an = er ne er ee be ee Oe ee ees eee ee nai neentenraa Ee 5 TSE eae ¥ 1H | i 4, 4! ® te = ies = ae =3e Eger 3s 35 > of Bra = := Dee a fe t g3- 2:5 i SS ee = s— eat ! i { i ll | AS RM H MTA pny Hit HK UPA TLS AAAI | Hi }} i Ht tH ralelootta ts esoeatestitaolertedtaadaut tii i itil Hi yen GE { ial Bu ent cerincrenmr mi rater tame terata trtats Pret eter hee Lm Hit i il UZAAWN OF PRIRGES , Ty OF NCED Sy 7 ‘Gy DE IO F re é: 2Loeiea. gw Division F 909 .Y68 Young, Samuel Hall, 1847- 19275 Hall Young of Alaska, "The muchina naraon!! BNE s Pa et i Pe hie Te Daren Ae HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY 8S. HALL YOUNG ADVENTURES IN ALASKA “Dr. Young writes with a living power of de- scription that creates anew in the reader’s heart the rich variety of emotions surging in the breast of the naturalist.”—The Continent. Illustrated, net, $1.50 THE KLONDIKE CLAN “No one knows Alaska better than the author, who spent thirty years in the North in mission- ary and pioneer work. He shows the growth and romance of the country, the men who made it, and the tragedy and comedy of the miners’ struggles and adventures.”—The Outlook. Illustrated, net, $1.75 ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR “Do you remember Stickeen, the canine hero of John Muir’s famous dog story? Here is a book by the man who owned Stickeen and who was Muir’s companion on that adventurous trip among the Alaskan glaciers. This is not only a breezy outdoor book, full of the wild beauties of the Alaskan wilderness; it is also a living portrait of John Muir in the great moments of his career.”—— New York Times. Illustrated, net, $1.50 : : : it se SISTER: Photo, Jo Lowise MacAvoy THE MUSHING PARSON ee i PALE Y @UNG APO ALASKA “THE MUSHING PARSON” The Autobiography of S. HALL YOUNG With Introduction by JOHN A. MARQUIS FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY NEW YORK AND CHICAGO Copyright, MCMXXvVII, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 851 Cass Street London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 99 George Street INTRODUCTION HILE this book is a record of personal experiences, \) \) they are the experiences of a history-making man who lived his life in a history-making epoch. The fifty years Hall Young spent in Alaska witnessed the transition of an aboriginal race from savagery to civilization, from primitive tribal confusion and anarchy to orderly government, and most of all from a dense and cruel paganism to the Chris- tian faith and the Christian view of life. These years saw the coming of churches and schools, the planting of industries and the substitution of family homes for the immoral and disease- breeding communal houses. One of the difficulties of the historian of any movement is to secure adequate information about beginnings. After the movement has become important there are plenty of data, but the pioneers who begin things rarely think of them as im- portant or take the trouble to keep records. From the incep- tion of Dr. Young’s work in Alaska he made notes; he was one of those very useful people to the historian who have the diary habit. Almost from the beginning, also, he was a prolific reporter of things Alaskan for church and other periodicals. In writing these reminiscences, therefore, he has not been de- pendent on the uncertainties of memory fifty years after for the material which he so charmingly sets forth. He is a delightful story-teller, the kind who could keep you awake far into the night listening, and then send you to bed to mull over his “yarns,” as he calls them, until morning. He is not romancing when he is reminiscing. Whilst much of what he tells is stranger than any fiction most of us could 5 6 INTRODUCTION invent, it is not fiction, but truth. The reader should keep this in mind when he comes to appraise the value of Dr. Young’s work and the significance of the happenings he relates. Dr. Young was more than an eye-witness of the transitions whose story he tells. He was a participator in practically all of them, and in many of them the inspirer and leader. While he was not the first American missionary to Alaska, he was among the first, and arrived before the seeds of civilization and religion had begun to sprout. He saw heathen savagery at its cruelest and worst—the savagery of irresponsible natives who never knew the light, and the savagery of degenerate whites who sinned against the light and who preyed like wolves on the weaknesses and ignorance of the natives. It is the same old story of blood and struggle that has at- tended the transition from barbarism to Christian civilization from the beginning. The process is a birth-throe and can take place, it seems, only at the cost of suffering and travail. The experiences disclosed in this book are in no small sense an epitome of the age-old tale of civilization, the universal saga of progress. It is all here in the form of vivid personal reminis- cences as illuminating as they are fascinating. The second part of the book deals with those strange phenomena that follow the discovery of gold in all lands, called “‘stampedes,” a psychological enigma to angels and men, as wild, unreasonable and ungovernable as a night stampede of cattle on the plains. Here is one point at which the primitive shows undoubted superiority—he can take gold philosophically —we can’t. The sophisticated man always “ falls for” the yellow delusion. As soon as Dr. Young learned that gold had been found he knew what would happen. Although he was then fifty years of age, he besought his mission Board to send him with the stampede, to render a Christian ministry to the multitudes of unreason who would crowd the dangerous trail to the Arctic. So over the White Pass and down the Yukon to INTRODUCTION 7 Dawson he went with those who struggled and cursed and perished with the yellow madness in their brains. It is an absorbing story, and no one can tell it as can Dr. Young. The Klondike was not the only stampede he was with during these feverish years. All along the eighteen hun- dred miles of the Yukon, then to Nome and Teller and Fair- banks, wherever people were gathered in the distant North, he went to preach and minister. How he lived under the load he carried, the hardships he faced and the epidemics of disease he passed through, is an amazement. But he rejoices to-day at four score years in a body and mind as vital as when he went to Alaska a half-century ago, the same radiant, lovable, optimistically youthful man he has always been. It will be seen from these narratives that the author in his Alaskan service, among both the natives and the stampeders, was much more than a missionary in the strict sense of the term. He was an explorer and a naturalist, for one thing, and was with John Muir in most of his explorations and discoveries. A glacier is named for him as well as for Muir. An island in the Archipelago also bears his name, as does a species of but- terfly in the interior, which he discovered and sent to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C. For another thing, he was instrumental in getting Congress to constitute Alaska a territory withilegislature and courts. It was a long, hard battle, but Dr. Young is a good nagger, as both Congress and his mission Board can testify, and he never grew weary. He had able backers at home, of course; Dr. Sheldon Jackson, his superintendent, who was as tireless as Young himself; Benjamin Harrison, then a United States Sen- ator from Indiana; Senator George of Oregon, and the Rev. Dr. Lindsley, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Port- land. When Congress finally acted, and the first legislative convention was called, Young was made its secretary. Besides his wide usefulness these pages bring another im- 8 INTRODUCTION pression of the author vividly to the reader, the impression of a quality that opens the secret of his life and of the immense work he was able to do, and that is his abiding affection for the people among whom he wrought. They were ignorant, dirty, cruel, and not a few of them criminal, but he loved them with a love like that of his Master, and this is the secret that made him a great missionary, a great builder and a great optimist for the human race. x * x * * * * x , The above was written as I was starting abroad in June. I had seen Dr. Young at the Presbyterian General Assembly in San Francisco two weeks before sailing, and had heard him speak on the approaching fiftieth anniversary of his going to Alaska. Never had he seemed more vigorous in body and buoyant in spirit than he did then. We parted at the close of the Assembly expecting to meet in New York in September, whither he was coming to put the finishing touchés to the manuscript of this book and to complete arrangements with his publishers. On his way he visited his daughter in Ithaca, New York, and then went to West Virginia to speak at a pioneer celebration at French Creek, where his grandfather had settled more than a century ago, as he relates in this volume. A cousin was driving him in an automobile to the place of meeting and stopped beside a trolley track to repair a punc- ture. During the wait Dr. Young got out of the automobile, and while he was walking about he inadvertently stepped in front of a trolley car that was passing, and the end came to his long and busy life swiftly and tragically. Sudden death had no terror for him. Again and again he had been heard to express the hope that he might be called to his long home while he was working. He wanted no period of waiting, no days of enfeeblement or frailty, but hoped that he might be called whilst he was in the midst of his labours. During his visit to his daughter, en route to West Virginia, INTRODUCTION 9 he hastily blocked out the verses which appear below and which express the hope referred to—which was to have so early and so tragic a fulfillment. They are the last that came from his pen, and are appended just as he left them, written in lead pencil on a small sheet of paper which happened to be at hand. Evidently he intended the form and metre as tentative, and in this draft was only outlining his thought. It was in his mind, apparently, to have five stanzas in the poem, writing out the first three fully and indicating the thought of the last two. However, they reveal his attitude towards the “ great venture,” and we print them as he left them. Let me die, working. Still tackling plans unfinished, tasks undone! Clean to its end, swift may my race be run. No laggard steps, no faltering, no shirking; Let me die, working! Let me die, thinking. Let me fare forth still with an open mind, Fresh secrets to unfold, new truths to find, My soul undimmed, alert, no question blinking; Let me die, thinking! Let me die, laughing. No sighing o’er past sins; they are forgiven. Spilled on this earth are all the joys of Heaven. The wine of life, the cup of mirth still quaffing; Let me die, laughing! Let me die, giving. And let me die, aspiring. JoHN A, Margulis. New York City. In presenting to the public this autobiography, completed by Dr. 8. Hall Young shortly before his sudden death, the pub- lishers gratefully acknowledge their indebtedness to Dr. John A. Marquis, general secretary of the Board of National Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, for his careful revision of the manuscript and for his informing tribute to its author which precedes it. a CONTENTS Otp BUTLER . WHENCE? : THE Best OF PARENTS . CHILDHOOD EDUCATION NORTHWESTWARD Ho! Up Acatnst IT THE QUEER PEOPLE BEGINNINGS . BLUNDERS THE GATHERING CLOUD . THE STORM VICTORY SUPERSTITION Dies HARD TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP . GREAT EVENTS ORGANIZATION A VoYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT . A GREAT DISCOVERY THE NORTHERN TRIBES . CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION . THE Hypas A Busy YEAR REAL PROGRESS THE FIRE Crvit GOVERNMENT 11 15 21 28 36 47 62 73 88 95 105 113 127 136 145 ay 168 179 187 196 205 220 230 242 254 . 264 272 12 XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX, XXX. XXXI. XXXII. XXXII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XL. XLI. CONTENTS THE WorsT SAVAGES . NATIVE MyTHOLOGY : Last YEARS AT FoRT WRANGELL Goop-ByE, WRANGELL THE GREAT STAMPEDE THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST . RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE Kinc WINTER . FRUITION . THE NoME RuSH Procress AMIp CONFUSION THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEw YORK THE HOMECOMING L’ENVOI INDEX 282 289 302 309 318 330 341 358 373 385 395 409 418 427 435 441 ILLUSTRATIONS The Mushing Parson . : ’ : ; Frontis piece Alaskan Motherhood . ; : ; ; ‘ . 40 Fort Wrangell : : ‘ ; ; f uno An Alaskan Medicine-Man . : 4 : ‘ Mee Totem Poles and Communal Houses _ : : euleu Muir Glacier : ’ : “ : ‘ } . 204 Church Building at Council . : ¢ j ; . 240 Church and School at Skagway, 1898 . ; q ov ea0 A Confusion of Teams and Goods where the Stampede Struck Skagway ; ; : : - : + MeGz An Old Sourdough, Panning for Gold . ; ‘ . 298 Mushing on the White Pass Trail ; f ; . 324 Dawson During the Stampede Winter . : : Pigo0 Old-Time Dawson in Summer Array . : : bee fe Nome in 1900... : : ; : ; : Avs} ) | The Mushing Parson and His Team of Dogs . ; . 406 Sitka and Edgecombe . } : : ; ; haze Alaska Bound in 1923 . : 4 , . E . 438 Map showing voyages of Muir and Young, 1879, 1880 . a ; . ; ‘ d ‘ yah sy 13 ‘ y Ar i we BN rah pa ee re Fy! we iin oe : ny f My ie ih yl si AY. 2 sf ; Ee FN 4 ‘ a ri 23 =<" 24 ap 240) 845 BOL ag vane T Set Muay an Gat Moe atl ‘ ‘ . ry t » ‘ , ' Ta a vt . ~ en =e »y moore ns, | as se pnater { ‘ ie i! r wre ‘ r% Ee 10 Bact OF Boet You [ AB Sak WY BOT Bilbo DIA éoierwaneney BUTLER™ saa ec yleuned 7 r ’ Ww aj XD LOU ke UAB OOD: litte ‘dull old Butler on the Pittsburgh and Erie Gs plank road in Western Pennsylvania. This toll road, “not wide arid not always well kept, had the distinction of béing the most progressive thing in Butler County, and of proclaiming that fact most vociferously. The German and the Scotch-Irish farmers who lived near it had their pride in it somewhat dulled by the hollow boom of trotting horses and rat- tling wagons ‘at uncanny ‘hours. But, compared with the dirt roads, sticky with yellow clay mud in wet weather and rocky and uneven in dry, the plank road was a luxury; and the few big copper cents, the size of a silver dollar, which were neces- sary in order to induce the old “ tired farmer ” or poor widow who tended it to open the creaky wooden toll gate were cheer- fully paid. We barefoot boys used to avoid this road because of the danger of getting splinters in our feet, or knocking the nails off our toes on the edges of the loose boards. The plank road was our one highway to the big world out- side—thirty miles to Pittsburgh on the south and forty north- ward to Franklin, on the way to Meadville and to Erie on the lake. From the fact that its route from end to end of the county lay, for a great part, through hazel glades and over rocky knolls, or wound among the huge boulders and wild cliffs of lonely gorges, Butler County acquired a reputation for barrenness that did rank injustice to its thousands of fertile acres. Such names as Glade Run, The Everglades, Slippery Rock, Muddy Creek and Scrubgrass nailed these slanderous ideas to the county. Lawyers from Pittsburgh or Newcastle in attendance upon 15 16 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA the infrequent sessions of our circuit court, and drummers from trade centers invented jokes and gibes at our expense. We were called “ Buckwheats.” They used to talk of the “ Butler County Soap Mines”; and the chestnut was frequently _ cracked about the kildeers and the crows, when obliged to fly over the county, having to carry with them haversacks full of “ grub,” to prevent starvation. Butler, during my boyhood, was a straggling village of some five or six hundred people. It was built on a gently sloping mound surrounded on all sides by wooded hills. These hills, to my childish fancy, were the rim of the world. They seemed very high, and Father’s comparison to ‘“ the mountains that were round about Jerusalem” did not appear far-fetched. Somehow, the flatiron of later experience among real moun- tains has smoothed down these hills to very mild proportions, but they were formidable ramparts then. One of my most vivid recollections is of great flocks of passenger pigeons, thou- sands and thousands of them, spring and fall, filling the great bowl from rim to rim. As soon as I was able to handle a gun I would take our old musket and, climbing to the top of the hill above our house, would join its popping to the universal banging of every shooting-iron in town. When we consider that this kind of thing was going on all over the United States, to say nothing of the organized expe- ditions of murderers from all the cities who went to the pigeon roosts of the Northern States and Canada armed with nets and axes to snare the birds and to chop down the nest- filled trees, collecting the squabs and feeding all kinds to droves of hogs driven in by farmers, it is no wonder that the complete extinction of this, the most beautiful of our game birds, has added its shame to the sportsman’s “ crimes of the ages.” Sluggish, roily Conoquenessing Creek half encircled the town, lying crookedly around it like a yellow snake. It was OLD BUTLER 17 barely half a mile down Young’s Lane, which was the eastern boundary of the village, to William Campbell’s meadow and the fishing hole where we used to watch our floats through drowsy hours, rewarded to the point of exultation if half a dozen chubs and suckers dangled from our string. Another lane of about the same length marked the northern town line and led through James Campbell’s meadow to the little red brick schoolhouse near the northwestern corner of the town precincts, where the ‘‘ outside children” got their first boost up the ladder of knowledge. This north lane was impassable for wheels by reason of its famous mud puddle, dear to us boys on account of its bulifrogs, snake-feeders and mud-suckling yellow butterflies. Within this elbow formed by the creek and Graham’s Run nestled the old town. The plank road formed its main street; but even in my recollections of seventy years ago the planks had been replaced within the town limits by a rude macadam, reinforced in places with cinders, ashes and tanbark. In the short business section, brick houses and frame shouldered each other, pushing right onto the narrow brick sidewalk. Dvwell- ings alternated with shops and stores. The narrowness of the sidewalk stands out vividly in my memory when I recall my walk home from a kissing party with my “ first girl”; how with adolescent awkwardness I stuck my elbow out at right -angle that she, reaching the full length of her arm across the immense expanse of her hoop skirt, might touch my tingling joint with the tips of her fingers; and how, whenever another perambulating balloon met us we must break contact, the men going out into the street while my poor little maiden flattened herself against the brick wall, desperately trying to keep her tilting skirt from revealing too much of her frilled pantalettes as the other woman crowded by. On the apex of the mound was the tiny town “ square,”’ with its courthouse in the center and brick residences around. The 18 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA temple of justice, as I first remember it, seemed imposing then, but dwindles to small and ugly proportions as I picture it now; squatty, dingy, prim, severe, with stiff and ungainly cupola. Standing on a pedestal in front of the courthouse was an iron statue in heroic size of General Butler, the patriot who perished in the Indian massacre at Cloud’s Creek, South Caro- lina, during the Revolutionary War. We boys regarded it with pride and awe, and noisily discussed the question as to whether or not the gash of the “ Injun tommyhawk ” which killed our hero was visible on the top of his sculptured head. The original plan was to place the general on top of the cupola, but his weight exceeded the strength of the structure; hence his inglorious position on the ground. A few stores and shops displayed their wares on Main Street; two brick taverns offered hospitality and beer, and small signboards indicated the presence of lawyers. and doctors. Rows of hitching posts, at which drowsy horses drooped their heads and switched languid tails, fronted the stores, while from the side streets and alleys came sounds of hammer and saw, as blacksmiths, carpenters and wagon mak- ers plied their trades. A sleepy little town in a farmer’s coun- try, with only a couple of gristmills, a brickyard, a tanyard and cabinet shop to represent the manufacturers—but to us it was the center around which revolved the universe. A schoolhouse with two rooms, an academy erected by Fa- ther’s efforts and named the Witherspoon Institute, and five churches, Presbyterian, Episcopal, United Presbyterian, Lu- theran and Roman Catholic, provided intellectual and spiritual nourishment for the community. Almost in the center of the town lay the old graveyard. During my early childhood this gruesome reminder of mortality, surrounded by its rotting palings on which the whitewash had faded to a dull and spotted gray, held a fearful fascination for me as I peeped through the tangle of myrtle vines, rosebushes, blackberry vines and long OLD BUTLER 19 grass, at marble and sandstone slabs standing at all angles or fallen to the ground, and then ran away, afraid of the many ghosts that were said to haunt this ancient burial ground. It sullenly held its place long after it had been “‘ condemned ” by the council of the growing town; the families of those who had been buried there, because of their superstition, or stinginess, or reverence, or sheer Scotchiness, long resisting all efforts to remove the indifferent old bones to the spruce new cemetery north of the village. At the present time all traces of the old cemetery have disappeared from the beautiful and thriving city, and an up-to-date Junior High School building occupies the square. A little way from the town line was a large quarry reserve where the more pretentious houses got their sandstone, and where the older boys of the village engaged in play or battle. Within the town limits and just off Main Street lay The Com- mons, where traveling peddlers hawked their wares,.and oc- casional bands of gypsies camped. Here once or twice a year a circus pitched its huge circular tents, and even the preacher’s sons were allowed to gaze upon the gorgeous procession of gilded chariots, painted animal cages with invisible but vocif- erous inmates, beautiful horses with flowing manes and tails, and the inevitable two or three elephants. But these circuses only filled the breasts of the ministers’ and elders’ children with grief and despair; for not until I was fifteen was I per- mitted to enter the big tent and witness the fascinating if sin- ful performance of acrobats, clowns and riders. My father’s six acres lay just outside of the northeast corner of the town line. Pasture fields bounded our place north and east, and it cornered on a large stretch of virgin forest of oak, chestnut, hickory and maple trees. A “ brush patch ” of hazel and briar bushes, the shelter of rabbits, quail and an occasional pheasant, filled the little hollow, out of which trickled the brooklet that ran through our place. 20 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Pastor Young’s six acre lot was all utilized—every rod of it. We kept two or three cows, a horse, three or four pigs and a large flock of chickens and ducks; and hay, oats, corn, po- tatoes and pumpkins necessary to feed these hungry animals and the hungrier boys in the house, must be grown on the place. A little orchard of apple, peach, plum, cherry and quince trees stocked our cellar with good things, while the garden, Mother’s special care and our particular torment when weeding time interfered with fishing time, yielded all the vege- tables and small fruits we could use. Our house was of necessity large—a double house, part frame, part brick, until, when I was about seven years old, the frame part burned and a roomy brick structure took its place. In this old house and into this family, already much too large, arrived very early on a rainy morning, September twelfth, 1847, after Mother’s longest and severest illness, a tiny, puny, baby boy. She already had five boys, but only ~ one girl, who was the next to the oldest. She wanted a girl this time. The baby was named beforehand for Mother’s dear- est friend, Mrs. Lane, a lady of the congregation. When I ar- rived, a big disappointment although but a wee, fretful brat, I was named for my Uncle Samuel Johnston. Mother wailed her protest: “ Samuel means ‘ Asked of God,’ and I didn’t pray at all for a baby just now. Still less did I ask for a boy; I had more than enough of them before.” For a second name the wee mite was given the maiden name of Mother’s friend, Hall. When in after years petulantly I protested at the in- justice of saddling me with a cognomen whose initials spelled “shy,” Father, with that dry humour which has always sat upon his lips, consoled me thus: ‘“‘ My son, your name is a most fortunate combination. Your patronymic denotes per- petual youth. Your initials spell modesty; and your name, as you write it, ‘S. Hall "—Shall—means firmness and determi- nation. What more could you ask? ” ii II WHENCE? RACING the branches of a family tree never appealed to me, perhaps because such a chase would require the close attention to detail and perseverance which I lacked; but my father, who kept a diary and wrote in it every week of his adult life, was fond of digging into the mould of archives, if perchance he might find there some family root. His researches were intensely interesting to him, and in a lesser degree to his children. Without inflicting this genealogy upon my readers, a hunch as to what they will deem worth while urges me to tell a few of the stories my parents poured into the ears of their sickly and most troublesome child when, “ too pindling ” to go to school with my sturdy brothers, I had to be amused at home. My grandfather, Robert Young, married Lydia Gould in Charlemont, Massachusetts. The Young family of New Eng- land traces back to Henry Young, an Englishman who about two and a half centuries ago was impressed, or as we would say in these days, “shanghaied,” into His Majesty’s navy and condemned to the hard and poorly paid life of a sailor. Being a Puritan, he deserted when his ship touched the New England shores, and he became a Massachusetts pioneer. He fought Indians and in the Revolutionary War his descendants fought King George. The Young family is a very large one and widely distributed, and I have heard of relatives of that name in many parts of the United States. Some have risen to honour and a very few to wealth. It does not run in the Young family to get rich. Among our remoter kin the name of Brigham Young does not arouse a high feeling of pride. at. 22 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA The Gould family traces back, as I suppose the majority of those of my readers will do, to “ The Mayflower.” Zaccheus Gould was one of the sturdy few who made the fateful voyage on that small and uncomfortable vessel, and landed on “ the stern and rock-bound shore.’”’ His descendants are many. The wealthy Jay Gould family are our cousins, not near enough, however, for us to inherit any of his millions. The eminent astronomer, Benjamin Gould of Cambridge, was another kins- man, not close enough for us to inherit his brains. Both of these Young and Gould families were religious, of the stern, inflexible and intolerant New England type. They were Calvinists and the Westminster Shorter Catechism was the textbook of every family. There was in them also that in- tense love of learning that made them the founders and teach- ers of schools, academies, and colleges wherever they went. Grandfather, Robert Young, was a school-teacher in Massa- chusetts, as well as a farmer and carpenter. He moved with his large family to the mountainous region of what is now West Virginia in 1811. The journey occupied two or three months and was made in a wagon, much of the road through the woods having to be cut by the sturdy pioneers. My father, who was a little lad of five, bore on his hand all his life a scar received on this journey from the teeth of ‘“‘ Old Whitey,” one of the team, when the little fellow, trying to feed him, got his hand too far into the horse’s mouth. Grandfather and his brother- in-law, Captain Gilbert Gould, went “ to the end of the road,” and there settled among the hills, cleared their farms of the big walnut, hickory, chestnut, oak and maple forests and founded the settlement of French Creek in Lewis County. Be- ing New Englanders, they were opposed to slavery and would have no fellowship with the Virginia planters who had great plantations, with multitudes of slaves, in parts of the county. Like nearly all the New Englanders who emigrated to Vir- ginia, North Carolina and Kentucky in those early times, WHENCE? 23 Grandfather had to pay for his farm two or three times, as King George had a friendly but unpleasant habit of granting the same tracts of wild land to a number of his courtiers in succession. The litigation that ensued lasted until after the Civil War, when surveyors, tracing old lines with a view to up- setting titles and promoting fresh lawsuits, began to be picked off by the long rifles of the mountaineers and became dis- couraged. Grandfather, however, would not go to law, and so paid for his tract again and again. Thus he and his family were kept poor. Their training and Yankee parentage kept them distinct. As there were no public schools in Virginia, Robert Young and the Goulds, Phillipses and Morgans, the New England families who composed the settlement, established as their first institu- tion a school with Robert Young’s oldest daughter as teacher. It was the only free school within a radius of fifty or sixty miles, and French Creek became the educational center at which the country school-teachers for a very large district were trained. The church soon followed the school. Rev. Asa Brooks, a young Congregational minister from New England, was the first pastor. He transferred his membership to the Western Pennsylvania Presbyterian Church. My grandfather and his wife’s uncle, Nathan Gould, were the first elders. The build- ing was of logs and it was put up in a day, after the fashion of those times, in a big “ raisin’, the men of the community turning out en masse, and the ladies spreading a delicious re- past of wild turkey, venison and corn pone. At the “ raisin’ ” a young man, Isaac Van Deventer, afterwards an eminent phy- sician, stood out on the free end of the ridge-pole and with impressive gestures raised a bottle of home-made corn whiskey and emptied it down his throat “to the prosperity of the church.”’. This was not considered in the least out of the way, although not long afterwards at French Creek was organized 24 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA the first Bible Society in the State of Virginia, and, I believe, the first Total Abstinence Society in the United States. A few stories about the primitive life of those settlers among the western hills of Old Virginia: The people lived within their own means. No money circulated. They raised all the food they ate, and the wool and flax from which they made all of their clothing and household linen. Grandmother and her girls heckled the flax, carded the wool, spun thread and yarn and made the jeans, flannel, linen sheets and shirts, stock- ings and other clothing for the family. They seldom had any “tame” meat, deer, bears, wild turkeys, pheasants, rabbits, squirrels, and other game furnishing delicious substitutes for beef, pork and mutton. The big maple trees yielded their sugar. Buckskin furnished moccasins. All purchases at the stores were by exchange of commodities. These people were independent of the whole world for their sustenance. Curiously enough, the Youngs were not hunters, although wild game was the only dependence for the meat supply. My grandfather would never kill even a chicken, Grandmother and her boys having to perform such necessary acts. My own father never shot off a gun in all his life, and when his boys would come to him with bloody toes or fingers he would faint dead away. The only living thing that he would kill was a snake, and he did that from religious principle: “ The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.”” When, as a boy, I would expostulate with him for stopping the buggy on Sunday when we were driving to meeting, and getting down to bash the head of a beautiful and harmless little green snake, his re- ply would come: “TI don’t like to do it, my boy, but it was a serpent that tempted Eve and brought all this sin and trouble upon the world.” Grandfather, by reason of his superior scholarship, was elected assessor and collector of the huge Lewis County, which has since been divided into four or five counties. He made a WHENCE? 25 long journeys in pursuance of his duties, by foot and on horse- back. When he rode he always took in his saddle-bags a sup- ply of Bibles and tracts which he distributed free to those upon whom he called. So kind-hearted and sympathetic was he that he often paid the taxes which he had assessed, rather than press some poverty-stricken man for the money. He was also a magistrate, ‘Squire Young.” There was little legal business and not much of crime or misdemeanour in the county. On several occasions, however, Squire Young was known to have paid the fine which he had imposed rather than ask the poor criminal for it, When he was elected sheriff of the county, the most lucrative of its offices, he held it only three months and then resigned, because it became apparent to him that if he continued in office he would have to hang a man, and that he could not do. A man of such extreme gentleness of spirit that his family of seven boys and three girls, all of whom but one lived to be over seventy years of age, were known far and wide as the “ soft-hearted Youngs.” They were hard- working, but poor in this world’s goods, self-forgetful and scrupulously honest, intelligent and progressive, but meek and mild often to an absurd degree. Grandfather’s intelligence is indicated by the naming of his first boy after Pascal Paoli, the famous Corsican patriot who was making a stir in the world about the time Uncle Pascal was born; and his piety, by the terrible combination of names he wished upon his youngest baby girl, Sophronia Mehetabel. Strange to say, Aunt “ Phrone ” survived in spite of her name, and lived to be ninety-nine years old—everybody’s “ Auntie,” an angel of mercy to her whole community. She married a dry old hunter, Uncle Ed Phillips, known for his laconic sarcasm. Once when some neighbour made a slighting remark about the Youngs as not being “ forehanded,” Uncle Ed said: “ Well, I reckon them Youngs ’Il all git to heaven, and that’s more’n you’re likely to do.” 26 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Mother’s forebears came to Western Pennsylvania from the north of Ireland. Please note that the name is Johnston, not Johnson—John’s town, not John’s son. She traced her lineage directly back to Oliver Cromwell. His eldest daughter, Brid- get, married Cromwell’s general, Fleetwood, and, after his death, General Ireton, who became Lord Deputy of Ireland. Mother used to tell this story: After the death of Cromwell and the accession of Charles II, Cromwell’s family and ad- herents were persecuted, and many of them put to death. A band of condemned criminals were being herded to a high point where they were to be executed. Among them was Bridget Ireton. As they went to their fate she recognized among their guards a soldier who had been an inmate of her house and the recipient of kindness from her family. She addressed him by name and expressed her horror that he should be found among her murderers. At once the soldier knocked her down, and she lay upon the ground stunned and almost senseless, while the procession passed on. When the others were out of sight he raised her tenderly to her feet, told her that his seem- ingly brutal assault was his only way of saving her life, and pointed out a way of safety for her. She found friends, who helped her to Belfast, and she became the mother of our branch of the Johnstons. But the Scotch and Scotch-Irish of Western Pennsylvania —what a race they were and are! How brainy, how stubborn, how “‘sot in thir ways,” how religious, how loyal yet how in- tolerant! They were all Presbyterians; all held stoutly to the Westminster Confession of Faith and The Shorter Catechism, and yet they were of many different shades of blue. In Butler and its vicinity there were Presbyterians, United Presbyterians, Seceders, Oldside Covenanters, Newside Covenanters, and I know not what other Presbyterian congregations. In the town of Darlington, where my Uncle Watson Johnston preached, all of these Presbyterian denominations and no other had little WHENCE? 27 churches in the small country town, and although only one or two were strong enough to have local pastors and preaching every Sabbath yet they all held to their respective tenets and, even if they had preaching only once a month or at longer in- tervals, would not attend any church but their own or allow their children to do so. Any innovation in the manner of wor- ship or church method was rank heresy and to be put down with a strong hand. The best people in the world, yet their bigotry was sometimes beyond belief. I would not emphasize heredity too strongly. We are what we are. Our blood may have power to sway us this way or that, and environment is still more potent; but every strong man is “ captain of his soul” and is what he wills to be. And yet I am proud of my Yankee and Scotch ancestry, while, at times, I am afraid of them. I have always felt strongly the urge of modernism, the revolt of the twentieth century against the sixteenth and even the nineteenth. And as I near the bounds of life, more and more does the superiority of the pres- ent age, its progress, its methods of education, its religious fellowship, its wider view, its newer and keener conceptions of God, of the Bible and of the unity of all believers, rebuke the narrowness and arrogance of the ages that are past. Hold- ing sturdily to the “ Faith of our Fathers,” I yet assert my right and duty to examine and analyze that faith, throwing upon it all the light of science and candid investigation I can command. We ought to be, and we are, wiser and better than our fore- bears. Let us open our ears to the “ vaster music.” I am an optimist of the optimists. Il THE BEST OF PARENTS Y father, Loyal Young, has always been my ideal of a M Christian gentleman. He was the bravest and gen- tlest, the most unswerving in the path of duty and yet the kindliest and most tolerant of men. Keenly alive to modern inventions and progress, he held to the faith of his fathers with a tenacity that would have sent him joyfully to a martyr’s death had such an “ opportunity ” offered. Selfish- ness had no place in his make-up. When a plate of apples was passed around in our family we were sure that Father would take the smallest and gnarliest. So extreme was his self- abnegation that at times it was almost absurd. Mother used to say that if Father really liked anything, that was a sure sign for him that he should not have it. All his life he was a peacemaker, and during his long ministry was often sent for within the bounds of his own Presbytery, and even to distant Presbyteries, to settle quarrels in churches and between in- dividuals. He was brought up in the School of Hard Knocks. Up to the time when he was going to college he never possessed a pair of shoes or boots, but wore moccasins in the winter and went barefoot the other seasons. He wore clothes made, ma- terial and construction, by his mother and sister. From ear- liest boyhood he had to work, work, work. He picked up the rudiments of an education from his father and mother, who had both been school-teachers, and from his older sister Annie. But he was chiefly self-taught. An insatiable reader, a mind full of question marks. The firm faith and Bible training he acquired in that log cabin in the woods of Virginia stayed with 28 d : j THE BEST OF PARENTS 29 him all his life, deepening and broadening but running in one channel. Life, as my father and his brothers and sisters lived it, would seem intolerably meager and narrow to the rampant youth of the present day. The homeliest amusements sufficed and made happy those barefooted, homespun-clad boys and girls. Of late years it has been a great pleasure to rediscover in the woods on Little Bush Run, about a quarter-mile from the ruins of Grandfather’s old stone chimney, the sheltering rock where Father and his next older brother, Festus, used to play and study and pray. It is overgrown and almost buried in bushes now, but was then in the big clear forest. The deprivations of that semi-savage life in the hills of West Virginia would seem appalling to the present age, but were not really poverty. The people had all they needed, for their wants were very few. ‘There were no books for the school, so the teacher had to supply their lack by her own books, and they quarried slates and soapstone pencils from near ledges. Having hardly any cattle to provide tallow, Grandmother, in order to make her candles, reinforced the softer deer fat with beeswax obtained from the wild “ bee trees.” But her boys gathered old pine knots, and, lying on the floor in front of the big fireplace, they figured out on their home-made slates their “‘ sums.” When adolescence demanded advanced studies, Rev. Asa Brooks loaned Festus and Loyal a Latin Grammar and History, an Algebra and an old “ Eu- clid,’ and the boys drank from these small streams of knowl- edge with the thirstiness of the ‘‘ hart by the water brooks.” _ When these two eager brothers, both of whom longed for education solely that they might preach the Gospel to their fellow-sinners, had reached the limit of their pastor’s library and ability to instruct them, he called them one day into his study. ‘‘ My dear boys,” he said, “I have been praying about you, and have come to this conclusion: Poor as we are 30 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA here, it will be impossible to provide the funds for a college education for more than one of you. It will take a great deal of money and, even with the whole community helping, we will not be able to educate both. Now make up your minds as to which of you will go to college, and who will stay at home and help pay his way.” Of course, Festus and Loyal each began to urge the claims of the other. Mr. Brooks finally said: ‘‘ We will have to ask God to decide this important question.” He opened his Bible to Proverbs 16:33: ‘‘ The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” Then he prayed for divine guidance in making the momentous decision. He took two slips of paper, wrote on the one “ Go,” and the other “ Stay,” and had the boys draw. Loyal, the.younger and, as the pastor said, the brighter, drew the fortunate slip, and although with tears he besought his brother to go and get the education, the matter was considered settled by divine direction, and Festus, helped by the whole family and their kinfolk, began to work and save to send the favoured son to college. There was next to no money in circulation in that primitive Yankee community. Butter and eggs, hides and furs, grains and game, tobacco and nuts were the mediums of exchange for the few things the settlers wished from the stores. Only one commodity brought ready money. That was the curious root dug in the darkest woods called ginseng. It was even then in much demand by China as a cure-all and also as an incense pleasing to the gods. Cash was always paid for this root. As Uncle Ed Phillips once told me, ‘“‘ The Young boys was no hunters, but they was great sangers. When we’d go a shootin’ they’d go a sangin’.” Making long camping trips to many deep valleys with their little home-made ‘“ sang-hoes,” they dug up pounds and pounds of the savoury, crooked root, the name of which signifies both in the Chinese and Indian tongues, a little old man, Other boys helped, and the pile of dried ae THE BEST OF PARENTS 31 “sang” increased. Grandmother and Aunt Annie kept their spinning wheels and looms going. Grandfather sacrificed a pet cow and took its hide to a tanner many miles distant and had it made into a “side of leather.” The shoemaker at French Creek donated his labour, and Loyal got his first pair of shoes. So it came to pass that one morning, after solemn consecra- tion to the Gospel ministry by his pastor in the old log church, Loyal started on his two-hundred-mile walk through the woods to Jefferson College at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. All his earthly possessions were in an old carpet bag slung on a stick over his shoulders. His one pair of shoes, too precious to be rashly worn out, was carried in his hand. A corn pone big enough to last him several days provided food for his journey. He slept under the trees, and thought it no hardship. With a very small store of money, but sufficient to get him through the first year of college, he launched upon his great adventure. Teaching school in vacations, occasionally stopping out of col- lege for part of a term to replenish his slim purse, this green but intrepid young man worked his way through college and seminary, his eyes steadfastly upon his goal. He stinted and worked and studied, standing well in his classes, beloved by all, teachers and fellow-students. In 1832, in the second class which graduated from the Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, he started upon his long, quiet, but faithful and fruitful career as a Presbyterian minister. It is with reverence that I here record my father’s solemn dedication of himself to the work of the Christian ministry. It was written at the Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny, two years before his graduation. Father made his own quill pens and manufactured his own ink; but this old manuscript, which heads a fresh volume of his diary, is a model of clear writing, and the penmanship can hardly be distinguished from that of the pages written after he was eighty. And the same 32 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA deep sense of responsibility and of his own unworthiness for his high calling remained with him all his life. There are many tear blots on this page: November 14th, 1830. Assist me O thou Holy Spirit while I covenant with my God. Solemn, awful work! Shall a wretched wanderer, polluted with guilt, make so near, so solemn an approach? I have so often broken my resolutions that I tremble to make a covenant. Yet, O precious Saviour, if Thou wilt do all, and bind me to Thyself I shall not wander. In mercy, infinite mercy, forgive the past and tell Thy servant what he ought to do. Let Thy grace preserve me from wickedly departing from my God. Place all those interesting motives before my eyes which I ought to consider, such as Thy boundless love, Thine infinite condescension, and the agonies of the garden and the cross; such as my own voluntary engagements, and the awful, pre- cious work before me. Forgive my trifling and shed the light | of truth and the joy of pardoned sin into my otherwise dark, vacant soul. And O my Heavenly Father be not offended at Thy guilty creature. Is it not that I may serve Thee better that I make this covenant with the Infinite God? July 1, 1831. Thus long have I feared to put my name to this covenant lest I should break it. If this was a distrust of Thy grace, O God, pardon Thy weak, sinful creature. And now in the sincerity of my soul, on this my birthday [his twenty-fifth] which I have set apart for fasting and prayer, would I promise, relying on the grace of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to give myself wholly to the Lord; and hereby I do give myself to Thee, most merciful God, to be Thine for- ever. Amen. LoyvaL YOUNG. Now Lord save Thy servant from wickedly departing from his God and breaking this solemn covenant. It is a covenant of grace; grace alone will enable me to keep it. Lord have mercy. Amen. The following year, 1832, Father records three great events THE BEST OF PARENTS 33 of his life: he graduated at the Allegheny Seminary, was li- censed to preach the Gospel and, to use his own words, “ en- tered upon the interesting and responsible duties of a hus- band.” Two of his classmates, Reed and Lowry, the latter the cele- brated John C. Lowry, for a long period the Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, went to India as mis- sionaries. Father wrestled long in spirit, desiring to go with them, but at last relinquished his cherished desire on Mother’s account, and accepted a call to the church of Butler, where he was the beloved pastor for thirty-five years. My mother was a rather striking contrast to my father in disposition, features and mental make-up. That sturdy Scotch- Irish strain—inflexible, firm in the faith and loyal to the th degree—was yet mixed with Irish humour and fondness of the gay and bright things of life to such a degree that she, far more than Father, was the companion and playmate of her boys. My earliest glimmerings of memory are of ‘ Scots Wha Hae,” “ Bonnie Doon,” and “ Wha’ll Be King But Charley? ” sung as lullabys, while Mother held me on her lap and rocked with her foot the cradle of my baby brother, “‘ Wappoo,” her fingers flying about the needles while she knit stockings for her boys. Although her father was a Presbyterian minister of the sternest type, I imagine his sons and daughters must have worried the old gentleman at times by their tendency to break away and enjoy themselves. At least I gather as much from the stories Mother used to tell me of her young days. Here are two or three: The way my father happened to meet my mother was this: Mother’s brothers Watson and Samuel attended Jefferson Col- lege at the same time as Father, and used to invite him out to visit them when Grandfather was pastor of Old Rehoboth Church. On one occasion the Johnston boys had brought home with them a young fellow from Pittsburgh, which was then a 34 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA struggling new city. The Scotch Seceders were holding a camp-meeting in a grove by the old Seceder church. Planks were placed across logs as seats, and a large congregation gath- ered day after day to listen to three or four doctrinal sermons daily, each not less than an hour and a half long. Mother, who was a girl of seventeen or eighteen, with her brothers and the boy from Pittsburgh, went to the camp-meeting. The sing- ing of Rouse’s version of the Psalms was conducted by a solemn old elder who acted as precentor. My uncles had learned at college how to sing bass. The low tones of the harmony had never been heard at a Seceder meet- ing. As the young men struck in to the bass, an old lady stand- ing by Uncle Sam grew very uneasy. By frowns and nods she tried to suppress the boys, but they went on, unconsciously, singing bass. