid the penalty by enduring the most fiendish
torture.

One March day in 1855 a commotion arose in the Kolosh village. A sentry
caught an Indian who was stealing and punished him, for which the tribe
called for vengeance. Some rushed to the stockade and began to cut away
the palisades. Other forced their way into the Koloshian Church through
the outer door. From this vantage point they fired on the garrison and
in return the batteries of the fort blazed back with solid shot and
shrapnel. For two hours the fight continued, when the Kolosh gave up all
hope of success, and ceased the battle. The Russian loss in killed and
wounded was 20 men, while the Kolosh loss was estimated at 60. This was
the last attempt of the natives to destroy the Russian stronghold.

At times during the later days of the colony the Kolosh were employed as
seamen and as workers in the ice trade by the Russians and thus they
occupied a place in the industrial life. Etolin was the most successful
in conciliating them of any of the chief managers, and he at one time
held a fur fair at Sitka to which peltry was brought from far and near,
modeled somewhat upon the idea of the great fur mart of Nizhni Novgorod.
Most of them, however, hunted and fished, lived in their tribal houses,
carved their canoes, wove their baskets, and practiced their witchcraft,
while their civilized neighbors gathered the furs and built ships.

Under the walls of the fort, in the old tribal houses of the Kolosh
which had not been destroyed, lived the Aleuts. Properly speaking the
name belongs to the natives of the Aleutian Islands, but the term was
also applied to the natives of Kodiak Island and the surrounding islets.
These speak a different language from the true Aleuts, but otherwise
resemble them closely. During the hunting season they scoured the seas
in their skin bidarkas, in the pursuit of fur animals. In winter many of
them remained at Sitka instead of returning to their homes. Their time
was spent in idleness, spending the summer's earnings in the pleasures
and vices of the white man. One who saw them in their kazhims, as their
dwellings were often called, describes them: "Morally, the Aleut is not
bloodthirsty. He delights in simple rejoicings and will play you a game
of chess with walrus ivory pieces--a duck for a pawn and a penguin for a
king--with the greatest of good humor. Even when squabbles arrive the
argument is carried on in poetry to the accompaniment of dancing, and
one would be inclined to prefer the Aleut angry to the Aleut amiable,
did he not know he also dances when festive and when religious.

"Among them the social duty of visiting has its drawbacks. Several
families live together in the kazhims, and during one's visit they all
lie around in every conceivable posture, jolly and genial, naked and
unashamed. The fumes of the blubber oil lamps and stoves, the stores of
raw meat, the many naked bodies, well smeared with grease and scented
with primitive unguents, combine to make an atmosphere difficult to
tolerate and not easy to describe. Yet, if you will, you may enjoy the
warmest hospitality, and have heaped upon you the most assiduous
attentions."




CHAPTER V

CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS


It was not until 1816 that a priest arrived at Sitka, and in that year
the first entry is made in the church records under the name of
Alexander Sokolof. A church was built at the south of the street, which
was then called the Governor's Walk, almost opposite the present
cathedral. A monument marks the spot where the altar stood, and a cross
marks the site of a grave, said to be that of a priest. Tradition also
tells that there are two graves there, and assigns the other one to the
daughter of Baron Wrangell, the chief manager of the Company at one
time.[12]

[Illustration: Cathedral of St. Michael]

The present cathedral of St. Michael, which is the central point of
historic interest, in the center of the town at Lincoln Street, was
dedicated November 20, 1848. It fronts on a small court and with its
green painted spire surmounted by the Greek Cross is so typically
Russian that it might readily be believed to have been transplanted from
old Russia. The chime of bells, a gift from the Church at Moscow, would
be worthy of any shrine. The building is in the form of a cross, has
three sanctuaries and three altars. The larger and central sanctuary is
that of the _Archistrategos_ Michael. In the center is an elevated
platform, the episcopal _Cathedra_, and it is separated from the
main body of the church by a partition called the _Ikonastas_,
which is ornamented with twelve _ikons_, or holy paintings, covered
by plates of silver in _repousse_ work in the true Russian style of
art, and through the Royal Gates the priest appears. The silver in the
ikons is valued at over $6,000. The ikon of St. Michael is said to have
been in the wreck of the "Neva," and was rescued after being cast up by
the sea. Another is a gift of the monks of the monastery of Solovetsk;
another was brought by Bishop Innocentius (Veniaminof) from
Petropavlovsk. The ikon of the Resurrection is painted on a board from a
tree in Hebron, was consecrated in Bethlehem, and bears the autograph
signature of the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The chapel at the right is dedicated in the name of St. John the
Precursor and Prince Alexander Nevsky.

The chapel at the left is in honor of Our Lady of Kazan. In it is a
painting of a Madonna and Child from which the beautiful Byzantine face
looks down with a sweet radiance.

The vestments and sacred vessels are rich and elegant. The white Easter
vestment is of cloth of silver and the cloth of gold for high feast days
was the personal gift of Alexander Andreevich Baranof, the great Russian
who established the colony. The belfry clock is said to be the work of
the hands of Veniaminof. The priest in richly brocaded vestments holds
the services, and a choir of boys chant the chorus with a melody that
would be the envy of many a far more pretentious edifice. The worshipers
stand during the services, the clouds of incense rise toward the rounded
dome, then one by one the worshipers pass and kiss the jeweled cross in
the hand of the priest. Father Metropolski presided over the church for
many years, and Father Sergius is one of the best known in recent years.

[Illustration: The Madonna.]

There were two other churches during Russian days, one, a Lutheran,
built during Etolin's time, which stood near the site of the first
church, and is said to have contained a small but very excellent pipe
organ, brought from Germany. The other church stood near the blockhouse
on the hill, was on the line of the stockade, and had two doors, one
inside the fortification, the other outside and used as an entrance by
the natives. It was known as the Koloshian Church, and its site is
marked by a monument. Both these buildings long ago fell into ruin and
were removed.

The Russian religion was closely associated with the Government, so in
the colonies the official charter of the Company compelled them to
provide well for the church and the priests according to the standard of
the times, and the work was carried on with zeal and fortitude by the
missionaries who came from the monasteries of the old Russian cities.

Of all the missionaries who came to Russian America, the greatest was
Ivan Veniaminof. Father John he is often called in the old records, a
wonderful man, broad of mind and of body, combining the qualities that
inspire awe and reverence with a gentleness of word and deed that made
him beloved wherever he was known. His zapiski, or letters, are among
the best authorities extant which remain from those years on Alaskan
matters, and they were written home to Russia during his stay in the
Aleutian Islands and at Sitka. He came to Sitka after a ten-year stay at
Unalaska, remained there for five years working for the church and
teaching in the schools, then returned to Moscow and was consecrated as
bishop of the new diocese. He again arrived in Sitka in 1842, and made a
tour of all the churches in the colonies, traveling by sailing ship to
every settlement, then went home to Russia where he became Metropolite
of Moscow.

The schools of Sitka, under the Russian regime, were well maintained,
and many of the mechanics, clerks, pilots, and men of other trades were
educated there. Kadin, who drew the charts for Tebenkof's Atlas of
Alaska from the surveys made by the Russian Navigators; Tarantief, who
engraved the maps on copper-plate at Sitka; and many of the shipmasters
and accountants in the employ of the Company, were the product of the
educational institutions of Sitka. In the time of the greatest prosperity
there were five schools. The church school was advanced to the grade of
a seminary in 1849 and there were taught navigation, mathematics,
astronomy, bookkeeping, and other branches of learning. Some of the best
pupils, both Russian and Creole, were sent to St. Petersburg for more
advanced instruction. Chief Manager Etolin was the especial patron of
education, and made many improvements in the system. Under the auspices
of Madame Etolin, who was a native of Helsingfors and was educated in
the schools of that city, a school was opened and maintained by the
Company for the girls of the colony. After the transfer to the United
States of the Territory the teachers returned to Russia and the schools
were closed.




CHAPTER VI

SOCIAL LIFE


At the top of the kekoor, or the Baranof Hill as it was called in recent
years, there stood a building occupied during Russian days as a
residence by the chief managers of the Russian American Company. The one
known to the residents and visitors of the earlier days of the American
occupation was known as the Baranof Castle, although Baranof himself
never lived in it. There were three, if not four different buildings
which occupied that position. The first to be placed there was built at
once upon the founding of the post and is described by Resanof in his
letters to the Company as being a very "Unpretentious building, and
poorly constructed." Before the close of Baranof's administration,
however, according to the account of Captain Golofnin, it was an
establishment well built and furnished with some degree of luxury.