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, while the precentor was having his innings, she gave Uncle Sam a mighty dig in the ribs with her elbow, exclaiming in a loud raucous whisper: ‘‘ Haud yer tongue wi’ yer croonin’, an’ let them praise God as can do’t.” That ended their bass, and the im- pious young men and their sister beat a hasty retreat. All the Presbyterian denominations of the indigo and ultra- marine tints refused to allow any musical instruments in the church services. They would sing most lustily, ‘ Praise God with the sound of the trumpet; Praise Him with psaltery and harp; Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; Praise Him with stringed instruments and organs ”’; but when it came to putting this exhortation into actual practice they rejected the sugges- tion with horror. Even the United Presbyterians, the lightest of the deep blues, long resisted the introduction of a bass viol and the formation of a choir. At a church near Grandfather’s the young people were determined to have real music, and as one of their number played the viol they brought the matter of its use before the church session. The old minister opposed the proposition, but the majority of the elders voted for it, and THE BEST OF PARENTS 35 the big viol was there in the loft the next Sunday. The preacher surrendered gracefully. At the proper time he rose and said in a loud voice: ‘‘ We will now sang an’ fuddle the Hundredth Psalm.” My father, while still a seminary student, became an agent of the newly organized Board of Foreign Missions. He was employed by the Board to go around among the churches of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, to interest them in the great work of saving the souls of the heathen. He was in- structed to take up collections for Foreign Missions wherever he went. The “ innovation” met with distrust and suspicion. It was hard to induce these canny Scotch to give their money wrung from the soil to anything but the support of their own churches. Father took with him a little stone idol from India, and subscription papers which he desired to present to the con- gregations. When he appeared before a large country church on the shores of the Ohio River, the elders, when consulted about the service, refused to allow him to desecrate the Lord’s house by displaying a heathen god in it or by “ transacting the business ” of circulating his subscription papers on the Sab- bath. The young man preached earnestly from the text, “ Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” After the sermon the session voted to permit him to visit the members of the church privately on Monday with his sub- scription paper and let them see his idol. Father got a good sum of money from these fine people. They were zealous for the spread of the Gospel but must do things in their own way. IV CHILDHOOD and their families in those old days still brings tears of sympathy and self-pity to my eyes as I recall it. Hard work, close economy, stern self-denial—these Loyal and Margaret Young must practice from the beginning of their life together. Neither received anything from their parents to set them up in housekeeping. The eight children came in quick succession, all except myself sturdy, healthy, hungry young- sters. Mother brought with her two spinning wheels, a large and a small one, and the hum of the spindle accompanied the songs and hymns sung by her sweet voice. Although in West- ? ANHE grinding poverty which was the lot of all ministers ern Pennsylvania at that time there were some woolen mills, and it was not necessary for Mother to weave the cloth for her household, she did knit all the stockings and mittens we wore and made, and mended with her patient needle all of our clothes. Part of the time she employed a girl, generally some orphan whom she took in as one of the family and to whom she paid a very small wage. Mother did the bulk of the work, however, getting up before daylight, milking cows, tend- ing to chickens, churning butter, working in the garden, car- ing for her large brood of children and doing the planning for the whole family. To eke out the slender salary, she kept boarders most of the time, making room in her house and at her table for five or six young men and women who were at- tending the Witherspoon Institute, the academy which Father founded. Father taught school and farmed, to help along. The system of paying half the salary in produce gave rise to the only 36 | CHILDHOOD 37 serious disputes I ever knew between my parents. I remember when old Father McC., the senior elder, brought a load of small gnarly apples to turn them in on his “ steepend,” the trees of our own orchard hanging red with good fruit, Mother boiled over. “Let me talk to him! ” she cried, and started into the yard. Father sprang and caught her, faced her about and marched her forcibly into the house. Then he went out and received the apples, while Mother went into her room and had a good cry. The scrimping and planning for clothes was pitiable. Not a shoestring was bought without careful consultation. Down from the oldest to the youngest descended the clothing, made over and over again, and patched until the original cloth could hardly be discovered. As the youngest, Walter and I never had a new suit of clothes. When our garments gave way in the daytime, we had to go to bed until they were mended. One of the shame-days of my early boyhood was when, visiting a neighbour, my breeches gave way in the back, the other boys setting up the usual shout of “ Dicky, Dicky Dout, with his shirt-tail out,” and I running backwards all the way home. And yet our home life was by no means a gloomy or narrow one. We all must work, but had plenty of time to play. Be- ing the sickly boy, I never went to public school until after the age of ten. I learned my letters from those stamped on my little tin plate on the tray of my high chair. Twice Mother started me to a public school, but in both cases the ex- periment speedily terminated in disaster. The first was when I was sent with my older brother Kirk to a school taught by old Mrs. Butler, a tall, gaunt and very deaf lady. She could be made to hear only by shouting at her. She made her pupils all study out loud, and during study hours to one approaching her schoolhouse the noise was like that of a threshing machine. The rod was used constantly. Kirk was a mischievous urchin and had to be switched several times every day. I was 38 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA scared almost to death when I entered the schoolroom and was greeted by the sharp voice of my teacher. I was not there half an hour before Kirk was called up for his usual chastise- ment. He had a very loud, piercing yell, and let it out to its fullest extent the moment the whipping began. I sprang out into the middle of the floor, crying at the top of my voice, and became so frantic as I pulled at my brother to rescue him from his tormentor that Mrs. Butler had to desist. Her efforts to soothe me, which were not of the gentlest, made me only howl the harder, and she had to command Kirk to take me home. I sobbed all day and far into the night, and was sick for a week afterwards. Mother didn’t send her hysterical child back to that school. A year or two afterwards I was sent with several of my brothers to the little red schoolhouse just outside of the north- west corner of the borough, on Graham’s Run. A young man by the name of Newton Rogers was the teacher. There was a large clump of willows near the schoolhouse from which he procured his rods, getting a new bundle of switches every Mon- — day morning. He had the system of “ monitors,” by which the older boys and girls took turns in watching their compan- ions, jotting down the number of times they whispered, laughed or failed in their recitations. It was commonly charged that favouritism was shown, which was indeed inevitable. The last half-hour of the afternoon session was given up to the daily reckoning. The records were read by the monitor and the pupils called out for their discipline, which was long and severe in proportion to their faults. One big boy, Bill Fouzer, was always in the greatest trou- ble. I had managed to sit through the day until the time of reckoning. My brothers, Jim and Kirk, had been dealt with rather leniently, although their jackets were ‘“‘ dusted.” I can still vision the gloating look on the master’s face when Bill was called up. His record was long and black. Newton Rogers CHILDHOOD 39 selected the longest and heaviest stick, and bent back, de- livering the blow with his full strength. Bill’s scream, shrill and quavering, followed instantly. Again and again these blows were repeated, and louder and more agonizing were Bill’s yells. They earned for him the name of “ Billie Boo- 00-00-00zer,”’ which he was frequently called by the scholars. It was too much for me. I collapsed in more hysterics, and had to be almost carried home by my older brothers. Mother did not send me there again. I had good teaching at home, without the severe discipline. My sister, with occasional help from Father and the older boys, attended to my daily lessons. Not because I was brighter than the other boys, but because I had saner and more loving tutelage, I went ahead of Kirk and Jim, and was ready for the academy before they were. I was an outdoor boy from the first. While my brothers went to school I roamed the woods. I helped my mother in the kitchen and always have been thankful for the lessons I received in cooking and housekeeping. I worked in the gar- den when I was able, and I remember my exultation when, after spending nearly the whole day in the onion patch, I re- ceived a big copper cent for “all my own.” It promptly went for ‘“‘ jujube paste,” a confection that has long since gone out of the market. When not roaming the woods I was at home bent over a book. Often I was reading aloud to Mother and Sister as they sewed. The range of our reading was very limited and mostly re- ligious. I earned a Brewster Bible by perfectly repeating The Shorter Catechism before I was ten. I had read The Pilgrim’s Progress over and over again. Walter and I used to dramatize it, in our boyish way, disputing as to which should be given the réle of “ Greatheart.” I read Longfellow’s ‘‘ Hiawatha ” soon after its first publication—also “‘ Evangeline ” and “‘ Miles Standish.” Father considered dime novels an invention of 40 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA the devil, and therefore, of course, his boys all wished to read them. We used to get them from the other boys, and read them in fence corners and in the attic. Walter and I, from a very early age, began to tell each other “ dreams,” making them up as we went and weaving wonderful tales of adventure. We were always heroes. I remember the sleepy responses to the prodding question, “And then what?” when it was my turn to tell the dream. I believe that this daily exercise of our opening imaginations had a permanent and altogether bene- ficial effect upon us both in after-life, helping us to invent and to shape our styles of composition. The evenings at home, and nearly all of our evenings were spent at home, were delightful. The whole family was there . in the sitting-room, Father reading, Mother and Sister sewing, the older boys wrestling with mathematical problems and the younger ones studying or playing games. It is unnecessary to explain that these games did ot include cards. I used to walk a rod around a playing card when I saw one lying in the road, as if it were a snake and would bite me. Tit-tat-toe, fox and geese, checkers and, later, chess sufficed us. Just before bed- time Father would lay aside his book, and we would have fam- ily prayers, including singing and the reading of the Bible; then would ensue a pleasant half-hour of conundrums and games, a big dish of apples and another of nuts on the table; then we smaller boys would go upstairs to bed, each one kneeling to say his prayers. Mother had a practice which has made me often wonder how we all managed to live and grow up. Five or six of us boys slept in one small room. When we were tucked in Mother would come, and whether it was winter or summer, would carefully close every window and shut the doors tight to keep out the “ deadly night air.” Of the religious training of my boyhood and its effect on my after-life I am going to speak frankly, even at the risk of shocking the more conservative. Almost all of this training ALASKAN MOTHERHOOD i sy a af . a ve 7 : ‘ =¥ te + e . i e ' - rt act , i F. : Pe oe | pie ae a Aa ’ ee 276 | 7 Ps ee | oo “ie 4 bepoe 6 i ' Le ¥ + 4 q * \y ! , f Bi ‘ Ls * Suply eee ‘ P A The “i = = d . Ty he) i om er 7Y | cM A Ls : 7 A j ‘ } ei , eft = ‘ . a we? 4 ls Ce) S ~ yi [ ae : t Jig - -~ i i Uh . s¥ - Nat | : ~~, yt va 7 ‘ ° . at ‘ys al) "i * ‘ . t ‘ ae | \ ‘ i aie. & ° ts 2 4 4 cS i i : ™~ > Bech a ys ‘ 1 : = ’ = = i S% - i | + a ‘ e + c ‘ } b! : . ¥ , rr . ie x & 1) ‘ ; 4 ’ _ ue -T7 yt a a? , A ’ \ + * Fe i - u ~ * Xt 4 a a 4 ua : ; 4 ; t ' { V1 ant ‘ F i! then , 7 j ! = ‘ ’ ‘ ) é : 7 7 - ae oe | ‘ ' ' ' i # : : ’ €:. ‘ ° Te, . ' i ‘ . ia) t | : , A = iM ' ‘ . i | . ‘ ’ q “# I ‘ ? wt ‘ » ’ 4 “@ ' t ~ 0 s | 7 oo Te ’ + . ‘ 7" ' f ( ‘ if * ‘ ‘ <4 eg ais ie tt ow j 4 ry al ‘ si 7 ad ns s s ‘ : ¥ ‘4 ’ j ? ty) ‘ J 1 ys j 7 ‘ i vi ri a =’ @ : > , f ¥ ‘ in é i ’ I i ' vid 7 ¢ . a > f ; & aif a) i , CHILDHOOD 41 was received at home. There was a Sunday School connected with Father’s church, started, I think, when I was a boy of seven or eight. The superintendent was Father’s principal elder. It was long before the time of International Lesson Leaves, or lesson helps of any kind. The only textbooks were the Bible and The Shorter Catechism. The teachers were the elders and elderly ladies of the church. The lessons were simply lay sermons delivered to a lot of squirming boys and girls who counted the time when these tedious discourses would give place to a five minutes’ recess, to be followed by the ser- mon of the morning in the audience room. There were no Sunday-School hymn books. The only thing approaching these was Watts’ Juvenile Hymns, which were paraphrases of the Psalms and Proverbs. Our superintendent would line out these hymns, two lines at a time, and then lead the singing, and we would join in as best we could. He sang through his nose, and his tones were quavering and thin, but we didn’t dare to laugh. There was no idea in the minds of superintendent or teach- ers of explaining the Bible to the little folks or illustrating it by stories that they could understand. The small children were taught their A B C’s—out of the old New England Primer. The rude wood-cuts that illustrated the alphabet had a fearful fascination for me. There was ‘“ A ”—‘ In Adam’s fall we sin-ned all”: A very small black tree, with a very big snake curling out of the top of it, holding an apple as large as a pumpkin in its mouth, and tendering it to a very much ashamed man and woman enshrouded in immense fig leaves. “T” made the shivers run down my back—‘ Time cuts down all, both great and small”: A horrible skeleton wielding a huge scythe was sprinting after a badly scared boy who, with hair standing up, was doing his level best to escape. My sym- pathies were strongly with the boy, but I was terribly afraid Time would get him. ‘ 42 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Not for some time after the starting of the Sunday School was there a library. Then only a few books of a severely re- ligious type were allowed in it. The tracts furnished by the American Tract Society, suitable to the adult religious minds of those days, but hardly tolerated and very seldom read even by grown-ups in the present time, were handed out to us. When I got a little older I read with sympathy the account of a little girl who selected a book on Backsliding, and was found by her mother crying with anger and stamping the book under her feet. She had expected it to teach her how to slide backwards. Fox’s Book of Martyrs, Tales of the Scotch Cov- enanters, The Massacre of Wyoming Valley, and a few tales of abnormally pious children who died young and who, before their demise, preached gruesome sermons to their bored com- panions exhorting them to flee from the wrath to come—these formed the bulk of that first Sunday-School library. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress was better, and I read it over and over again. Apollyon and Giant Despair were very real char- acters to me. I used to see them at night. The book which had almost the strongest, and I think the most baleful influence on my childhood, was one in Father’s library called Porter’s Sermons and Dialogues. I passed by the sermons, but used to pore over the two dialogues. The first was between Death and the Hypocrite—the other between Death and the Believer. There were many characters in these dramas. I remember the names of only a few; one was “ Build-Hope-On-Feelings-and-Frames.”’ This was one of the companions of the Hypocrite, and his mission was to close the Hypocrite’s eyes to the impending horrors of the Judgment. The shriek of the damned soul, just before the Hypocrite’s death, seared my mind like a hot iron: ‘“ Oh, to have boiling lead poured down my throat would be a heaven to this! ” Again and again, during the long nights when I couldn’t sleep, would these awful visions come and scare me as I would hide CHILDHOOD 43 my head under the bedclothes, peeping out now and then to see the hideous shapes coming closer and closer and then re- ceding—and hearing the shrieks of the poor lost souls! Still worse was a little leather-backed volume, that most morbid of the heavy religious poems of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Pollock’s Course of Time. As anything in the shape of verse had an irresistible attraction for me, I fished this book out of a corner of Father’s library and ac- tually read most of it. Even as a child, great lines from Tennyson, Keats or George Herbert would cause electric shiv- ers of ecstasy to course down my spine; but Pollock’s awful pictures of the tortures of damned souls caused shudders, not of pleasure but of horror. When I read for the first time the passage in which the “ worm that dieth not,” a hideous and loathsome snake, is coiled around a bleeding and swollen hu- man heart, stinging it again and again with poison fangs as the heart throbs and bounds in vain efforts to escape—I cast the book down and fled to my room, burying my face in the pillows, trembling and crying with terror. And that night the ever-recurring picture kept me awake and scared me so that I left my bed and ran to Mother’s and sobbed myself to sleep in her tender arms. Mother was wise enough to teach us Mother Goose rhymes and the few fairy stories that she knew. But she and Father little realized the sufferings that I went through during years of sickly childhood. I must be frank enough to say that when I learned The Shorter Catechism at the age of ten the vision it brought be- fore my mind of God and His dealing with men was anything but a helpful one. I was used to picturing everything in my imagination, and when I memorized the phrase, “‘ God having, out of His mere good pleasure, elected some to everlasting life ” and the contrasting picture of those who seemingly by the same arbitrary selection were condemned to “ the pains of Hell forever,” there arose before my mind the vision of a 44 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA terrible old man, with gigantic muscled arms and talons for fingers, picking out from a crowd of trembling mortals some for his right hand, and pitching others down an incline where sizzling flames would receive them. There was something so cold-blooded and unsympathetic about that transaction as set forth in the answer to the question that I could not get over it. I didn’t like the word mere. And I don’t like it yet. I don’t find it either in the letter or the spirit of the Bible. It caused a strong revolt in my mind when I was a youth—a revolt that compelled me clear . beyond reason to doubt and disgust with religion. I used to have periods of weeping and even screaming which my father thought was ‘‘ Conviction of Sin,” but which Mother was wise enough to charge to nervous terror, and while Father would pray with me she would soothe me and divert my mind. Our good old Sunday-School superintendent used to talk solemnly to us of the terrors of the Judgment, trying to scare us into being ‘‘ good.” It was only the very beautiful and sweet re- ligious life of my own parents as lived before us day by day that counteracted these terrors of the law, and swung me back from scepticism to the knowledge of Christ and His Spirit of love as He lived and taught among men. As I write these lines there has just come to me a letter from Dr. R. J. Diven, one of the brightest of our Alaska ministers. He writes: ‘ When religion becomes so ferocious that it shocks the mind and feelings of a child, then there is something wrong with either the system itself or the presentation thereof.” I adhere to the Calvinistic system. My reason approves of it, but I often wonder how I was rescued from the terrible Slough of Despond and Doubting Castle into which these early books and teachings plunged me. The rough kindness of my bigger brothers and the wisdom and gentleness of my parents kept me, I think, from being either a little prig or a vicious and rebellious boy. CHILDHOOD 45 Being so sickly, I was perhaps over-indulged. I had a most violent temper, and used to fly into paroxysms of rage in which I was beyond reason. We all had nicknames, and mine was “ Hornet.” The other boys used to buzz at me, to make me mad. I would pursue them with sticks and stones. With the thoughtless cruelty of boyhood, they were always teasing me. Mother used to whip me when I had been most dangerously violent, which whipping would be a deterrent for a short time, and then I would break out again. Once, when I had broken a poker in an attempt to break the head of my brother James, Mother turned me over to Father for punishment. It was literally true of him that a whipping, when he was compelled to administer it to one of his sons, hurt him more than it did the boy. This time Father took me into his study, and gave me a tender talk on the sinfulness of anger. Then he knelt down with me, and prayed fervently that God would for- give me and “ vouchsafe”’ to me “a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.’’ Then he took his weeping boy by the hand, and, the tears running down his own face, he laid upon my shoulders two or three light strokes that would hardly have hurt a fly, kissed me and let me go. Father’s prayer and his tenderness and evident pain at hurting me did more to cure me of my fault than all the chastising in the world could have done. I hesitate to speak of a trait of my childhood that projected into later years. As long as I can remember I would never “take a dare.” ‘This led to some very foolish pranks. I was very fond of pepper, an abnormal] appetite induced, I suppose, by nervousness and a delicate stomach. I would gob- ble black or red pepper by the spoonful, when Mother wasn’t looking. And when James dared me to eat an Indian turnip I devoured it, with the tears running down my cheeks, al- though it took the skin off my tongue and mouth and I had to live on “ pap ” for a week. 46 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA When that same brother James, who delighted to torment me, dared me to roll down a long hill encased in a barrel I went right into it, and he shoved me off. The barrel whirled at a terrific speed for a quarter of a mile down the steep in- cline, and smashed to pieces against a rock at the foot of the hill. Besides the bruises of the concussion I was so dizzy and sick from whirling that I was unable to walk for more than an hour, and Jim got a good scare for his trick. When we were able to handle guns, a group of us disputed one day about the force of a paper wad when shot from a gun. I contended that it would lose its force in the air and become harmless. Chal. Campbell dared me to be the target. As usual, I would not take his dare. They rolled a long piece of paper as tight as possible and rammed it hard down the bar- rel. At the roar of the gun I fell to the ground, with a hole in my back. With the help of my scared companions I got home, but had great difficulty in concealing my wound from my mother and explaining the hole in my overcoat. I am not boasting of these feats—on the contrary, they seem now to have been foolish to the verge of idiocy. I only men- tion them as pointing a finger to this phase in my later life of adventure: I have never been deterred from undertaking an enterprise because of its difficulty or danger. V EDUCATION faster in the race for an education than if I had been strong and well. My brothers had to stay out of school and work, when they were mere boys. Two of them, at least, never got as far as what would be the seventh grade in the present schools. I was too puny to work in the harvest field or at road making, and could only “ putter around.” I was an omnivorous reader and considered that to get alone in a corner with a book was the height of enjoyment. I had only one, or perhaps parts of two terms at the ‘“‘ common schools.” I went then to the Witherspoon Institute. That was long before the time of high schools. Before I was old enough to enter this academy I used to spend much of my time in the rooms of our boarders who were attending it. They tormented me, but helped me. I was a slim little interrogation point. Latin, Greek and mathematics ensued under a succession of teachers, with my father always standing by to help me, and at the age of seventeen I was prepared to enter the sophomore class in college, although because of ill health and poverty I was not able to do so until my twenty-third year. Many demons of disease pursued me all my early life. When a baby, measles made me cross-eyed; vaccination “ took ” so violently that I almost had the small-pox; dysentery, cholera morbus, scarlet fever, whooping-cough, croup and typhoid fever pounced upon me and almost shook the life out of me again and again. Mother had more trouble in “ raising” me than with all her other children. Nervous headaches were constant. Fre- 47 | BELIEVE that because of my delicate health I got along 48 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA quently I had to drop out of school and be “ doctored.” Those were the old days when the doctors drained your heart’s blood by lancing and cupping when you had a fever; dosed you with calomel and other weakening purgatives; refused you a drop of water when your whole system was crying out for it; shut you in an airtight hot room, away from the “ draught,” and compelled you to breathe the same poisoned breath over and over again. I managed to live, but it was only ‘“ at a poor dying rate.” I never saw a really well day until I went rough- ing it in Alaska, at the age of thirty. I was fourteen when the Civil War broke out, filling our world with tumult and excitement. Father was a very ardent Republican and, indeed, an Abolitionist in the days of the “Know-Nothings.” A black man with a paper averring his desire to raise money to buy the freedom of his wife and chil- dren could always command Father’s help in circulating his subscription paper, and aid from his slender purse. A branch of the ‘“‘ Underground Railroad” ran through Butler County, and Father knew all its stations. An incident occurred when I was about ten which burned itself into my mind and filled me with hatred for the institution of slavery. One night I was awakened by sounds from the kitchen, which was directly under our bedroom. I went downstairs in my night clothes. As I opened the kitchen door I was con- fronted by a scene that startled me. The kitchen clock showed three o’clock in the morning. Mother was busy cooking. Father and one of his elders were talking together in whispers, while a Negro man and woman with two children rolled their eyes at me in terror. Father beckoned me at once to him and, putting his arm around me, said in a low voice: “ My son, this poor black man and his family are slaves, and they have run away and are trying to escape to Canada. The wicked laws of our country make it a crime to help them. If the officers should know of this they would put your father and Mr. M. EDUCATION 49 in jail, and would take these poor people back to slavery, where they would be whipped and perhaps tortured to death. If you ever say a word about what you have seen to anybody, even to your own brothers, you will put us all in great danger. Shut all of this up tight in your own heart and never whisper a word of it.” , . I promised and went back to my bed, but not to sleep. Until long after slavery was abolished and most of the actors in the scene had passed away, I kept silent; but I gained an added reverence and admiration for the courage and loving hearts of my parents. Four of my brothers enlisted in the Union Army; Watson first, soon wounded through the thigh at the battle of Fair Oaks in McClellan’s timid campaign on the Peninsula. He got the typhoid fever after his wound, and when Father brought him home from a New York hospital we all caught the disease from him. James enlisted second and then Torrance. Both were wounded in Grant’s campaigns. Then Robert, our oldest brother, joined the cavalry. We were always in trouble about “the boys.” Father made four or five trips to the front or to hospitals to look after his sick or wounded sons. Father’s great unselfish heart was shown when Lincoln was assassinated. I was eighteen then; a sickly stripling, wild to go and fight, which was entirely out of the question; I could not have passed muster. That dark night I had gone to bed, but I was awakened by the tolling of all the church and school bells in town. I came downstairs and found the family dressed and weeping. In alarm I cried, ‘“‘ What’s the matter? Are any of the boys killed?’ With tears Father replied: “Would to God, my son, it were nothing worse than that! I would gladly give all my sons if Lincoln could be restored.” When I was seventeen I passed a teacher’s examination and was employed to teach a country school in Middlesex Town- ship. The school had a bad name, a young woman, one of five 50 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA or six strapping sisters, having broken a slate over the head of the last teacher. Why they let me have the school can be ex- plained only by the fact that all young men considered strong enough to wield the rod properly in such a school had gone to the war. I had fifty pupils of all ages, and of all grades from A B C’s to Latin and algebra. The salary was thirty dollars per month, and I boarded with the pastor of the Middlesex church, who lived a mile and a half from the schoolhouse. I was my own janitor. I was terribly afraid of the girls in those years, but managed to teach my term out, not at all to my own satisfaction, nor, I suppose, to that of the trustees or pupils. My mental condition in those days was a jumble. Of spiritual life I had none. My brothers, one by one, joined the Church in their early teens; but I, with the arrogance of seventeen, was going through the not unusual “revolt of youth.” I was trying desperately to be a sceptic. The boys who were my chums and I got Tom Paine’s books, read In- gersoll’s orations, and thought we were keeping up with the advance of the age by shaking off the “ shackles ” of creeds and religion. We talked loftily, when by ourselves, of our parents and teachers being “behind the times,” and, not openly, asserted our independence. I aimed to be a lawyer, although I knew my father was praying every day for my con- version and that I should turn my steps to the Christian min- istry. In this attempt at “ freedom” I didn’t succeed very well. Our home life was too sweetly spiritual and too strong in the faith to be combated by a youth as ignorant as mine. A very strong influence towards confuting the arguments of the infidel authors I was reading lay in the poems of Tennyson, Brown- ing and Longfellow, all of which I was devouring as they were published, and many of which were committing themselves to my memory. I could not have in my remembrance, repeating EDUCATION 51 them over again and again as I lay in bed, the Prologue and Cantos 53-55 of the “In Memoriam,” and the whole of “ The Two Voices,” without believing in immortality. In the spring of 67, with my two brothers, Watson and James, I went to what was known as the Traverse Region of Michigan. It had been an Indian reservation and was thrown open to settlement by homesteaders. My lawyer brother had secured a homestead on the banks of Crystal Lake, and expected to practice law in this com- munity and at the same time improve his property. The three of us took the first boat in the spring from Cleveland to Glen Arbor in Leelanau County. I had been deathly seasick dur- ing this, my first voyage on big water, and when we arrived at the little station in the forest I was without money, and began to look about for something to do. My brothers tramped to Benzonia, some thirty miles distant, leaving me with the stuff. There was no hotel in the little place, and I got a bunk in a woodman’s shack and was doling out the last of the meager fund with which I had started from Pennsylvania. One day a rough looking backwoodsman drove to the store in a one-horse spring wagon. While making his purchases he happened to ask the storekeeper: “‘ Say, whar de ye reckon I could find a school-teacher? ” There was my chance. I spoke up, and in the course of a few minutes was engaged to teach school for a four months’ term at a salary of “‘ fifteen dollars a month and board around.” With my scant baggage I drove with my employer, who was the school director, to his one-room log cabin, three or four miles from Glen Arbor. This, my second experience as school- master, was unique and interesting. There was only one house in the township that had more than one room in it. I was to make the rounds of the various houses of the district, staying a week for each pupil. My schoolhouse had no door or win- dows—just holes in the log walls. The floor was of basswood 52 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA puncheons. I made my own blackboard, taking one of the puncheons from the floor and smoothing it with a plane. I mixed lampblack, turpentine and oil for paint. A chalk cliff furnished the crayons. This rude breaking into backwoods life was altogether good for me. I learned how little of ex- ternal comforts were really necessary to one’s contentment and happiness. Perhaps the greatest benefit I received was the conquering of my terrible bashfulness; I learned to sleep in the same room with a family without embarrassment. After the term of school I joined my brothers at Benzonia. They had built a house overlooking Crystal Lake, and I win- tered with them. Work at chain carrying for the county sur- veyor during the fall and at getting out logs in the winter with my brother James from his homestead, two or three miles from the village, gave new reactions and helped prepare me for the primitive life of adventure I was to lead. The great thing that happened to me that winter was my conversion. It was not because of the rather noisy and emo- tional meetings which were held in the little church at Ben- zonia. These rather repelled than attracted me. But the sneers at religion and profane and impure talk of rough asso- ciates in the two counties impelled me to defend the one and despise the other. I joined the Church, and at once all thoughts of being a lawyer vanished, and the whole tide of my life flowed towards the Christian ministry and the evangeliza- tion of those who “sat in darkness”; I was a missionary at heart from the moment of my conversion. The acuteness of my religious experience and at the same time its abnormality appear from the fact that at the time of my first communion my emotion was so great that my arm became paralyzed, and I was unable for a minute to handle the cup and raise it to my lips. My suffering was exquisite as I debated in my mind whether this was a rebuke from God on account of my un- worthiness or a temptation of the evil one. I now know that ®& EDUCATION a0 this temporary numbness was because of my high-strung ner- vous condition. It was a winter of intense emotion, of earnest digging into the mine of Scripture and the formation of life purposes that have never left me. The joyful letters of my father and his wise advice strengthened my resolution, and when spring came I returned to Butler full of enthusiasm to begin training for the ministry. I found the plans of the Young family all changed. Father was leaving his charge at Butler, after a most successful pas- torate of thirty-five years, and was moving to West Virginia, where his relatives lived. His reasons for leaving a church whose members were thoroughly united with one another and with him, and a community where he was looked upon as father and leader, while they seemed adequate at the time, were afterwards questioned by him. In his book, From Dawn to Dusk, he gives them as a call to do large home mission work in reuniting Presbyterian congregations divided by the war, making French Creek again a center of education for the new state of West Virginia, and making a home where he could gather his younger sons and keep at least half of his family to- gether. But, as he intimates, his leaving Butler was a mistake of the gravest character. There rises before me one of the most distressing scenes I have ever witnessed—a whole com- munity, not merely the members of his church, crowding down to the station of the Butler-Freeport stage, weeping and lament- ing the departure of their father and friend. Loyal Young went back to Butler to spend his last days, and when he passed away there at the age of eighty-five years the community again assembled to do him honour, and the local papers announcing his death pronounced him “ the finest and completest charac- ter the county has ever known.” I count the three or four years spent at the country com- munity of French Creek, Upshur County, West Virginia, as exceptional in their influence upon my future life—an especial 54 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA part of my training for a missionary career. This old New England colony, planted at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the heart of Virginia’s western section, was as dis- tinct from the surrounding counties in the character of its population, its ideals and community life as an oasis from the desert which encircles it. When the Presbyterian Church of French Creek was organized in 1819 it was the only church of that denomination in a radius of almost a hundred miles. My grandfather and his kin brought Puritan ideas with them from New England and implanted them firmly in the soil of those fertile hills. They were so staunchly anti-slavery that the valleys on all sides of them where slaves were kept hated French Creek, called their people Yankees and blamed them for assisting runaway slaves to freedom in Canada. The igno- rant preachers of the mountain whites boasted of their illiter- acy, and preached a gospel of frantic emotion, as distinct from the sturdy, if somewhat hard, Puritan theology proclaimed on | French Creek, as the strict moral and religious life of the New England community was from the crude and often loose morals of the mountaineers. And these Yankees, though a small minority, were far stronger in character and influence than the “poor whites” from Eastern Virginia and the Carolinas. School-teachers, educated physicians, lawyers and ministers trained in Upshur County spread through the rest of that region and contributed largely to the stand of West Virginia for the Union, its separation from Old Virginia and its adop- tion of the state motto, Montani Semper Liberi. During the war French Creek was raided by both armies and suffered severely, but the great majority of its young men joined the Union Army and afterwards helped to shape the liberal laws of the new state. Father and Mother, with their daughter and youngest three boys, moved to French Creek in the spring of 1868. Father bought a farm and settled Kirk and Walter and, afterwards, EDUCATION 55 James upon it with the idea of living there and keeping his boys with him the remainder of his life. His hopes were not realized, and my own personal experiences were trying in the extreme, although I afterwards recognized them as the very best possible for me. Snow-blindness, contracted in Michigan, merged into granulation of the eyelids, and that into inflamma- tion of the retina, threatening total blindness. A Pittsburgh oculist, consulted as we came through that city, gave me little hope of recovery. Two summers spent in a dark room, with much suffering and periods of great depression, ensued. At times all hope of pursuing my studies and entering the minis- try vanished. My mental anguish far exceeded the physical distress. I was almost ready to give up hope and faith and lapse into the melancholy depression of a blind dependent. The “ Faith of Our Fathers,” however, had full sway in those days of darkness. The great poems in my memory, and others which my sister read to me, coupled with the thousands of inspiring texts of Scripture which repeated themselves over and over, wrought first complete resignation and afterwards a kindlier and more sympathetic religious faith than even my father held. I had other troubles besides my partial blind- ness—sick headaches, chronic diarrhea, nervous dyspepsia. When Dr. Bronson, a very eccentric but thoroughly educated country physician, with his jealously guarded prescriptions be- gan to build up my run-down system and give it strength to throw off disease, hope spread her bright wings again, and a healthier frame of mind ensued. Plans of study were renewed, and a life of missionary activity beckoned. Of those who came into my life at French Creek to strengthen and shape it, one little woman, Myra Brooks, stands preéminent. She started what afterwards developed into the French Creek Academy in a little house on the side hill looking across French Creek village towards the Presbyterian church. There some fifteen young men and women, all of that old 56 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Yankee stock, gathered for instruction. I was well up in Latin and Greek but deficient in mathematics. I also needed to fur- bish up my history and the beginnings of the sciences. Our tiny teacher (she weighed ninety pounds) possessed tons of energy and enthusiasm. She was a graduate of the noted Steubenville Female Seminary, on the Ohio River. Religion was certainly her ‘“‘ chief concern.” I argued with her, as was my perverse habit, but her deep reverence for the Scriptures, her joyful outlook and her sense of moral obligation to God and her fellow-men impressed themselves upon me as the teaching of no other professor has ever done. She has always been to me one of the most wonderful friends I have known. The whole community for miles around was peopled prin- cipally by my relatives. It was always safe to greet anybody I met as Uncle, Aunt or Cousin. French Creek was thirty miles from the nearest railroad and was, in many respects, far behind the times, but in all essentials far beyond them. Those descendants of New England Yankees were all readers and thinkers. The other communities, while deriding, came to French Creek for instruction and depended upon it. From being a bit of Yankeedom, alien to surrounding communities, it grew to be a moulder of the educational and legislative poli- cies of the state. Of course I had to earn my own living by teaching as soon as I was able to use my eyes. My first school was that of Oak Grove on French Creek, where I worried through six months of pain, wearing green goggles and depending largely upon the better eyes of my assistant, Irene Bunten. The summer months I spent doing what work I could on the farm or roam- ing the woods of the mountains and valleys with my gun and trout rod. A splendid lot of young men and women sur- rounded me, and the close friendships formed on French Creek are numbered among the dearest and most helpful of my life. Other schools at Buckhannon, Rockcave, and Philippi fol- EDUCATION 57 lowed, at which I accumulated much experience and sufficient funds to start me to college. Dear old French Creek! It seems to me, looking back from these later and wiser years, that this country community at whose old-fashioned ways I used to laugh, and which with the egotism of twenty I used to criticise and try to despise, yet exerted a stronger and healthier influence upon my life than all other places combined in which I have lived. The purity, strict temperance, sturdy faith, wide range of reading, and, above all, the high ideals and warm hearts of my relatives in French Creek and Upshur County shaped my life and placed it upon a firm basis of faith in God and desire to serve Him by working for my fellow-men in the widest possible fields. _ Two severe accidents befell me at French Creek, which are recorded here because of the handicap they entailed upon my work in the wilds of Alaska. I was an awkward youth and a poor horseman, with as unstable a seat in the saddle as that attributed to the Prince of Wales. But, like him, I was always riding, and often on unbroken colts. Two successive summers the foolish young animals I was trying to break fell with me, and first my left shoulder and next my right one were dis- located. This began a series of dislocations which occurred at frequent intervals during my life in the North and greatly interfered with my mountain climbing and canoeing. The University of Wooster, Ohio, put out enticing posters at its beginning, and thither I wended for the spring term of 1871. I entered the class of ’74, but owing to two severe at- tacks of illness and my constant poverty I stayed out of col- lege for a year and a half, teaching school one winter, and graduated with the class of ’75. Wooster was a new experiment in denominational colleges and was, from the first, a shining success. The early students were, almost without exception, young men and women beyond their teens and nearly all Chris- tians. A large proportion of them went into the ministry. The 58 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Brainerd Missionary Society, of which I was the first president, directed a number of us to Foreign and Domestic Mission fields as our life-work,,while the Athenean and Irving Literary So- cieties started us out as public speakers. I was an Athenean, and I remember with shame and self-pity the first three times I tried to deliver an oration, when my carefully prepared speeches vanished into mist and I broke down completely, my stage fright reaching the extreme of paralysis of brain and lip. Blessed are the boys and girls of the present era who learn in school and Sunday School and Endeavour Society self-con- fidence and the faculty of expression. During my college and seminary courses I was getting far more than the textbook lessons or instructions in the class- room. Whether wisely or unwisely, I was always sacrificing grades to the acquisition of general knowledge from a wide range of reading. I stood quite well in my classes but spent more than half of the study hours getting acquainted with the great minds of all eras, especially the poets. Looking back, I do not regret any of the time spent in this way. I have for- gotten most of what I learned from textbooks, but the poets, historians and essayists stay with me and lift me into the higher regions of spiritual and mental enjoyment as I “ medi- tate upon them in the night watches.” Wooster did me a vast amount of good, far more than the theological seminaries. During my vacations I was teaching summer schools, col- porteuring for the denomination’s Board of Publication and conducting college chums to favourite resorts in the mountains. During the whole of my life I have been an ardent hunter and fisherman, and the most complete rest and recuperation I can obtain is far in the wilds of God’s great outdoors. In the fall of ’75 I went to Princeton Seminary. My father, who was a Western Seminary man, advised me to go to Alle- gheny; but Dr. Charles Hodge was still living and teaching, and I wished to get his course in New Testament exegesis from EDUCATION 59 Romans. I have never regretted going to Princeton, although one year sufficed me. What we got from that little bald- headed, fat, old man as he “ scrooched” down in his chair, seeing none of us and hardly aware of our existence, while he held his Greek Testament close up to his near-sighted eyes and talked the wisdom of the ages! We acquired his whole system of theology from those talks on Romans. It was really almost all I got at Princeton. Dr. McGill, who was an old friend of my father’s, received me cordially when I introduced myself, and then forgot all about me. He was an old man then, although he had just married Miss Kittie Hodge, and loved to talk about it. Dr. Charles L. Thompson, whose autobiography is one of the most delightful books I have read in recent years, says: “‘ And there was that marvel of Scriptural memory and of suave urbanity, Dr. Alexander T. McGill, whose cordial invitations to his house (which we dared not accept) gave a touch of humanness to our frigid surroundings.” My one year at Princeton was spoiled for me in several ways. My roommate and classmate at Wooster, Beatty Fer- guson, went with me to Princeton. After a month or so he was taken ill with synovitis, an acute inflammation of the knee joint. He was in his bed, unable to put his foot to the floor, for nearly six months. I was his nurse, and under the doctor’s directions I had to bandage the bad knee every day. For most of that time Beatty would not let any one touch the limb ex- cept myself; and when in holiday times I went to New York City for a week, his knee remained unbandaged until I re- turned. Day and night I attended my chum, and lost many a night’s sleep. My class work—and disposition—suffered. The visit of Moody and Sankey to Princeton College and their first great meeting in Barnum’s Museum in Madison Square, New York, which I attended with a number of other students, did me more good than the whole seminary year. The 60 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA lectures and sermons which I heard at Princeton, especially those of Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. John Hall and Dr. Duryea, stand out far more clearly in my memory and in my spiritual consciousness than all the teachings of theology and Church history. I risk the condemnation of many of my readers by con- fessing that during my visit to New York City in the holidays, my classmate and’chum, Frank Ballard, and I ran away from the Moody meeting one night and went to the new Booth’s Theatre to witness the play ‘“‘ Julius Cesar ” given by the three great stars, Davenport, Barrett and Bangs; and the memory of this play has stayed with me and has done me at least as much good as the inspiring meetings in Madison Square. The middle seminary year found me at Western Seminary. The great attraction for me there lay in three professors—Dr. A. A. Hodge, systematic theology; Dr. Samuel Wilson, Church history; Dr. Jeffers, who had been my Greek professor at Wooster, Hebrew. The atmosphere of Allegheny was as warm and inspiring as that of Princeton had been cold and indif- ferent. The professors were our personal friends—knew all about us—came to see us in our rooms and took an interest in our present and future. Whereas the Princeton professors © were very loath to have the students go out and preach on Sundays, these of Allegheny interested themselves in getting us appointments and arranged the classes for our accommoda- tion. I boarded with my aunt in Allegheny and had plenty of social enjoyment. During those two years in this seminary I preached somewhere every Sunday but two or three. Three of my brothers were at work in the oil regions, and through them I obtained appointments that were interesting, from the class of men I reached, and profitable because of their liberal- ity. If we went to any of the old country churches about Pittsburgh we preached two sermons, taught classes in the Sunday Schools, were entertained in farmhouses, paid our own car fare and received five dollars for our services; whereas if EDUCATION 61 we went to the oil towns we got from fifteen to twenty-five dol- lars, were put up in hotels and generally had our railroad fare paid for us. During my senior year I supplied Father’s old charge at Butler, where I was made very welcome and felt completely at home. My recollections of life at the Western Seminary are all pleasant. My special chums there were H. T. McClelland (Harry) and James H. Snowden (Jim); and in my senior year my old Wooster and Princeton chum, ’Dolf Lehmann, fled from Princeton to be my roommate and classmate at Western. During my vacations I preached first to a little congregation in Ohio, and second to the old church at French Creek. This last vacation, between my middle and senior years, was a con- stant delight. I was among my old friends and relatives, who were sympathetic, helpful and lenient in their judgment, more than has been the case in any of my succeeding charges. What they thought of me can best be inferred, perhaps, from the words of my dry old hunter uncle, Ed Phillips, the husband of my dearest and sweetest Aunt Phrone. Uncle Ed was not a member of the Church and could never be induced to join. But he attended the meetings. One Sabbath I went home with them, and after the usual chicken dinner, cooked in Auntie’s best style, we sat on the front porch and there was a friendly silence. Then Uncle Ed spoke: “ Hall, did you make that sermon? ” “ Why, yes,” I replied. Another long silence. ‘“ All of it? ” “Yes, all of it.” “ All of it your own self? ” “Yes, every word of it.” A still longer silence; then Uncle Ed delivered his final judg- ment: “ Waal, I reckon you ain’t mistook your callin’,” That, from Uncle Ed, was most encouraging. VI NORTHWESTWARD HO! at Western Seminary in the spring of 1878, I had been deeply interested in missionaries and their ef- forts in heathen countries. The lives of Moffatt and Living- stone in Africa; of the Lowries in China; of Judson and Mar- tyn in India; and of Brainerd, Eliot and others among the American Indians, were read over and over, and filled me with longing to emulate their efforts in far-away parts of the world. I am conscious that the love of adventure and a desire to travel had, perhaps, as much to do with shaping my missionary life as the love of souls. The dangers of such a life and the pos- sibility of martyrdom in it were not deterrents but stimulants. My ill health made missionary life in hot countries impos- sible. My father’s friend and classmate, Dr. John C. Lowrie, then secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, was written to by my father concerning my aspirations to be a missionary, and, having visited us at French Creek, gave it as his positive opinion that I must put out of my plans forever all hope of a missionary career: I could not pass a physical examination; it would be suicide to attempt such a life. “ Let Hall seek a comfortable charge where the work is not too hard,” he wrote, “and give up all thought of being a mis- sionary.” That did not settle the matter for me, however. During my senior year several offers of calls to the pastorate were tendered me, but I had not relinquished my desire to go to a heathen land. Then, just before Christmas, there came to the sem- inary a stubby, little, sawed-off man, with grizzled beard, who 62 1) URING almost all my life previous to my graduation NORTHWESTWARD HO! 63 put before us a new and neglected heathen country within the boundaries of our own United States. The man was Dr. Shel- don Jackson, known to us all as the editor of The Rocky Mountain Presbyterian, and as a Western pioneer. He told us of the new, raw land of the far Northwest—dubbed ‘“ Seward’s Folly ” and “ Uncle Sam’s Ice-Box,” with its thirty-five thou- sand heathen natives, for whose evangelization nothing what- ever had been done by any Protestant denomination. His pic- tures of Alaska were not all accurate, owing to lack of full in- formation at that time, but they were striking, and his appeal made a great impression upon at least two members of our class, Harry McClelland and myself. We plied Dr. Jackson with questions and, at his suggestion, sent for the only avail- able book on Alaska at that time, the one recently written by William H. Dall of the Smithsonian Institute of Washington City. Dall was one of the explorers employed by the Western Tele- graph Company to navigate the Yukon River from its source to its mouth, and to select a line for the establishment of a telegraph service across the country to Cape Prince of Wales on Bering Straits, there to connect with a Siberian telegraph line which would unite the United States with the European countries by instant electric flash. Immense outlays of money were provided, and a company of bold young men eagerly traversed the Northwestern wilds, making many discoveries and partially surveying the great interior. Although the suc- cess of Cyrus W. Field’s Atlantic cable halted this enterprise, yet the information gathered by these men greatly aided Seward to put through Congress in 1867 his bill for the pur- chase of Russian America by the United States. Dall pub- lished his large volume on Alaska in the early seventies. It has remained Alaska’s classic until this day, although a thou- sand inaccuracies appear in it to one who reads it now with the fuller knowledge obtained since that early reconnaisance. 64 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA To our eager minds, Alaska became a land of enchantment. Its hardships and difficulties called aloud to us to overcome them. Its heathen multitudes were a reproach to Christendom. Harry and I promptly wrote to the secretaries of the Board of Home Missions offering ourselves as missionaries to Alaska. We were promptly accepted, and Doctors Kendall and Dixon wrote us many letters of encouragement and instruction. To my great disappointment my chum Harry was compelled to abandon the project, and remain in Pennsylvania. His reason—a potent one—was this: His father had died and left his mother with a number of younger children, and Harry must stay in the East to help her take care of her fatherless brood. Harry’s grief at his compelled change of plans was no greater than mine at losing his companionship. He became a great preacher to important charges in Pennsylvania and West Vir- ginia and ranked high in the Church. Near the close of his life he told me that his failure to go to Alaska was the greatest disappointment of all his experiences. What a missionary he would have made! During all of the remaining weeks of my senior year at the seminary I was preparing for the great adventure of my life. I got in touch by letter with two of the finest friends of the Northwest who ever lived, Rev. Dr. A. L. Lindsley, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Portland, Oregon, and Mrs. A. R. McFarland, the first American missionary to Alaska. Dr. Lindsley was chairman of the Foreign Mission Commit- tee for the Northwest. He was on intimate terms with Gen- eral O. O. Howard, then in command of the United States forces in the Pacific Coast district. Dr. Lindsley heard from General Howard of the interesting natives of Southeastern Alaska and of their entire neglect by all of the evangelical churches of North America. The general gave him some star- tling pictures of these natives as he saw them at Fort Wran- gell and Sitka—pictures full of sordid and disgusting shadows; NORTHWESTWARD HO! 65 the heathen superstitions and strange habits of the wild fisher- men; the lack of morality, as Christian nations understand the term, making the girls and women an easy prey to lustful sol- diers and traders; the Indian medicine-men, the witchcraft, the queer totemic system and primitive customs—all these lights and shadows blended in the general’s unlovely pictures. Thirty-five thousand heathen natives in a land without law, order or protection! The shameful neglect of this, America’s last frontier, was a reproach to civilization. Dr. Lindsley, through his letters published in The New York Evangelist and other periodicals, tried to arouse the Church to some sense of shame in view of these appalling facts. I wrote to him, and received very satisfactory and illuminating replies. Then commenced my correspondence with Mrs. McFarland, who was doing an almost hopeless work under conditions that were unique in their multiplex difficulties. She was making frantic appeals for help to the women of her Church in the States. She described as intimately as modesty permitted the complete breaking down of the native system so far as it con- cerned the care of young girls, the hideous diseases, and the impossibility of purity and morality under those conditions. She appealed for a home into which she could gather the pretty and interesting little Thlingit and Hyda girls, away from their community houses where fifty or sixty men, women and chil- dren lived huddled together in one room; ate there, slept there, and cooked over a common log fire—no decency, no modesty, no morality and no sanitation possible. She told of heathen mothers bartering their own daughters for a blanket or two. She described the cruelty of the Indian medicine-men; the sys- tem of slavery and the constantly threatening warfare between the different Indian tribes and families. Besides Dall’s book, I read Bancroft’s imperfect and faulty description of Alaska in his United States History, as well as the arguments in the halls of Congress during the negotiations 66 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA for the purchase of Russian America. The mounting difficul- ties of my enterprise urged haste; the adverse advice of well- meaning friends but made me more determined. It seemed that none of my friends or advisers wished me to go to the “Land of Ice and Snow.” Three of the four physicians con- sulted told me that my departure for Alaska would be delib- erate suicide. ‘‘ You will not live a year in such a climate,” they said. The other doctor, my country physician of French Creek, stuttered, “‘ W-w-well, it m-m-may k-k-kill you, but it m-m-may m-m-make a m-m-man of you.” The news that John G. Brady, a theological student of Union Seminary, New York, and Miss Fannie E. Kellogg, a niece of Dr. Lindsley, had been appointed to mission work in Alaska soon after the New Year, of 1878, increased my impatience. After graduation at Western Theological Seminary in May I met Doctors Kendall and Dixon at the denomination’s Gen- _ eral Assembly, which convened in Pittsburgh that year, and completed plans for my speedy departure to my new field. The secretaries of the Board invited me to dine-.with them, and gave me much excellent advice. At least, it seemed good to me then; but in the light of fuller experience much of it appears now to have been wrong and absurd. ‘‘ Now, my boy,” roared Dr. Kendall, shaking his bushy gray eyebrows at me in a way he had, “‘ we are depending on you to do the most important work of a pioneer missionary in a strange land. We depend upon you to translate the Bible into those heathen tongues and make a dictionary and a grammar of their lan- guages. Your business is to preach the Gospel to those heathens and convert their souls. You will have to visit the different tribes in Alaska from St. Michael on the west to Fort Wrangell on the southeast. Doubtless, you will have to dress in furs and live in underground houses. If those Indians scalp you, we will canonize you as a martyr, but don’t let them do it if you can help it.” NORTHWESTWARD HO! 67 Then he suddenly checked himself. “ But say,” he ex- claimed. ‘ What about a wife? We can’t send you up there alone—you must have a wife. Have you got one ready? ” “No,” I replied. ‘“ None of the fair sex has taken pity on my forlorn condition as yet.” “ This won’t do at all,” he said. ‘‘ That’s easily remedied— just come with me now to the basement of the church, where the ladies are serving dinner, and I’ll introduce you to a dozen young ladies who would be glad to go with you into the mis- sionary work.” “ But I don’t want a dozen wives,” I answered. He hauled me away to the refreshment room, and I had a jolly evening, but, needless to say, nothing came of it. Re- luctantly, the secretaries agreed to let me go to Alaska un- married. But let me say here, with all earnestness, that they were right in their objections. No condition or position of men anywhere in the world so demands the comfort, counsel and moral safeguard of a good wife as that of missionary to a heathen people. Fortunately for myself and my work, I met my fate immediately upon my arrival in Alaska. But the records of disaster, of moral deterioration, mental lapse and physical failure on the part of unmarried missionaries, male and female, are many and sad. The missionary without a wife (or husband) is the loneliest creature on the face of the earth. Some noble men and women who remained single have left immortal names; but it is unsafe and cruel to subject human beings to such trials. Of late years I have refused to sanction the appointment of any single person to those isolated posts where the only companions were natives. Then came a visit to my parents in Parkersburg, West Vir- ginia, the journey with my father to the meeting of Presbytery at Buckhannon, and my ordination. The incidents that clus- tered about this ordination were of more than ordinary interest. Buckhannon is only ten miles from French Creek, and a mul- 68 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA titude of our relatives and friends attended. The romance of the departure of Loyal Young’s son as a missionary to the wild country of the far Northwest equaled in excitement Loyal’s own departure fifty years before on his barefoot tramp of two hundred miles to college. My father was always particularly happy in his selection of texts, and had the habit of keeping a dozen or two of them, well analyzed, on his desk for future use. On this occasion he preached a sermon in delivering his charge to me. He selected Second Timothy, Chapter I, verses 1-6. He made this daring paraphrase: “Loyal Young, a minister of Jesus Christ by the will of God—to Samuel Hall, my dearly beloved son; grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord; I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day . . . when I call to re- membrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother, Lydia, and thy mother, Margaret; and, I am persuaded, in thee also. Wherefore, I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.” The tender charge that followed, if indeed I heard it, has entirely gone from my memory. With the rest of the congre- gation that flooded the little church, I was too badly broken up to listen. Big farewell meetings at Buckhannon and French Creek, drawing to them a large part of the population of Upshur County, followed. Then the return to Parkersburg—more meetings and the overwhelming accumulation of presents from Butler, French Creek and Parkersburg. The universal con- ception of Alaska was a picture of glaciers, icebergs, snow- capped peaks, fur-clad Eskimo, seals and polar bears. Enough warm clothing poured in to furnish a small dry-goods store. I NORTHWESTWARD HO! 69 began even to pity myself and to see the shining of my halo as I went about my preparations for departure. I took train on the tenth of June. The only transcontinental line at that time was the Union Pacific. Delays on the railroad and a severe storm on the Pacific Ocean made me too late to catch the little monthly Alaska steamer “ California ” at Port- land. I remained, the guest of a wonderful hospitality, in the home of Dr. Lindsley. From this great man I learned more about my field than would have been possible from any other source. He was not only the Father of Alaska Missions, but the loving and bountiful parent of all the early missionaries. A side trip, taken while awaiting the next steamer, up the Columbia River to Walla Walla, thence in a buggy with my boyhood friend, Rev. Robert Boyd, the son of Father’s Butler elder, to Lewiston, Idaho, and thence in Boyd’s buggy to Lapwai and Kamiah, gave me my first acquaintance with Indian life and missions. Sue MacBeth, with her little theological seminary, shed light on my path, and my sixty-mile lope to Kamiah on the back of my first cayuse, in company with Elder Billie Williams, makes my bones ache still when I think of it. I held communion at both these Indian churches and reported upon the situation to the Board of Foreign Missions. The battle which was then being waged on the Columbia River be- tween General Howard’s forces and the Bannock Indians gave a taste of frontier life, and delayed me so that I had to take a ferry to Kalama on the Washington shore of the Columbia River, thence travel by rail to Tacoma and by a tiny steamboat northward on Puget Sound to Port Townsend—and thence across the Strait of San Juan De Fuca to the little old English town of Victoria. There I caught the “ California,” and began my voyage of enchantment through the longest series of inland bays, straits and fiords in the world. Our little launch, at that time, did not even stop at Seattle, which was a negligible hamlet of log 70 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA huts and board shanties built around a sawmill. The thousand miles between Tacoma and Fort Wrangell has been described so often that it may well be passed over here. However, the fascination which held me spellbound on that first trip and made me loath to leave the deck for eating or sleeping, still persists, and even intensifies, every time I make that voyage. I cannot understand the purblindness of my friend, Archdeacon Stuck, when in one of his interesting books he says concerning the scenery of the Northwestern Coast: “It is fine scenery, but the same scenery.” He calls it monotonous, and compares it unfavourably with the fiords of Norway and the mountains of Switzerland. In justice to my friend, I am constrained to be- lieve what I have been told by those who traveled with him, that the Archdeacon never saw the finest of our coast scenes; that he slept almost continuously during the voyage, and when awake sat in the cabin writing his reports. To me there is no sameness in the intricate passages among the three thousand islands of the British Columbia and Alaska Coasts. Each turn of the narrow channel reveals a vista of fresh beauty and wonder; each island is a separate bouquet arranged by the Great Artist with a view to a special and beau- tiful effect. ‘The shimmering light of one day and hour is totally unlike that which preceded or succeeded it; no two glaciers have been exactly alike, have scored the mountains in the same way, or have scooped out hollows and bays of the same pattern or with the same colours. The stories of all the miles are as distinct and varied as the tales of the Arabian Thousand and One Nights. Here, as in every voyage, the dif- ference is in the “lookers ” and not in the scenes witnessed. Alaska is as you take it, and the failure of any one to see the glories of this voyage, and his or her inability to describe them, but excite pity. Here is a good place to tell the story of three sets of eyes viewing the same scenes in this unique voyage. It happened NORTHWESTWARD HO! 71 four or five years after this first trip, when tourists had begun to traverse the fiords and winding passages to Alaska. We were passing through the amazing Grenville Channel and Graham Reach. Aspiring forests reaching eager hands up the gorges and scaling the mountain sides; myriad-coloured rocks of fantastic shapes; a thousand milk-white waterfalls leaping from mountain breasts; fairy-like islands peering from en- chanting vistas; the scene changing every minute; all of it a thrilling phantasmagoria, enough to lift one’s soul from his body! Fearful of losing a single one of these flashing views, I was leaning over the rail, peering fore and aft, up and around, en- joying the bliss of Heaven, when a young man of the then newly discovered species “‘ dude” came to my side, and began to drawl out his words in an affected, weary fashion that acted upon me like a sudden discord in one of Chopin’s moving strains. It was evident from his conversation that he had trav- eled all over the face of the globe; knew more than all its sages, and had seen, tested and proved valueless all that was to be viewed anywhere. “ S-a-a-y,” he said, “‘ they rave about this scenery—why, we haven’t seen any! ” (The boat was just returning from the newly discovered Glacier Bay and Muir Glacier.) ‘“‘ All we’ve seen was just a repetition of the same things, islands and ice and mountains and water. S-a-a-y, yuh ought to visit Switzer- land” ; and so on and on. I broke away from this torture, and went towards the prow of the steamer. Suddenly came dancing up from the cabin a beautiful girl of seventeen. She glanced at the fine waterfall we were passing, clasped her hands and exclaimed: “‘ O-o-h! ” then danced back and called down the companionway, “ Sue, Sue, come here quick! ” This brought another fairy-like crea- ture, who came out, looked at the cascade and swept with rapid glance the mountain, the shoulder of land a few rods distant 72 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA and the sea. ‘“ Yes—pretty, isn’t it? Say, Jen, come on back, and finish our game of casino,” and away they tripped. I climbed to the upper deck, and there I saw a man whom I had met during the two days we had been together on the boat, and who sat at the same table in the dining hall. He had been introduced to me as Sir , an English nobleman. He was a majestic looking man, six feet in height, broad-shoul- dered, with aquiline features and long grizzled beard; a man of much reserve, saying little but, when he did speak, evincing a fine courtesy. He had visited our mission at Wrangell and had shown much interest in a stately way. He was standing, stat- uesque and motionless, looking towards the mountains. I moved nearer, thinking to speak to him; but when I glanced at his face I saw the tears streaming from his eyes and trickling down his beard. Aus Here was a silence I could*not break. Here was an inner sanctuary I must not enter. I paused. We stood apart, and yet most intimately together, and communed in a silence so deep and so sweet that words would have added nothing to our enjoyment or mutual understanding, but rather would have put to flight its ecstasy. Alaska views need both eyes and a soul, to see them. VII UP AGAINST IT little steamer “‘ California.” This was Mr. McKay, the chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company at Victoria. He was a fine-looking, genial, clear-eyed Scotchman who had worked his way up through many outposts of the company throughout the great Dominion of Canada. As was required of all the Hudson’s Bay employees at that time, he had an Indian wife. Though self-educated, he was well edu- cated, keen in judgment, and-able to clearly express clear ideas. We had been talking over the different Indian tribes and the missionary ‘enterprises in British Columbia. I eagerly absorbed his superior wisdom on these topics and pestered him with numberless questions. ‘ It was very early in the morning of July 10, 1878, when the steamer inched up to the little, poorly constructed, flimsy wharf at Fort Wrangell. Day was just breaking, a drizzly rain soak- ing everything, the mist hiding all the mountains and the islands. As we were nearing the landing, McKay gave me what I think was the most valuable piece of advice I ever re- ceived. He said: ‘Mr. Young, you are new to this country and to the enterprise in which you are engaged. I am in- terested in you and in your work. Will you permit me to give you a bit of advice? ” “ I shall be very thankful for it,” I replied. “Tt is this: Don’t become an Indian.” There were but two persons on the rickety dock; the cap- tain was giving his orders preparatory to tying up. One was a io r “HERE was but one passenger besides myself on the 74 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA little wizened, bow-legged German, whom we always called “Lou Decker,” but whose real name was. Ludecke—a bit of flotsam left by the United States Army tide when it receded from Alaska a year before my arrival. His business was to take the lines of the vessel and slip them over the piles on the dock. The other individual was a native, clad in a dirty, once-white Hudson Bay blanket, a pair of muslin trousers, and moccasins. His face was smeared with blotches of lampblack and grease—the aie gine cosmetic of the Alaska natives at _that period. Mr. McKay’s bit of advice nettled me. It seemed a reflec- tion on my wisdom and common sense. “Why,” I exclaimed, “ do you think I am in danger of get- ting to look like that fellow? ” “Now, don’t be offended,” he said with a smile. ‘“‘ Let me tell you a little story.” He told me of a young missionary couple, fresh from> Eng- land, who had arrived in Northern British Columbia fifteen or twenty years previously, assigned to a large tribe situated up one of the principal streams of that region. They were landed by a Hudson’s Bay Company’ s boat, and theh taken by Indian canoes to a large village a hundred miles up the river. They were the only white people within a radius of one hundred and fifty miles. They were received by the head chief, and in- stalled as members of a family of forty or fifty in his great community house of split cedar. Indian men and women clad in blankets and furs, and little naked boys and ‘girls, formed the rest of the family. Here the missionaries had to live until they could provide a building of their own, spreading their blankets on the platform which ran around the one room, cook- ing over the common fire of logs in the center of the floor, shar- ing in the primitive life of these children of the forest. They hung blankets over one corner of the upper of the two plat- . forms, forming a little room in which was their bed. This was UP AGAINST IT 75 the only semblance of privacy in that Indian house, and this was a mere make-believe, as the Indians moved freely in and out of the little bedroom, and most of the time it was thrown open to the view of the other persons in the house. Whatever qualms of modesty the missionaries felt at first soon disappeared as they adapted themselves to their environ- ment. When after several months the lumber for their new house arrived, they concluded to show their friendliness by re- maining a while longer in the chief’s house. The upshot was that they continued to stay there for a year or two, and when they did build their house they made it after the Indian fash- ion. They learned the native language as soon as possible, and in order to perfect themselves in it and to be able to “ think Indian,” they used it entirely in their conversation with one another. When their children arrived the parents talked only the Indian language to them, and, of course, they grew up lit- tle savages like the other children. The missionaries did the Indians some good, translating the Prayer Book and parts of the Bible into the native language, and composing hymns which were sung to the common tunes. They instilled some notions of purity, morality and Christianity into the natives, but learned and practiced far more of what the Indians taught them than the Indians learned of them. They met the natives more than half-way. Gradually they became so inured to the life lived by the savages that they ceased to care for civilization, neglected their correspondence with the London missionary society, and some- times would let a year or more elapse before seeing any one of their own race. When their children grew to school age, and the parents were forced to realize that they were nothing more than ignorant little savages, they slowly made up their minds to send them to Victoria to be educated. The children had first to learn to talk English! The missionaries had become Indians. * 76 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA I could not but believe Mr. McKay’s story, but not until the deadly pull of that isolated and barbarous environment began to make itself felt did I realize the wisdom of his advice. I then set for myself a strict standard of conduct which, while showing kindness and friendship, would draw a plainly marked line between our home and the life of the natives. Fort Wrangell had more than the semblance of a fort in 78. A stockade ten or twelve feet high, formed of logs set up on end and sunk into the ground and bolted together with great iron spikes, enclosed a barracks and parade ground some two acres in extent. Great gates of split logs swung on huge hinges gave egress on opposite sides to the “ Foreign Village,” and to the stores and dwellings of the trading post and the Stickeen Town around the bay. “ Beautiful for situation ” was this old Russian and Hudson’s Bay Trading Post. Etolin Har- bour is a charming little circular lagoon with ‘“ Fort Point ” at its northern entrance and the promontory called Shustaak’s Point at its southern. Around this bay, in groups according to the Stickeen families, were the large native houses. These were all of one pattern, from thirty to sixty feet square, built of split cedar plank set on end—windowless, the roof, almost flat, supported by hewn logs erected on posts at the four corners, the inevitable smoke-hole with its adjustable flap in the middle. In front of the more pretentious houses were carved totem poles. Back of the town arose a hill some eight hundred feet in height which was afterwards named “ Muir’s Mountain.” The town lies near the northernmost point of Wrangell Island, which is about twenty miles in length and separated from the main- land by a narrow channel. Six or seven miles north of it is the mouth of the Stickeen River, a rapid stream navigable for small steamboats for one hundred and fifty miles. The flats of Farm Island, and the picturesque heights of Brown’s Pyra- mid, Five Mile, Vanks and other islands enclose the beautiful UP AGAINST IT 77 bay. Eight miles directly west of the town looms the point of Woronkofski Island, afterwards called by my wife ‘‘ Elephant Point ” because of its striking resemblance to the huge pachy- derm. A range of great rugged, snow-crowned peaks, Castle Rock and the Devil’s Thumb looming highest, forms the background of this, one of Alaska’s most beautiful harbours. This town, so attractive in its approach and yet so squalid on closer acquaintance, was to be my home for ten years, and the strategic point from which I was to direct the battle of Christian civilization against heathenism. That gray morning with its air of dreariness and desolation drove my blood back to my heart with a sickening surge. Besides the little Dutch- man and the black-faced