[Illustration: The Baranof Castle. Built in 1837 for the official
residence of the chief managers of the Russian American Company, and
occupied from the time of Kuprianof until 1867. It was the headquarters
building of the Commanding Officers of the U. S. troops 1867 to 1877, and
was destroyed by fire in 1894. The U. S. Agricultural Department
building occupies the site at the present time.]

The structure known as the Baranof Castle, which stood on the hill at
the time of the transfer to the United States, would seem to be the
third building constructed on the site, was completed about 1837,[13]
and was burned to the ground on the morning of March 17th, 1894.

The historic building was the scene of many interesting events, and
sheltered many distinguished persons.

The first mistress who presided over the mansion on the kekoor was
Madame Yanovski, a daughter of Baranof and the wife of Lieutenant
Yanovski, the third chief manager of the Russian American Company.

Lady Wrangell was the first to come from Russia to preside as the First
Lady of Sitka, and she was succeeded by Madame Kupreanof, who is said to
have crossed Siberia and the Pacific Ocean to accompany her husband to
his post. Sir Edward Belcher gives a spirited account of a ball given in
his honor, in the castle, which was then, in 1837, just completed. He
says: "The evening passed most delightfully," although "few could
converse with their partners," English being spoken by few at that time
in the capital of Russian America.

Princess Maksoutoff, the wife of the last chief manager of the colonies,
came from St. Petersburg, but died soon after her arrival, and the stone
which marks her grave may be seen on the hill between the two
cemeteries, near the site of the upper Blockhouse. Her successor, the
second Princess Maksoutoff, young and beautiful, presided with grace and
tact over the mansion until the transfer of the territory to the United
States. She was one of six Russian ladies present at the ceremonies and
is said to have wept when the Russian flag was lowered.

There is a legend of a beautiful princess whose ghost haunted the Castle
for many years. The story has been told by many at different times and
is one of the romantic tales that cluster around the old metropolis of
the fur trading days. Her lover was sent away or killed through the
influence of an _ober offitzer_ who sought her hand in marriage.
Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, who wrote so delightfully of Sitka in her
journeys in Alaska in 1883, says that, "By tradition the Lady in Black
was the daughter of one of the old governors. On her wedding night she
disappeared from the ballroom in the midst of the festivities, and after
a long search was found dead in one of the small drawing rooms."[14]

[Illustration: The Grave of the Princess Maksoutoff.]

The chief managers entertained lavishly, and the dinners in the Castle
were events long to be remembered. They were well worthy the
representatives of a rich and powerful company, a corporation with a
domain that was greater than the realm of many a royal ruler. Into the
sumptuously furnished and richly decorated dining-room came the bishop
and priests, resplendent in the official robes, the naval officers
glittering in their gold laced uniforms, the secretaries, accountants,
storekeepers, all in the uniform of the Ministry of Finance, the masters
and mates of the ships in the harbor; the guests in their best apparel;
all gathered around the hospitable board of the chief manager. At times
a hundred sat at the table and back of them dined the cadets of the
naval school. After the dinner came dancing and until morning the gayety
went merrily on, for Russian cheer is proverbial, and their hospitality
is lavish.

Usually the Captain of the port, the secretaries, three public and two
private, two masters in the navy, the commercial agent, two doctors, and
the Lutheran clergyman, dined with the chief manager by general
invitation, Sir George Simpson tells us. The civilian masters of
vessels, accountants, engineers, clerks, and bookkeepers, dined at a
club which was organized by Mr. Etolin, and they lived at the old club
house a little to the east of the church.

A wedding was an elaborate affair, a bridal cake which figured in many
mystic signs, tea, coffee, chocolate and champagne; the ladies attired
in muslin dresses, white satin shoes, silk stockings, kid gloves, fans,
and other necessary appurtances. After the ceremony of an hour and a
half was consummated, the ball was opened by the bride and the highest
officer present, and the dancing lasted until three in the morning.

Easter was an event of much hilarity after the close of Lent, which was
strictly observed by all. From morning to night everyone ran a gauntlet
of kisses; when two persons met, one said, "Christ has risen," while the
other replied, "He has risen, indeed," and then followed the
salutations. These seemed not to have been distasteful to visitors,
although one remarks that most of the dames had been more liberal with
other liquids than of pure water. Throughout it all was a continuous
peal of bells, for the Russian is fond of bell-ringing. All carried
eggs, boiled into stones, and dyed, gilded or painted, which they
presented to their friends.




CHAPTER VII

TRADE AND INDUSTRY


Sitka, under the Muscovite, existed because of the fur trade, and every
energy and interest centered on the gathering of peltries from every
available quarter. Sailing ships moved in and out of the harbor, taken
to their moorings or out to sea by the harbor tug; some from Michaelovsk
with the beaver and martin from the Yukon, others _en route_ to
California or to the Sandwich Islands; the supply ships from Kronstadt
around Cape Horn or returning via Canton and the Cape of Good Hope laden
with furs; still others bound for the Kuril Islands or Okhotsk. The
steamer "Nikolai" plied along the passages of the Alexander Archipelago,
exploring the inlets, surveying the bays and rivers, gathering furs,
always furs, for that was the reason for their living on this distant
shore.[15]

[Illustration: Sitka in 1860, Near the Close of the Russian
Administration.]

Near the entrance to the Kolosh village was the market where the natives
were permitted to trade. There they brought their game and fish, their
furs and baskets, to trade for calico and beads, blankets and
ammunition.[16] This market was closed by a portcullised door which
permitted entrance through the stockaded wall, and was enclosed by a
railed yard. Armed guards stood on duty, and at the least dispute in the
market, down came the door and they proceeded to punish the delinquents.

The warehouses were stored with thousands on thousands of the richest
furs of the Northland; sea-otter, worth today from $800 to $1,000 per
skin, and not to be had at any price, were numbered by thousands in the
earlier years; sealskins by shiploads, some killed off the harbor, but
mainly from the Seal Islands; of land otter, the Hudson's Bay Company
paid them two thousand skins each year for the lease of the territory
from Portland Canal to Cape Spencer. The martin, the American sable,
with its fluffy pelage. Foxes, blue, white, black, silver gray, red and
cross, were there by thousands, brought from the Arctic, from the
Aleutian Islands, from the Valley of the Yukon; mink, ermine, muskrat,
beaver, land otter, pile on pile. Tons of ivory from the walrus herds of
Morzhovia and bearskins and wolfskins from Cook Inlet and the Copper
River. The right to the fur trade belonged exclusively to the Company by
Royal ukase, and any employe who was found attempting to infringe on
their rights was arrested and sent to Russia for punishment.[17]

From the top of the Castle, over 100 feet above the sea, a light burned
as a beacon to mariners entering the harbor, and this was the first
light-house to throw its beams over the waters of this northern ocean.
In the cupola which rose from the roof were four little square cups into
which seal oil was poured and wicks burned in grooves rising from them,
while back of the flame was a reflector that threw the light far out to
sea among the islands.

The stock of goods in the magazines was large and varied. It covered
almost every article carried in the general European trade as a
necessity, and many of the luxuries--sugar and sealing wax, tobacco,
both Virginia and Kirghis, silk and broadcloth, calico and Flemish
linen, ravens duck and frieze, arshins of blankets and poods of yarn;
vedras of rum, cognac and gin; butter from the Yakut, from California
and from Kodiak; salt beef from Ross Colony, from England and from
Kodiak; beaver hats and cotton socks.

In the arsenal were kept about a thousand muskets, three hundred
pistols, two hundred rifles, as well as sabres, cutlasses, etc., while
four fire engines provided against loss by conflagration. Some rare
weapons were also found there. A saber set with gems valued at 560
rubles; a Persian carbine of a value of 450 rubles; two Persian
yatighans, silver mounted; a Damascus saber, and two Persian pistols,
silver mounted.

The soldiers' guns were for a great part of French or English
workmanship; rockets and false-fire for signalling ships were made each
year.

Tallow for candles was brought from California, moulded at the port and
distributed so many candles to each employe according to their presumed
needs each month.

Liquors, generally rum, were served by the Company, a drink twice a
week, extra allowance being made on difficult work and also for
holidays. All kinds of devices were resorted to by individuals in order
to get rum, and one author says that a pair of boots for which the
makers would demand ten rubles might be secured in barter for a bottle
of rum worth three rubles.