Siwash, the only living creatures were a lot of ravens, the first I had seen, which cawed a dismal warning of coming disaster. The whole-hearted welcome of Mrs. McFarland, who hurled her two hundred pounds of good nature out onto the wharf with surprising agility, and of John Vanderbilt, a cultured gentleman from New York City, representing the wholesale merchants of Portland as receiver for the “ King Lear Stores,” soon breezed away the mental mists. A hot breakfast at Mrs. McFarland’s table and an in- formal reception to the Christian Indians—Tow-a-att, Mat- thew, Moses, Aaron and our interpreter, Mrs. Dickinson—and a few other natives filled the hour or two before the steamer sailed on for Sitka. The natives who had been eagerly awaiting my arrival were dismayed when I announced my intention of going on to Sitka and returning by the steamer. They asked Mrs. McFarland if they couldn’t bring ropes and tie me up. My pass, however, took me to the end of the route, and I wished to see the historic capital of Russian America and more especially our missionary force—Rev. John G. Brady and Miss Fannie Kellogg, who had been sent to Sitka four months previous. At that time the Alexandrian Archipelago, with its eleven 78 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA hundred wooded islands, forming what is known as the Pan Handle, was entirely unsurveyed. Vancouver’s map, made by the great English navigator in the first years of the nineteenth century, was the only chart of those waters. A few main chan- nels had been rudely sketched, but the great majority of the straits, sounds, and inlets were not on any map. Among these uncharted passages was Peril Strait, between Chichagof and Baranof Islands. Therefore our little steamer had to sail around Cape Ommaney, subjecting its passengers for six or seven hours to the swell of the open ocean. I was unconscious that I was sailing to meet my fate, and was almost too seasick to get out of my berth when we reached the “ Naples Bay ”’ of North America. A day in the interesting old town, with its little blockhouse on the hill, its castle of the Baranofs perched on a high knob looking out to sea, its Russian barracks and stiff plain houses of hewn logs, its imposing Greek Cathedral with the green domes looming high, and beyond the old barracks the squalid community houses—all these made the day too short. But far more interesting was the walk I took with Miss Kellogg through Lovers’-Lane to Indian River—the grove that has since been improved and made into the most beautiful little park in North America. I must confess that the stately trees of hemlock and spruce impressed me much less than the lively young lady at my side. She showed me her school district, and we walked as far along the filth-strewn beach in front of the Indian ‘“ Ranch” as our sense of modesty and our olfactory nerves could stand. We met the good-natured priest, Father Metropolski, who, although the steamer had been in harbour but a short time, was already far gone from the effects of the potations given him by our captain. Miss Kellogg’s schoolroom was in the Barracks, and there were gathered on school days from fifty to seventy pupils rang- ing in age from six to sixty. She laughingly said that she had UP AGAINST IT 79 a new set of pupils each day, and that their faces were so changed in appearance by the varying degrees of cleanliness that she couldn’t recognize them and sometimes had enrolled the same scholar three or four times, under different names. Beyond teaching them their A B C’s and the brighter young men and women the primaries of arithmetic, and instilling patriotism by showing the boys how to whistle ‘“‘ Yankee- Doodle,” she confessed that her task as teacher seemed almost hopeless. During the feasting season, which lasted until the winter stores of dried salmon and seal grease had been all consumed, and the natives were forced to depart in the spring days to their fishing, bird-egg gathering, and clam-digging places, Miss Kellogg said that the young men and women would be absent from school for days at a time. When asked for an excuse they would answer: ‘‘ Oh—me dance all night.” “ But why don’t you come to school in the daytime? ” “ Oh, me sleep all day.” Night after night, during this time of native “ potlatches,”’ Miss Kellogg, whose house was a cottage built as officers’ quar- ters next to the stockade which separated the parade ground from the ‘‘ Ranch,” said that the drunken Indians, yelling and howling, would charge up to the gate until stopped by the sentry from invading the ‘‘ white man’s town.” Miss Kellogg was never known to be afraid of anything in all her life, and so was less agitated by this nightly peril than I was in hearing of it. Of course, Mr. Brady, who did not take his missionary work very seriously, did what he could to help the “ school- marm,” and held Sunday services in the schoolroom. Miss Kellogg was about to accept the invitation of Mrs. McFarland to go to Fort Wrangell and spend a month between steamers with her. So we went back together, and before she returned to Sitka in August we had agreed to abandon the loneliness of celibacy for the companionship of matrimony. In December I returned to Sitka and took my bride back to 80 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA the mother mission. This was my introduction to the hitherto unknown land of Alaska and the little known and much mis- understood native inhabitants. The chief stimulus to trade in Wrangell, and the circum- stance which gave it preéminence as a shipping and trading port in Alaska, was the existence of placer mines in what was known as the Cassiar Region of British Columbia. This was reached by way of the Stickeen River. As early as 1860 some natives of the Stickeen tribe, and a French Canadian by the name of Alex Choquette, discovered gold on a gravel bar in the bed of the Stickeen River. It was named ‘“‘ Buck’s Bar,” Buck being the name by which Cho- quette was commonly known. The small “ diggins ” attracted a few hardy men, who in turn became prospectors, and ranged the country beyond. In conjunction with two men who con- sumed two years in crossing the continent from Hudson’s Bay, they found rich deposits of gold in the country around Deese Lake and beyond. Thus began the Cassiar Stampede, attracting thousands of adventurers in 1873-4. These all went to that region by way of Fort Wrangell and the Stickeen River. Although many of the smaller gold-bearing creeks had been worked out and the ex- citement had abated by 1878, yet more than a thousand eager men were still in this large gold region. Most of them came out to Fort Wrangell when the cold weather began, wintered in Victoria or Portland or in their homes on the Coast, and re- turned to the mines by the same route in the spring. To supply these miners, at first the only reliance was upon Indian canoes to take themselves and their goods up the river. Soon light-draft river steamers were built, and these trans- ported horses and mules for packing machinery to work the mines, and the provisions and other supplies needed by the miners. But still large numbers of natives were employed as carriers to take these supplies to points inaccessible by steamer, UP AGAINST IT 81 to act as packers and even to work as day labourers in the mines. These opportunities for work at wages, which were small but seemed large to the natives, as well as the gathering of a num- ber of merchants to Fort Wrangell with supplies of new, strange and attractive goods, drew the attention and presence of the Indians from eighteen or twenty different tribes and from distances ranging from sixty to four hundred miles. Previous to the opening up of this large trading point and the Cassiar mines these different tribes, numbering from two hundred to a thousand or more, were, if not in an actual state of war with each other, at least in a condition of jealousy and suspicion. There had been, from times beyond record, bloody wars which dotted the whole Archipelago with names such as “ Massacre Cove,” “‘ Ambush Inlet,” ‘‘ Battle Passage,” “ Dead Man’s Island.” It had not been many years since the two powerful tribes of Sitka and Stickeen almost exterminated each other, and they were still on the watch and afraid to invade each other’s territory. Likewise the Hoochenoos and Stick- eens, the Chilcats and the Hoonahs, the Tacoos and the Auks, the Kakes and the Hanegas, the Tongass and the Hydas, all eyed each other, and the remembrance of former outrages rankled in their hearts and made them all tinder towards any sudden sparks which might be struck from the flint and steel of new grievances. Many a time after I had begun my work of exploration and visiting the different tribes, when we would be lying in our blankets in front of our camp fire, my Indians would say: “ Before you come we no do this. When night come, we put out fire and go way off in woods to sleep.” “ Why? ” I would ask. “Oh, Injuns scared—mebbe some other Injun, mad at us, come in night time and kill us.” Besides the tribal wars there were family feuds amounting 82 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA to a state of “ watchful waiting.” Every totemic family of every tribe in all that region had its feuds, its disputes and complaints, and these were recounted by both men and women, with endless iteration, around the fire of every community house. The tribes kept strictly to their own territory and each family had its hunting and fishing place, its bird-egg island, its herring-roe beach, its clam-beds, its salmon stream. By tradition law, no other native was allowed to encroach upon these hereditary rights. At the time of the founding of our mission in Alaska these warring tribes, contrary to all precedent, were coming together to Fort Wrangell to trade and to find employment. It was the home of the Stickeen, formerly one of the richest and most warlike tribes of the Territory. It had numbered at least a thousand, forty or fifty years before that time, but by the wars with the Sitkas and Chilcats, and by the more deadly diseases introduced by the whites, their number had been reduced until there were only from four to five hundred who called them- selves Stickeens. They occupied the shores of Etolin Harbour, and the different families, with their sub-chiefs, built their houses in groups around the circular shore, keeping, if possible, at musket-range distance from each other. Thus Tow-a-att’s family built their houses nearest to the trading post and Fort; then the Kadishan family; beyond that Shakes, on a little in-. land peninsula; farther on, in the curve of the bay, the Frog Family, whose chief man was Jake Johnson; then old Kasch, with his retainers; and on the sharp peninsula which curved in and formed the harbour was the hard old heathen chief, Shustaak. In some cases tall stockades had been erected be- tween these groups of family houses, behind which and through port-holes piercing them family feuds had been fought out. But with the advent of the white soldiers, miners, and traders, the Indians from all the tribes of the Archipelago came pouring into Fort Wrangell. They were not allowed by UP AGAINST IT 83 the Stickeens to build even their bark shacks within the har- bour, but camped in what we called the Foreign Town, up the beach towards the point of the island. A few of the Takoos and Kakes who had intermarried with the Stickeens were allowed to erect houses within the harbour, but almost all of the strange Indians camped in the other village. They built shacks of bark or split planks, and some of them whip-sawed lumber and erected rude cabins. When I reached Wrangell the whole In- dian population was estimated at about twenty-five hundred people. It was constantly shifting, and any day might be witnessed canoes of all sizes, from the big war canoe capable’ of holding fifty warriors, to the small one-man dugout, pad- dling across the bay in front of the Fort. Imagine the insecurity, the unstable equilibrium of this heterogeneous mass! Strange tribes speaking strange dialects met for the first time in this camp, looked askance at one another, and went about their business with always a side look of fear and suspicion. The soldiers while they were present suppressed with a stern hand the first appearance of trouble between the tribes. But for the most part the officers of the Fort knew nothing of what was going on in either camp. The Fort lay directly between the Stickeen town and the foreigners, and the only way from one to the other when the tide was up was through the gates of the Fort. Murders, robberies, torturing of witches and even the sacrifice of slaves might go on—and did—without the officers knowing or inquiring about these occurrences. Four or five years after the building of the Fort, at the erection of a large new community house and big totem pole to make good the name of the new chief who had taken the place of the deceased Shustaak, ten slaves were brained at one time with the same greenstone ax and sent to wait upon the deceased chief in “ Sickagow,” the Happy Hunting Ground of the Thlingits. Of this massacre the commanding officer of the 84 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Fort knew nothing or, if it was reported to him, no investiga- tion was made. Again and again throughout the ten years of the occupancy of the Fort, witches were tortured and killed, drunken men murdered one another, family arrayed itself against family, making demands of payment for some real or fancied grievance, and the whole camp was a mine ready to ex- plode on the slightest provocation. When the soldiers were withdrawn in the spring of ’77 the condition became still more menacing. The old Indian laws had been broken down by the coming of the whites, who had provided nothing in their place. There was not a law of the United States that applied to this far-off Territory. There was not a magistrate, a court or police officer in the whole Terri- tory, no protection for life or property, no way of punishing crime. The only civil officers in the Territory were three or four customs collectors, who had no magisterial powers what- ever. The only semblance of authority was the old United States war vessel, the ‘ Jamestown,” a sailing vessel which with its captain, marines and sailors was sent up to take the place of the soldiers. It had to be towed up the Coast from San Francisco, and could not move out of Sitka Harbour with- out first sending, by the monthly mail, to San Francisco for a tug to tow it clear of the islands. There was one small steam launch on the deck of this vessel which was entirely unfit for cruising in the stormy passages of Southeastern Alaska. Wars might break out between the tribes, the whites might all be massacred, and the government of the United States would be entirely helpless to prevent these crimes or to wreak vengeance upon the perpetrators. On several occasions while the forts were occupied trouble arose between the white men and the natives. Then a revenue cutter had to be sent for, and the matter taken up by the of- ficers and settled, generally in a very awkward and unjust manner. Two or three years before our arrival a Kake chief q . SNIDDIGC ad10D UVISSVD AHL OL AVMHDIH AHL “AAXAIM NAAMOLLS AHL AO HLOOW AHL LV TTHONVAM LYOA “ ” Ta q ’ Ce DP oa o " - Oe. pis Fe ae ° | Sate me UP AGAINST IT 85 was at Sitka with some of his retainers. He knew no English, nor did his servants. An order was issued forbidding the na- tives to come within the Fort during certain hours. The chief, not understanding what was required, made an effort to pass through the Fort. He was challenged by the sentry and when he paid no attention but went on, he was shot. The officer in charge was said to have given conflicting orders which led to this fatal termination. The natives were thrown into a panic and were enraged. They considered all white men as belonging to one family and each responsible for the acts of all the oth- ers. They laid an ambush in Peril Straits and killed two in- offensive white hunters or miners who were traveling about their own business. This was in accordance with the Indian law, which held the life of a chief as being of equal value to that of ten or twelve other men, and they were thus getting even for the death of their chief. An investigation was held; the gunboat “ Saranac ” was sent for. It steamed to the Kake village on Prince Frederick Sound and tried to apprehend the murderers, failing entirely to make the natives understand what was wanted or the justice of the position held by the government. After a day or two spent in futile powwows the “‘ Saranac ” opened fire on the large Kake village, smashing the houses and destroying the canoes, which were the most valued possessions of the natives. They were said to have killed two or three bedridden invalids who were unable to flee from the bombardment. The real mur- derers were never caught. Although the natives always felt keenly the injustice of this act of the government, yet it had this salutary effect: All the natives of the many tribes in the Alexandrian Archipelago realized that their villages were ex- posed to the fire of the gunboats, which could steam right up to them and blow them into the water, and that the United States Government, although indifferent to the lives of its dusky citizens, was jealously bent on protecting those of its white 86 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA ones. The “ wan-o-wah ” (man-of-war) was the grand buga- boo of that coast. All the white men who came there, whether soldiers, miners, traders or missionaries, were held, not in rev- erence but in comparative security, because of the dread of vengeance from that strange and terrible monster, the ‘‘ wan- o-wah continyak ” (war steam-canoe). But this was really the only deterrent from violence and murder, except the friendship and respect which the natives felt for the superior white man. It is of great credit to these natives that, although the white men were taking their fishing places, gardens, and other “‘ il- lahes,” and were often cheating them and taking their prettiest girls as concubines and, worst of all, were plying them with poisonous liquor and teaching them how to make it themselves, yet during all the years from the purchase of Alaska until now there has never been an outbreak against the whites. It would have been an easy matter, after the soldiers were withdrawn, for the Indians to wipe out the whole white population, which was only about two hundred; to loot the stores and to take possession of all property of the whites. It would have been impossible for the government to run down the murderers. All they could have done would have been to blow up the villages and punish whatever individuals they might be able to catch, without knowing whether they were innocent or guilty. The Stickeens were a very proud tribe. They had the greatest salmon stream in all that region—the Stickeen River, besides fifteen or twenty other streams where the salmon and ooligan ran in season; rich herring fisheries, halibut and cod banks, and other fisheries were theirs. The woods of all of their islands were full of deer and bears. Mountain goats dotted the green pasture slopes along the mainland, gleaming like white mice in the sunlight. Up the Stickeen were plenty of moose and caribou, bears, black and brown, and all fur- bearing animals abounded. But, best of all, the Stickeen River was the road into the interior where the Taltan Indians held UP AGAINST IT 87 the great fur country between the Coast Range and the Rocky Mountains. These ignorant “Stick Siwashes” could bring their furs to market only by way of the Stickeen River. The Stickeens were the “‘ middle-men,” and held the gateway to the market. They did not allow the interior Indians to come to the trading post, but themselves took canoe loads of guns, am- munition, blankets, steel tools, beads, calico, muslin and other things coveted by the Indians, and bartered them for furs at their own valuation. The old Hudson’s Bay story of piling beaver skins to the height of a long ten-dollar flintlock musket for the price of the gun was often realized by these Stickeen traders. The tribe grew rich beyond the wealth of any other tribe, unless it was the Chilcats, who had a similar advantage over the interior tribes back of them. The Stickeens grew proud and insolent. Before the American occupancy of Alaska their great war canoes made frequent raids down the Coast, attacking the vil- lages of the Queen Charlotte group of islands, those on the shores of Vancouver Island and the islands in the Gulf of Georgia. They possessed slaves, who were taken from the Puyallups and Neah Bays, and a few who were said to be de- scendants of the Chinooks at the mouth of the Columbia River. I estimated that there were at least forty slaves held by the Stickeens when I arrived at Wrangell. Such were the conditions that confronted Mrs. McFarland and myself when we arrived to undertake the tremendous task of changing these ignorant, strange, and very naughty children of the forest and sea from filthy savages to educated and re- fined Christian citizens. Vill THE QUEER PEOPLE Y dominant feeling, as I recall the impressions of Mi those first days at Fort Wrangell, was one of amuse- ment. Dumped down as I was into this queer cor- ner of the world, in an environment so entirely different from any to which I had been accustomed, I could at first but look and wonder. That strange dialect which all used—the whites with the Indians and the different tribes with each other— made me laugh. Picture the situation: Natives speaking five or six different languages, the white men speaking English, German, Russian and Scandinavian; the Chinook jargon chip- ping in to afford a common medium of communication between the different languages—imagine the confusion of tongues! Tsimpshean Indians, from Port Simpson and Old Metla- katla in British Columbia, who had come to Fort Wrangell seeking work from the Cassiar miners had brought to the con- glomerated tribes their first notion of Christianity; and this new cult, crudely taught and imperfectly comprehended as it was, had already enlisted some of the head men of the Stickeen tribe. Philip McKay, one of Father Duncan’s early converts, afterwards belonging to the Wesleyan Mission at Port Simpson under Mr. Crosby, had come to Fort Wrangell to find work and had begun to preach to the people of his own tribe, many of whom had gathered there, like him, to seek employment. The natives speaking other languages had become interested and asked him to preach to them in Chinook. He had com- plied and gathered together a little company of nominal Chris- tians. Tow-a-att, a sub-chief of the Wolf clan, who knew no Eng- 88 THE QUEER PEOPLE 89 lish and but little Chinook, had become interested in the new doctrine, and several of his tribal family were pronounced ad- herents of Philip McKay and were called Christians. Among these were Matthew Shakates; Jim Coustateen, a half-breed who was renamed Moses after his alleged conversion; his brother, Aaron Kohnow; Jacob and some’ younger men, such as Henry, Lewis and Stickeen Johnny, boys who had lived with the whites, talked passable trade English and had even begun to learn to read. All of these attended Philip McKay’s services, and when Mrs. McFarland arrived in ’77 they clung to her, at- tended all her meetings, went to her school and gathered around them the better men from other families of the Stick- eens. Among these the most prominent and influential Chris- tian adherents were Lot Tyeen, Koonk, Thomas Konanisty, Andrew, and Jake Johnson. But the women, especially those who were living with white men, were more intelligent than the men, and even those who had never taken the trouble to get married but were faithful wives to their white husbands, were constant in their attend- ance upon Mrs. McFarland’s meetings and formed a nucleus of the future church. Mrs. McFarland’s experience as mis- sionary among the Navajo Indians of New Mexico and Nez Perces of Idaho stood her in good stead when she arrived at Fort Wrangell, and the “ Christian Indians ” looked upon her as their spiritual mother, and yielded to her what was under the circumstances a very remarkable obedience. So I found a band of Stickeens ready to listen with respect to what I had to say, and to carry out my plans as fast as I made them. But those plans were very misty, and liable to frequent changes as I began to learn the ways of the natives. I have come to the conclusion that every successful mission- ary to heathen peoples must pass through three stages: First, he idealizes the savages, takes their part against the whites on every occasion, excuses their faults and exaggerates their WOO HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA virtues, defends them as actually superior to the ‘‘ squaw-men ”’ and other whites who live promiscuously among them. The second stage is one of violent reaction; the filth, squalor and shocking immorality of the natives disgust him. He grows to despise his charges, becomes impatient, and too often set- tles into a pessimistic and intolerant attitude towards them. Many missionaries have never got beyond this second stage and, going back to their homes in Christendom, have given the natives, to use a colloquial term, a “ black eye,” decrying every effort made to elevate and Christianize them. They adopt the _ saying wrongfully attributed to General Sheridan, ‘‘ The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Strange to say, the squaw-men, many of whom have adopted savage ways and often have become more degraded and filthy than the squaws they live with, are the severest critics of the natives whose example they have followed. To cite one in- stance out of many which I might quote of this overpowering disgust on the part of some missionaries: One of these men, well educated and of good repute in the East, where he was pastor, went to one of our native missions. He had been there but a few months when his attention was called to a dying In- dian woman, a member of his church. The white man who told him about her condition advised him to go to see her at once, as she desired and needed spiritual consolation. The next morning this white man asked the missionary how the sick woman was, only to be answered roughly, ‘I don’t know; I am not going into that stinking house.” Such men do not and ought-not to last long as missionaries. The third stage into which all successful missionaries settle is the golden medium. The natives are looked upon as God’s children, although naughty, careless and wayward children; they are to be pitied, loved, borne with and patiently tended as children. Their capabilities are recognized, their native talents cultivated and their future gilded by the rays of hope. THE QUEER PEOPLE 91 Instead of meeting them half-way and becoming Indianized, such missionaries fraternize with them, and, without standing aloof, constantly exert an influence towards higher and better _ ideals. I believe that the natives of Southeastern Alaska are peculiarly susceptible to the right kind of influence, as their wonderful progress during the last fifty years has evidenced. But those first days of groping and finding our way—-my feelings, as I recall these experiences, are mingled self-pity, regret for my mistakes, and amusement at my predicaments. The pigeon-English which we had to use in communicating with them was very funny. The Chinook jargon itself made me laugh every time I heard it spoken. This trade language, which was spoken universally as a medium of communication between the whites and the natives and between the natives of different languages throughout all of British Columbia, Mon- tana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, had for its foun- dation the language of the Chinook Indians who lived near the mouth of the Columbia River. The Hudson’s Bay em- ployees had injected French and English terms adapted to In- dian vocal chords. It was a childish jargon and, of course, in- capable of expressing any real thought. Abstractions or con- nected reasoning were impossible to it. Although I had to preach in this jargon for ten years, as I had five or six different languages represented in my congrega- tion, I never lost my impatience with it, or the feeling that I could not communicate many Christian ideas to the natives, nor could they receive them. The same word stood for verb, noun, adjective, adverb, preposition and interjection. To con- vey one’s ideas one had to roll and twist the words around, reiterating them and striving somehow to embody a meaning. Imagine trying to transmit a doctrine of the Christian re- ligion through such a medium! I used to be very thankful for the Old Testament stories and the parables of Christ; and even many of these, simple and sublime though they are, were en- 92 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA tirely impossible of interpretation to these Alaska natives. The life which they had lived was so different from the en- vironment of the Jews of Palestine. The Thlingit language, spoken by the Stickeens and by all the tribes of the Archipelago except the Hydas, was scarcely more copious or capable of expressing the ideas of civilization than Chinook. The meagerness of their life, pent up as they were in this corner of the world, between the mountains and the sea, hardly can be imagined by those who have lived the free, full life of the nineteenth and twentieth century Cau- casian civilization. The Thlingits never had a written lan- guage. While the figures on their totem poles and on their blankets and baskets expressed certain crude ideas, they could not convey messages or thoughts to one another. Their lan- guage was copious in names of the objects of the sea, the for- ests and the mountains surrounding them, but, like the Chinook, was ridiculously inadequate to express any thought. Our native interpreters (interrupters, as they well named themselves) made many funny mistakes which became known to us; and, I have no doubt, countless others of which we re- mained ignorant. Mrs. Dickinson, who was a full-blood Ton- gass native, was for several of those early years our chief inter- preter. Her tribe was the most southern of the Thlingits, liv- ing just across Dixon’s Entrance from the Tsimpsheans of Port Simpson and Metlakatla. She had early acquired the Tsimpshean language as well as her own. She was married to a white man, George Dickinson, and they had two children, Sarah and Billy. She and her children could read and write, spoke English at home, and held themselves rather aloof from other natives, speaking of them as “they ” and of the whites as “‘ we.” Billy was a boy of fifteen years when I arrived at Wrangell, and he came to live with me to help in my housekeeping, to interpret for the natives who were coming to see me, and to THE QUEER PEOPLE 93 assist me in my efforts to acquire the language. Though his mother was my official translator, I put Billy in training for prayer-meetings and conferences. But the chapter of the Bible used must be gone over always with him beforehand, to make sure he would get it right. Our whole environment as well as the queer languages was so strange, so radically different from all our previous expe- riences that we were kept agog with interest and curiosity, while waves of pleasure and disgust alternated rapidly. A walk through the Stickeen town was both interesting and re- volting to our civilized tastes. The houses were all built on the beach, which was slimy and filthy with decayed fish, meat and offal, carcasses of dead dogs, skeletons of deer and other animals and even human bones—those of slaves who had died and, of course, had been refused cremation, strewed the pebbly beach. There were no sidewalks or beaten paths. Many of the community houses were set up on posts, and under them came swashing the higher tides at time of full moon. Within the stockade where we lived was more cleanliness and comfort. But, even here, conditions were such as would be considered intolerable to people of the present day. The only drinking water we had was rainwater caught in barrels and hogsheads. These were found under the eaves of all the houses within the Fort and outside of it. Back of the Indian town were little streams which supplied the natives; but we had to depend upon the rainwater. This ran through the moss which covered our roofs, and in the barrels were mosquito- wigglers and other unpleasant things. It took us some time to catch the meaning of the common language of our people. Even the most intelligent of them were hard to understand until we got in the way of their strange manner of expressing themselves. We could not pene- trate the recesses of their minds; we had not learned to “ think Thlingit.” 94 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA The inability of these people to pronunce any consonant which brought the lips together added to our difficulty. While there were three or four distinct “ K ” sounds, B, P, M, F and R were impossible to them. They could not even pronounce our names. The nearest they could come to mine was “ Wistle Yuy.”) Mrs. McFarland was “ Wis Whahlin.” When Mat- thew tried to express his opinion of another Indian whom he thought very conceited, he said: “He heart too wuch high down.” If we had not been able to see and enjoy the funny things which were happening every hour of the day, we would have died from disgust. From the first, Mr. McKay’s advice not to ‘‘ become an In- dian” kept recurring to my mind and prevented me from treating really low and debasing incidents in the life with in- difference. My fear of becoming used to vile sights and sounds and indifferent to them became at times almost an obsession. I often felt like my dearest cousin, Lyda McAvoy, whom I brought to Wrangell in 1884 to be the teacher of our training school. After a walk through the Indian town, during which occurred several very shocking and disgusting incidents, I found her in her room bitterly weeping. “Why Lyda,” I asked, “ what is the matter? ” “Oh, Hall,” she cried with a fresh gush of tears, “I can’t keep my horror keen enough! ” IX BEGINNINGS early life and efforts in Southeastern Alaska by topics rather than chronologically. Uncle Sam had deserted his youngest daughter. Apparently, he had given up Alaska as “a bad job.” ‘The task of planting Christian civilization in a region so entirely lawless was one that ought never to have been required of any American. The officer of the government stationed at Wrangell was Deputy Collector Crittenden, a Kentuckian, the scion of a prominent Blue Grass family. While he had many likable qualities and the manners of a Southern gentleman, he, as Joaquin Miller used to say about himself, made no pretension to morality or religion. On his arrival in Alaska he promptly accumulated an Indian establishment, including a young woman with a more than shady past, and her relatives. This he did openly and without shame. And while he extended kindness to us, his influence was, of course, entirely opposed to our efforts, and his example preached more loudly against missionary work than any of his polite assertions could do for it. The moral conditions at Fort Wrangell and the whole region were indescribably bad. When you add to the natural state of a savage heathen people, which is always one of degrading sin, the evils introduced by lawless whites, you have an appalling state of affairs. Not that the Thlingits and Hydas at Fort Wrangell were naturally worse than other savages. Indeed, I think that they were better naturally than the Indians of the plains or the poor natives of Africa and the South Sea Islands. 95 | T will be perhaps more interesting to take the order of that 96 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA They were descendants of the better Oriental races, and had Japanese intelligence, imitativeness, aptness in the use of tools and susceptibility to civilization. But the soldiers had done them little good and much evil. The town was full of half- breed children. The most loathsome of diseases was uni- versally prevalent. Nearly all of the younger men and women had either running sores or scarcely healed cicatrices on their necks. There was practically but one topic of conversation among the whites and the natives. Many of the poor little ones came into the world covered with scales, and most of the babies died. The first year in which I was able to record vital statistics at Fort Wrangell was 1879, during which year there were fifty-five deaths in the town and only eleven births! “Hooch ” was made in more than half of the community houses. Polygamy, slavery, drunkenness and constant im- morality—what a category! And we were alone without Christian companionship, or support and protection from the government. We had no one to consult with as to our plans and movements. And yet the situation never appeared to us as hopeless. Sev- eral rays of light appeared in the darkness. The brightest of | these, perhaps, was the social status of the native women. If ever in any heathen country women’s rights prevailed, it was in Alaska. The totemic system had much to do with this. The strange law, unalterable as those of the Medes and Per- sians, prevailed all the way from Mount St. Elias to Victoria. The child took the totem, family, name and property of its mother. ‘This custom, joined to that which forbade marriage within the same totemic group, gave women a dignity and im- portance sometimes superior to that of their husbands. This was brought home to me in a startling way soon after I reached Fort Wrangell. A fine looking, grizzly haired, stalwart six-footer, a chief of the Kake tribe, his town being sixty miles distant from Wran- BEGINNINGS 97 gell, came into my door, and after him marched eight or ten fine looking men. The old chief, after the usual polite prelim- inaries, said through my interpreter: “ Uh Ankow, uh too uneek ahklin” (My chief, my heart is very sick). “Why is your heart sick? ” I asked. _ He explained that his family was doomed to extinction. “A few more years, and there will be no Kiksutti at Kake.” “ Why,” I exclaimed, “‘ are not these men members of your family, and have they no children? ” He looked at me in surprise. ‘‘ Yes, but you know their children will not be members of my family, and there are no girls in my family.” Thus I began to get into my head this strange law. The old chief’s lamentations were fit, and there was no consolation that I could give him. The children of these men have nothing to do with their fathers. Since there were no girls in that fam- ily to perpetuate its name and secure its holdings, it was doomed to extinction. The male children were no relation to their fathers. They were compelled by this law to fight against them in favour of some far-off totemic relation, should a difficulty arise. The chief’s property, holdings, power and influence would all descend to his sister’s children and not to his own. There was no help for it. A word about this same totemic system: From time im- memorial the Thlingits, Hyda, and Tsimpshean races had been divided into two grand totemic groups, the Ravens and the Wolves. In some of the tribes the Eagle took the place of the Wolf as grand totem. The Ravens were subdivided into the Frog, the Beaver, the Sea Lion, the Crane, the Owl and other phratries; while the Wolf Clan was subdivided into the Eagle, Brown Bear, Whale, Porpoise and other families. The grand principle was that the Raven could not marry a Raven nor a Wolf a Wolf. Such cohabitation was looked upon with the 98 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA same horror as we would feel at the marriage of brother and sister. At the same time a man might take as his wife his own aunt on his father’s side, and no harm would be thought of it. This universal law came into conflict, of course, with the laws of the United States in regard to inheritance—when the United States established its laws over that country; but in these early days the native law prevailed, and we had to learn and respect it. The fact that it made a girl child more de- sirable in a family than a boy reconciled us to it in great degree. The woman had her say in all the family counsels; she kept the purse and jealously looked after the interests of her fam- ily. She had the disposing of her own sons and daughters in marriage, and to her belonged the decision in family disputes. While wives were supposed to look after their husbands, the marriage bond was not very firm, and in case of any trouble between the two families the wife was apt to go to her mother’s home, and her husband was powerless to prevent her from do- ing so. The women formed the majority of our church mem- bership and had more to say in prayer-meetings and on social occasions than the men. On one occasion a girl who had been in the McFarland Home, but had gone back to her parents’ house, came to see me, dressed in her ‘‘ Sunday best.” By the length of her po- lite preliminary palaver I knew she had something weighty on her mind. At last I broke in upon the conversation: “Well, Mary, what is it? ” With squirming and blushes she began: ‘“‘ Mr. Young, I want to get married.” “That is well,” I said, ‘‘ but who is the happy man? ” “T think it is Sam,” she said. “I asked him yesterday.” “Why, Mary,” I exclaimed, pretending to be shocked, “ that is not your place; among the white people the men always ask the women to marry them—not the women, the men.” BEGINNINGS 99 She replied instantly: ‘I don’t see why I can’t ask that question as well as Sam; I know more than he does.” In fact, the women more often tyrannized over their hus- bands than the reverse. Missionaries have to be jacks-of-all- trades when they go to a country like that; carpenters, under- takers, teachers, physicians, lawgivers, and among other duties they must settle family quarrels. It seems strange in the light of what we have heard about the slavery in which the women of other Indian tribes are held, but it is true that more native men came to us, often with marks of conflict upon their faces, complaining of being beaten by their wives, than wives com- plaining of abuse by their husbands. Many a time native men asked me to compel their wives to give them money which the men had earned, to buy tobacco and coffee. And the com- plaint was frequent that in addition to providing food for the family—fish, meat, and other necessities, the husband had to do the housework, and they considered this an unfair division of labour. But it worked a benefit in this way—that the girls were the more numerous and the brightest scholars in our schools, filled the position of interpreter more often than the men, and could be better relied upon to perform duties in our congregations. Another circumstance, greatly in our favour, was the fact that in Southeastern Alaska nobody ever goes hungry. It is the most prolific country in natural products in all the world. There is no severe winter there, and the waters are open during the whole year; all kinds of salt water fish can be had at all seasons. For “ two-bits”’ (twenty-five cents) you could pro- cure enough fish—codfish, salmon, halibut, flounders, rock- cod, sea-bass, etc..—to last your family a couple of weeks. Then, in Southeastern Alaska, “ when the tide is out the table is set ”; all kinds of sea-beach food—clams, mussels, scal- lops, crabs, cockles, devil-fish, etc. Fresh-water fish in sum- mer, such as salmon, trout and grayling. And the woods are 100 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA full of game; deer are plentiful and as easy to get as sheep on a farm; mountain goats and bears; and up the river, moose, caribou and mountain sheep; some game! All kinds of water fowl, grouse of four or five varieties, ptarmigan, groundhogs, porcupines, etc. And the woods are full of berries. Potatoes, cabbage, turnips, peas, etc., will grow with little cultivation. The natives do not have to beg for food. But the most favourable circumstance about the Thlingits and Hydas in those early days was the fact that they were naturally religious. They were predisposed to belief in the Bible. Being of Semitic origin, many of the Old Testament stories had counterparts in their legends. While the grotesque and materialistic totemic system, with its interminable stories of Yeatl—the Raven, and the other animals in their original half-human form, had filled the native mind and tongue in later years, yet a deeper study of their religious beliefs made it | clear that originally they were monotheists. The older and wiser chiefs asserted a faith in one Supreme God, who was a Spirit. They used His name in a sort of profanity, when they wished to be emphatic and earnest—“ Uh Shagoon!” (My First One.) When we preached about the Holy Spirit, they said: “‘ We have always believed that.” Curiously enough, this Spirit was said to have materialized only on one or two occa- sions, and then as a white bird—a dove. This Spirit made the world. Yeatl was born of a woman and found Kees-shusa-ah-ankow (The Lord of the Tides), and other legendary heroes already on the earth, the giants of their system. All the Thlingit tribes possessed a distinct legend of the flood. ‘Their versions differed only in unimportant details. They localized the legend, each tribe having a different Mount Ararat. The Stickeens pointed to Castle Mountain, near the mouth of the Stickeen River, as the scene where their Noah hauled up his canoe to the highest peak and escaped. The BEGINNINGS 101 Tacoos designated the high mountain whose snows feed the Tacoo Glacier. The Chilcats named the highest peak’éf their great range. +, But the most striking point in proof of their derivation from the same generic stock as the ancient Jews was their ready ac- ceptance of the doctrine of blood-atonement. When we preached the vicarious sacrifice of Christ for sin they ex- claimed, ‘‘ Why, that is just like the death of our So-and- so,” naming certain persons who had given their lives for the sake of their fellow-tribesmen. The unwritten law of the Thlingits demands payment in tke for every wrong committed against one of their family. The doctrine is the old Jewish one, ‘‘ An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” ; but the eye must be of the same colour and the tooth of the same size. In other words, if a murder was com- mitted, a life of the same dignity and tribal value as that of the murdered man must be exacted from the family of his slayer. If a chief is killed by a man of low degree belonging to another family, the chief of that man’s family must be the one to pay the forfeit. Caste was very distinct, and there was endless debate concerning the relative prominence of different families. Shortly before our arrival at Fort Wrangell, a murder had been committed by one of Tow-a-att’s family upon the person of one of the friends of Shakes, whom Mrs. Dickinson de- scribed as “‘ the keadest chief of all the Stickeens.” The two families fortified their houses, which were not far apart, the men of the Shakes family gathering on the little High-Tide- Island on which was the head chief’s house. After much de- bating, many orations shouted back and forth, much recital of the dignity and wealth of the slain man and many demands for life and blankets, the quarrel had become so fierce that there was danger of a general war which would involve scores of natives and cost many lives. The trouble was ended, however, 102 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA by the voluntary sacrifice of one of Tow-a-att’s brothers, who had had no part whatever in the killing of the murdered man. He dressed up in his best Chilcat blanket, put his chieftain’s hat on his head, took in his hand an ancient spear, which was the emblem of his position as chief, went out in front of his stockade, made a speech in which he recalled the trouble and named himself as equal in rank to the man who was killed, and then gallantly walked out, with extended arms, half-way be- tween the two stockades, and there was shot by a volley from the family of Shakes. Then there were feasts and mutual speeches, and the trouble was settled. This was not an isolated case; many similar occurrences had taken place in nearly all of the tribes of the Archipelago. Sometimes the trouble between two different tribes extended over a period of years, with much bloodshed and the death of many innocent persons, but it was almost inevitably ended by | the voluntary vicarious sacrifice. The natives could not un- derstand our code at all. A year after our arrival at Wrangell, the father of one of the girls in the McFarland Home, who had a hunting place and salmon stream some thirty miles from Fort Wrangell, killed his wife in a drunken quarrel. He tied the body by the neck behind his canoe and towed it to his house in Wrangell, called in the six or seven men of his family, fortified his house and awaited events. The family of the murdered woman was large and proud. They came with most of the head men of the tribe and asked my advice as to what was to be done. The two families were at war, and shots were being fired back and forth from the different houses. My natives asked what was the white man’s law in such a case, and requested me to act as judge and bring the murderer to justice. When I explained that the white man’s law was the life of the murderer for that of the one slain, they asked in astonishment: ‘‘ Suppose your great Chief at Washington (the President of the United States) BEGINNINGS 103 should kill a little slave boy, would the life of the great Chief be forfeited?” When I told them that was the law, they could not see any justice in it; and this murderer held the same opinion. He explained that their law was a man for man, a woman for woman, a slave for a slave and a chief for a chief, and further said, ‘It is not right that my life should pay forfeit for that of my wife, who was a woman; there is my sister; you can take her and kill her, and justice will be satis- fied.” But the sister naturally objected to that way of settling the difficulty, and fled to me in great terror for protection. We gave her lodging in one of the rooms within the fort, and she did not dare to stir outside its gates for two or three months, during which time bullets were flying over the town. The natives felt and expressed a good deal of contempt for the United States government which would not enforce its laws. There was not a court eligible to try any case. If the captain of the revenue ship at Sitka had interfered and tried to take the murderer by force, there would have been much innocent blood shed. This case was settled only when the friends of the murdered woman, who had been waiting with their guns outside of the culprit’s house, killed him as he sallied forth to fight the Hoo- chenoo Indians, in January, 1880, when they attacked the Stickeens. The murderer said, ‘“‘ Let me not die by the hands of my Stickeen friends; let me be killed by our enemies, the Hoochenoos,” but the family of the murdered woman could not wait, and shot him as he came out of his house to join the intertribal conflict. The general custom enabled us to command prompt accept- ance of the story of our Lord’s sacrifice for the sins of man- kind. Let sceptics exalt the virtue of liberty, freedom, cleanliness, justice and kindness as they will, it remains everlastingly true 104 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA that no savage tribe or nation can be effectively reformed as to their morals, customs and manners without faith in God and His Christ. One of the early captains of our little gunboat that plied those waters was Captain J. B. Coghlan—the man who during the Spanish-American war became noted on ac- count of his singing the song about “I und Gott,” to the dis- pleasure of the Kaiser. He was a Catholic, if anything, and given to very violent and profane language. But during a visit to our mission he said with great emphasis: “You missionaries will have to do the work of civilizing these people and keep order among these islands. The United States army and navy can do but little. With your schools and churches the missionaries, and they only, can transform and civilize these Indians.” Therefore, while we learned more and more to emphasize the necessity of getting the people out of their old community houses into cottages of their own where a Christian home could be exemplified, of getting the girls into a mission home where they could be protected and trained to be Christian wives and mothers, and taking the boys into like homes and teaching them useful trades, yet we always recognized the fact that religion must come first, and that only faith in the true God could transform their lives and make them fit to be recognized as Christian citizens. We preached the Gospel from the first, and erected churches as soon as possible for all the tribes. We started schools, teaching only the English language. We had Sunday Schools which the older people as well as the children attended. We taught them to have family worship, to ask a blessing at the table and to conduct themselves as Christian believers. And in all this work of transforming the lives and manners of the Thlingits and Hydas, Religion has been recognized as the prime factor in accomplishing the great task, x BLUNDERS sionary life has advanced considerably during the last half-century, but in the ’70s and ’80s about all that was considered essential in a missionary was a knowledge of the Bible and a consecrated spirit. These are essential, but are by no means all that a missionary going into such a heathen country should know. We were thrown entirely upon our own resources, without any precedent or counsel from ex- perienced friends to guide us, therefore many mistakes were inevitable. We were groping our way in a maze of trails through tangled woods—and often took the wrong path. Alaska made a hundred demands upon us for which we were ill prepared, and the work suffered while we were acquiring the knowledge with which we should have begun. The natives who were inclined to Christianity looked upon the missionary as a superior being and came to us for counsel and aid in all emergencies. A few days after I landed, one of my men came with a re- quest that I go to see a young Indian who had been hurt by the falling of a tree. I went with him to the Indian house, and found a boy of sixteen years groaning with a broken leg. They asked me to help him. I had never studied surgery and knew nothing about such cases. I turned to the white men for advice, and two of them volunteered to help me. We hastily turned over the pages of a book on surgery which my uncle, a doctor, had given me. We whittled splints, tore up sheets and fixed up the broken limb. Fortunately, one of the men who assisted me was a “‘ squaw-man” and knew something of the 105 NOWLEDGE of the preparation necessary for a mis- 106 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Indian customs. He warned me of this danger: The medicine- men would be called in, and the old woman who posed as herb doctor, and they would tamper with the bandages and prob- ably wish to poke holes into the leg to “ let the bad blood out.” So I strictly commanded the father of the boy to forbid any Shaman or old woman doctor from entering the house, and enjoined them to keep the patient quiet and above all things to allow no one to tamper with the bandages. I stationed as guards two of my best men, including Matthew, who had an appointment from the customs collector as policeman. By our care and vigilance we warded off interference in this case, and made a pretty good leg of it. Not long afterwards, however, a boy of twelve was caught under a rolling log and had his thigh broken—a simple frac- ture. I set and bandaged the leg. The next morning on visit- ing the patient I found him screaming with pain. A crowd of excited natives were crowding the room. I asked, ‘“‘ What have you done to this leg? ” “Nothing,” they replied. A glance at the bandages disclosed that they had bee tampered with, and after undoing them I found that the splints had been removed and that somebody had punched holes in the boy’s leg, and the bandages and splints were covered with clotted blood. The leg was swollen to twice its natural size and was turning blue. My indignant questions brought forth the fact that an old woman doctor had come in and had told the parents that there was a lot of bad blood there and it must be let out. They produced the Indian knife which had been used as a lancet. It was a knife point made of a file, which was inserted in the end of a stick so that half an inch pro- truded. This had been jabbed scores of times into the leg and the simple fracture had become a compound one. The splints could not be replaced, and the boy was crippled for life. From the first the natives kept coming to me for medicine. BLUNDERS 107 Visiting all the houses in the native town, I found one or more persons sick in almost every one of them. Consumptives rolled ghastly eyes from their filthy cots; little children, emaciated and covered with sores, wailed and shivered before our sym- pathetic eyes. The demand for “ kof nemichen ” was univer- sal. The stores had plenty of patent medicines, mostly com- pounded with bad whiskey or rum, and those which had the most alcohol in them were in greatest demand. The first time I took a pint bottle of cough syrup to a sick woman I learned a lesson. Going back in the afternoon to see the patient, I found the bottle empty. As I had given instruction that the woman was to have but three teaspoonfuls a day, I investi- gated, and found that a number of her cronies had been treated to the “ nemichen,” and the woman herself had taken so much of it that she was simply drunk. Outside of a few barks that acted as cathartics or astringents, they had no knowledge of the medicinal value of plants or minerals. The thirst for intoxicating liquors was so great that the stores were soon depleted of “ Florida water,” flavouring ex- tracts and patent medicines. Wood alcohol used in machinery by the steamboat men would be stolen and swallowed instantly if the natives could get at it. I was called to see a sick woman one day, and found her writhing in convulsions of agony. I asked her what she had been drinking. She denied having taken anything. My eyes rested on an empty pint bottle labeled “‘ Jamaica Ginger.” “How much of this did you take? ” I asked. “ Just a little,” she groaned. Upon inquiry I found that the bottle had been procured that morning. The woman had swallowed a pint of raw jamaica ginger! I could do nothing for her; she died in a few hours. You could not trust the word or judgment of any of those natives. In such cases they were a set of irresponsible and stubborn children, 108 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Another instance among many occurs to me. A year after my arrival at Fort Wrangell came a Mr. Corleis, an inde- pendent Baptist missionary, with his wife and child. They were excellent, devoted people, full of missionary zeal, and came at their own expense to do Christian work. Mr. Corleis had taken a year in Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, and so we called him “ Dr. Corleis,” and I joyfully handed over all my cases to his care. Besides doing a little new Chris- tian work among the “ Foreign Indians ” up the beach, he took charge of the sick throughout the town. There were many loathsome cases of venereal diseases—a class of maladies I | would not touch. A young woman named Mary Anshawah, who often suffered agony, used to come to Dr. Corleis for ‘sleep medicine.” He would administer a dose of morphine, and she would sleep off the paroxysm of pain. One day she came to him for a dose of this sleep medicine. It was early in the afternoon, and he put up a dose of morphine in a paper and told her to take it just before going to bed that night. Instead of going home, Mary went to the house of a friend of hers, one of our Christian natives who lived with an Irishman, named Flannery, and had three children by him—the youngest being a baby eight or nine months old. The baby was fretful and crying from a cold. Mary said to her friend, Mrs. Flannery: “Dr. Corleis gave me some sleep medicine. I feel better now; let us give it to the baby.” So those two fools gave the adult dose to the infant. The next morning I was called hastily to the Flannery house just in time to see the baby die! The incident caused much excite- ment, but no amount of argument would convince Mary that the sleep medicine would not have had the same effect on her had she taken it. Dr. Corleis remained at Fort Wrangell less than two years. Both before and after he was there I used to call upon the | BLUNDERS 109 surgeons of the gunboats during their infrequent visits and take them the rounds of my Indian patients and have them prescribe for them and leave medicines. On one occasion the surgeon with me visited a hundred and fifty patients, and then stopped, exhausted, before he had made the complete round of my cases. I was constantly studying and consulting friends in the East and getting cases of medicine sent to me, but I always felt a sense of helplessness and exasperation, and knew that I was making hundreds of mistakes. I found that two qualities were requisite to any medicine in order that the natives should have any faith in it: First, the medicine must be nasty, and, second, it must be dark. Any colourless or tasteless medicine they refused to take—it was halo skukum (not strong). Coal-tar and bitter aloes must be added to the remedies in order to induce faith, and acceptance. I am firmly of the opinion that no man should be sent to a savage country like that, where there are no qualified physi- cians, without first taking at least a partial course in medicine, surgery and dentistry. To my grave will I carry the convic- tion, causing me to shrink as from a hot iron when I think of it, that scores of those poor natives died because of my igno- rance, and once I came within an ace of losing my wife, only because I did not know how to take care of her in childbirth. One of the greatest blunders we made in those times, the disastrous effects of which are experienced to this day, was this: We gave the natives too many presents: This was to some degree inevitable. The Thlingits and Hydas had learned through the whites that the Indians in other parts of the United States had treaties with the government, had Indian agents and in many cases government annuities. Naturally they wished the same. The white men were taking their lands and salmon streams and game, and giving them nothing in re- turn. They were always asking the missionaries to take up _ their case and bring them assistance from the great Chief at 110 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Washington. All savages are more than willing to be beggars. The Alaskans did not realize that the condition they com- plained of was one of their very best assets. By the treaty with Russia at the time of the purchase they were American citizens, with presumably the same rights as the white people. The early missionaries to British Columbia gave them lessons in cupidity. Father Duncan, who received from the English Church, it is estimated, some two million dollars in money and supplies, quite freely distributed gifts to his people at Port Simpson and Old Metlakatla, before he learned the art of leading them to- wards self-support. The Wesleyan missionaries who succeeded him at Port Simpson pursued the same policy of distributing gifts. At Fort Wrangell and Sitka we received from good friends in the East boxes of clothing for the boys and girls in our training schools and all kinds of toys and gifts for our people. Naturally, the natives thought of these as their right and as their reward for embracing Christianity. Gratitude is a quality left out of the composition of a savage, in spite of the wonderful instances of loyalty and grateful appreciation in the early stories about the “ noble red men.” ; While it was necessary that some gifts should be given to the natives, as we were dependent upon these boxes for the clothing of the children under our care and the equipment of our missions, I am satisfied that we did too much of it. Of course, not being an educated doctor, I could not and would not charge for the medicines I distributed. The natives had no idea that they were under obligation to pay for these things. Indeed, they looked upon their acceptance of Christianity as a distinct favour conferred upon uws/ Many a time when urging an old savage to come to church he would ask: ‘“ How much you pay me? ” When we took the Indian girls into the McFarland Home to protect and educate them, the parents felt no obligation to BLUNDERS Tig provide food or clothing for this institution, but rather expected gifts for themselves. They were used to peddling their daugh- ters to white men for immoral purposes and for pay. Why should not missionaries pay them for girls in their homes? While Father Duncan soon awoke to the harm of indis- criminate giving, and began training his people in self-support, those of us who had not the advantages he possessed were left to be the victims of these early mistakes. Father Duncan was made magistrate of a vast region, larger than all of New Eng- land and New York. He had gunboats at his command from Esquimault Harbour at Victoria; he could send his armed In- dian police in their canoes and arrest any trader who was peddling whiskey, and sentence the offenders to ten years in the chain-gang at Victoria. He was absolute monarch of this vast region; he could make his own laws, such as the one for- bidding white men to camp within four miles of Metlakatla, and could enforce those laws. His position made him an auto- crat, and when a bishop was sent from England to be his lord and to take supreme charge of his mission it speedily led to disagreements, lawsuits, and the departure of Father Duncan with most of his people to American shores and the establish- ment of New Metlakatla on Annette Island in Alaska. The harm done by these acts of foolish generosity cannot be overestimated. It. is still very difficult, indeed, to work our native missions up to any degree of self-support. Many of the natives still hold the same attitude as one of my men: I found him very ill and helpless, suffering from a form of rheumatism. I cared for him for more than a year; gave him a room in one of our houses within the fort, and my wife and I tended him and nursed him as if he were a brother. We expended upon him more than a hundred dollars in medicine, food and clothing. After he had recovered in some degree and was able to return to his home and do some work, I found him standing by his small canoe on the beach one day and I said: 112 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA ‘“‘ Charlie, I wish you would take me in your canoe over to Shustaak’s Point,” half a mile distant. He looked at me for a moment and then said: “‘ How much you goin’ to pay me? ” ‘Have you no shame?” I asked. ‘‘ Have you forgotten all that I have done and spent for you the past year? ” He eyed me with a look that made me want to knock him over. ‘ That’s your business,” he said in Thlingit. “ My canoe is my business.” While I do not in the least blame those splendid friends who have stood by us to help us and who are still showering gifts upon the children of our missions, it is becoming more and more evident that giving presents has been overdone, and that the native people have not learned, as they should, our Lord’s saying: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The Thlingit, Hyda and Tsimpshean churches of Alaska should be constantly pressed and urged until they attain the goal reached on so many foreign mission fields—the full support of their own native pastors. The mistake of rating the intelligence of the natives too highly must be mentioned. While in matters pertaining to their physical wants—preparing native foods, navigating those intricate channels, learning the movements of the tides and weather signs, hunting, fishing, berry picking and the thousand and one incidents of their daily life—they showed surprising aptitude and wisdom, yet in all that touched on their new life as Christians they were “ infants crying in the night, and with no language but a cry.” The children in our schools learned by rote with surprising facility, and could repeat long chapters in the Bible with an exactness that astonished visitors, but without understanding a word of what they were saying. The Testaments we gave to the older ones were often used as charms, and we would find them tied to sticks which were stuck in the ground by the bedside of the sick. XI THE GATHERING CLOUD The unexpected was always happening. Plans for to-morrow’s work could not be carried out because | to-morrow would be so different from to-day. Those July and August days were both interesting and perplexing in their variety. Mrs. McFarland’s letters had given me some inkling of what to expect, but my ideas were very misty and in the main incorrect. One delegation after another of natives called to see the new minister. Their ideas about me and what I could do for them were about as erroneous as mine concerning them. But it very soon became plain that a long and terrible battle was before us, the issue of which was doubtful. Of course, I had done some reading and studying along the line of witchcraft and the Shamans, or Indian medicine-men. These remote things had now become a part of our daily experience. Although the impurity and disgusting scenes that abounded on every side were appalling, we soon found that the real fight was to be with the superstitions and false beliefs of the natives which were back of the sin of impurity, and must be overcome and at least partly eradicated before real progress could be made. Mrs. McFarland in those first days told me much about the scenes through which she had passed. Not more than a month before my arrival an outburst of witchcraft superstition had plunged her into deep trouble. As always, the medicine-men were the causes of the persecutions that followed. Suddenly word was brought to Mrs. McFarland that some of her pro- fessedly Christian women had been seized, tied up and were 113 () UR work at Fort Wrangell never fell into routine. 114 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA being tortured as witches. Charley Brown, a merchant at Wrangell, had a store in which molasses, groceries, calico, blankets and other articles were bartered to the natives for their furs. Charley was also a miner and was absent for the summer in the Cassiar, looking after his interests there. His Indian wife, who had borne him two children, was a tall, strongly built woman of influence. She had been among the first to embrace Christianity. Somebody ‘“ dreamed” that she was a witch. Kohlteen, a sub-chief of her family, which was of the Kiksutti (the Frog Family), came with other men of his clan, seized Mrs. Brown and tied her up. ; The manner of binding a witch was very cruel. The victim was first stripped of her clothing, her hands tied together behind her back with a thong of deer sinew, then the hard rope was passed around her ankles and her feet drawn up to her hands and tied so tightly that the thin sinew tendons cut into the flesh. Then the victim’s braid of hair, if a woman, was pulled down and bound to the hands and ankles so that feet, head and hands were made to meet behind the back; a horrible posture of constant agony. The victim was then thrust into a dark hole under the upper platform of the Indian house, and left to roll helplessly on the hard ground. She would be visited at intervals by the medicine-men who accused her, and by her enemies whose “ dreams ” had brought about her accusation, and she would be whipped with “ devil’s- club” (a thorny cactus-like shrub), which left its poisonous barbed needles in the flesh at every stroke. She would be given no food at all, but compelled to drink large quantities of salt water to increase her thirst; and if obdurate in her re- fusal to confess herself a witch and throw away her “ bad medi- cine,” other more strenuous tortures, such as sticking the flesh full of fat spruce splinters and setting them on fire, dragging the victim sideways across sharp stones of the beach to lacerate her naked body, and other devices too foul and revolting to record THE GATHERING CLOUD 115 would be restorted to. All of these operations were superin- tended by the Shaman or Iht. The family of the man or woman whom she was supposed to be bewitching would gather in full force, helping with the torments and taunting the victim with jibes and obscene mirth, exhorting her to “ confess ” and throw away her “ bad medicine.” Needless to say, the victim generally confessed; and in order to save the poor remnant of her life she implicated some one else as her accomplice in witchcraft, and the same tortures were repeated upon another victim. Thus the wave of super- stition rose higher and higher, and swept far and wide to other families and other tribes. Following Mrs. Brown’s seizure as a witch, four other women were accused and captured, all of them having been attendants upon Mrs. McFarland’s meet- ings. One of these was found dead, hanging by the neck to a log under the floor of the house where the witches were kept. Whether the woman was put to death by her accusers, or in her agony and despair had committed suicide, was never ascer- tained. Four or five other victims were named and seized, two of them being old men of low caste, and the others children of tender age. Mrs. McFarland’s tears and entreaties were of no avail. While her people professed unbelief in witchcraft, they were helpless to put a stop to such scenes of torture, and the great majority of the natives were excited and angry, and no one knew who would be the next victim. As soon as Charley Brown returned he promptly cut loose his squaw wife and the other women who were tied with her, and thrust his pistol down Kohlteen’s throat, threatening to “blow his head off,” and thus scared the witch-hunters into temporary cessation of their persecutions. An old medicine-man who had been a leader in this out- rageous torture took to his canoe and fled to distant parts, but there were from thirty to forty accused persons, or those who expected to be named as witches, hiding among the islands and 116 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA up the rivers afraid to come to the town for fear that they would be seized and meet a like fate. We estimated that during this wave of superstition which swept over the Archipelago that summer of 1878, at least a hundred victims had lost their lives, while two or three times that many had been cruelly tortured. A few days after I returned to Wrangell from Sitka, word was brought me that there was trouble in the Stickeen town. I hurried down to the village and found an excited crowd around two struggling figures. To my astonishment and dismay the two men who were grappling with one another were no other than our Christian chief Tow-a-att and Richard, another of Philip McKay’s “converts.” The old chief was shaking his smaller antagonist and shouting questions of anger at him. With great difficulty I succeeded in disengaging the grip of the two angry men and in leading them into Matthew’s house, where I called in my interpreter, Mrs. Dickinson, and probed for the cause of the fight. I found that Richard had had a dream in which he saw Tow-a-att making “ medicine” over the carcass of a dead beaver at a lonely place in the woods. Richard had rashly told his dream, which was equivalent to an accusation, and Tow-a-att had promptly taken up the gage and attacked his slanderer. After a long powwow I succeeded in pacifying the good old chief and obtaining Richard’s denial that he had ever accused Tow-a-att of witchcraft or had had such a dream; and the fire was covered with ashes and the threatening conflagration averted. But it was still smoulder- ing and liable to break out in a new place any time. The peril was always hovering over us like a pall of smoke. Christian work went on in spite of the discordant voices of the large village. Every Sunday morning one of our boys went through the village ringing a hand-bell. His trip involved a walk of nearly two miles and took almost an hour’s time. Lit- tle flocks of Indian children began to come from different THE GATHERING CLOUD 117 points along the winding beach, shooed along by their mothers as if they were flocks of ducks and geese. Our adherents marshalled these companies and brought them up into the Fort, and they were driven into the log barracks which had been used as quarters for the soldiers. Scared little Indians they were, dressed in blankets and blanket clothes, the richer ones in blue and green, and the poorer ones in dirty white. Many of them had blackened faces, smeared with a mixture of seal grease, spruce gum and lampblack. The children of the chiefs were distinguished by streaks of red and yellow painted across their black faces. If they came from Christian families their faces were washed—not clean but in streaks and spots. At first they would not sit on the benches of various heights that we had provided for them. They did not understand the use to which the benches and chairs were put, but squatted down on the floor after the Indian fashion. To mould a crowd of little savages like that into the semblance of a Sunday School was an interesting but very difficult task. Water basins, towels, scrubbing brushes and soap were provided, and the more advanced women, who were living with white men, helped to wash the little folks, until their mothers were taught and shamed into scrubbing them before they started from their homes. The men and women of the Stickeen village generally at- tended the meetings, but it was a long time before we could influence the natives in the “ Foreign Town” up the beach to come. The day school followed the Sunday School, and the people, young and old, came to it—not regularly but more from curiosity than from a desire to learn. Of course, some of the younger men and women who had learned to talk a little English tried to learn to read, and a few of them suc- ceeded in a fashion. One curious phase of our work was that those who had been accused directly or indirectly of witchcraft came diligently to school every day. They would hold a book 118 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA in their hands, ofttimes upside down, thinking that thus they would get some charm against persecution, or at least placate their teacher, from whom they hoped for defense against threatening trouble. At the prayer-meetings held Sunday and Wednesday even- ings those who had resolved to take the side of Christianity would make their confessions, and there would be prayers and speeches, all in their native tongue. The missionaries would sit by their interpreters, and the speeches would be translated. We would talk, always on practical subjects, for they had not progressed far enough to understand the doctrines of Chris- tianity, with the exception of the simple teaching that sin was displeasing to God; that He had sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the debt of mankind and atone for sin, and that repent- ance, obedience and faith were necessary in order to secure salvation. It was the patient “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” ; but our activities were echoed by those of our adversaries, for we had active foes from the very first. Some of the merchants were our friends, others were open enemies. One Jew storekeeper, during the witchcraft trouble before my arrival, told the natives that he also believed in witchcraft; that it was only a few years since the white man in the “ Boston man’s” Christian country had tortured and executed witches for doing the same things that their witches were accused of doing. Of course, the Jew said this in order to obtain the custom of the natives. As most of the natives were away from the village at work for the miners, putting up dried salmon at their various streams, gathering berries and otherwise preparing for cold weather, there was no serious out- break for several weeks after our arrival; then the storm gathered black, with gleams of fitful lightning. Late one evening Billy Dickinson went to answer a rap at my door. Instead of inviting the callers in, he rushed to the THE GATHERING CLOUD 119 kitchen where I was working, his face blanched with fear. “The witches, the witches! ” he exclaimed. I went to the door, and found a pair of little old wrinkled Indians, evidently man and wife, who began waving their hands up and down, palms upward, in beggar fashion and uttering doleful cries and sobs. Billy said, ‘“‘ You better not have them into your house; they are the worst witches of all the people anywhere.” I brought in the old couple, shut the door and offered them chairs. They sank on the floor, still talking and praying to me. I made Billy answer my questions, and found that the old man’s name was Kah-tu-yeatley, and that he had been hid- ing among the islands all summer, until they heard that a white man had come who would take pity on them and protect them from those who were trying to catch and torture them. I sent Billy post-haste for his mother, who came with evident shrink- ing and fear. “These are the head witches of all! ” she cried. ‘‘ Every- where the people have been trying to find Kah-tu-yeatley; he is a bad man and is always working his ‘ bad medicine’ ; you better not have anything to do with them.” “Mrs. Dickinson,” I said sternly, ‘‘ I want you to sit down right here and tell me all about these poor people, what they are accused of, and why they are in such distress.” After much questioning I found that Klee-a-keet, the most famous Jht or Shaman in all the Archipelago, had accused this man and woman of being witches. They were low-caste Stickeens of Tow-a-att’s family. They were accused of be- witching the aunt of Shakes, the head-chief. She was the wife of Shustaak, the hard old heathen chief whose imposing house crowned the rocky point just across the mouth of the harbour from the Fort. This was the famous house at the erection of which, some five or six years before our arrival, ten slaves had been sacrificed at one ceremony. 120 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA The poor old couple were crazed with terror. They kept making gestures of supplication, and whining, “ Nuskodaya hut anuska, uh ankow” (Have pity on us, my chief). The woman even got down on her hands and knees and knocked her forehead against the floor, praying to me as to a god. I made Mrs. Dickinson calm their fears, seat them on chairs and stop their crying. I gathered from their incoherent talk that they had come secretly to Wrangell upon hearing of my ar- rival, and were afraid to go to their house, or let it be known that they were here. I had to decide upon the instant what to do with them. I took them to an empty room within the deserted barracks, locked them in and sent my frightened in- terpreter to the house of Jacob Ukotsees, the nearest relative of the named “ witches,” and after nightfall this man, himself almost paralyzed with fear, came bringing blankets and food and other necessities. There for three or four weeks lived this old couple, con- demned by universal sentiment as the most despicable crim- inals known to the Thlingits. They stirred out of their room only to go to the mission school, which convened in an adjacent house, and to our church and prayer-meetings. It was both ludicrous and pitiable to see the wrinkled old savages, who did not know a word of English and never could learn, sitting among the children, holding primers upside down in their gnarled hands, vacantly staring at the teacher or dozing on their bench. At that season most of the natives were absent from the town at their salmon streams or hunting grounds. But there was excitement, anger and fear among those who remained. Many of those who had begun to call themselves Christians and to attend the meetings withdrew and denounced me. A number of parents took their children out of school and Sun- day School. Violent speeches were shouted into the air after the Indian fashion from prominent houses: ‘‘ The missionaries - THE GATHERING CLOUD 121 are taking the part of those who are murdering us by their black arts.” While my little rank of adherents remained steadfast they were perplexed and troubled. The whole town awaited the return of Head-Chief Shakes from his salmon stream up the Stickeen River, and dire were the forebodings as to what would happen. While awaiting the crisis, I took every opportunity to study the natives, and especially the Zits, and their ways of “ mak- ing medicine.” Soon word was brought that Klee-a-keet had come to the “ Foreign Town” and was about to make a “ big medicine.” He was a Hoochenoo, and camped with his tribe near the north point of the island, half a mile up the beach. He had been called from his home at Angoon, a hundred miles from Wrangell, to cure a Tacoo chief, whose large native house stood not far from the Stickeen town. Here was my chance to witness a first-class incantation. I kept myself informed of all details of the ‘‘ big medicine,” and was a fascinated spec- tator when the night of the performance arrived. The Tacoo chief was a man of great wealth, as the natives considered riches. He traded with the Taltan Indians, whose habitat was in the interior, between the headwaters of Liard River and the streams that flowed into the Pacific. He reached these natives by paddling his canoe up the Tacoo River and traveling with his slaves and packers to the towns of the “ Stick Siwashes,”’ as they were called, ‘‘ People who lived in forests.” He traded with these natives for furs, charging what he pleased for the blankets and other goods which he had purchased at Victoria and Wrangell from the white traders. He had built his house large, about fifty feet square, with two platforms running around the whole interior. He was slowly dying of tuberculosis. Klee-a-keet had sent him word that he was able to cure him. The chief had made great preparations for the performance. He had sent to all his clansmen collecting blan- 122 ‘HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA kets, Indian boxes, beads, guns and ammunition for the occa- sion. These were hung over the bed on which the sick chief lay, or displayed around him on the two platforms. There were some three hundred blankets, besides the other articles— at least two thousand dollars’ worth of goods made a fee to be offered in return for the “ Big Medicine” that was to cure the sick chief. That night all the people of the Foreign Town and many of the Stickeens were gathered together in the great house where the sick chief lay. In the middle of the room blazed a big fire of dry yellow cedar logs. On this, every now and then, the Thlingits would throw ladlefuls of seal grease, making the flames flare up to the smoke-hole in the roof. On the first platform back of the fire, on a bed of red blan- kets, lay the chief. He was gasping for breath, and in his de- lirium muttering strange words and sometimes shrieking with pain. By his side were his wife and children and other mem- bers of his family. Every inch of room in the house, except a space by the fire reserved for the medicine-man, was crowded with eager In- dians, their faces tense with excitement and fear. Long they waited, their terror growing every minute. At last, far away, was heard the sound of Indian drums: “ Dumdum, dumdum, dumdum,” the rhythmic beat broke the silence. Louder and louder it grew, nearer and nearer, while the crowd inside the house held their breath in suspense. Now the weird minor strains of the medicine song blended with the drumming—a solemn, mournful measure. Suddenly broke in upon the singing the long tremulous wail of a wolf, and in- stantly every dog in the village responded with a discordant chorus of howls. Now the door swung open, and four young men fantastically garbed, with faces painted in rings and streaks of black, white, red and yellow, holding their flat drums by their handles be- A ee | ee aS Pe ee ee ee fe "whe either THE GATHERING CLOUD 123 fore them, drumming and singing, keeping time by the jerking and posturing of their bodies, marched in. After them came eight men with wooden masks on their heads, carrying two long carved wooden boxes and in their hands round sticks, with which they beat upon the boxes, in time with the songs. The twelve young men ranged themselves around the fire, and at a signal squatted down on the floor, still singing and beating time. They took the carved lids off the boxes, dis- playing the rattles, aprons, masks and charms which the great medicine-man would use in his incantations. They placed the hollow lids before them, beating rapid tattoos upon them with their sticks. The songs grew more frenzied, their time more rapid. Dumdumdum, dumdumdum, dumdumdum, went the drums; rattattattat, the sticks. Every eye was turned to- wards the door. The wild, maniac cry of the loon quivered through the air; all gave exclamations of wonder and fear, as into the room rushed Klee-a-keet with frantic gestures and horrid cries. He leaped over the heads of those on the lower platform and landed on the cleared space by the fire. Close after him rushed two of his slaves. Their business was to keep their master out of the fire and prevent him from hurting himself. Klee-a-keet had made himself as hideous as it is possible for a human being to be. He was naked, except for a short apron of buckskin, hung with small clinking shells, and anklets of swansdown, ornamented with puffins’ bills. His body, legs, arms and face were painted all over with totemic figures and grotesque devices. Green figures of his family totem, the frog, covered his chest and abdomen. Goggling eyes in black, white, and ochre stared from his arms and legs. His face was a jumble of red, blue and yellow rings and streaks. His hair, which never had been cut or combed in his life, surrounded his head in ugly bunches like a mass of brown seaweed. In each hand he held a rattle, with carved frogs chasing each other 124 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA over its surface; these he rattled furiously as he howled and danced. This dreadful figure was never still. It crouched and sprang; it writhed and bent and swayed; it pitched towards the fire, only to be thrown back by the slaves; it dashed itself on the floor, rolling over and over, tying itself in knots and convolutions like a bundle of snakes; it turned somersaults and cramped backward until heels touched head; it rolled its eyes, clutched with its claws, frothed at the mouth and steamed with sweat. It lost all semblance to a human being and seemed a demon from another world. From the mouth of this terrific monster burst forth in rapid explosions noises as varied and frightful as its contortions. It howled like a wolf, roared and growled like a bear, screamed like an eagle, squalled like a lynx, blew like a whale, hissed like a serpent. Prayers to the demons of the mountains and the sea and to his Yakes, and curses upon his enemies, includ- ing the missionaries and the witches, followed each other cease- lessly. The ordinary Shaman had only one Yake, or familiar spirit. Klee-a-keet boasted of six, and in his incantations invoked each in succession, calling it by name, and selecting different rattles and aprons and amulets to please each spirit. This tremendous exhibition continued for two hours, the drumming, rattling, and singing growing more rapid and furi- ous, and changing with the different Yakes. The crowd was fascinated, and breathless as birds charmed by snakes. At last, completely exhausted, the Jkt fell heavily to the floor, stiffened in every muscle, his eyes rolled upward until only the whites could be seen. This was his trance when his soul was in the spirit world communing with his Yakes and the spirits of other great Jkts. For nearly two hours he lay as if dead, and the Indians watched and waited, hardly daring to move or whisper. THE GATHERING CLOUD 125 The awakening of the medicine-man was as startling as his incantations. Without warning he bounded to his feet; then he crouched and swayed, moving his head from side to side, and talking rapidly in short, explosive sentences: “T have been in the spirit world. I have talked with my ancestors. My medicine is strong. My Yakes are omniscient. They tell me everything. I know all secrets. I can speak all languages. Nothing is hidden from me. I could make your chief well in a minute. But a bad spirit is here. He is in this room. The chief is nooksatty (bewitched). Somebody has a heehwh (evil spirit). He is killing our brother. I must find him; I must find him! ” Then he sprang into the air and rushed to this and that part of the room, the Indians swaying back from him in horror and fear. Suddenly he made a spring like that of a panther into the midst of the crowd and stooping quickly snatched at an invisible rope; then, straining back with all his strength, while the sweat poured from his face, he made the motions of gather- ing in the rope. Yelping like a dog on a hot trail, he pulled on the unseen line, staring ahead and weaving in and out of the terror-stricken company, growing more excited, his lips drawn back from his teeth, snarling like a dog fighting for a bone. His winding course brought him at last to a little group of poorly clad Tacoos who stood huddled together, their eyes staring, their bodies shivering. They were poor slaves, and knew that from their number the Jkt would choose his victim. The Skaman was labouring harder, his breath coming in gasps, as he pulled at his imaginary rope. When he got in front of this group he stopped with a backward surge, and stiffened, staring rigid and motionless as a setter pointing a bird. Then with a shriek he leaped upon an old slave, seizing him with both hands and shaking him. “Tt is he; it is he! ” screamed the Shaman, and fell upon the floor in convulsions. 