The soldiers stationed at the fort when not on duty were employed by the
Company and given a special compensation for their labor. Some of the
soldiers and hunters by their industry and thrift accumulated
considerable money which the Company held to their account and either
paid to them on their discharge or sent home to Russia for them. Others
spent their earnings, were continually in debt to the Company, and as
their contract provided that they were not to be discharged while in
arrears of debt, some of them served the remainder of their lives with
no hope of return to Russia.

Around the hill ran a parapet and sentries walked their beat night and
day. On the stockade which enclosed the town from the beach at the edge
of the "Ranche" to the shore beyond the sawmill, making with the shore
line an irregular rectangle, also walked the sentinels on their vigil,
for the Thlingit at the gates was at all times an enemy to be feared.
Strict military discipline was maintained at all times. At the foot of
the hill were clustered barracks, storehouses, bakeries, warehouses,
etc., for the use of the garrison and workmen. The old structure which
was used as a bakery, and for shops, was later known as the Sitka
Trading Company's building, and has recently been removed. The barracks
are at present the jail, and the Russian counting house is today the
postoffice of the United States. The fur warehouse stood to the west of
the hill and was torn down in 1897-8, while the landing warehouse on the
wharf was burned in 1916. These were all built about the time of the
incumbency of Etolin, and that time might be termed the Golden Age of
the Colony. Ships were being built, the fur trade was still prosperous,
new explorations were being made into the interior of the country, trade
was being extended into the Yukon Valley and there was an active
interest in all the industries of the settlement. There were men of many
trades, engineers, cabinet makers, jewelers, tailors, builders, etc.,
and an efficient machine shop constructed engines to equip the vessels
constructed in the shipyard. Plowshares and spades for the Spanish
farmers in California were forged and bells for the Franciscan missions
were cast here. The first steam vessel to be built on the shore of the
North Pacific Ocean was constructed at Sitka, for, before 1840 the whole
of the machinery for a tug of seven horsepower, as well as of two
pleasure boats had been constructed here. The steamer "Nikolai" of 70
horsepower was built and equipped with the exception of the boilers
which were brought from New York. The ship ways at Sitka was the
repairing place for many a vessel in the days of the gold seekers in the
valleys of California.

Two sawmills, one near the site of the present mill, the other on
Kirenski River, now called Sawmill Creek,[18] cut the lumber for the
settlement and for export. Two flouring mills, one in Sitka, the other
at the Ozerskoe Redoubt on Globokoe[19] (Deep) Lake, ground the
breadstuffs. A tannery furnished the leather for shoes, made from
California hides, and also prepared the _lavtaks_ for the bidarkas
for the seal and sea-otter hunters. The burrs for the Sitka mill were of
the finest French stone but those at the Redoubt were cut from the
granite found on the lake shore.[20]

A hospital of forty beds provided for the comfort of the sick, of which
Governor Simpson said: "The institution in question would do no disgrace
to England."

Brickyards were maintained, ice was cut on the lakes and at times
shipped to California. The ice-houses were near the outlet of Swan Lake
and were of a capacity of 3,000 tons.

One day in the spring of 1852 the American ship "Bacchus" came into
Sitka to purchase a cargo of ice. All the ice for San Francisco had to
this time been brought in the hold of sailing ships around Cape Horn
from Boston and the idea of getting the supply from Sitka was conceived.
From the Company's icehouses was laden on the ship 250 tons, and this
was the beginning of a trade during the year of not less than 1800 tons
at an average price of about $25.00 per ton. A Company was organized in
San Francisco for carrying on the trade and it was known as "the Ice
Company." The ice on the lake was not of sufficient thickness owing to
the fact that four degrees below zero is the coldest record ever made in
Sitka during a hundred years, consequently the Ice Company later
transferred their chief place of operation to Wood Island, near Kodiak.

Cows were kept for milk, and the hay for their provender was cut on the
Katleanski Plains on Squashanski Bay.

Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-Chief of the Honourable, the Hudson's
Bay Company, visited Sitka in 1841 and in 1842. He describes the
settlement, the natives, and the fur trade, and was entertained at the
Castle by Chief Manager Etolin. During his stay he indulged in a Russian
steam bath. His humorous description of the details ends with a promise
never again to undergo such a castigation. The account of his stay at
the Hot Springs is enlivened by a story of how a rosy cheeked Russian
damsel, each time she passed his chair, made a profound obeisance, which
he attributed to his personal attraction until he discovered her doing
the same when the chair was empty, and then saw that a saintly ikon
occupied a place on the wall directly over it, which dispelled the
illusion. Thirteen ships were in the harbor, and he remarks that the
bustle was sufficient to have done credit to a third rate port in the
civilized world. Sir George sailed for Okhotsk on the Russian ship
"Alexander," then crossed Siberia overland on his return to England from
a journey round the earth.

There were eighty cannon mounted in the batteries which commanded the
bay or which looked down on the Kolosh village. These cannon were of
different make, some being cast in Sitka, others purchased of English or
Americans, which were purchased on the ships on which they were mounted,
as on the "Juno" and the "Brutus;" and other ordnance was brought from
Kronstadt, Russia, as in 1804 on the "Neva," and in 1820 on the
"Borodino."

Teahouses were situated on the little knoll in the center of the town
where the public Gardens were located; the museum, and the library
offered instruction to the workers who occupied this lonely post halfway
round the world from the Russian Fatherland.

There were fourteen chief managers who directed the affairs of the
Company at Sitka between the date of the founding in 1804 and the
surrender to the United States in 1867.[21]

Many of the officers resided long in the colonies and their record would
establish their right to be denominated as "Sourdoughs." Baranof was
manager 28 years; Zarembo was rewarded in 1844 for 25 years' service;
Krukof, the manager at Unalaska, was rewarded in 1821 for 40 years'
service; Banner remained at Kodiak for at least ten years, and he and
his wife both died there; while Kuskof came with Baranof in 1790 and
returned to Russia in 1821.

[Illustration: Sitka in 1869--During the Time of the Military Occupation.]




CHAPTER VIII

SITKA UNDER UNITED STATES RULE


Then came the day when the Russian was to withdraw from his colonies,
and the United States was to occupy them as Alaska. An area as broad as
an empire, equal in extent to Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark
combined, was to be handed over from the Imperial Ruler of all the
Russias to the Republic of the United States, and Sitka, the Capital of
the Colonies, was to be the scene of the actual transfer. The
statesmanship of Secretary Seward, aided by the eloquence of Sumner, had
secured for our country a domain one sixth as large as the whole United
States.

October 18th, 1867, Alexei Pestchouroff, the Commissioner of the Tsar,
appeared in front of the Baranof castle, and beside him stood Lovell H.
Rousseau, the Commissioner for the United States, who was to receive the
Territory.

The Russian soldiery were drawn up along the terrace which ran around
the Baranof Hill, and next to them were the men of the United States
Infantry.[22] The ensign of Russia was lowered, the flag of the United
States raised to the accompaniment of the salutes from the batteries and
of the guns of the ships in the harbor.[23] The few words of the
ceremony of transfer were spoken, and Alaska became a possession of the
United States.

Most of the Russian residents went back to their native land as soon as
they were able to do so, but some remained to cast their lot in the land
that had so long been their home.[24] Among those who remained are the
Kashavaroffs, the Kostromitinoffs, the Bolshanins, the Shutzoffs, and
others, whose descendants now live in Alaska.

The commanding officer of the American troops, Gen. Jefferson C. Davis,
made his headquarters in the building on the hill that had been so long
the residence of the Russian officers. The American soldiers were
quartered in the barracks of the Siberian Battalion, and the sentries of
the United States walked the beats of the Russian guards. Sitka gradually
adjusted itself to the new conditions, to the crowds of adventurers who
thronged its streets seeking a profit in speculations in lands and furs.
They were doomed to disappointment, for the titles to lands were
withheld and the fur trade was overdone, so most of the newly arrived
drifted away as they came. Distinguished visitors came and were
entertained in the old castle where the Commandant dispensed
hospitality. Lady Franklin, the widow of the famous Arctic explorer, was
once a guest at the mansion on the kekoor, and Secretary Seward was
entertained there in 1869 when he visited the land he added to the
possessions of the United States.