126 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA There was a moment of tense silence. The crowd was dazed and stunned. Then confused cries of horror, fear and anger burst forth on every side. Excited voices cried: “ The witch! The witch! Take him! Tie him up! Kill him! ” The friends of the sick chief, led by his brother, came storm- ing up and laid violent hands upon the slave, jerking him hither and thither. One of them struck him in the face. A Tacoo woman called him a foul name and spit upon him. They flung him on the floor. They tore all his clothes from him. Two men took him by his feet and dragged him across the sharp gravel which surrounded the fire, tearing the flesh of his back and staining the stones with his blood. Men and women sprang to the fire as he passed, and snatching burning brands stuck the live coals against his body. The horrible smell of scorching flesh filled the room. Then the attendants of the Iht brought thongs of sinew, and he was bound as Mrs. Brown had been, the rope in this case being passed around the man’s throat and drawn so tight behind his back that he could breathe only with great difficulty. Some one pried up two planks from the upper platform and the victim was thrown to the ground eight feet below, and the planks replaced. While this frightful scene was being enacted I was by no means a passive spectator. During the incantation I was spell- bound. But when they seized the slave and began to abuse him I became beside myself with horror and anger. I shouted protests and struggled to go to his help. But I was held as in a vise. When I became sane enough to look at my captors I found that some of my own men, Matthew, Moses and An- drew, were holding me, lest I be injured in the crazy mob. “ Better go home,” said they. “ You can’t do nothin’. Some udder time you speak.” I obeyed perforce. I did not sleep that night, but my re- solve was that of Abraham Lincoln’s concerning slavery: “When the time comes, I’ll hit that thing—and hit it hard!” fe Te > = XII THE STORM [se close study of Shamanism made while Kah-tu- yeatley and his wife cowered in my house was not the only pressing activity and excitement occupying those days. The slavery question became acute. There were many slaves in and about Fort Wrangell, some of them held by the Stickeen chiefs and others brought there by the ‘“ For- eign Indians.” ‘These slaves were obtained in two ways by the Thlingits and the Hydas. The manner in which most of them were procured was by the great war parties, which, from thirty to a hundred years before our arrival, went down the coast in their large canoes, attacked the Flatheads of Puget Sound and the natives of Vancouver Island, killing the men and making captives of the women and children. The slaves thus procured and their children, for they frequently married in captivity, were held as property in all the tribes. The other method was by self-surrender. A man would be- come so deeply involved in debt that neither he nor his imme- diate kin could see any prospect of payment. His creditors were persistent in their demands. At last, after much talk he would give himself up, with as many children of his family as were necessary to satisfy the long-standing obligation, and they would go to the house of the creditor family and become slaves. However, while those obtained by foray were counted as mere chattels, the master having the power of life and death over them, those taken for debt within the same tribe stood on a different footing; and there was always the hope in their hearts that they could serve out their time and purchase their freedom. ‘They were part of the family in the community 127 128 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA house, and often their masters had a real affection for them and treated them well. But the slaves captured from foreign tribes were despised, slighted and bartered at the will of their masters. Frequently they were sacrificed at the death of a chief, or to propitiate the spirits of the glaciers which were swallowing up their salmon streams, or the spirits of the mountains which precipitated landslides upon the camps, or the spirits of the ice which over- turned huge icebergs to the destruction of unwary canoeists. When they died, instead of their bodies being cremated they were thrown out in the woods to rot or be devoured by the wolfish dogs. So far as I could ascertain, no real effort had been made by the officers at Fort Wrangell and Sitka to abolish slavery. Of course, I instituted a vigorous campaign against this evil. Here I had the help of Colonel Crittenden, the customs col- lector. In his pompous way he said: ‘We Southerners had to give up our niggers after the Civil War, and I am not going to stand for slavery among these Siwashes.”’ Although the masters objected, and often pretended to lib- erate their slaves while still holding them in servitude, we soon effected practical freedom. We sent back to Nanaimo in British Columbia, to Tacoma and Port Townsend and to the west coast of Vancouver Island upward of twenty men and women who wished to return to their native tribes. This, of course, involved much investigation and many powwows. I was a very busy man those days. In addition to my mani- fold duties among the natives I had to be chief nurse to my one confidential friend among the white men of Fort Wrangell, John Vanderbilt. He was a bright young man whose home was in New York City, but who had come to Portland, Oregon, and had been sent to Fort Wrangell by the merchants of that city to act as receiver to close up the mercantile business of THE STORM 129 William King Lear, an old trader who had taken over the gov- ernment commissary supplies when the Fort was abandoned. Vanderbilt and his wife were refined and companionable people, and their two children were our delight. But John was taken violently ill with inflammatory rheumatism, and I had to act as his nurse. As did the other white men, John counseled me to keep my hands off all troubles between Indian families and between the different tribes living there; to ignore witch- craft disputes, and above all things not to interfere with the medicine-men. They said it would be at the risk of my life to have anything to do with such cases. They all looked upon the Thlingits and Hydas as inferior beings—liars and thieves— with only animal instincts and incapable of any real civiliza- tion. Some six weeks passed from the time of my arrival when it was announced that Chief Shakes had returned, and the native village was agog with excitement. Kah-tu-yeatley and his wife still tottered daily to our school and were the most devout of our attendants at prayer-meet- ings. I had been over to Shustaak’s Point frequently to see the old chief and his wife, as they lay in their blankets on the platform of the big house in front of the log fire, coughing, groaning and spitting blood from the tuberculosis which was slowly eating away their lives. The hard old chief would have nothing to do with the Christians, and only tolerated my visits because of the hope he had that I would give him something. The medicines I sent him were never taken as I directed, and I learned that he distributed them freely to his friends. He was incurably wedded to the old fashions. One night the expected blow fell. It was very dark and stormy that prayer-meeting evening. Kah-tu-yeatley was caught as he was crossing the campus on his way home; his cries and those of his wife were stifled, and he was hustled aboard a canoe and was paddled over to Shustaak’s house. His 130 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA old wife was released after some rough treatment. Very soon Mrs. Dickinson, Matthew and Aaron came rushing into my house with the news. I had been making up my mind just what to do in such an emergency. I said to Mrs. Dickinson: ‘“‘ You must go home now and get your sleep, and to-morrow morning, right after breakfast, I wish you to get me a canoe, and you and I will go over to Shustaak’s and get Kah-tu-yeatley.” Tremblingly, she answered: “‘ Oh, you can’t do that! They won’t let you; they very mad, maybe they kill you. I am afraid.” “Mrs. Dickinson,” I said, “I don’t ask for your opinion. You will come to me to-morrow morning and go with me and interpret for me. If you refuse, I will discharge you and get another interpreter.” The next morning she was there, in Matthew’s canoe. Be- cause of the enmity between Shustaak’s and Shakes’ families and that of Tow-a-att, I forbade any of my Christian Indians to go with me. “ This is my affair,” I said, ‘and I am going to fight it out ~ alone.” The moment my little canoe struck the water, a dozen craft of various sizes were shoved into the sea and all headed to- wards the Point. From Shakes’ Island, Casch’s Cove, Kadi- shan’s Point, Konanisty’s house and other places the head men of the village, with the exception of Tow-a-att, all con- vened in Shustaak’s house. When I entered I found about a hundred and fifty Indians. They all scowled at me in silence. Shustaak, dressed in his best blue blanket, and his wife in her finest garb, lay groaning near the fire surrounded by their slaves and attendants. Shakes, with some twenty strong young men of his family, sat on the platform near Shustaak’s bed. I went in and began my speech. It was short but right to the point. I said: ’ “eit rh AN: 7 - * 4 SO een ALASKAN MEDICINE-MAN AN TOTEM POLES AND COMMUNAL HOUSES THE STORM 131 “T have come to get Kah-tu-yeatley; to free him and take him back to my house. You have broken the law of the United States, and I shall have you all punished. I am going to put down all persecution for witchcraft and banish the medicine- men from this town. This is going to be a Christian town, and the law of love shall take the place of the law of hatred and wrong. Where is Kah-tu-yeatley? ” My speech was a bomb, and an explosion followed imme- diately. Men and women began to talk rapidly; there was a tremendous hubbub. Mrs. Dickinson, who had translated my speech only after her protest and my stern command, cowered at my side. Instead of answering me, they were all talking excitedly to one another. Old Casch, a chief who must have been at least seventy years old, went to Shakes and shook him by the shoulders. ‘“ You are our chief,” he shouted. ‘‘ Why do you let this white man interfere with you? Put him out of Shustaak’s house! Take your place as our chief.” Others struck the same attitude. Kadishan, who was always a diplomat, got the floor after a while and made a somewhat soothing speech, taking no ground against witchcraft, but tell- ing them not to do anything rash to me; that I had come to that town to do their people much good and that they must listen to me. When there was no answer to my question, I took the floor again: ‘“‘ Where is Kah-tu-yeatley? I have come to get him.” Then the formal answers began, and every chief must have his say. Shustaak, reclining in his blankets, made the first speech. There was not much diplomacy to him. He was blunt and to the point: ‘‘ Your business is to tell about your ‘ God,’ ” he said; ‘‘ our business is to manage our own affairs. My wife, who is Shakes’ mother, is very sick. This bad man is bewitch- ing her. We are going to make him throw away his bad medi- cine, and then she will get well. That is all.” Others followed, naming the old man as a murderer, a con- 132 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA fessed wizard, citing instance after instance of his evil deeds and those of others who were accused of the same crime. “ We are not going to kill him,” they said. ‘ We are just going to make him throw away his bad medicine and save the life of Shustaak and his wife.” I saw that I was making no progress by argument and that they were incapable of reason. It was a huge game of bluff on both sides, and I determined to carry it through. Suddenly, I stood up close to Shustaak and demanded: “ Where is Kah-tu-yeatley? ” Shakes answered: “ He is not here.” I knew that he was lying and said so. “I am determined to see him,” I cried. ‘‘ Where is he? ” All sat silent and sullen. I spied a room on the upper plat- form of the large house. I stepped quickly to this room and tried the door. It was locked. I said: “ He is in this room, open it.” “No, no,” the chorus cried, “ he is not there.” “‘ Where is he, then? ” I shouted. Again, silence. I jumped to the fire, and snatched an ax that was lying there, and ran back to the room and wielded it. “ Open this door, or I will break it open! ” I said. There was great commotion. Shakes’ young men sur- rounded me threateningly; one tried to take the ax from me but I drew it back and threatened him. The natives shouted: ‘‘ Turn him out of the house! ” Then Shakes stood up and spoke: “ Do not break in that door. He is not there. I will show you where he is.” He gave orders to one of his young men, who took a Rus- sian bayonet in his hand, stepped to the highest platform, pried up two slabs of red cedar and motioned down. I ran to the place, which was on the opposite side of the room from us, and peered down the dark hole. About six or seven feet below me lay the poor old man, naked; his head, hands and feet THE STORM 133 cinched tightly behind his back. He could barely move his head, but when he saw me he began praying to me as to a god, asking me to have pity on him. I demanded that he be immediately untied and brought up to me. Again there was silence. I took out my knife, and swung down until I stood by Kah-tu-yeatley’s side. ‘‘ This is a good rope, and if you want to save it, untie this man—or I will cut it all to pieces,” I shouted. Again there was a hubbub, but Shakes motioned to his young men, and two of them jumped down by my side and soon the rope was untied. I clambered back upon the platform and asked for Kah-tu-yeatley’s clothing. Nobody answered, but I did not wait a minute. I ran to Shustaak’s bed and snatched a costly blanket, and took it back to where the old man sat. “ Put this on him,” I commanded. There was a ccry of horror. To put Shustaak’s blanket on the wizard—that would condemn it! It would be another bad medicine. Again Shakes’ voice arose, and Kah-tu-yeatley’s own clothes and blanket were brought in and put on him. [I led the old man to the fire; he was shivering violently from cold and fear. “Now, you are coming to my canoe,” I said, “ and we will go back to my house.” The natives tried very hard to stop me. “ Let him stay with us a day or two,” they asked. ‘“ We will not hurt him. We will just talk to him.” “No,” I replied, “ he is coming with me.” And I led him down and put him into the canoe and paddled back to the Fort. The commotion in the town may be imagined! My men thronged to my house excitedly, telling what the people were saying and the threats that were freely made against me. I counseled Tow-a-att and his friends to stay quietly in their homes and to have nothing to say. I said: “ This excitement will perhaps die down. If it does 134 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA not I do not wish you to be involved and to have the enmity of Shakes and Shustaak. I am going to fight this thing clear through. It is God’s will, and He will help us. Stay in your homes and pray. I am here to work not only for your families but for all of these people. We wish to Christianize the whole tribe, and other tribes as well.” Mrs. McFarland and I went to Kah-tu-yeatley’s room and massaged the sores of his wrists, ankles and neck, and put soothing ointment on them. We fed him and tried to quiet his fears, but he was still in an agony of terror; and that night, doubtless aided by Jacob Ukotsees, he and his wife got in a canoe and departed for the country of the Hanegas on the west coast of the islands—the kinfolk of Kah-tu-yeatley’s wife. I went about my business, but there was a marked change in the general sentiment, and one after another, Kadishan, Konanisty, Kohlteen and many others who had held aloof be- gan to.attend our services. Several Indian women brought their girls to Mrs. McFarland, asking that she take care of them and “ teach them to be good.” Klee-a-keet had departed to the land of the Hoochenoos with the loot collected from the Tacoo chief, and there was com- parative peace in the town. But I knew that the victory was by no means completed, and soon there would be a fresh dis- turbance. At the time the universal practice concerning their dead was to cremate the bodies. All men and women of prominence who died were burned with great ceremony. At first I did not look with much disfavour upon this practice. I had attended a funeral in the East when the body of a friend of mine, at his request, was cremated in a Le Moyn furnace. Of course there was nothing revolting in that ceremony. But the gruesome sight of a Thlingit burning brought a change in my feelings. This took place in the “ Foreign Town.” The deceased woman was the daughter of a chief of THE STORM 135 the Raven phratry. I arrived just after the funeral pile of logs had been erected and the naked body of the woman laid upon it. The Indian women were all wailing in their peculiar doleful minor singsongs, and a large crowd of natives sur- rounded the pile of logs. At a given word the family of the deceased surrounded the bier, and one of them applied the torch. The logs were of dry yellow cedar, and quantities of pitch wood had been distributed among them and gallons of seal grease poured over the body and pile of wood. The flames sprang up quickly, and black smoke flooded the whole scene. Then the mourners began to circle around the funeral pyre, and the songs grew louder and faster and the movements more rapid. It resolved itself into a frantic dance; the natives screeching and crying and invoking the spirit of the dead in loud tones. Then they began to snatch-burning embers from the fire and as they circled around would thrust these fagots into the flesh of the corpse; then long splinters of spruce pitch were thrust into the flesh, and these soon were on fire until great flames enwrapped the body; the fierce heat from under it roasted and charred the flesh. It was a most revolting sight, and it continued for over an hour before the body was reduced to ashes. That cremation settled the matter for me! I took a stand - against this horrid heathen ceremony and persuaded the people to adopt Christian burial. This result, however, was not ac- complished without opposition. XIII VICTORY \ ,' Y ITH the release of Kah-tu-yeatley, the tide of public sentiment began to flow somewhat in the direction of Christianity and the cause for which our mission was established. Our own little company of adherents openly exulted. In twos and threes Tow-a-att’s whole family and the leading men of the other families came, telling me that they had given up belief in the “ old fashions ” and would stand by me in all future conflicts. Even some of Shustaak’s, Shakes’ and Kasch’s families came regularly to church and sent their children to our school. Our meetings were better attended, and Mrs. McFarland’s efforts to protect the young girls of the town began to meet with some success. But still the old super- stitions persisted and could not be shaken off in a few weeks or months. Delegations from distant tribes came to me asking for Chris- tian teachers for their people. This, I now believe, was not because they were inclined towards Christianity and the giving up of their old customs, but because they thought I was a rep- resentative of a power greater than any of their chiefs or medicine-men, and they wished to be on the good side of the American government and of those who would rule them. They were in much fear of the gunboats, and the object lesson of the blowing up of the Kake village was sufficiently recent to keep them in dread of similar visitations by the Wan-o-wah. But various medicine-men still went through their perform- ances in the Foreign Town; old women doctors sat on the beds of the sick like vampire bats, their claw-like fingers pressed 136 VICTORY 137 tightly on the part of the body of the patient which was feeling the most pain. Old women with clams, crabs, or baskets to sell came ped- dling their wares. The cry of one old squaw, who was very fat and dirty, with a very high, doleful voice, rings in my ears to this day: “ Claoos nayoo day” (buy clams). Men and women and often married couples came with their disputes for me to settle. I was pestered with demands that I should help collect debts in question between the natives, and disputes about “ gits ” (bits—dimes) were increasingly frequent and took up so much of my time that I finally refused to arbitrate on trifling matters. They looked upon me as a judge with all the authority of that vague entity which we called “ The Law.” ‘Their disputes were often mere quarrels of naughty and ill-tempered children, but we had to hear their cases patiently, trying always to sub- stitute the law of love for that of selfishness. Ever underneath the surface of our little world we could hear the rumbling of the volcano of superstition. One morning Mrs. Dickinson with Matthew, Moses and Aaron came in great excitement to my house before I was up. A human skull with the flesh half gone had been found under the house of Jacob Ukotsees, the friend of Kah-tu-yeatley. Jacob and his family were among those who had been hiding on the islands, fearing attack for witchcraft, but had returned to their homes when they heard of my arrival. The Stickeens were gathered in a mass in front of Jacob’s house, angry speeches were being made by this and that heathen, and threats of violence were freely uttered. The theory of the heathen natives was that Jacob had brought this skull from the dead- house of some medicine-man and was making bad medicine with it to revenge himself upon his enemies. While my friends were discussing the matter in my house, there came a message from Chief Shakes and Shustaak to me, 138 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA asking: “‘ What are you going to do about this fresh outrage? Are you going to let Ukotsees make us sick and kill us, as Kah-tu-yeatley did? ” I saw that a new crisis had come and that open conflict could not be averted any longer. After consultation with Mrs. Mc- Farland and much earnest thought and prayer, I sent word to Shakes, saying: ‘“‘T am glad that you have referred this matter to me. Call a council of the head men of the Stickeen tribe in your house, and we will hear what they have to say and will settle this matter once for all.” Ah, that council! It wearies me to think of it. Four days and nights, almost without eating or sleeping, we fought over the question. There sat young Chief Shakes in his Chilcat blanket with his tenahk (copper shield engraved with strange characters), the emblem of his headship, by his side and other heirlooms arranged around him; there was old Shustaak, wrapped in his blanket, reclining on a bed near Shakes; Old Kasch with his unsmiling wrinkled face; Kohlteen, known as the violent-tempered head of the Kiksutti, or Frog people; Kadishan, the courtier, the custodian of the ceremonial songs and rites of the tribe; Sam Tahtain, the orator, and many others of position and dignity. The Tow-a-att family were conspicuous by their absence. They were the accused, and the case against them was to be tried out. Tow-a-att was not wanting in courage and would have been present had I advised it, although he had received no message from Shakes asking him to come. Some seventy-five or a hundred Stickeens, most of them dressed in their best blankets, were arranged around the room. A big fire of yellow cedar logs was blazing and crackling in the center. I took the initiative, and in my speech told the people that we were met to decide the question as to whether the Stickeens were to remain a heathen tribe holding to the old-fashioned be- iat ae ear ee Cn a Se Pe ee a ee, VICTORY 139 liefs, having their medicine-men persecute those accused of witchcraft, making their big potlatches and holding their great dances and feasts as they had been used to doing, or whether they were to take the new way as believers in God and follow- ers of Jesus Christ; as citizens of the United States to which they now belonged. “We have come from afar,” I told them, “ to bring to you the good word from God and from His Son, Jesus Christ, who came from Heaven into this world to save you, as well as the white people, from your evil ways. We wish to be your broth- ers and sisters and to help you to stand on the same footing as the better whites. We wish you to love and assist the poor and feeble and distressed, not to torture and kill them. Our country is a great and free one, and its laws consider life and property of all equally sacred. I am here to listen to your case. I wish to know what is in the mind of every one of you. The question is whether you are to follow your old fashions, be- lieve in your medicine-men and do as they say, or follow the new way—the way of the Christian people and of the American government.” Then the speeches began. I did not bring Mrs. Dickinson with me to this council, but employed Stickeen Johnny, a young man who had lived with the whites; he could speak fairly good English and was a member of the Shakes family. Johnny was friendly to the whites. I think he felt genuine gratitude to- wards the good woman who had taken him when a little boy, had educated him and brought him up in Christian ways. Johnny had lapsed when he went back to his own people; had fallen into some of their vices, and the loathsome cicatrice scarred his neck. But he was honest and brave, and was not afraid to translate every word I spoke, no matter what he thought of its wisdom. Shakes, as the first spokesman, began with his usual diplo- matic palaver, thanking me for coming so far to see and help 140 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA his poor people and telling me what a great man I was, how wise and good—the usual soft soap applied with lavish hand by natives who wished to gain something from those they were addressing. “We are only little children,” he said. ‘‘ We know very lit- tle, and you know many things. You must lead us. But,” he said, ‘‘ there are some things you do not know; you have not lived among us long, and you are ignorant of the bad people who are trying to harm us. We know them, and so do our medicine-men. You do not know the bad spirits that are flying through the air, who come to our houses and put evil thoughts in the minds of those who will listen to them. Some of these evil spirits are in this house listening to what you say and studying how they can fool you and make you believe they are right. I want my people to tell you what they know about the evil ones who are nooksatty (possessed of devils). We ask you to help put them down—not to take their side.” The testimony of practically all present was then heard. Of late years I have made a study of the Salem witchcraft cases and have compared the testimony given in the press by our enlightened New England forefathers with the testimony of the Stickeens in that notable council of ours. A comparison of this evidence shows a surprising resemblance between tales told during the trials at Salem and the stories of the Stickeens in Shakes’ house two hundred and fifty years afterwards. But space will not permit a tabulation of testimony given at the Massachusetts trials from the years 1648 to 1706 and the speeches of our Thlingits in Shakes’ house. Yet there were in both the same positive statements of the transformation of the persons accused into the form of wolves, ravens and demons; the same mysterious convulsions, trances and painful seizures of their victims; the same jumble of piety and malice, of falsehood and delusion; the same hysterics. While the tales told by the Stickeens were more crude, they were not more VICTORY 141 fantastic than those of Salem, which made Cotton Mather, the most eminent divine of his time, condemn the witches. One by one stories of incidents which were told as coming under the personal knowledge of the speakers were related with seeming truthfulness. Hour after hour slipped by as the end- less palaver went on. The mass of testimony, if it could be dignified by that name, was overwhelming. But while these men claimed to be eye-witnesses of these mysterious events, the “‘ witnesses did not agree together ”’; and while I was learning much of their fantastic superstitions, it was also becoming more settled in my mind that the unscrupulous and avaricious medicine-men were at the bottom of it all. Many of these tales were put into the mouths of the witnesses by their Jhts. At first I tried to answer with arguments the speeches made by each one of the chiefs, but after two or three days I found that I was making little progress by my arguments, and at the beginning of the fourth day I had made up my mind to press the matter to conclusion. I sailed on a new tack. I said: “For three days now I have listened to your stories, and I am glad to know of your old beliefs; but they are the super- stitions of children, not grown men. The whites used to hold to these old tales, and would persecute those who were accused of witchcraft; but that is all a thing of the past now. The laws of the United States forbid the persecution of any one on ac- count of his beliefs. We know there is no such a thing as a Yake or malignant spirit working magic for the destruction of man. Our doctors know the cause of consumption and all the other diseases that have been making you sick. Our medicines can cure many of these diseases, but the Indian medicine-men cannot cure anybody; they only work more harm to you. “The one question before you now is whether you are going to be on the side of law and order, of the United States or against it? Are you going to have the friendship of the cap- tains of the war vessels and of the government of the United 142 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA States, or are you going to be enemies of these great men? Pretty soon we will have organized government, courts, magis- trates, judges and marshals to enforce the laws, to punish crimes and to keep order. Your medicine-men and all those who persecute people for witchcraft are law-breakers and will be punished for the wrongs they commit. It is for you to say now which side you are on—whether on the side of the govern- ment and law of the United States to which you belong, or on the side of murder and superstition and error and savagery. “The time has come now for you to stop talking, and decide. I shall do all in my power to have those punished who break the law, and will protect and help those who are on the side of good order. Above all, I am bound that persecution for witchcraft shall cease, and that the medicine-men shall not practice their black arts in Fort Wrangell. There shall be no more tying up or torturing of these poor people. If you con- sent, I shall organize you into a Council, with Chief Shakes as your president. If there is any witchcraft talk or trouble, we will meet together as a Council, and we will try the cases. If any one is accused of practicing bad arts and trying to scare people or make them sick, we will try their case, and we will see that those who are guilty shall be punished. What do you say? Decide now. Are you going forward to learn Christian ways and bring your tribes up to the light, or are you going to sit in darkness? ” Profound silence followed for many minutes. Shakes sat with his head bowed pondering the question. Then arose Ka- dishan, the most influential and wisest of the chiefs, and in a speech that was really admirable for its diplomacy and com- mon sense he agreed to the fact that their ways and their old teachings and customs had brought them only trouble and war and dissension. He pointed out the superiority of the white men, their weapons, their great steamboats and their manu- factures, and said: | VICTORY 143 “Mr. Young has told us what is for our good. I, for one, am going to be on the side of Mr. Young.” He arose from his seat and walked over and took his stand by my side. “I here give up my old fashions, and declare for the new way. I am going to learn about God and about all good ways. Here I stand, by Mr. Young.” A scene, gratifying beyond my expectations, then followed. Konanesty made a speech of surrender; then Sam Tahtain and others followed, vying with each other in their expressions of acquiescence. Only old Shustaak lay on his bed glum and silent, scowling at the others. Shakes was the last speaker. “You have beaten me,” he said, addressing himself to me. “You are wiser than I; I am going to be your friend and the friend of the mission hereafter.” He then solemnly stalked to the door of his little room on the upper platform of his house, opened it and took from it a spear, curiously carved, a mask of his totem, the cinnamon bear, and a very elaborately carved wooden pipe. He brought them to me and made a speech telling what they stood for— the old heirlooms of the Shakes family. Then he gave them to me, saying: “These gifts are the sign that henceforth I am going to be a Christian and shall follow the new way.” I had prepared a simple document, forming the Council of the Stickeens, stating the principles for which they were to stand. In it was a pledge that there would be no more perse- cutions for witchcraft; that the medicine-men would not be per- mitted to practice within the bounds of the town; and that any accusations made against any one were to be formally pre- sented to the Council and the case tried and judgment pro- nounced; that the old feasts and potlatches which led to so much robbery and disorder were to be done away and that the decisions of the Council were to be supreme in the Stickeen tribe. I was to be the manager of the Council, and the cases 144 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA were to be first brought to me, and I would prepare them for action. This document was read carefully and interpreted by Stick- een Johnny before it was presented for signature. Shakes’ name was the first. I wrote his name, and he made his mark; then followed Kadishan and all the rest of the tribe, numbering about sixty. It was agreed that Tow-a-att, Matthew, Moses, Andrew and Lot and one or two others professing Christianity might add their names to this number. Then there was a general handshaking and the presentation to me of a multitude of old dance implements, pipes, stone axes and other relics of their past life, and the Council adjourned with prayer and benediction. Naturally I felt that this was a victory, although I knew that the struggle against superstition was only begun and that most of the professions of these men were hollow and insincere and soon would be forgotten. But it was a victory, neverthe- less. And the word went far and near, and those who were hid- ing among the islands in fear came back and reoccupied their houses. The church and school were filled, and “ new fash- ioned ”’ feasts were held in which a ludicrous and rather pa- thetic effort was made to ape white men’s ways. Instead of the native dances, children’s games were instituted, and for a while my house was besieged by those who came professing conversion and the desire to be enrolled as our friends. AIV SUPERSTITION DIES HARD seventeenth century, has said that the facts of witch- craft have been more definitely proven in the English courts than almost any other question. In the most enlight- ened nations, belief in it is by no means eradicated. The United States is more free from trouble on account of super- stition than any other country. And yet, occasionally, here and there trouble arises on account of this dark belief—not only among the black men of the South with their voodoo rites, the Mexicans and Louisiana Creoles with their charms, and the various native tribes with their incantations, but among the mountain whites, descendants of the Scotch-Irish, the back countries of New England and the foreign population in the Middle Eastern states. How, then, could we expect the natives of Alaska to give up in a few months or years that which nineteen centuries of Christianity have not been able to overcome? Rather than follow the course of events and progress in our mission, let me pursue this subject for one more chapter: One of the great difficulties lay in the moral make-up of the natives, who had never learned to distinguish between truth and falsehood, or to feel that falsehood was a sin. If you should call a native a liar, he would grin at you and take it as a compliment, but if you called him a wizard, he wanted to kill you. We soon learned that professions of reform and change of heart must be taken with a large pinch of salt. I could have baptized the whole tribe of Stickeens the first year at Fort Wrangell. Many wonderful stories of the whole- 145 S IR MATTHEW HALE, the great English jurist of the 146 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA sale conversions to Christianity of savage tribes are about as reasonable as such action on our part would have been. We adopted the plan of putting our members on probation for longer and longer periods before receiving them as Christian members. They must prove by consistent obedience that they were genuinely changed. The Indian medicine-men were still very much in evidence. They practiced their black arts in the Foreign Town at will. And we heard frequently of the Stickeens patronizing them. The scope of their activities was very wide, and many curious cases came under our observation. I firmly believe that all of the medicine-men in Southeastern Alaska at that time and since were conscious frauds. They were in the business simply for the profit that there was in it. They did not believe in their own powers. In fact, one of the most noted of them, when I pinned him down, confessed as much. I said, ‘ You know yourself that you are simply fooling these people; you have no Yake, and never had one. You cannot do anything you profess to do. Why do you do it? ” He grinned at me with that aggravating insolence that those fellows possessed in superlative degree, and said: “I do it for the same reason that you come and preach about your God— for pay.” The conflict between myself and Klee-a-keet soon came to a crisis. About six months after our Council was organized, a serious trouble arose. The brother of Chief Shakes, a young man of twenty-one or two years, was taken seriously ill. He had the common loathsome disease with which so many of the young men and women were afflicted. I had been caring for him assiduously, taking him medicine and directing his nurs- ing. In such cases, however, I always refused to wield the surgeon’s knife because of the danger of getting the infection myself. | Klee-a-keet came to the town and heard of the young man’s SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 147 illness. He sent word to Shakes stating he could cure his brother if enough pay was offered. Instead of reporting the matter to me and allowing me to call the Council together, Shakes secretly negotiated with Klee-a-keet. My Christian Indians were kept in ignorance of what was going on. In his solicitude for his brother and fear of the great medicine-man, Shakes forgot all his pledges and protestations. I did not learn of this until shortly before the incantation was to take place. My first intimation of it was the passing in front of my house of two large war canoes full of natives. They were keeping time with their paddles and all singing wild minor songs. On the front platform of one of the canoes the medicine-man, in fantastic garb and painted face with rattles in his hands, was going through his medicine dance. I learned from my Indians that Klee-a-keet and his peo- ple would be feasted by Shakes and the incantation would take place that night. I told my men to keep quiet until the time arrived and then instructed Matthew to be at Shakes’ house and to block the door open with his own body at the time when I was ready to enter. Then I got Charley Jones, a white man of my acquaintance, who was not a church member, but was not afraid of anything, to go with me. “You will see some fun,” I said. ‘‘ If you will come with me and back me up, I will break up their party.” I waited until it was pitch dark and the sounds of the tom- toms and the songs proclaimed that the performance had be- gun. Then