While the military garrison were content with their conditions and were
not troubled with the affairs of the world at large, the civil
population wished for the law and authority of other communities, and
set themselves to remedy the omission of the Government in far-off
Washington so far as was possible to do, for there was no provision for
an organization of civil government in the community. They organized a
municipal association, drafted ordinances, elected councilmen, collected
revenue for improving the Governor's Walk, changed the name to Lincoln
Street, and in December opened a school. After five years the civil
population declined until the revenue was insufficient to maintain the
expense, the organization was abandoned, with it passed the school, and
the first attempt at self-government closed.

Then followed dark days for Sitka.[25] Military rules for the garrison
and no law or protection for the people. Soldiers from the fort are said
to have robbed the church of its ornaments, tearing the covers from the
richly bound Bible of the Cathedral. The offenders were apprehended, but
there being no civil law all the punishment meted out was to be drummed
out of the service and sent to the States on an army transport. The
stolen property was hidden under the old hospital building and was
discovered by some boys and nearly all was restored to the church.

On New Year's Day, 1869, Colcheka, a noted chief of the Chilkats who was
visiting Sitka, was entertained by General Davis at the castle on the
hill. The liquid refreshments served to him by the General raised his
spirits and his pride of race. After it was over he descended the long
flight of steps leading from the Commandant's quarters and strode across
the parade ground with the dignity becoming to the hereditary chief of
the Chilkats, the proudest kwan of the Thlingits. For some reason he
crossed the part reserved for officers, was challenged by the sentry,
and, not heeding, when he reached the stockade gate was kicked by the
sentry stationed there. He was furious.

"Me, Colcheka, Chief of the Chilkats, kicked!"

He turned in a rage, seized the musket of the sentry, wrenched it from
his hands, then carried it to his house in the Ranche.

The guard was turned out for his arrest and a skirmish ensued in which
the guard was worsted and retreated to the barracks. The Sitkas were
neutral. The Chilkats were too few in number to fight the troops, so
next day Colcheka surrendered, was kept in the guardhouse for a few days
and then released.

Meantime orders that no Indians be permitted to leave the Ranche were
issued which were revoked upon Colcheka's surrender. Through some
mistake in revoking the orders the sentries were not notified. A canoe
load of Indians left the Ranche to get wood. The sentries fired on the
canoe and killed two of the occupants, a Chilkat and a Kake. It was an
unfortunate mistake. Those shots rang from Lynn Canal to Kuiu Island and
the echoes vibrated for more than twenty years. By listening intently
one might yet hear the vibrations. Two white men died and three Indian
villages burned directly as a result, but it happened in places distant
from Sitka, and, as they say, it is another story.

On a June day of 1877 the troops of the United States army embarked on a
ship for the States and sailed away from Sitka. The buildings and
property were left in charge of the Collector of Customs, who, with the
Postmaster, constituted the only officials in the Territory. The
presence of the military had guaranteed safety from attack by the
Indians to the people of the town, and the officers had been a pleasant
addition to the social life; with their departure both were lost.

The animosity of the Thlingits had been kindled by many wrongs, some
real and others fancied. They saw in the new order of things an
opportunity to recompense themselves for past grievances. All the old
stories of the killing of their countrymen by the troops, the burning of
old Kake and other villages, the loss of five Keeksitties, in the
Schooner "San Diego" in Bering Sea and other tales were rehearsed and
were used to stir the lust for vengeance. The Keeksittis, under the
leadership of Katlean, openly advocated sacking the town, killing the
men and making slaves of the women.

"The government does not care for the country. They have abandoned it.
It belongs to us, anyway; why not take the town and do as we wish with
it?" said Katlean.

The Kokwantons, under Annahootz, their chief, opposed the outrage. For
months there was danger of an outbreak. Insult after insult was placed
upon the citizens. The stockade was cut down and carried away by the
Indians. Every male inhabitant was armed and expecting a call to battle
at any time. A man was killed at the Hot Springs by a Keeksitty. The
murderer was arrested through the assistance of the Kokwantons under
Annahootz.[26] The Keeksitties assembled to rescue the criminal, but the
citizens of the town rallied for defense, the Kokwantons joined them and
the murderer was safely placed on board the Steamer "California" and
taken to Portland for trial where he was afterward hanged.

On the same boat went an appeal for assistance, directed to the United
States Government, but it fell on deaf ears. Another petition was sent
to Victoria, B. C., and was heeded. Captain A. Holmes A'Court, of
H. M. S. "Osprey," at once set out for Sitka, arrived on March 1st, 1879,
anchored opposite the Ranche and trained his guns for immediate use. The
danger was averted. Captain A'Court remained until the arrival of the U.
S. S. "Alaska," on April 3rd, then departed for Esquimault with the
blessings of the grateful people of Sitka.

On June 14th into the harbor came the U. S. S. "Jamestown." Her
Commander, Captain L. A. Beardslee, assumed control of affairs in the
community and administered them in a manner which brought credit on his
name. He found everything at the lowest ebb; every woman and child who
could leave, had gone to escape the danger of Indian massacre;
witchcraft prevailed among the natives and anarchy among the whites. He
took a census[27] upon his arrival, and the result was 325 people,
exclusive of the Creole population. He appointed an Indian police;
established more sanitary conditions in the "Ranche," numbered the
houses, and compelled the attendance of the Indian children at the
Mission School.

A school was opened in the old Russian barracks building on April 17,
1878, by Rev. John G. Brady and Miss Fannie E. Kellogg, of the
Presbyterian Mission, which was later followed by the present Sheldon
Jackson Mission School. George Kostromitinoff, afterward known as Father
Sergius, was the interpreter. The opening of the school was a great
event for Sitka and nearly everyone in the town attended. Annahootz, the
friendly Kokwantan war chief, made a speech. Mr. Cohen, the brewer,
hunted up another interpreter to assist. Hymns were sung and the events
were auspicious. The Indians stole in one at a time, some with their
faces blackened, all in blankets, but they squatted by the wall and
listened attentively. The school was continued until December, when it
was given up, but in the spring of 1880 Miss Olinda Austin, from New
York City, reopened it on April 5th, in one of the rooms of the
guardhouse, with an attendance of 103 children. The school thus
established was the beginning of the present Sheldon Jackson Training
School. The support of the naval officers at the station was such that
the missionary teacher was moved to say: "It is not often that the
Government sends out a missionary, but they have sent one in this young
commander and his lieutenant, Mr. F. M. Symonds," in referring to
Captain Glass, who succeeded Captain Beardslee.

Some form of local government giving the residents a right to regulate
their civil affairs was favored by the Commander, who had not even a
code under which to act. A meeting was called, ordinances were drafted,
a magistrate and councilmen elected for a town government. But all were
not agreed upon these acts and opposition arose against it from the very
inception of the movement. One of the traders of the town, Caplin, said:
"De Captain may go to ---- wid his tam government; I'll bay no daxes."
And from Silver Bay where he was mining, Geo. E. Pilz sent in a protest
against the proceeding. The dealers who traded molasses to the Indians,
from which the villainous liquor called "hoochinoo" or "Hooch," was
distilled, objected to the ordinances restricting the trade. Finally an
English miner named Roy was shot by his partner, "Scotty," and the
inability of the self-made government to try the offender brought a
crisis. The next day a notice appeared stating the organization had been
dissolved, and the second attempt at self-government by the people in
Alaska passed into oblivion.

Scotty was sent to Oregon for trial and was discharged because of lack
of a law to punish a man for assault with a dangerous weapon in Alaska.

But the dawn of a better day was at hand, Alaska's darkest hours were
past, and morning was breaking. The rule of the Navy Department
continued until 1884, then, although the warships still remained in
Alaskan waters, by Act of Congress of May 17th, a form of civil
government was granted, and the official Capital was placed at Sitka.
The terror of the Indian outbreaks was past; schools were in reach, for
the same act provided for the establishment of a system of public
education, and the Code of Oregon was adopted as the law of the
land.[28]

Then some of the life of the former years returned to the beautiful
village by the sea; there were pleasant parties among the residents, the
Governor held receptions, the officers of the warships added to the
social life, many a gay ball was celebrated on the top floor of the
court house, and for more than twenty years it was the Capital of
Alaska.[29]

With the influx of the Americans prospecting began, for in the vast wild
mountains of Baranof and Chicagof Islands there is a wealth of mineral
stored in the ledges.

The Russians had attempted to find the mineral of the mountains, and in
1848 a Mr. Doroshin, a mining engineer, had been sent out from St.
Petersburg to search for mineral wealth in the colonies. He was not
successful enough to make it of profit to them, although he found coal
on Cook Inlet, gold on the Kenai Peninsula, earth promising to bear
diamonds near Kootznahoo, and copper was known to be on the Myednooskie,
or Copper, River.

Discharged soldiers of the garrison were the first to take to the hills
with pick and shovel. Nicholas Haley, an old-time prospector of Arizona,
who came with the troops to Sitka, was one of the most energetic and
daring of these. Year after year, with pick and shovel, with rifle and
blankets, Nicholas attacked the rugged mountains. Rich specimens were
brought in and yielded enough when brayed in a mortar to keep him in a
grubstake, but it takes capital to develop a hard rock mine and capital
was wary. So Nicholas toiled on year after year, keeping up his
assessments and living on hopes until at last he passed over the Great
Divide to a Better Diggings.

Others tried it. In 1878 a mining company was organized at Sitka, but
there was not yet a law under which a claim could be legally taken.
Ledges were found, small mills were placed on the ground at the Stewart
Mine, the Lucky Chance and elsewhere, and later great fakes were
promoted at the Pande Basin and elsewhere. But it was years after that
when two Indian boys, hunting on Chicagof Island, lay down to drink at a
stream, and, behold, in the shimmering water was white rock with yellow,
glittering particles dancing in the clear stream. With the fear it was
but fools gold they took specimens and marked the place where they were
found. When they reached Sitka they submitted these samples to Judge
DeGroff, and to Professor Kelly of the Sheldon Jackson School. It was
pronounced to be gold, pure shining, yellow gold, and richer than the
most sanguine had hoped for. After much labor and many disappointments
the ledge was located from which the float came, and today that mine,
the Chicagof it is called, is known as the richest and best paying mine
in the United States in proportion to the money invested, and more than
one fortune has been taken out of the tunnels in the mountain.

Off the shores of the continent, reaching far off to the westward almost
to the shores of Asia are vast fishing grounds, perhaps the greatest in
the world. A great submarine plateau stretches along shore, past the
Aleutian Islands and into Bering Sea. There are estimated to be forty
thousand square miles of cod and halibut banks that are known to the
surveys. The fisheries of Gloucester and Cape Cod fade into
insignificance and the famous Newfoundland Banks are but small in
comparison.

Sitka goes back the farthest in historic memory of any city of the
Northwest. When Lewis and Clarke came to the mouth of the Columbia River
she was looking out over the Pacific from her stockaded walls and
Resanof was sailing to search for locations for new colonies. When
Astoria was founded she was placing her outpost on the Russian River in
California. Before San Francisco was a city she sent her bidarkas to
take the sea-otter from under the very noses of the Padres in their
missions. Here the civilization of the East met the progress of the
West, the Orient and the Occident met here and met without bloodshed.
Sitka, with her wealth of fisheries in the waters at her doors, with her
wealth of mineral in the ledges at her back, with the wealth of forest
on the mountain slopes around her, is in the same latitude as Edinburgh,
Scotland. The time is coming when she will have population, and wealth;
beauty she already has. What more is wanted for the happiness of her
people? Only energy, perseverance, and thrift, and those will be
forthcoming.




CHAPTER IX

WHAT TO SEE


Approaching Sitka by the usual steamer route from the north at a
distance of six miles the site of Old Sitka is passed. It lies to the
left of the steamer track, in a small bay, and is marked by a native
house which is visible from the ship. From near this place, looking to
the westward, the first sight of Mount Edgecumbe is to be had between
the islands. On approaching the town the ship goes through a narrow
channel between Japonski Island at the right and the townsite at the
left. Near the middle of the channel a rock is marked by a buoy and
along the shore is the native village, or "Ranche," with a sloping beach
upon which in former days the canoes were drawn up. The paths by which
they were brought from the water may be seen, marked by the rocks being
thrown to each side from the track.

[Illustration: Sitka--East on Lincoln Street--the Governor's Walk of the
Russians.]

On Japonski Island is the U. S. Naval Coaling Station and the U. S.
wireless telegraph. The magnetic observatory of the Russians was
situated there. The name means Japan Island and is given because Resanof
designated it as the place to keep captive Japanese whom he expected to
capture through his expedition against the lower Kuril Islands in 1806.

The dock at which the ship lands is in the same location as the one used
by the Russians, but it has been extended to deeper water. The timbers
of the old hulk once used by the Russians as a landing stage may still
be seen in the water at low tide. On the dock was the landing warehouse
of the Russians, a log structure with a passage through the center. It
was burned in 1916. Leaving the wharf and going eastward along Lincoln
Street, at the side are the booths or tents of the native merchants,
kept by the women from the village, a veritable arcade of little
markets, and each of the vendors is as interested as though she occupied
a seat on the famous Rialto Bridge to sell the wares of ancient Venice.
The picturesque, dark-skinned Thlingit women sit at the doors of their
little tents hour after hour, offering the strangely carved totems, the
beautiful baskets of spruce roots woven in mystic designs, the beaded
moccasins, etc., products of their industry during the long winter when
the tourist boats do not call at the Sitka wharves. Passing up the
street to the east from the landing--at the right is the U. S. cable
office, occupying the site of the old Russian fur warehouse. Next is the
three-story building used for courthouse and jail, formerly the Russian
Barracks where the Siberian Battalion was quartered. This is one of the
most prominent of the old buildings which remain. In front of this is
the stairway leading to the top of the hill on which is situated the
building of the Agricultural Department, on the site of the former
residence of the chief manager of the Russian American Company. Around
this hill were the batteries of the Russians, commanding the Kolosh
village and the harbor. The former building was often called the
Governor's Mansion, or the Baranof Castle, was built about 1837 and was
destroyed by fire in 1894. The hill commands a fine view of the harbor
and the surrounding islands. The present structure is the headquarters
of the Alaska division of the Agricultural Department. Opposite the
stairway to the hill is the way leading to the "Ranche;" the open square
was the former parade ground of the Army, and later of the U. S. Marines
from the Man-of-War which was stationed here. East of the old barracks
building is the former counting house of the Company, now occupied as
the U. S. Postoffice, and during the time when Sitka was the Capital of
the Territory it was used by the United States for a Customs office, and
by the Governor as an office. Going east on Lincoln Street, the next
large building at the right was the old bakery and shops of the Company,
later commonly known as the Sitka Trading Company Building, having been
occupied by that company for many years. Beyond this on the same side of
the street at a short distance is a small building, standing back from
the walk, surmounted by a Greek cross, which marks the site of the first
church built in Sitka, in 1817. Next to this lot is the one formerly
occupied by the Lutheran Church, built in the time of Etolin, and in
which the first church service was held by Chaplain Rainier of the U. S.
Army, after the American occupation.

[Illustration: Interior of Cathedral of St. Michael]

Across the street is the Cathedral of St. Michael, the headquarters of
the Greek Orthodox Church in Alaska. In the Territory are claimed to be
ten thousand communicants of that faith and from Sitka the management of
affairs is conducted. The church is in the form of a cross and is
surmounted by the Greek cross. The interior is richly decorated after
the usual custom of the Russian churches. Candlesticks of massive design
stand at either side of the doors of the inner sanctuary. The building,
with its dome, is distinctive, and is a good example of Russian church
architecture.[30]

Continuing east along Lincoln Street a short distance beyond the
Cathedral a vacant space on the right marks the spot formerly occupied
by the clubhouse, built by Etolin for a home for the clerks, navigators,
and other employes of the Company--opposite it was situated the foundry
and machine shops, while a little farther to the east stood the
sawmills, at the mouth of the outlet to Swan Lake. Along this stream was
the eastern boundary of the stockade of the Russian fort, with a
blockhouse near the point of the lower end of the lake. East of this
stockade were the kitchen gardens, but all traces of them have long
since vanished. Continuing along the street following the shore, the
Bishop's house is passed on the left, where the Russian school is
taught, and a short distance beyond is the house of the Episcopal Bishop
of the diocese, Rev. Bishop P. T. Rowe. Still farther to the east is the
Sheldon Jackson School, the Presbyterian Mission School, consisting of a
group of buildings, the first of which was completed in 1880, under the
superintendence of Rev. Alonzo Austin, and others have been added from
time to time until the present fine establishment has resulted. An
octagonal structure shelters the Sheldon Jackson Museum, a fine
collection of native work of many kinds, gathered from all parts of
Alaska by the first superintendent of native schools for the Territory.
A small paper is published by the mission, the _Verstovian_, and is
printed by the native students of the institution.