with Jones I slipped down to the Stickeen village. The beach was deserted; everybody was at the “big medi- cine.” Jones and I stole around the house and suddenly ap- peared at Shakes’ door. Matthew was watching for us and motioned to us to keep out of sight. Then he knocked at the door; it was opened slightly, and the sentry whom Shakes had posted there to keep all the white men out asked who was there. Matthew answered and started to go in, and then 148 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA blocked the door open, and Jones and I stepped into the room. The house was crowded—even my Christian natives were there as spectators. The sick man lay on the first platform in front of the fire, gasping for breath. On the lower floor Klee-a- keet, stripped, only excepting his medicine apron of buckskin, was dancing his medicine dance, howling, shrieking and work- ing himself into a frenzy. But he was by no means beside him- self, for when I entered and walked down the steps to the fire he stopped his performance; his young men ceased beating their drums and singing. Shakes was evidently flabbergasted and pretended to be angry. ‘“Why you come into my house and disturb us? ” he pro- tested. “I did not ask you to come.” I walked up and laid my hand on the medicine-man’s shoul- der and motioned him to sit down. Mechanically he obeyed. . Then I said to Shakes in a loud voice: “Why have you lied to me—you whom I made president of the Council; you who signed your name promising that there would be no more medicine-men performances in the Stickeen town? You have broken your word. Now I demand that this man be turned out, with all his people.” Instantly there was a commotion. Klee-a-keet said he would not go. Shakes came to me pleading to let the performance go on. “No,” I said. “ You have promised obedience to me and to the church, and you know that no heathen doctor can help your brother. He is lying there unconscious. This noise will only hasten his death. This performance has got to stop right now.” The medicine-man refused to stir when I ordered him out of the house. I gave the word to Jones, and he took the drums and drumsticks out of the hands of the young men and gath- ered up the paraphernalia, which consisted of many aprons, SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 149 masks, rattles, and different articles which were supposed to attract the many Yakes which Klee-a-keet possessed. Then we put them into a box and carried them out of the room back to my own house. There was a great hubbub, but no one ven- tured to lay hands on us. The next morning I went early to see Shakes’ brother and found him still unconscious, evidently at the point of death. Then Shakes and his men came to me. They were very humble and apologetic, and explained how Klee-a-keet had sent word that he could cure his brother. “Tf you will allow him to finish his medicine,” he said, “ and he fails, we will pledge our word that there will never be another medicine performance in the Stickeen town, and we will also stop such rites in the Foreign Village.” “ Bring Klee-a-keet here,” I said. ‘‘ We will have a thorough understanding.” A messenger soon brought the scowling witch- doctor to see me. “ Klee-a-keet,” I said, ‘‘ these friends have told me you have promised to cure this young man. If I let you finish your in- cantantion, there must be an understanding on two things: First, you are not to name anybody as bewitching him.” At once he began to protest, and said it wasn’t that kind of an illness, and there would be no one named a witch. _“ And, second, if you fail and this young man dies, you are to promise never to give another incantation in this town, and no other Indian doctor will be allowed to perform.” He looked very sullen and demurred somewhat, but the Stickeens all said: “Yes, you cannot go through with this performance unless you make this promise.” From my knowledge of the condition of the patient, I was satisfied that he could not live more than twenty-four hours at the longest, and decided to take a chance. “Very well,’ I said. “I am going to allow you to complete 150 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA your incantation. I have written here a pledge that you are to give back the goods paid you by Shakes in case you do not cure the sick man; that you are to name no one as a witch, and that if you fail this time you are never to perform in the Stickeen town again.” I made him make a mark to his name as I wrote it, and had it witnessed by Shakes and Sam Tahtain. “ Now,” I said, “‘ go ahead, and make the biggest and strong- est medicine you have ever made; call in all your five Yakes. Do your best. We will make this a test between truth and Shamanism.” My people seemed quite troubled about my stand. ‘The struggle in their minds between faith in the old and the faith in the new was very apparent, but they acquiesced. Mrs. Dickinson, who had plucked up courage after my former suc- cess, openly derided Shakes and his friends. “You think you are strong,” she jeered. ‘‘ You are only mosquitoes buzzing around. One little slap of the Christian white man’s hand, and you are gone.” The din of that night’s performance still rings in my ears. It was more than half a mile from my house to that of Shakes, but I could hear the drums beating and the sticks rattling on the medicine boards and the wild wailing of their songs. The incantation lasted until almost morning. Klee-a-keet practically wore himself out, and his trance at the end of his incantation was more real than simulated. When he came to he said the young man would get well. ‘My Yake tells me that he will eat something when the sun is high, and that will be a sign to you that he will recover quickly.” Then Klee-a-keet’s young men and relatives, who were there in full force, gathered up the great fee of blankets, guns, am- munition, Indian boxes, beads and other valuable articles, fully a thousand dollars’ worth, which had been displayed upon the platform. They carried these up the beach beyond my house SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 151 to the Foreign Town, and Klee-a-keet went hastily to the stores to complete his trading before sailing for his own country. But he was too late. There is no doubt in my mind that the young man’s death was hastened by the noise and stifling breath of that crowd. About noon there was a sound of pat- tering feet along the beach in front of my house. The whole . family of Shakes and many other Stickeens were running with all their speed to the Foreign Town. Matthew and Stickeen Johnny rushed into my house and told me that Shakes’ brother was dead, and the tribe was going to gather up the goods they had paid as fee to Klee-a-keet, and send him away from Fort Wrangell. Fearing there would be violence, I hurried up to Klee-a-keet’s house. I found him standing out on the beach near his canoe cursing and struggling. Shakes and his family were gathering up the blankets and other articles that had been paid to him. They left Klee-a-keet nothing except his canoe. He was beside himself with rage. As I came on the scene he turned his face, from which the paint had been partially washed, and gave me the most awful look of hatred I have ever experienced. I walked right up to him, when suddenly he darted into the house of his friends close by and snatched up a big knife, made out of a Russian bayonet, brandished it in the air and jumped at me to sink it in my breast. Matthew was too quick for him. With several others of my men, who had rushed to my rescue, Matthew caught Klee-a- keet’s wrist as the knife was descending upon me, then quickly twisted it out of his hand and sent him whirling down on the gravel of the beach. The Stickeens, infuriated at the attempt to murder their missionary, picked Klee-a-keet up and put him in his canoe, and hustled after him his wife and children and his two men. They shoved the canoe off into the water, and told them to be gone. / Matthew brought the knife to me. It was a beautiful 152 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA trophy! The handle was of crab-apple wood, carved in the semblance of a wolf’s head with abalone shell eyes and teeth. I placed it in my cabinet of Indian curios and later gave it to my friend, Dr. Holland, curator of the Carnegie Museum at Pittsburgh, and it is now in the anthropological department of that great institution. With the exception of but one other attempt by a Stickeen Iht to make medicine for Minnie, one of Mrs. McFarland’s girls, who was dying with consumption, and whose mother was a member of the congregation, but was inclined to the “old fashions,” this was the last real trouble we had with the medi- cine-men at Fort Wrangell. This second trouble was promptly put down by the native Council, although Minnie’s mother be- longed to Shakes’ family and pleaded for one more chance for the medicine-men. This, however, was accomplished by the Council: An agree- ment was made to the effect that no one was allowed to make any trouble about witchcraft. If the Indians “ dreamed,” they were not allowed to tell their dreams in public. Of course the foreign Indians all followed the old ways. One night the Christian natives were holding a great feast in the house of Tow-a-att. It was a white man’s feast, and the viands were hardtack, stewed venison, clam chowder and cof- fee. Mrs. McFarland and I were the guests of honour, and had a table by ourselves on the upper platform. After the post- prandial speeches there were children’s games: Twirling the Plate, King William Was, and the native Flag Game. They were all having a wonderful time, the old men and women join- ing in the fun. Suddenly Shakes entered the room, circled the crowd and came up to me with Stickeen Johnny and said: “Mr. Young, there is a case of witchcraft trouble in the For- eign Town. Come and see about it.” I slipped out of the house and followed Shakes. It was a very dark night, but Shakes had a lantern, and we made our SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 153 way past the Fort and Customs House and up to the straggling village of the strange tribes. Shakes went into a small Indian shack, where we found a man of the Kake tribe sitting sullenly by a stove in which a fire was burning. His wife was lying on a mattress on the floor, groaning as if in pain. Shakes asked bluntly: “ Where is the little girl?’ There was no answer. Again Shakes asked where the child was, but the man asserted that there was no one there. The woman began to groan more loudly, and Shakes, who had the keen ear of a hunter, decided that she was doing this for a purpose. Then we heard between her groans another sound which seemed to come from the ground. Shakes handed me the lantern, and he and Stickeen Johnny took hold of the mattress on which the woman was lying, and drew it to another part of the room. This disclosed a trap- door in the floor. Shakes took a piece of iron that was lying by the stove and pried up the plank. Down in a hole under the floor, about three or four feet deep, lay a naked child, some five or six years of age, sobbing. When the light was flashed upon her she began to cry loudly. Johnny jumped down into the hole, and lifted her in his arms and handed her up to me. Her hands were tied tightly behind her back, and we found on her body marks or stripes, as if she had been cruelly beaten. Without saying anything, Johnny hunted around and found her clothes and a little blanket, in which he wrapped her, and then with an angry word to the frightened man and woman we marched out. We saw a bright light in Colonel Crittenden’s house, and took the child in there. The Colonel’s woman prepared some bread and milk which the child devoured ravenously. She was apparently starved. When we asked how long since she had eaten anything, she said: ‘“ Many days.” When questioned why she was put down in that hole she did not know. Shakes had been informed, however, that a medicine-man had named 154 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA her as bewitching the woman, and they had begun to torture her. They might have put her to death had we not interfered. We took the child to the village and put her in Mrs. Mc- Farland’s care. But before morning the Kake man and his wife left the town in their canoe, and so far as we were able to learn they never returned. The little girl was named Georgie, in honour of George Shakes, her rescuer. Her father was a white man, formerly collector of customs at Sitka. There were other cases of witchcraft, but they did not get farther than ugly talks. The Stickeen medicine-men, as well as those of some of the foreigners, were afraid to attempt their incantations. The news spread rapidly to other tribes that we were protecting those who were persecuted for witchcraft, and Fort Wrangell soon became a city of refuge. Many who were in trouble in their own villages would come to us for protection. At one time there were seven girls and six boys in our school under our care, who had been accused, and in some cases tied up, as witches. One boy of ten years, who belonged to the Hoonah tribe, and whose home was on Chichagof Island, one hundred and eighty miles from Fort Wrangell, had been tied up and whipped with devil’s-clubs and threatened with death. His mother cut him loose one night and gave him her little canoe and some dried salmon, and told him to go to us at Wrangell for protection. He paddled by night the entire dis- tance; it took him about twenty days. He went down Chat- ham Straits, across Prince Frederick Sound, through Rocky Passage between Kuprianoff and Kuiu Islands into Clarence Straits, past Zarembo Island and into Etolin Harbour. Each morning he would pull his canoe into the woods and would search for food. He lived on the dried salmon which his mother had given him and on clams, crabs and mussels that he was able to catch. He came to us weary and haggard, with a ~ flickering light of terror in his eyes. He was in our school and under our protection until manhood. SUPERSTITION DIES HARD 155 Although we had no further trouble in Wrangell with witch- craft, the belief persisted in other tribes, and many stories of cruelty and diabolical persecution reached us long after Chris- tian teachers and missionaries had come to those towns. In some cases lack of firmness and courage on the part of the missionaries was to blame for this state of affairs. To this day I suppose the majority of the Thlingit and Hydas believe in witchcraft, and often the children in the government schools send their playmates to Coventry as witches. Frequently par- ents have withdrawn their children because the witch children were allowed to attend the schools. Superstition is hydra- headed and dies hard. As to the medicine-men, my experience with Klee-a-keet made me so indignant that we took an uncompromising attitude to- wards them. When a Stickeen /it made an incantation in a house on the outskirts of the village our Council was called. We summoned the offender, made him return the fee he had collected and talked to him so severely that he voluntarily cut off his long hair and presented the ugly mop to me as a sign of his surrender. I put it in my cabinet as a proud trophy, but my wife, who thought she detected in it uncanny signs of life, put it in the stove. Another Jkt of the Hoonah tribe was less tractable. He was performing in full blast when I went up and stopped him and sent the crowd home. He made such a fuss that we summoned him before the Council. Not proving amenable to reason, we laid hands on him, and while he was cursing us and calling on his Yake to come and blast us, three strong Stickeens held him fast while I cut off his tousled hair. He threatened to kill him- self in order that his family might collect damages, but when, instead of imploring him to remain alive, I encouraged him in his suicidal intention, saying that the country would be better without him, he concluded to spite me by continuing to exist. The great Klee-a-keet himself, after burying my soul and : 156 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA making a mere phantom of me, and predicting my death in three years, when the third “cold” went by without my “passing on,” grew discouraged, went on a big spree and blew out his brains. The Thlingit and Hyda Shaman has almost disappeared. Rumours reach us of one or two, who live in remote nooks of the Archipelago, and are secretly visited by the more “ old fashioned ” of the natives. But the foolish and cruel cult is a thing of the past. Sick natives patronize the white physicians, and the enlightened make sport of their credulous forebears. But so great had been our trouble with these fiends incarnate that I am almost ready to adopt the theory of a native Salva- tion Army exhorter—that the /hts all turn to devils when they die, and are permitted to haunt and torment bad people, while restrained from harming the good. Soon after the radio came in vogue, about 1923, one of my young white friends at Wrangell, Julius Mason, who was in- genious, rigged up a radio set and invited me to “ listen in.” It was a Clear, crisp night. When I put the receivers to my ears they were assailed by a bedlam of shrieks and screams and thin banshee wails. “ Static is pretty bad to-night,” said Julius. “Ts that what you call it? ” I jeered. ‘‘ You can’t fool me, my young friend. I know those fellows. I recognize their voices. They are the Indian doctors who used to fight me here at Wrangell forty-five years ago. That long-drawn yell between the cry of a screech-owl and that of a loon is Kowee, the Tacoo Jhét mourning for the blankets Klee-a-keet robbed him of. That mocking call of the laughing gull is the red-haired Chilcoot doctor, Skundoo-oo, while that vicious outburst of snarls and screams, like a fight between a lynx and an eagle, can be nobody but the worst devil of them all—old Klee-a-keet himself—who has come back to curse me and make an incan- tation against me.” XV TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP HE triumphant end of our Council meeting in Shakes’ house produced a natural elation over the victory. But we soon realized that innumerable skirmishes and some real battles were to be fought before the new order could be established and the old relegated to the past. The eagerness of the people—not only of the Stickeen tribe but of others—to be on our side was pathetic. These primitive folk had possessed a quite elaborate system of old laws and customs which were being broken down and discarded. But something definite must take their place. Formerly the whole of the winter season was taken up in feasting, dancing, pot- latches, claims for payment on one pretext or another, house building, totem pole raising and all the occupations of savage life. The younger men and women rioted all night and slept all day. None of the people could read or write. While the women were employing a great part of their time in making moccasins, mats, baskets, blankets and other articles, the men had nothing to do in the villages. Many of them, of course, spent much time in hunting and trapping, and there were fre- quent excursions to other tribes to settle old difficulties and commence new ones. Now, when we attempted to change all this we found our hands very full. Of course, the preaching of the Word was the principal thing, and the people attended our meetings en masse, though with very vague understanding as to what it was all about. They enjoyed the singing, while gathering nothing of the meaning of the songs. 157 158 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Very often, in after months and years, those who had lis- tened to our preaching Sunday after Sunday would say at prayer-meeting or at the Council, when the same old truths were repeated by us: “‘ That is a good word. We never heard it before.” We were constantly learning how little progress we were making. We were becoming disillusioned. Our daily task resolved itself into a round of petty trifles. Even before we had our breakfast delegation after delegation of rank-smelling natives would come into our house, recite their compliments, tell a long story of self-praise, a longer story of depreciation of some one else, and a still longer recital of what they wished us to do for them. Domestic difficulties, sickness, death, the care of children, but mostly personal grievances were told with endless iteration. It may be ques- tioned whether these Thlingits were more egotistic than the whites, but certainly their self-praise was more baldly ex- pressed: ‘““Me good man. Me do nothing bad. Me no lie; me no steal; me no bad with kleuchman; me no ol’ fashin. Klah- quots he say bad words; he do bad things; all time he lie”; etc;, etc. Grown-up, naughty children they were, and infinite patience must be exercised. At first we heard them patiently, clear to the end of their long stories, but gradually acquired the art of bringing them to a point and then dismissing them without hurting their feelings. At last it was shortened almost to the formula of Scattergood Baines—‘‘ G-bye—G-bye ”—and to the door we would march. They would reluctantly follow, and while shaking hands with them we would gently push them out, invite them to come again, and the interview would end with a weary sigh on our part: “ Fare-thee-well, and thy odours go with thee! ” Only the odours, unfortunately, would not always go. There would be raising of windows and opening of doors and a general airing. TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 159 Constantly we were being unpleasantly shocked. One thing we noticed with surprise was the great number of lame women, whose one leg sagged; and their walk had that peculiar flop and swing that gave them the designation of ‘ side-wheelers.”’ There were so many of them that we often wondered at the cause. We laid it to impurity of blood causing hip disease. It was long before we found the truth about it, which was this: When a girl baby was born, especially if she belonged to a family of high caste, the midwife immediately dislocated one or both hips of the poor infant in order, as they said, that they might be good and prolific mothers! This horrible practice, which peopled those tribes with hundreds of hopeless cripples, was put down only with great difficulty. After Christianity had made some progress and the children were at school, the missionary ladies who visited native homes taught mothers the care of their children and showed them the better way. But the babies died in great numbers. Out of every twelve or fifteen only two or three would survive. Syph- ilis, trachoma, hydrocephalus, cerebral meningitis and other diseases killed the poor little ones. The mothers seemed to love their children and seldom punished them, but they died. Immorality was so prevalent that most of the young wives were barren. Little girls, even before the age of puberty, were ped- dled by their mothers. While there were exceptions to these conditions and some houses were full of healthy children, they were but few. In treating the many questions that arose, there was one res- olution that became firmly fixed in my mind, even before I heard it formulated by that wonderful missionary, Father Duncan of Metlakatla. It was this: “ Never recede from a position once taken, even though it proves to be a mistake. The natives must learn to have im- plicit confidence in their missionary, and to think that he can make no mistakes and do no wrong. To them he must be 160 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA omnipotent and omniscient. Even while he laments his own weakness and ignorance, he must keep up this appearance.” Our danger in Alaska was that we would claim too little au- thority instead of too much. We insisted on Christian mar- riage. We could not do otherwise, and yet this led to many absurd situations. Tow-a-att, our best Christian chief, had two wives—Eve and her daughter Julia by a former marriage. After the native custom the old woman, when Tow-a-att built a new house, had formally given her daughter to him for his second wife, but Eve remained as the supreme mistress of the establishment. When the Christians came and required mo- nogamy the question was, what would Tow-a-att do? When he was required to put away one wife he promptly chose to keep Julia, the younger one; but Eve remained as the mother- in-law, and her position in the household was not affected. In other cases, however, there were greater conflicts, and many old chiefs remained polygamists, although inclined to- wards Christianity, until civil law was established; then they were required to marry one of their wives and put the other away. In case of an Indian woman living with a white man, if the case was clear and the white man willing to marry his woman, she could be received into the Church. Marriage be- came the formal act of embracing Christianity. One great difficulty was to keep the people amused and in- terested. Their old dances discontinued, what were they to do? Children’s games, Christian feasts, picnics, etc., seemed too tame after the excitement and hurrah of their all-night dances and potlatches. That so many of them remained stead- fast was due to the power of the Gospel and to their own susceptibility to civilization, more than to our wisdom. Matthew, in setting his face like a flint against any com- promise, even the hearing of an Indian song, said of these things: “He make my heart shake.” The school children with the songs and games they learned from their teachers } ¥ 4 ; a ; ‘t ‘ ‘< % TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 161 were a great help and were, indeed, the parents of their parents, in the ways of Christian civilization. We could not have ac- complished anything worth while without our schools. The McFarland Home for Girls, followed by Mrs. Young’s Train- ing School for Boys, and these followed afterwards by the Sitka mission, were our one hope of ultimate triumph and the establishment of a real civilization. Two very important events in December, 1878, must be re- corded here. The first one was my journey to Sitka to bring back my bride. This should have occurred in November. Our plans were made for it. With Mrs. McFarland’s assistance I had prepared my house in the officers’ quarters of the Fort. The old steamer “ California,” Captain Thorn commanding, came into port. My passage was engaged, and my valise taken aboard. The ship was to leave at eleven o’clock that night. I was working hard at my house, expecting to be notified by the whistle, which was always blown half an hour before the ship’s departure. Although Captain Thorn vigorously dis- claimed it, I have always suspected him of stealing away in- tentionally in order to play a practical joke upon me. At any rate, the boat slipped off and left me ashore. Imagine my predicament. No possible communication with Sitka for a month. No way of explaining the matter to the young lady. Visions of her indignation and the disruption of our engage- ment! I knew nothing about canoe navigation, and the white men and natives alike discouraged any attempt to reach Sitka by that means. Had I known as much about canoeing as I after- wards learned, I would have started at once to thread the wind- ing ways one hundred and sixty miles to Sitka and would have appeared there only four or five days late. But I did not know. Luckily Colonel Crittenden was aboard the vessel and could testify of my readiness and eagerness to take the voyage, and thus allay the fears and impatience of Miss Kellogg. 162 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA At any rate, the wedding came off in December, and you may be sure I did not miss ¢hat boat. A day or two before the boat arrived, old Shustaak, the Indian chief, sent for me. He had given up all hope of surviving long, but had one last re- quest to make. He had heard that there was a small brass can- non at Sitka which had been left by the Russians. He said: ‘“‘T wish you to buy that big gun. I have sent to Victoria for a nice box with silver plate in it and lined with very warm blankets. Since you will not let them burn my body, perhaps it will keep me warm; and my family will shoot off this big gun many times at my funeral. I just want to live long enough to see the big gun. I want the finest cannon in Alaska, so that all other chiefs will envy me.” So I had to attend to that commission. Then a wedding dinner was given us and our friends in the little dining-room of the steamer; and a stormy, seasick voyage around Cape Ommaney, brought us home. But, that same week, at Wrangell there occurred a tragedy which illustrates the lawless and unprotected condition of the Territory. The night on which I sailed to my wedding at Sitka, just before we stepped on board, news was brought that a murder had been committed. When we returned, I learned the particulars. As soon as the ice had formed and hardened on the Stickeen River sufficiently for a man with a dog team and sled to descend the river from Steamboat Landing, one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth, there came some two hundred miners and prospectors to Wrangell, ready to take the monthly steamer to Victoria and Portland. They would spend the winter ‘“ outside ” and return in the spring. It would take a week for the “ California ” to make the trip to Sitka and re- turn. These miners, of course, were in for as much of a good time as they could have in the squalid little town of Fort Wrangell. Old Dick Willoughby, a prominent character of the Northland, and one-legged Joe Twan, with their fiddles, fur- ——e 7 az aa tl 136° Longitude West (Taylor) Glacier from Greenwich 133° @ 134° ZO x ees OF See, X% Zé YJ, So, BE Tosemite Bay a Young (Dawes) > Glacier Ommaney ISLAND ca es =A KUIU ANGELL ISLAND VOYAGES OF MUIR AND YOUNG 1879 and 1880 eS IN SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA SCALE OF MILES 20 30 40 Voyage of 1879 —————- Voyage of 1880 Wddddddl Discoveries of 0 lu 50 135° CORONATION LAND 1s a lo 3 ee Muir and Young EVELAND PENINSULA TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 163 nished the music for a dance. The gentler sex was represented only by native women. Whiskey and hooch abounded during the festivities. One of the miners, who was well-filled with “ forty-rod,” became jealous of another miner, possessed him- self of a pistol and shot his rival dead. The miners of the North have always been a rather superior class of men. Many of them were well educated—lawyers, physicians, college-bred and refined. They knew just what to do in such an emergency. There was only the one alternative —either to arrest, try and execute justice upon the murderer, or let him go scot-free, to repeat his crime elsewhere. The man had already acquired a bad reputation, and there were authen- tic stories of previous murders committed by him. Spontane- ously the miners called a ‘‘ Miners’ Meeting.” They first elected one of their number as sheriff, with orders to arrest the man and keep him in custody; then they elected a judge, who had been gold commissioner in the Cassiar—a Victoria lawyer. The judge appointed attorneys for the prosecution and defense, and ordered the sheriff to empanel a jury for the session of the court, which was to be held in one of the stores the next morn- ing. Court convened at nine o’clock, a jury was chosen, wit- nesses were examined, the man found guilty of murder in the first degree; the judge sentenced the prisoner to be executed at two-thirty that same afternoon, and the court adjourned— at eleven-thirty! Speedy justice, but all in the best of order. Then, in my absence, they sent for Mrs. McFarland, and she visited the terrified prisoner, and prayed with him as best she could. He was a coward, as such men usually are, and did nothing but beg for his life. At the appointed time the prisoner was led to the rude gallows, consisting of a couple of poles and a crosspiece, hastily erected. A long rope was procured and a noose placed around the prisoner’s neck, and the rope was thrown over the gallows. Then every man on the beach, white or native, was compelled to take hold of the rope; at a given 164 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA signal they rushed up the beach, jerked the man in the air and held him there until he was pronounced dead. On my return to Wrangell I found the duty awaiting me of burying the man who was shot and the murderer, in one cere- mony. Coffins had been rudely constructed, and those who re- mained at Fort Wrangell all turned out to the funeral. Colonel Crittenden and I procured from the judge at the trial a full account of the ‘“‘ court proceedings ” and sent it to the United States Judge Deady at Portland. In due time we received a letter from him disclaiming any jurisdiction over Alaska, but commending the course the miners had pursued in the case. I remember one sentence of Judge Deady’s letter: “The miners of the North can always be depended upon to do the right thing in a case like that, and do it speedily. It would be well if our organized courts were as prompt and as just.” Disorder and justice, tragedy and comedy, sorrow and laugh- ter always have been strangely mixed in the formative days of the Western frontiers. The institution of the festival of Christmas at Wrangell was a great event. Our appeals had secured boxes sent with gifts from the Eastern churches. As the natives of the other tribes had departed to their own villages, only the Stickeens and a few Tacoos, Kakes, and Hydas remained throughout the win- ter. These celebrated “‘ Kiswus.” My bride instructed the young people in Christmas carols. Mrs. McFarland had a dozen or more girls in her “‘ Home,” and these eagerly helped prepare the big Christmas tree in the barracks. When the time came, all of the natives and many of the whites were in attendance. Everybody received something. Songs were sung, and childish plays followed; then, one after another, the head men of the town gave ‘‘ white men’s feasts ” in their houses. From that time on the calendar of those natives was counted from the two great days of the year— TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 165 Fourth of July and Christmas. As soon as one was over the question was constantly asked, “ How long until the other feast? ” All of the following winter and spring the tide of sentiment was setting strongly towards us. School was well attended, and the children began to make some real progress—even the old men and women came to Sunday School, church and prayer- meetings, and the joy of speaking in meeting was experienced. Indeed, no urging was needed to get the natives to testify, pray and exhort. Instead, we had constantly to put on the brakes. Had we allowed it, the prayer-meetings would have continued for three or four hours. When the fashion of confessing sins commenced it was like a runaway horse, almost beyond control. The zealous ones, eager to outdo those who had spoken, often would confess even to sins they had never committed. Mrs. Dickinson must be given credit for checking the practice of entering complaints against and berating one another in these prayer-meetings and confessions. But with all the blundering and childishness, real progress in the truths and practice of Christianity began to be made. The hardest and most exciting part of my work that winter and spring was my campaign against “ hooch.” In the summer and fall we would see great volumes of dark smoke issuing from the smoke-hole of many Indian houses. I found the rea- son for this in the open making of intoxicating liquors. By the confessions of the storekeepers, I learned that from one-half to two-thirds of the goods bartered with the natives for their furs was black molasses. The United States when it purchased Alaska prohibited the importation of any whiskey or other intoxicating drinks into the Territory. But it did not prohibit the importation of molasses. The soldiers taught the natives how to make rum. It was the most villainous and nastiest stuff to taste ever concocted, and the most vicious in its ef- fect. Whole villages became drunk; mothers lying help- 166 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA less on the ground with hungry babies rolling over them; murderous quarrels were frequent, and unspeakable scenes of debauchery and sin were enacted. Of course, we were against this great evil. A number of the squaw-men were the chief criminals in the manufacture of the awful stuff. I could not with any degree of safety or success interfere with the white men, but took it upon myself to break up the prac- tice of making or selling hooch among the natives. Colonel Crittenden, although a hard drinker himself, was with me in my attempt to put down the manufacture of liquor—that was one of his duties as Customs Collector. I went to the store- keepers, and represented to them the foolishness of their fur- nishing the natives with means for the manufacture of liquor, which would keep them drunk and prevent them from trapping and hunting for the furs which formed the principal article of barter with the natives. But one would not agree to stop im- porting molasses without the consent of the other traders. Therefore, in despair, I undertook to carry on a sort of a “Carrie Nation ” campaign. I got a hand-ax, and started out. one day to break up stills. Most of the Stickeen chiefs had declared against drunkenness, but in six or seven houses I found the stills going. With Colonel Crittenden’s sanction I took Matthew with me. He had been appointed policeman, and we entered these houses one after another. I wielded the ax myself, broke up the oil-can stills, emptied the mash on the ground and destroyed the liquor. Great confusion and clamour and threats of violence followed. I completely destroyed the means of manufacturing the liquor. This was done without any previous warning, except general exhortations in our church and prayer-meetings. When drunken Indians at- tempted to resist by force, Matthew aided me in subduing them. The white men who were manufacturing hooch were glad to see me break up the stills of the natives, as it increased their own chances of profit. TEARING DOWN AND BUILDING UP 167 I soon heard of stills being set up in small houses by salmon streams and in hunting camps at distances from Fort Wrangell varying from two to twenty miles. On my own responsibility I hired a canoe, manned it with a crew of four of my Christian Indians, including Matthew, and set sail to these places. In the course of two months I had broken up fifteen to twenty stills and destroyed the liquor I found. This was not done without much trouble and considerable risk. The natives often threatened to shoot me, and in two or three cases my men had to take the guns from them. After that year I had little dif- ficulty with them. But one cannot always safely cope with the insanity of drunkenness. After my first visit to outside stills the natives were always on the watch for me and my canoe. Frequently, afterwards, when rounding a point I would see men and women and even children hurrying to the woods carrying their liquor, to hide it outside. I did this, of course, without authority or the backing of law. The white men frequently warned me that my life was in danger, but I had learned that the natives were afraid to kill a white man, especially one of position and influence. From this beginning at Wrangell, I adopted the plan afterwards, dur- ing my long voyages, of breaking up stills in outlying camps of the different tribes, but for a number of years I had to re- frain from entering a drunken village and attempting to destroy the liquor. That would have been simply suicide; but in a wild and lawless country a man must take many risks if he would succeed in reforming and elevating the people. I used to reason thus: “‘ It would be far better to lose my life in try- ing to help these natives than to live on, an acquiescent witness to all these evils. There are many things more to be dreaded than death.” XVI GREAT EVENTS N those early days, I sometimes compared myself to the old seaman in Thackeray’s rhyme: “O, I am the mate and the captain bold, And the cook of the Nancy brig; And the bosen tight, and the midshipmite, And the crew of the captain's gig.” In such case as ours the missionary, if he is a live one, must, indeed, be the whole ship. To be sure, he does not accomplish this by doing as the sailor did, eating up the others, for there are no others to devour. The seas were stormy, and we had our choice between lying in our berths as passengers and trying to be not too seasick, or of tramping the decks, holding the wheel, disciplining the crew, trimming the sails, exerting our- selves every minute to keep the ship afloat and going. Before my arrival, Mrs. McFarland, by her letters pub- lished in Eastern papers, had aroused much interest, and when the reports and pleas of my wife and myself were added to hers, the interest and help were multiplied. A vast heathen country without law or protection, right within the United States, where heathen tribes unchecked murdered one another, held slaves, made hooch, burned witches, and eliminated all ideas of chastity, honesty and humanity! The knowledge of this began slowly to seep into the minds of Christians in the States. The very small crew of Christian workers, adrift on such a troublous sea, commanded wide sympathy. The lamentable condition of the young girls at Fort Wrangell aroused the most interest. Before my arrival, Mrs. McFarland 168 GREAT EVENTS 169 had made gallant, though often futile, efforts to shelter these Indian girls and give them to some extent the advantages of a Christian home, free from temptations, where they could learn cleanliness and decent housekeeping and the routine of a nor- mal Christian life, including a knowledge of the English lan- guage and a little of the great wide world as lived in the United States. The chief mistake she made, which was repeated by Mrs. Young in her later home for boys, was taking the Indian girls too freely into her home and at too advanced an age. It was inevitable that on many occasions sympathy should run away with judgment. Frequently girls would come to us for refuge, protesting that they wished to live a decent Christian life. We would take them in, clean them up, clothe them neatly and enroll them as our adopted daughters and pupils. A few weeks or months of a life devoid of excitement—an unaccustomed routine—then they would disappear. Some white man, attracted by a clean and pretty face, would make a bid and the avaricious family would sell the girl and off she would go without saying good-bye. Often the unheard of, and to them outrageous, act of a girl in choosing her own way of life and breaking off from the customs that had prevailed, would call for a meeting of the whole fam- ily, including ‘‘ the sisters and the cousins and the aunts.” This would result in a delegation visiting the girl in the Mc- Farland Home, and, as one girl expressed it, “ They talk me crazy.” Many were our disastrous experiences. Eventually we learned to harden our hearts if we found that any applicant for our school was in any degree living according to the gen- eral custom of that town. Younger and younger girls were chosen, until we were taking under our care little ones of six or eight years of age. There were bright exceptions to this gloomy picture. Some- times these Indian girls showed unexpected strength of char- acter. During that winter three of Mrs. McFarland’s girls, 170 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Tillie, Katie and Minnie, had gone to their homes on Saturday afternoon, as was the rule. They were accosted by three white men who had planned the interview. Each of them chose his girl and they proceeded to make love in the fashion of the day, which was by promise of blankets and other goods to the parents of the girls, of plenty of new clothes to wear and good things to eat and of a high place in the “ society ” of the coun- try. The girls heard their pleas without comment, but when the men offered caresses in addition to their bribes, the three girls started on a brisk walk back to Mrs. McFarland’s Home, singing at the top of their voices: “ Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin.” They found refuge in Mrs. McFarland’s arms and told her all about the incident. One of the men in relating his experience exclaimed: ‘ T’ll be blanked if I knew there was that kind of Indian girls! ” In addition to this, the superstition of the natives was always a troublesome force. All kinds of stories about the missionaries and their designs upon the natives were circulated and believed. Designing white men originated many of these. Again and again excited mothers would come to the “‘ Home ” demanding their children. They had heard that we were about to take all of these girls to Victoria, Tacoma or Portland