Opposite the mission, at the edge of the curving beach, a large,
flat-topped rock lies at the side of the way, called the Blarney Stone.
On this it is said that Baranof often sat, during the last year of his
residence here, and looked out through the vistas between the islands to
the broad Pacific. What were the thoughts of the brave, strong, strange,
old man as he sat here will never be known, but it is sure that there
was much of sadness for him in those days.

Beyond the Mission is the famous Indian River Road, a continuation of
the Governor's Walk of the Russians, and often called the Lover's Lane.
It winds along the shore of the sea, through the Park, with here and
there an opening in the forest where there are splendid examples of
Hydah carvings in the tall totems placed in well chosen spots. These
totem poles were taken to the St. Louis Fair in 1904, as a part of the
Alaska Exhibit, and afterward returned to this park. One of the most
interesting is the house totem of Chief Son-i-hat, of Kasaan,
accompanied by the four supporting columns of the ancient tribal house.

From the rustic bridge on the Indian River there are enticing paths
leading along the stream and toward Mt. Verstovia, which towers above
the bay to the height of 3,216 feet. Along the river, known as the
_Kolosh Ryeka_, by the Russians, the winding paths are bordered
with huge Sitka spruces and giant cedars, with the space thickly filled
with a dense growth of shrubbery, among which is prominent the Devil's
Club (_panax horridus_), with its beautifully palmated leaves and
its cruel spines concealed underneath. This shrub was formerly used by
the natives as an instrument of torture in their witchcraft. In the
depths of the forest the earth is covered with a carpet of ferns and
mosses, and the trunks of fallen trees of former years may be seen with
other trees of from two to three feet in diameter growing on their
prostrate bodies.

Returning toward the town, at the Mission the Davis Road turns toward
the north. It was built by the Army during their occupation, in the
process of their securing wood from the forest, and named for General
Jeff C. Davis, the Commander of the post. Following it the Military
Cemetery is reached at the distance of about three-eighths of a mile.
Here are some interesting monuments, among them being that of Gouverneur
Morris, a descendent of the famous financier of the Revolution. A stone
marks the resting place of a lieutenant of the U. S. Army, around whose
memory lingers stories of a duel with a brother officer in a solitary
spot along Indian River, over a Russian beauty of Sitka.

Turning aside from Lincoln Street at the Mission, or at the street next
westward, a walk of a quarter of a mile leads to the experiment farm of
the Agricultural Department of the United States. There may be seen many
products, including apples and strawberries of an excellent quality. Of
the latter is a variety originated by Prof. Georgeson through
hybridizing the cultivated berries with the wild native berry which
grows luxuriantly at many places in Alaska.

On reaching the Cathedral a street turns northward along which one
finds, at the right, on the little knoll in the town, among the
scattered spruce trees, the spot where formerly stood the tea houses of
the Russians. They were in the center of the public gardens which
covered the knoll and were approached by beautifully bordered walks.
Farther along, on the left of the walk, is the remaining Russian
blockhouse, the last of three which formerly stood on the line of the
stockade that protected the town from the Kolosh. A little back of the
blockhouse is the grave of the Princess Maksoutoff, marked with a marble
slab lying on the raised mound above her resting place. At the end of
the walk is the modern Russian cemetery, with its forest of Greek
crosses, and in the center, at the highest point, is a platform from
which is had an excellent view of the harbor, islands, Mt. Edgecumbe,
and of the lake and town.

Returning as far as the site of the tea gardens, then going westward
toward the water, at the right is an enclosure in which there is a small
building marking the site of the Koloshian Church, or the Church of the
Resurrection, as it is called in the church records. This was the
building occupied by the natives in 1855 when they made an attack upon
the town. It was on the line of the stockade which formerly ran from the
water front at the end of the "Ranche," east to the lake, then back to
the water at the sawmill. On the line of the stockade were three
blockhouses, the church being between the first and second of these.
Surrounding the site of the church are a number of graves, and among
them are some interesting monuments dating back to the Russian days, for
this is the older of the two cemeteries.

[Illustration: Russian Blockhouse.]

Going down to the entrance to the native town, or "Ranche," there is a
choice of two streets, one in front of the houses along the water front,
the other at the rear. The one at the front is preferable. The houses
are built of lumber and in general are constructed by the native
workmen, who have been instructed at the mission school, at which there
is an excellent manual training department. The great tribal houses of
former days have long since disappeared. The older houses were named by
the natives much as were the inns of old England; the _Gooch-haet_,
or wolf house; the _Tahn-haet_, or sea-lion house; the
_Kahse-haet_, or cow house, and others, named for different
animals. The _Kahse-haet_ was named from the head of a cow being
brought there from a wreck off the coast in which the animal was
drowned. Formerly there were many canoes along the water front--as many
as 150 at a time being often seen, but now their place is occupied by
gas boats--generally built by the owners and the engines installed by
them. The loss in the picturesque is partly compensated by the gain in
utility, but the native canoe was a wonder of marine architecture, cut
from a single log and shaped with fire and adzed into elegant lines. An
occasional specimen is sometimes yet to be seen on the beach or
carefully covered from the weather in some sheltered and secluded cove.

There were no great house totem poles in front of the houses as there
are at Wrangell, Kasaan and elsewhere. There were some mortuary columns
near the grave houses which formerly stood on the ridge back of the
village, but these have long been covered by the dense undergrowth which
sprang up in recent years.

In this village have lived some interesting and strong characters.
Annahootz and Katlean both figured boldly in the history of the town,
and Sitka Jack was noted for his great potlatch held in 1877, when he
gave a housewarming at which he presented to his visitors over 500
blankets, not to mention the hoochinoo and whiskey which flowed
liberally for all. He beggared himself by the feast, but his reputation
was established above reproach for the rest of life. Princess Tom was
another celebrity, whose fame was founded on her wealth which was
estimated at ten thousand dollars, and which was acquired by skill in
basket making and shrewdness in dealing in native manufactures on which
she was a connoisseur--going out to the villages in her long canoe to
gather the stock of baskets, bracelets, carved dishes, masks, dance
hats, etc., which she disposed of to advantage upon her return to Sitka.
Chief Tlan Tech was one of the prominent citizens and frequently might
have been seen on the street in his frock coat, tall hat, with cane and
kid gloves, cutting quite a dash. His English vocabulary was very
limited and he was accustomed for many years to fly the Russian flag
over his canoe when he went out to a neighboring village for a potlatch.

Some of the silversmiths were skilled workmen. Sitka Jack, and Kooska,
and Hydah Jake, all fashioned bracelets, spoons, and other articles,
carved with totemic designs of delicate beauty and line of proportion,
made from silver coins which they melted down.

Some of the shamans of the olden time acquired great influence and made
life miserable for their fellow-citizens by the practice of witchcraft.
One of the most obnoxious of these, called Skondoo, was captured and his
shock of matted hair, which, like that of Samson, was supposed to be the
seat of his power, was shorn by the commander of the U. S. S. "Pinta," and
in addition he was thoroughly scrubbed with soap and brush, perhaps for
the first time in his existence.

Even to this day there are instances of the weird belief in the villages
at Hootznahoo or at Klukwan. Not many years ago an Indian girl was
rescued by the whites from a damp hole under a house where she had been
confined to die of cold and starvation by the order of the shaman, or
_Ekht_, as the Thlingit calls him.

Among the island and the inlet dented shores surrounding the town are
many interesting places forming an opportunity for delightful
excursions. The most desirable of these are:

Mount Edgecumbe, 3467 ft.--Taking a launch from Sitka the trip may be
made to Crab Bay, or to the landing behind the island of St. Lazaria on
which is a populous bird rookery, and the ascent of the mountain is
possible to be made in a day. Perhaps better that two days be taken to
the trip, however. The first to go to the top was Lisianski in 1804.
From the summit of the mountain an unusually beautiful panorama is to be
had of island-studded bay, and mountain ridges capped with glaciers on
one side, while on the other spreads the expanse of the broad Pacific.

Old Sitka, and Katleanski Bay.--By launch the site of the Russian
settlement of 1799-1802 may be reached and from that point a
continuation of the excursion may be made to the head of Nesquashanski
Bay, where the meadows are situated from which the Russians procured
their provender for the cattle kept at the post. In the streams entering
the bay may be seen, during the season of the salmon run, the strange
spectacle of the brown bears in the role of fishermen, scooping salmon
from the waters with their paws, if good fortune attend. This journey
may be made in a day.

Silver Bay.--A veritable Norwegian fjord transplanted to Alaska--with
picturesque waterfalls plunging into its waters, deep glacial valleys
entering at right angles with Yosemite-like cliffs bordering them, the
Scottish bluebells clinging to the dripping rocks which beetle overhead,
Kalampy's Slide around which hangs a tale, the Stewart mine, etc.--about
ten miles to the head of the bay, where a fine waterfall plunges from
the mountainside.

The Redoubt and the Globokoe Lake.--Southwest from Sitka about ten miles
was the location of the fishery of the Russians from which for more than
sixty years they drew their stores of _krasnia ruiba_ (the red
salmon), which provided so important a part of their subsistence. Here
in the rocky wall which divided Globokoe, or Deep Lake, from the sea,
and over which the outlet flowed, channels were blasted, forming
reservoirs, and in these channels were placed _zapors_, or fences,
which made traps into which the salmon swam and lay in the clear cold
pools until they were removed for use. Here also was one of the Russian
flouring mills, where they ground the wheat brought from California, or
from the farms of the Hudson's Bay Company at Nisqually or on the
Columbia.

The Sitka Hot Springs.--About four miles farther to the southwest than
the Redoubt, is situated the Sitka Hot Springs, possessing valuable
medicinal qualities, and used for more than a century as a health
resort. Here Dr. Goddard has established a sanitarium in the midst of a
veritable nature lover's paradise, the forest behind, and the
island-studded sea in front, with game in the deep woods and fish in the
sea, all to be had for the taking.

Many other interesting and beautiful places may be visited. Lisianski
Bay, Deep Bay, Herring Bay with the gorge of Sawmill Creek and the chain
of lakes, Blue Lake, and others lying adjacent, are among the important
ones.

Mt. Verstovia.--The ascent of this mountain comprises one of the most
interesting excursions about the town. The trail leaves the shore of
Jamestown Bay at the point where the trough of the watering place of the
"Jamestown," came to the beach. This place may be reached by boat or on
foot through the Park by the mouth of Indian River. The ascent should be
under the guidance of one familiar with the route, for it is not plainly
marked and none but an experienced woodsman can find the way alone. It
leads through a forest, the first 800 or 1,000 feet through dense
undergrowth under the trees, the mosses and ferns forming a veritable
carpet; above that the woods are more open--at about 2,500 feet the
forest ceases. It is called Koster's Trail. The first eminence or
shoulder of the mountain is near the timber line and is often spoken of
as the Mountain of the Cross, while above it towers the Arrowhead, or
the summit of Verstovia, otherwise called at times Popoff Mountain, or
the Ponce, to a height of 3,216 feet, nearly a Russian verst, and from
this it derives its name. From the top an expanse of island-studded
waters stretch toward the sea. Eastward crest after crest of
glacier-capped peaks rise for a hundred miles, northward the lofty
summits of Mt. Crillon and Mt. Fairweather may be seen at an elevation
of over 15,000 feet, equal in height to the highest Alp of Switzerland.
Around the base of the Arrowhead, in July and August, are found a myriad
of wild flowers, carpeting the earth--violets, daises, cyclamen, and a
multitude of others.

These are the nearer points which may be visited, but more extended
journeys full of new and varied interest, to Sergius Narrows and Peril
Straits or to the Place of Islands and the Chicagof Mine to the
northward, and to Redfish Bay to the southward, may be made.




Footnotes

[Footnote 1: January 20th, 1820, a letter written by the Directory at
St. Petersburg to Chief Manager Muravief at Sitka enclosing instructions
previously given to Hagemeister, instructing him to find the descendants
of Chirikof's lost men, urging that it must be done, and expressing
surprise that it had been neglected thus long. (Russian American
Archives, Correspondence, Vol. II, No. 108.)]

[Footnote 2: In Wrangell, and at a few other places in Alaska may yet be
seen some of these old tribal houses, built as in primitive days in most
ways. The beams and planks were fashioned with an adze, and the evenness
of the workmanship in hewing them is marvelous.]

[Footnote 3: The livestock taken to Sitka in 1804 consisted of "Four
cows, two calves, three bulls, three goats, a ewe and a ram, with many
swine and fowls." (Lisianski, Voyage Round the World, p. 218.)]

[Footnote 4: Lisianski made the surveys and named the islands of the
archipelago which had not been charted by Vancouver, of which he says:
"By our survey it appears that amongst the group of islands, which in my
chart I have denominated the Sitka Islands, from the inhabitants, who
call themselves Sitka-hans, or Sitka people, are four principal ones,
viz.: Jacobi, Crooze, Baranof, and Chichagof." (A Voyage Round the
World, Lisianski, p. 235.)]

[Footnote 5: The Russian sazhen is 7 feet.]

[Footnote 6: Pronounced Al-e-ut.]

[Footnote 7: These books and letters were brought by Resanof in the
"Nedeshda," and upon reaching Kodiak Resanof established the library at
that place. It was afterward removed to Sitka, probably by Baranof when
he changed the chief factory to that place in 1807. After the United
States took possession the library disappeared, whether taken to Russia
or left in Sitka does not appear, but the books were likely left in
Sitka and gradually disappeared through theft in the years when there
was no custodian of such property.]

[Footnote 8: The "Neva" was long identified with the affairs of the
colony. Bought in England for the first Russian expedition round the
world, Captain Lisianski reached Sitka in time for her to participate in
the driving of the Indians from their fortifications. She returned to
Russia later to be sailed to the colony in 1810, and was on her third
voyage at the time of her loss.]

[Footnote 9: Golofnin, Voyage of the Sloop "Kamchatka," in Mat. Pt. 4,
p. 103.]

[Footnote 10: Lutke: Voyages. Mat. Pt. 4, p. 147.]

[Footnote 11: The tows were large pieces of native copper from the
Copper River hammered out flat by the natives. These were carried in
front of the chiefs by slaves who beat them like gongs.]

[Footnote 12: In the church records appears the entry: "Died, August 27,
1832, Naval Captain of the 1st Rank and Cavalier Baron Ferdinand
Wrangell's daughter--Mary." There is also to be found: "Died, December
29th, 1839, Priest Vasili Michaeloff Ocheredin, 23 years old."]

[Footnote 13: Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, 1836-1842, by
Captain Sir Edward Belcher, Vol. 1, pages 95 et seq.]

[Footnote 14: Frederick Schwatka, the explorer, seems to have been one
of the first to put the story in print, which he did in the early
eighties. It appeared in the Alaska News, a newspaper of Juneau, on
December 24th, 1896, and the time is fixed as being in the
administration of Baron Wrangell. In 1891 Hon. Henry E. Hayden published
it in verse in a small volume printed at Sitka. John W. Arctander, in
his Lady in Blue, elaborates it to a small volume and ascribes it to
Etolin's time.

There is a strange fact which gives some color to the story. In the
Russian American Company's Archives now on file in the State Department,
Washington, D. C., under date of September 23rd, 1833, a letter from St.
Petersburg refers to a report of Baron Wrangell of November 30, 1831,
which reported the death of under officer Paul Buikof, and implicating
one Col. Borusof. Unfortunately the records of 1831 are missing and so
the report cannot be had. Baron Wrangell's daughter, Mary, died during
his stay in Sitka.]

[Footnote 15: Between 1821 and 1862 there were shipped by the Russian
American Company, from Alaska, 51,315 sea-otter, 831,396 fur-seal,
319,514 beaver, 291,655 fox. Fur-Seal Arbitration, Vol. 2, p. 127
(Washington, Government Printing Office).]

[Footnote 16: "For the largest deer, which weighs about four poods, five
sazhens of calico are paid; for a duck, a quid of tobacco; for a goose,
two quids; fish priced according to size all according to price list
established by the commander of the post of New Archangel." Russkie na
Vostochnom Okean (Russians on the Eastern Ocean), by A. Markof, St.
Petersburg, 1856.]

[Footnote 17: Hunters who disposed of their furs to an English
shipmaster were arrested and sent to Siberia. Russian American Archives.
Corr. Vol. I, p. 275. In January of 1820 Muravief was ordered to watch
certain officers of a ship who were suspected of trading for furs on
their own account. Id. Vol. 2, p. 38.]

[Footnote 18: The mill on Sawmill Creek was located in the gorge below
where the dam is situated which provides the power for the present light
plant of the town. The timbers of the old mill were removed in 1916 to
make way for the building of the present improvement.]

[Footnote 19: Golobokoe Lake was sounded to a depth of 190 fathoms by
the Russians. Materialui, Pt. 3, p. 48.]

[Footnote 20: Obzor Russkikh Colonii iv Syevernoe-Amerika, Survey of the
Russian Colonies in North America, by Captain-Lieutenant P. N. Golovin,
pp. 72-73.]

[Footnote 21: Their names and dates of holding office are as follows:
  Alexander Andreevich Baranof, 1790 to January 11, 1818.
  Leonti Andreanvich Hagemeister, Jan. 11, 1818, to Oct. 24, 1818.
  Semen Ivanovich Yanovski, Oct. 24, 1818, to Sept. 15, 1820.
  Matvei Ivanovich Muravief, Sept. 15, 1820, to Oct. 14, 1825.
  Peter Egorovich Chistiakof, Oct. 14, 1825, to June 1st, 1830.
  Baron Ferdinand Von Wrangell, June 1st, 1830, to Oct. 29, 1835.
  Ivan Antonovich Kupreanof, Oct. 29, 1835, to May 25, 1840.
  Adolf Karlovich Etolin, May 25, 1840, to July 9, 1845.
  Michael Dmitrevich Tebenkof, July 9, 1845, to Oct. 14, 1850.
  Nikolai Yakovlevich Rosenberg, Oct. 14, 1850, to March 31, 1853.
  Alexander Ilich Rudakof, March 31, 1853, to April 22, 1854.
  Stephen Vasili Voevodski, April 22, 1854, to June 22, 1859.
  Ivan Vasilivich Furuhelm, June 22, 1859, to Dec. 2, 1863.
  Prince Dmitri Maksoutof, Dec. 2, 1863, to Oct. 18, 1867.]

[Footnote 22: The Russian soldiery were dressed in a dark uniform,
trimmed with red, with glazed caps. The United States troops appeared in
the usual full dress.

Of American ladies, six were present: the wives of General Davis,
Colonel Weeks, Capt. Wood, and Rev. Mr. Rainier, of the "John L.
Stevens," the wife of Mr. Dodge, Collector of the Port, and the wife of
Captain MacDougall, of the "Jamestown." Six Russian ladies were also
present: the Princess Maksoutoff, the wife and daughter of Vice-Governor
Gardsishoff, and three whose names I do not know. H. Ex. Doc. No. 177,
40th Cong. 2nd Sess., p. 72.]

[Footnote 23: On the lowering of the Russian ensign it caught in the
halyards and a sailor was sent aloft to release it. He tore it loose and
flung it down on the bayonets of the Russian soldiery.]

[Footnote 24: On December 14, 1807, the Russian ship "Czaritza," sailed
for Russia, via London, with 168 passengers. January 1, 1868, the
Russian ship "Cyane" cleared for Novgorod, Asia, with 69 soldiers of the
garrison on board. November 30, 1868, the Russian ship "Winged Arrow,"
went to Kronstadt, but there is no record of the passengers. April 24th,
1868, the American steamer "Alexander" took special clearance for
Nikolofski, Asia, to touch at all the posts along the Alaskan coasts to
close up the business of the Russian American Company. Customs Records
of Alaska, Record of Clearances.

The ship "Winged Arrow" sailed on December 8th, 1868, for St.
Petersburg, taking over 300 persons. Seattle Intelligencer, January 11,
1869. This is the same voyage as the one above under the clearance of
November 30th.]

[Footnote 25: If we may believe the current reports of the time, the
military occupation of Sitka was anything but a happy time for the civil
inhabitants, especially the Russians who remained. See Colyer's Report,
Ex. Doc. H. R. 41st Cong. 2nd Ses., p. 1030; Seattle Intelligencer,
December 14th. 1868; The Victoria Colonist, et al.]

[Footnote 26: Annahootz, the friend of the whites, married his 13th
wife. Afterward becoming blind and decrepit he starved himself to death.
See Sitka Alaskan, February 6, 1890.

Katlean still lives at Sitka and may often be seen on the streets of the
town.]

[Footnote 27: The population of Sitka in 1818 was: Russian, 190;
Creoles, 72; Aleuts, 173 of males, and female 185; of Russian and
Creole, total, 620. Materialui, pt. 3, p. 20.

January 1, 1825, there were: Russians, 309; Creoles, 58; Aleuts, 33.
Total, 400. Ib. p. 52.

In April, 1880, citizens by birth, 92; citizens by naturalization, 123;
citizens by treaty, 229. Total, 444. Beardslee's Report, 47th Cong. Sen.
Ex. Doc. No. 71, p. 34. In this census are many names well known in
Alaska by the "Old Timers," as: A. T. Whitford, John G. Brady, N. A.
Fuller, M. Travis, Edward DeGroff, S. Sessions, R. Willoughby, M. P.
Berry, A. Cohen, Miss P. Cohen, Miss H. Cohen, Ed. Bean, D. Ackerman, A.
Milletich, P. T. Corcoran, L. Caplin, Pierre Erussard, Ed. Doyle, George
E. Pilz, Nicholas Haley, John McKenna, Reub Albertson, John Olds and
others.]

[Footnote 28: Governors of Alaska who made their residence at Sitka:

John H. Kinkead, of Nevada, appointed July 4, 1884. Alfred P.
Swineford, of Michigan, appointed May 8, 1885. Lyman E. Knapp, of
Vermont, appointed April 32, 1889. James Sheakley, of Alaska, appointed
June 28, 1893. John G. Brady, of Alaska, appointed June 23, 1897. ]

[Footnote 29: "The United States District Court, established by the Act
of May 17th, 1884, was formerly organized on the 4th day of November of
that year in a room set apart for the use of the court in the old
barracks building at Sitka, the following officers being present: Ward
McAllister, Jr., Judge; Andrew T. Lewis, Clerk of the Court; Munson C.
Hillyer, U. S. Marshal; Edward W. Haskett, District Attorney.

"On the same day John F. McLean, an officer connected with the signal
service, and Major M. P. Berry, a veteran of the Civil and Mexican wars,
were admitted to the bar, as well as District Attorney Haskett. These
three gentlemen comprised the Alaska Bar of Attorneys until June 20th,
1885, when Mr. John G. Held was added to the roll and in the month of
October, 1885, Willoughby Clark, John F. Maloney, R. D. Crittenden, and
John G. Brady were admitted." Alaska Bar Association and Sketch of the
Judiciary, by Arthur K. Delaney.]

[Footnote 30: The first church in Alaska was built at Kodiak (Paulovski)
in 1795, the next at Unalaska soon after, and the third at Sitka in
1817.]




[Illustration: MAP OF SITKA--OCTOBER, 1867]

   A. Battery No. 1.
   B. Battery No. 2, Vralaskian Battery.
   C. Blockhouse No. 1.
   D. Blockhouse No. 2.
   E. Blockhouse No. 3.
   1. Warehouse.
   2. Shop and Store.
   3. Subsistence Storehouse.
   4. Tannery for Furs.
   6. Barracks, three stories.
   7. Office Building, two stories.
   8. Governor's House.
   9. Wash and Bath House.
  11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 22, and 23. Dock Yard and Buildings.
  16. School Building.
  18. Market for Indians.
  19. Lime Kiln.
  20. Unfinished Barracks.
  25. Bakery, Joinery, etc.
  61. Officers' Lodgings, two stories.
  66. Laundry.
  74. Sawmill.
  75. Tannery.
  76. Unfinished Bath House.
  77. Water Flour Mill.
  96. Aleutian Dwellings.
 102. Bishop's House, two stories.
 103. Hospital, two stories.
 116, 117. Arbors on Public Gardens.
 118. Powder Magazine.
 121. School Building for Indians.
 122. Observatory on Japonski Island.
 123. House for Observer, Wharf, Garden, Hotbeds, etc.
      Cathedral of St. Michael.
      Church of the Resurrection (Koloshian Church).
 129. Hulk and Movable Bridge.






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