and sell them as slaves. Once the story ran that we were all wizards and witches and had got these children into our power simply that we might take their eyes out and boil them up into a big medicine to work destruction upon their people. The more ab- surd the story the more readily it was believed. With the spring of ’79 came the return northward of many hundreds of Cassiar miners, whites and Chinese, and the return of natives of other tribes, seeking work, trade and excitement. News came that the Eastern churches had responded to our 4 of f a ¢ : i —— oe. GREAT EVENTS 171 appeals and that there would be money forthcoming to build a new McFarland Home for Girls and a church at Fort Wran- gell. Our Church, thus far, had been the only missionary force at work in Alaska, except the old declining Russian Church. About May, Archbishop Seaghers, a high prelate of the Society of Jesus, came to Fort Wrangell, with Father Althorf, a priest. These two gentlemen came at once to see me, took dinner with us, and there commenced a very pleasant acquaint- ance which ripened into friendship. When the Archbishop asked if there was not room for his Church as well as ours, I answered: ‘“ Yes; there is this large Foreign Town up the beach in which we have been unable to make even a beginning. They are heathen without any knowledge whatever of Chris- tianity. There is virgin ground for you and I wish you would till it.” The Archbishop thanked me, looked over that ground, and I think they afterwards were sorry they did not follow my advice literally, for the efforts of that Church to get a hold upon the Stickeens were entirely fruitless. One great reason for the continued adherence of the Stickeens to us was that the Arch- bishop and priest came from Victoria—‘‘ King George’s Coun- try,’ while we were ‘“ Boston Men,” and belonged, as all the natives did, to the United States. The Archbishop with Father Althorf at once selected a site for a church and commenced to clear ground at the same time with us. Their little church was completed before ours, and services were held in it for a couple of years, when Father Althorf was removed to the new town of Juneau, and their church at Wrangell was abandoned. Not until the gold stampede of 1897, which brought hundreds of whites to Alaska, was the Catholic Mission resumed. A word about Archbishop Seaghers: He was one of the most cultured and richly endowed men I have ever known; he talked many languages with equal fluency. He was at home in any 172 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA subject of conversation and was one of the most devoted and enterprising of the Jesuit fathers. From his pen came to me and to Father Althorf from interior Alaska letters written in Latin, telling of his adventures on the Yukon. He is enrolled among the martyrs, for he met his death from a jealous at- tendant, whom he had taken with him from Portland, Oregon, and who murdered him near Nulato in 1880. July 14th, 1879, there arrived at Wrangell three great men of the Church—Dr. Henry Kendall, secretary of the Presby- terian Board of Home Missions; Dr. A. L. Lindsley, the Father of Alaska Missions and pastor of the First Church of Portland, Oregon; and Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the Pioneer of the West—the man who had accompanied Mrs. McFarland on her first trip to Fort Wrangell and who backed up our efforts to raise money and get helpers for our great work. These men came with their wives—not on a mere pleasure trip—but bringing money and plans for our work. They remained with us for a full month. There were excursions up the Stickeen River to the head of navigation, down south to the old abandoned Stickeen town and northward through Wrangell Narrows to the Glaciers of the Mainland. There were counsels galore; the organiza- tion of the first American church in the Territory and the com- pletion of the plans for our work. It was a month of inspira- tion and joy. Their visit did us great good and, indeed, was a turning point into a larger and fuller channel of Christian civilization. To me, however, the greatest event of the summer and, in- deed, of my life in Alaska, was the arrival on the same steamer of a fourth big man—America’s greatest naturalist—John Muir. This red-whiskered, blue-eyed Scotch-American was incidental to the party of clergymen, being by accident on the same steamer. After eleven years of study among the moun- tains of California, his untamed spirit launched into a new and great adventure among the mountains and glaciers of GREAT EVENTS 173 Alaska. He was esteemed and welcomed by the doctors of divinity, but little appreciated by any of them. He lived in a different world; while in full sympathy, so far as he gave it any thought, with their misison, to him the supreme problem was to find out how God made this wonderful world of ours and what were the marks of His tools in forming this part of it. He was here to study glacial action, as well as the flora and geology of the region. I am a firm believer in instinctive spiritual affinities, and I know that there was an intangible but very real bond of union between Muir and me from the time our hands first met in that clasp of friendship; the strongest and warmest friendship I have ever experienced in a life blessed with many friends. We understood one another. Our relation was always that of teacher and pupil. He was my captain and guide, leading me into hitherto unexplored regions of interest and inspiration. Dr. Lindsley had come to complete the organization of the church. He brought with him a carpenter, Mr. Regner, to superintend the work. Dr. Kendall, of course, came as the executive of the missionary Board in the interests of the erec- tion of the new McFarland Home for Girls. He had authority to set on foot not only this enterprise but other plans for the Christian civilization of the savages of Southeastern Alaska. Dr. Jackson came unofficially but by invitation, because of his ability to secure money and men for the work. Miss Maggie Dunbar was to be Mrs. McFarland’s assistant teacher. Dr. Lindsley, being Mrs. Young’s uncle, stayed with his wife at our house. The others found quarters in Mrs. McFarland’s Home; while John Muir was taken in by John Vanderbilt, who had recovered from his attack of inflammatory rheumatism and had resumed his task as receiver for the Lear Store. The natives fairly outdid themselves in their efforts to im- press the white visitors with their earnestness in accepting the “new way.” But we had already acquired sufficient experi- 174 __——s«-HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA ence and met with enough disappointments to know that most of this was, as one of the chiefs expressed it, ‘‘ sugar talk ”; but it did the natives good and sounded well in the reports of the doctors of divinity. The reader is not to infer, however, that the speeches were all sham. On the contrary they were sincere; only our visi- tors, lacking our trying experiences, placed far more value upon the protestations of the natives than we could. We knew that months and years of alternating disappointments and suc- cesses must be spent before we could feel that material progress had been made towards Christian civilization. The little river steamboat “‘ Cassiar ” was chartered to take the party on an excursion. The first trip planned was to the Tacoo, Auk and Chilcat tribes to the North; but neither Cap- tain Lane of the river boat nor the members of the party had any idea what they were undertaking. The engineer of the boat, Robert Moran, an educated young man who was after- wards elected mayor of Seattle, demurred: ‘‘ My engine is not fitted for running on salt water,” he said, ‘“‘and you cannot make that trip safely.” The captain, however, talked him into starting. We visited the mouth of the Stickeen to get the boilers filled with fresh water, steamed out twenty miles to the beginning of Wrangell Narrows and through the long, narrow winding passage to Prince William Sound and across it to Endicott Glacier. By that time the cylinder was pounding ominously and the en- gineer refused to take the risk of steaming farther northward. We had traveled about thirty miles of the more than one hun- dred and fifty each way that we must traverse to make the trip to Chilcat. We had to turn back. However, we ran into the deep bay made by that very beau- tiful and interesting glacier which, viewed from the northern entrance to Wrangell Narrows, seems like a great white column fallen from its base and lying across the wooded hills. We oe SES OO OR, SE GREAT EVENTS 175 went in to get a closer acquaintance with these beautiful mon- sters called glaciers, very little understood by any of us, except John Muir. We approached as closely as we could safely and anchored directly in front of the ice. Muir and I engaged a sailor to set us ashore in the dory. As we were pushing off, Dr. Jackson asked to come along, bringing with him a stout Indian, whose duty it was to carry the little doctor over the glacial streams we would encounter. We landed in a sea of granite mud, and had more than a half a mile of it before reaching the glacier. A weary struggle through the mud brought us at last to the rocky moraine, which the plowshare of the ice had thrown up in front of the glacier. Muir and I had a wonderful two hours exploring the deep canyons of crystal; the blue caverns and purple brows of the glacier. We penetrated deep into its inmost recesses. No crystal palace ever erected by man could approach this won- derful edifice. It was my first intimate acquaintance with a glacier, and I went back to the boat thrilled and awed as if from the presence of God in one of His most wonderful cathe- drals. To quote from Muir: “The whole front of the glacier was gashed and sculptured into a maze of shallow caves and crevasses, and a bewildering variety of novel architectural forms, clusters of glittering lance- tipped spires, gables and obelisks, bold outstanding bastions and plain mural cliffs, adorned along the top with fretted cornice and battlement, while every gorge and crevasse, groove and hollow, was filled with light, shimmering and throbbing in pale-blue tones of ineffable tenderness and beauty.” Then followed the greatest adventure of all my life in Alaska. Having written this elsewhere, I can only mention here the chartering of the “ Cassiar”’ for a trip to the head of navigation, one hundred and fifty miles up the Stickeen River. Besides our party, John Vanderbilt and his wife and a young lady visiting them were our passengers. Passing the Great 176 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Glacier at the boundary line between Alaska and British Columbia, thirty miles up the river, we could only stare and wonder, reserving the exploration of the glacier to our return trip. Then came the Lower and Upper Canyons with their columned walls, the river dashing and roaring through them; the steamer labouring to its utmost, every timber quivering as it inched its way slowly, veering from side to side to find the easiest water. Then a part of the day at Telegraph Creek, the beginning of the Cassiar Trail, whence trains of pack-mules and horses conveyed the goods of the miners from one to three hundred miles farther on to the gold diggings. From Tele- graph Creek we dropped down fifteen miles to Glenora, a little hamlet of miners’ shacks. We reached this shortly before noon of a warm sunny day. “Make yourselves comfortable,” Captain Lane said, “ until to-morrow morning. We cannot descend the river while the wind is blowing a gale up it, as always occurs on the afternoon of a sunny day.” That day of days! I never can express what it was and has been ever since to me. In many respects it was the turn- ing point of my life. The delight and exhilaration of that climb of ten miles up the mountain side with Muir, when I was learning from his childlike enthusiasm, joined to his deep in- sight into the “ inner life,” as he used to express it, of plants and mountain landscapes, drinking from a fountain of whose existence I had been unaware. I breathed for the first time the aura of the mountains. At the end of the day we ran our desperate race with the sunset, climbing up a thousand feet of crumbling and disintegrating rock, pulling ourselves up the per- pendicular faces by sheer strength and enthusiasm. Scram- bling around impossible ledges, feeling the fearful delight of mortal peril; always right up, sure that we would conquer that mountain and see the sunset from the highest pinnacle—only a true mountain climber can realize the joy of it! GREAT EVENTS 177 Then the slip into the crevasse, the wrench as both shoul- ders were dislocated and the plunge downward in the sliding gravel! The miraculous stop as my feet hung over the ledge and there was nothing between me and the swirling fall of one thousand feet to death but the sliding, treacherous slatey gravel under me. The crowding thoughts that rushed into my mind in that moment of despair! All these I have tried to write, but never could satisfactorily express, in my Alaska Days with John Muir. My mind has always had a curious twist to it that sometimes has made me smile when I should have wept. In this most awful moment of my life, I do not think I was frightened. In talking over with my wife and friends the feelings I experi- enced at that time, among the thoughts of wife, friends and unfinished duty, I mentioned several fancies that flashed into my mind and memory and which I did not record in my book. One which remained distinctly in my remembrances as one of the things I thought of in that moment was that absurd story of the optimistic Irishman, who when he was falling from the ninth story of a tall building remarked as he passed a friend in a window of the third story: “I am all right yet, Pat.” I have always felt that my description of my rescue by Muir on that cliff was feeble and inadequate compared with the real experience. Yet it has attracted more attention than any other of my writings. But of this adventure, which is the heart of two chapters of my book, Muir in his Travels in Alaska only says: “JT found the missionary face downward, his arms out- stretched, clutching little crumbling knobs on the brink of a gully that plunges down a thousand feet or more to a small residual glacier. He told me that both of his arms were dis- located. It was almost impossible to find available footholds on the treacherous rock, and I was at my wits’ end to know how to get him rolled or dragged to a place where I could get { 178 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA about him, find out how much he was hurt, and away back down the mountain. After narrowly scanning the cliff and making footholds, I managed to roll and lift him a few yards to a place where the slope was less steep, and there I attempted to set his arms.” That is all that the modest Muir says about the most impos- sible feat that ever man performed in the way of rescue of a comrade; for he had made his way down the sheer face of rock until, flattening himself against a cliff right out on the front of a precipice, with his feet on an inch-wide ledge, his head level with my waist, he grasped a crag of disintegrating rock with one hand, stretched out the other, gathered a handful of my clothes, and, when at a little shove I shot out into the air, he held me dangling in that hand, my head downward, my eyes staring at the glacier one thousand feet below; and by sheer strength crooked his elbow, swung my feet around until I could work downward and brace my heel between his foot and the precipice; he reached his long neck outward, caught me with his teeth by the collar of my vest, let go of my waist so as to use both hands, and scrambled up that rock as a cat carries her kitten by its neck, from fifteen or twenty feet to the ledge along which we had come. My throat fills and my heart throbs even now whenever my memory recurs to that moment. The miracle of it grows with the years. I can only say, “ It was impossible, but he did it.” XVII ORGANIZATION dates slip out of my mind much more easily than they come in. But the third of August, 1879, is one of my unforgettable dates. After all the expeditions, sightseeing, planning for the church and the new McFarland Home, feasts and counsels with the Indians, this was the day when we gathered up the riper fruits of two years’ seed-growing and organized the first Protestant church of Alaska. It was also the first American church of the Territory. No organization had been perfected previous to this in Alaska, except the old Russian Greek Church. From the first and with increasing strictness, we pursued the plan of putting the natives on probation for months and some- times for years before admitting them to baptism and com- munion. White communities with their Sunday Schools, prayer- meetings and churches, cannot fathom the depths of savage ignorance. Indeed even we, with some experience, were always shooting over their heads. But I had taken much pains for months with that little com- pany of faithful adherents, mostly of Tow-a-att’s family. There was the fine old chief himself, childlike and loyal; his wife Julia, with her sagging walk, the result of the hip dislocation at her birth. There were Matthew, Moses, Aaron, Lot, Koonk, Thomas and Kadishan, with their wives, and several others of the leading men and women, who had patiently met day after day for instruction and were in earnest. There were five whites who were charter members of this mother church—the three missionary leaders, Mrs. McFarland, Mrs. Young and Miss 179 \IGURES always have been hills of difficulty to me, and 180 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Dunbar, and the two carpenters who were employed on the buildings. The women of the congregation, white and native, had made some effort to decorate with evergreens and flowers the low, rough log barracks building in which we held our meetings. Dr. Lindsley, who was commissioned for the pur- pose by the Presbytery of Oregon, to the jurisdiction of which this region belonged, presided at the organization; Dr. Ken- dall preached the sermon and Dr. Jackson assisted. Very sore and weak from my fearful adventure and with my arm in a sling, I conducted the preliminary examinations, administered baptism and. received the catechists into the Church. The house was crowded with wondering natives. Some who were unable to get seats or standing room were peer- ing in at the doors and windows and craning their necks down the staircase from the loft above. Our hearts shook with mingled exultation and trepidation. It was a triumph, but still an experiment. We were confident that it was the right thing to do, and yet were afraid. They were such babes of the Church! However, I wish to say this, that none of the original charter members of that church disgraced us by falling into sinful ways; and only three or four cases of discipline had to be tried in that number. Our visitors went away well pleased with the progress made in the mission, with the natives, with the interpreter, with the missionaries and with themselves. And, indeed, we were up- lifted in spirit, encouraged to buckle anew our harness and proceed with our multifold tasks. When the visiting delega- tion went up to Sitka on the next trip of the boat and then back to their homes and respective duties, they left a great impression upon the country. Here was the planting of a tree which was to spread its branches and produce its fruit in all parts of the great Territory. Here was an impression made that could not be effaced. We at Fort Wrangell rejoiced and took new courage. ORGANIZATION 181 The buildings of the McFarland Industrial Home and of the church were hastened to completion and were occupied early in October; Dr. Corleis and his wife pursued their school in the Foreign Town, delegations from different tribes were in- terviewed and plans made for a survey of the whole Archi- pelago. Even the most heathen of the savages, such as old Kasch and Shustaak, showed interest in the mission. To my great joy, John Muir did not leave when the doctors of divinity did. He was there to study that wonderful Archi- pelago and the adjacent mainland. He went up to Glenora on the next trip of the ‘‘ Cassiar”” after my accident; and it was just like him to ascend again the mountain we had climbed, going clear to the summit this time, and not only to see the sun set but spend the night on the top to view the sun rise, as well, filling his mind and heart so full that when he re- turned the Vanderbilts and we found it difficult to eat our dinners or induce Muir to drink his coffee as he poured into our enraptured ears his wonderful descriptions. He was here and there, embracing every opportunity to visit the glaciers and the mountains, getting the Indians to ferry him to the mainland, and going alone through the forests and up to the snowy summits, writing, studying, never idle an hour and never silent a minute when he was with us. Many were the conferences in our home between Muir and me concerning our projected voyage. I was impatient to be gone on the visits to the other tribes which had been planned with our visitors of the summer and with the mission Board. “You are our explorer,” they said to me. “ You are the only one to visit all of these savage tribes, confer with their chiefs, report to the Board and the Church with a view to es- tablishing missions and schools among them. Just as soon as possible get a canoe and a crew of Indians and start.” The progress of our buildings and the presence of Dr. Cor- leis were loosening my feet so that I could start. Muir wished 182 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA to explore the Archipelago and visit its highest mountains and its glaciers, a project which fitted in with mine, as he would like to visit the Indian tribes and I greatly desired to go with him to his beloved mountains, even though I was disabled from climbing them. We waited only until after the birth of my oldest child, which occurred September 19th. The birth of this baby was, not only in our mission circle but to the Indians of the town and territory, a very great event. As soon as the little tot could be carried we were invited to a big feast in the house of Shakes, ‘‘ our youngest and headest chief,” as he was called. There, throned in a chair of state on the highest platform, the young mother and her baby sat, while Shakes made a long speech, recalling the splendid quali- ties of his ancestors and especially of his mother, who had but recently gone to the realms of Sikagow. He brought a great bracelet of silver, almost large enough to encircle the infant, and wide enough to cover her whole torso, carved with figures of his totem, the Hoots (Brown Bear), which he gave to the baby as the most precious heirloom of the family. Then he formally bestowed upon her the name of his mother, ‘‘ Ahn- ooktch.” This name is not exactly translatable, but is the ex- clamation which visiting tribes were supposed to utter when passing in their canoes the totem poles and splendid houses of the old Stickeen town—‘ Ahn-town; ooktch-ah! ” meaning literally ‘“‘ Wonder at the Town”; translated by us to our friends as ‘“‘ The Wonder of the Town.” Shakes’ name for her was Uhklah and his first question when he would come to our house would be “‘ Goosoo Uhklah ” (Where is my mother? ). It was not until October 14th that we were able to start on the first of the many voyages that I was to make for ten years in Southeastern Alaska. I cannot better give my readers an idea of what canoeing meant in those days than by quot- ing from articles I wrote for Te New York Evangelist in those early days. Let me preface it by saying that the canoe was Se Se ee! ORGANIZATION 183 absolutely the only mode of travel at that time in Southeastern Alaska, except the monthly visit of the little mail steamboat which only touched at Wrangell and Sitka. Eleven hundred islands, separated by wide channels of different widths, from thirty miles at the crossing of Prince Frederick Sound to the slender passages of Wrangell Narrows and Rocky Straits, where you can go only with the tide and where all care must be taken to avoid the dense, tangled fields of kelp. These canoes are of all sizes from the tippy one or two man canoe, fifteen feet long and just wide enough for a man to sit in it, to the great war canoe, sixty feet long with seven and one- half foot beam, the bow and stern reared high, the sides three or four feet above the water, two great sails and a crew of twelve to twenty strong men. The canoe we selected for our voyage was what is called a sixtlan (fathom) canoe, very light so that it could be readily carried ashore by four men. On my voyages I took from three to five natives to manage the canoe, two good sails and a pair or two of oars in addition to the paddles and tents for camping. Tight boxes were pro- cured for the provisions and goods, our own blankets and bags for the bedding and clothing, and a good tarpaulin or two to spread over all; for a good canoe is, as an old voyager told me, “the wettest and coldest place on earth.” Above all things, keep your blankets dry; for no matter how damp and chilly you get during the day, if you can drink a cup of strong hot coffee for supper, by a rousing camp-fire, and then roll yourself up in dry blankets under a tight tent— let the winds and waves roar and the rain fall; they will but lull you to that deep, dreamless sleep from whose blessed ~ chains you cannot escape till morning. But woe to him who has to shiver in wakeful misery under wet blankets! Warm flannel underwear, a good strong suit, a thick overcoat, a rub- ber coat, and high gum boots will insure comfort even in stormy weather. Should the cold penetrate all these defenses 184 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA the remedy is simple—paddle. Comfort and rest are to be found not only as the result of work, but in it. Lay in more provisions than you think you will need. You may have to lie by some stormy point for a week waiting for the wind to change. Take guns and salmon spears to procure fresh meat, but do not rely too much upon them. Though game is very abundant, a haunch of venison in the pot is al- ways worth a good deal more than any in the woods; and with all the fresh meat you want you will be forlorn if your flour, beans, and bacon give out. The reader must remember how entirely green and inex- perienced both Muir and I were for such a voyage as we were about to undertake. Our previous trips were not in the least like this. Wind, rain and mist; rocky, sandy or pebbly beaches; thick carpets of moss under towering spruce and hem- lock; and on poles steaming blankets and clothing hung before a large fire underneath the fly tent. Venison, ducks, grouse or fish; cooking in frying-pan or kettle over the coals; wet dis- comfort, overcome by joyous health and the sense of achieve- ment. For a guide we had no charts whatever of the smaller channels. Vancouver’s old chart published in the first decade of the nineteenth century was all we had. Three-fourths of the smaller inlets, straits, points and islands were not indicated. Where great bays exist now there were only lines across, in- dicating a wall of ice. We had to make our own chart as we went along. Our crew was a choice one of picked men, one of whom was no other than our grand old Christian chief, Tow-a-att, whom we chose as our captain. His canoe was just right, and he was one of the most traveled and experienced natives in the Archipelago. He was full of the importance of his undertak- ing and eager to go along, even though he was warned that it would be at the peril of his life to visit tribes with which the Stickeens, and especially his family had been at war, the ORGANIZATION 185 Hoochenoos, Chilcats and Auks. He answered these fearful prophecies with a smile. “I am going to take my missionary to these Indians and to tell them of the Man from Above who came to earth to die for us. Maybe these Indians kill me—all right. I go quick to Heaven.” But Tow-a-att’s wife was not so philosophical. She wept long and loudly, would not shake hands with her husband and kept exclaiming: ‘“ The Chilcats will kill him; they will kill him.” - I cannot better epitomize my feelings towards this finest of all the Indians I have ever known than by quoting the poem I wrote to head a chapter of my book on John Muir: TOW-A-ATT You are a child, Old Friend—a child! As light of heart, as free, as wild; As credulous of fairy tale; As simple in your faith, as frail In reason; jealous, petulant; As crude in manner; ignorant, Yet wise in love; as rough, as mild— You are a child. You are a man, Old Friend—a man! Ah, sure in richer tide ne’er ran The blood of earth’s nobility, Than through your veins; intrepid, free; In counsel, prudent; proud and tall; Of passions full, yet ruling all; No stauncher friend since time began; You are a MAN! Kadishan was the shrewdest and most diplomatic of the Stickeens. His face was pockmarked, with one eyelid partly eaten away, giving him the comical appearance of ex- ecuting a wink. He was a born after-dinner speaker and a 186 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA master of metaphors, oily phrases and compliment. He had a never-failing fund of native legend, Indian lore, song and story. His family was the tribal custodian of the funeral songs and ceremonies, which must be executed after the death of every native of note. By temperament, as well as position, he was our peacemaker. His connection by blood on his father’s side with Shathitch, the head chief of the Chilcats, and by former treaties with the Tacoos, Hoochenoos and Kakes, gave him an added advantage. We took him along to introduce us, smooth the way for our interviews and initiate us into the mysteries of native diplomacy. Stickeen Johnny had the best knowledge of English of all the young men of the tribe. His experience while an inmate of the home of one of the first officers stationed at Fort Wrangell had made him a good cook and waiter, while his life as a boy had inured him to camping and hunting. Sitka Charlie, another strong young man, had a Sitka mother and a Hoonah father, and was thus related to two im- portant and powerful tribes. He was a good companion and well acquainted with the channels, passages and camping places of the northern part of the Archipelago. It was so late in the fall when we started that both whites and Indians tried their best to dissuade us from attempting the voyage. Prophecies of the storms, discomforts and general perils of such a trip at such a season fell from ali lips. Rumours of an impending war between the Chilcats and Hoonahs and the Hoochenoos and Stickeens were recounted. “Tf you come back alive from this trip,” said dry old Dick Willoughby, “TI will think that there is something in the care of Divine Providence.” XVITI A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT fine canoe and its splendid crew, all gloomy fore- bodings left us. Muir and I were happy as children who were being ushered into a new and wonderful playhouse full of unknown toys. We sat together on the thwart of the bow, just back of the foremast, with paddles in our hands. Tow-a-att was perched in the high stern with his big steering paddle; Kadishan wielded his fancy paddle, while Charlie and Johnny were busy with their oars. Soon a breeze from the Stickeen caught us; the two square sails were spread and our craft cut rapidly through the water with a bone in her teeth. Our first objective was the Kake village, called Kluhkwan, on Kupreanof Island, sixty miles from Wrangell. We stopped for lunch at Vanks Island, ten miles from home. This initia- tion into camp life in Alaska was most pleasant. A good fire was quickly kindled, some beans from the large potful, cooked by Mrs. Young, were warmed in the frying-pan; coffee was made, and John soon prepared our table, if the moss log on which we sat and the lid of the camp kit could be called by that name. We had taken the advice of experienced campers, and let the natives provide their own food. Had we undertaken to feed them, they very soon would have cleaned out our larder. They had their own dried salmon, seal grease, sea biscuits and “fresh ” venison. We had our flour, beans, rice, sugar, pota- toes and other necessary food. Camping that night was typical of all the camps we were to make. First of all was choosing the spot. All of the camping 187 () NCE launched upon the waters of Etolin Bay with our 188 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA places in that region were well known to our crew, and they would discuss the merits of the different camps as we traveled, and we would put in before sundown to the one which suited them best. This was sure to be some little cove or inlet where there was a good beach of sand or fine gravel, sheltered from probable winds. Our boxes and bags would be put ashore, and all hands ranged along the side of the canoe and it would be skidded or carried up into the woods above all possible tides. Then the natives would discuss the best place for pitching our tents. When John, Charlie and Kadishan had expressed their different opinions, old Tow-a-att would come up the beach with the small mast or the large sweep in his hand. He would march straight to the most likely place, sink his pole, and the others would mechanically acquiesce and put up the tents. There was always abundant driftwood in these coves—dry yellow and red cedar and Sitka spruce. We did not use the hemlock as it was sure to be heavy and soggy. We always found spruce trees which had been cut into by numerous axes, and the sap exuding had flooded the gash with pitch. This would be chopped off, and there was our fine kindling which would take fire instantly, even though soaked with rain. If it was wet weather one of the sails would be put up as a slanting fly tent fronting the fire. Our tent would be pitched near by under some big tree where there was a soft carpet of fine spruce and hemlock needles. Twigs would be cut and skilfully laid for our ‘‘ feather bed ” and our blankets spread over them. ‘Then the supper, eaten with that appetite which only campers in the open can appreciate. Nearly always there was a good clam beach and John and Charlie would bring us luscious bivalves; clams large and small, cockles, mussels, besides crabs and the long, succulent arms of the devil-fish. Then stories of Indian lore, Moody and Sankey hymns, alternating with Indian minor melodies, and we turned into our tents to that deep, dreamless sleep which only such voyagers A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT 189 can know. The lapping waves, the soft whispering of the wind in the trees, the stars “ singing together,” all formed Nature’s perfect lullaby. The morning always found us completely refreshed, spring- ing from our beds with every muscle ready and mind alert. Already my life of more than a year at Fort Wrangell had driven away my dyspepsia and nervous headache, and now all other physical ills were to vanish. As a contrast to my miser- able, puny, sickly existence heretofore, I was henceforth, to a close of a long life, to be a well man, able to eat large por- tions of everything and digest them. With the exception of that weak shoulder, which always had to be humoured and guarded, my body was entirely fit and responsive to all de- mands made upon it. I could do my full part in the work of the camp. Muir was a man of steel. He knew just what to do and how to do it. Again and again he and I played the game to see which could get water, make a fire and get a coffee-pot boiling quicker. The prize nearly always went to Muir. I have camped with many men but have never found his equal as a man of the wilderness. In addition to this aptness, there was that entrancing flood of words pouring forth from his lips in full stream as he was telling me strange and interesting things about the plants, the trees, the flowers, the birds and the whole round of Nature’s furnishings. He was a profound scholar, but not one of those introspective thinkers who keep their knowledge to themselves. He was eager to tell what he knew, and his only limit was the inferior capacity of his hearers to receive what he had to tell. I cannot tarry with the incidents of this wonderful voyage of upward of eight hundred miles. Muir has given the details in his Travels in Alaska, and I have sketched them inadequately in my Alaska Days with John Muir. My task now is to tell the missionary part of these voyages. 190 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Three days, with intervals for hunting and finding shelter from too stormy winds, brought us along Summer Strait and through Rocky or Keku Strait, between Kupreanof and Kuiu Islands. So we came to the large Kake village. This had been the scene of the tragedy when the gunboat ‘“ Saginaw ” had steamed in front of the town, parleyed with the chiefs, and on their failure to comply with the demand to deliver up the murderers of the two white men, had opened fire, blown the houses to pieces, smashed the canoes, sent the natives scurrying into the woods, and, with blundering and indis- criminate vengeance had taught to the Kakes the danger of offending the government of the United States. The town had been rebuilt, but there were patches and gaping holes in many of the houses telling the story of the bombardment. This large village was almost deserted, as it was the season for the king salmon, and also the hunting season, and the men and nearly all the women were away at their various camps to lay in their food supply for the winter. We found that the tall, fine looking chief who had visited me at Fort Wrangell and deplored the imminent decline of his family, because there were no girls in it, was encamped at Saginaw Bay, named for the gunboat which had destroyed the town. Here we found a dozen or more men and their wives and children. At this and two other camps not far away we took the census of the Kake tribe, and found them to number some four hundred. I had learned the method of taking the census from some of the white men who had accompanied the United States of- ficials in their interviews with the tribes. I had bags of dif- ferent kinds of beans. I got the head of each family to count his kin and connections, place in piles the large brown beans to represent the men, the large white beans to represent the women and the small brown beans for the boys and girls. This method of taking the census was slow and laborious. Our interviews often lasted for hours, while with John to help I A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT 191 patiently gathered the statistics. But I think the data I col- lected were in the main correct. I pursued this method in my visits to all the Indian towns of the Archipelago during the years of 1879 and 1880. I compiled the information I ac- quired, wrote it in letters to our mission Board, and in 1880 I gave it to the census taker. A word about this census taker: Late in the year 1880 came Mr. Ivan Petrof, a Russian of education and prominence. He had been with ‘“ Fur Seal Elliott ” in his investigations of the seal rookeries of the Pribilof Islands, and had resided for some time at Kodiak. He received the appointment of census taker for Alaska from the government and had gathered some statistics from the traders and customs officials to the west- ward. He came to Sitka and on to Fort Wrangell late in 1880. By that time I had visited and collected data from all the four- teen different Thlingit tribes, with the exception of the Yaku- tats, and had visited the five villages of Hydas on Prince of Wales Island. Mr. Petrof learned that I had taken a rough census of the natives, and came to Fort Wrangell especially to see me. He stayed for several weeks at our town and enjoyed the hospitality of one of the merchants. He was known at Wrangell by the name of ‘“ Hollow Legs,” because of his un- limited capacity of absorbing whiskey and rum without the usual effects of such potations being visible. One of the men told me he “could drink all the rest under the table.” In- stead of visiting the tribes by canoe and by the revenue cutter himself, as he was supposed to do, he took my statistics and embodied them in his census report; and they were the only vital statistics shown in his report of that region to Washing- ton. He got a good round sum as census taker—got all the credit, and I got nothing for doing the work. However, I was not working for money, but was well repaid, in the progress of our missions, for this and every other phase of my labours. I found the Kakes very friendly and eager for a school and 192 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA mission. Some of them had learned at our mission something of the first principles of Christianity, but the young men and especially the young women had received incomparably more of evil than of good from the soldiers and others at Fort Wran- gell. They were a rapidly vanishing tribe. The most dreaded crossisrg of our whole voyage was from Security Bay on Kuiu Island, across Prince Frederick Sound to Point Gardner, the extreme southern point of Admiralty Is- land. The dreaded passage, which had been discussed with apprehension by our crew ever since we started, was fortu- nately made speedily and safely with the aid of a fair wind. Once in Chatham Strait, we could find shelter everywhere, and when winds arose we could speedily run into sheltered coves and harbours. Now we were in the country of the most feared and hated tribe, the Hoochenoos. The correct spell- ing of that name is “‘ Hootznoo,” meaning Brown Bear Fort; and there are yet to be seen remains of a stockade on an island in Kotzebue Inlet near the town of Angoon. This was the famous fort used in the frequent battles of that tribe with other tribes. Many stories of massacres and sieges were told by our natives concerning this fort; but the fort and the tribe have received a disgraceful immortality from the fact that the Hoochenoo Indians, first of all the tribes, learned from the sol- diers how to make rum from molasses; and this was called ‘“‘ Hoochenoo ” and later shortened to “ hooch,” and now ap- plied to all kinds of home-brew. | There were three towns, Neltushkin, Killisnoo and Angoon. At Neltushkin we found about thirty natives, living in two large community houses and staying peacefully at home while their tribal relatives were reveling at Angoon. The chief, who was a man about fifty years old, received us and our message most hospitably. His wife presided with a dignity and ease I have seldom seen equaled. After my usual potlatch of to- bacco to prepare the way for a powwow, they, in turn, gave A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT 193 us some freshly killed venison, and we spent a pleasant night there lying in our blankets on mattresses composed of a num- ber of Hudson’s Bay blankets. It was sixty miles or more from the Hoochenoos to the next tribe north, which was the Hoonahs. These occupied two vil- lages on opposite sides of the Icy-Straits. The northern and smaller village was on the mainland, some fifteen miles from Point Céuverden, the chief town being on a fine harbour on Chichagof Island, ten miles from the other village. We received alarming news at this northern town. My chief objective and the point I was most anxious to reach was the Chilcat tribe near the north end of Lynn Canal. The Hoonahs had learned that there was a war raging between two families of the Chil- cats. They strongly advised us not to risk our lives by going to the Chilcats at present. Therefore, I being anxious to visit the Hoonahs and their chief village, and Muir being desirous of visiting the great “Icy Bay,” we bade farewell to the few natives in the northern town and landed, two days from An- goon, at the large town of Hoonah. When we rounded into the beautiful harbour, we saw the American flag floating from its pole in front of the largest house, and we immediately responded by hoisting our mission flag at the mast. And our Indian crew changed their garments, putting on their “‘ Sunday best.” Two or three hundred natives were on the beach. On landing, we were greeted by the chief, Kashoto, who made us a formal speech of welcome with the usual de- preciatory remarks about his poverty and the meanness of his house for entertaining such distinguished guests. Our response reassured him: ‘“‘ We would be honoured to abide with him.” Then, with compliments and a pleasant smile, he led the way to his house. There we were ushered into the presence of his three wives and the men of the family. Our canoe was emptied by his followers and carried up the beach beyond the tide. A 194 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA big fire was made in the center of the room, and the people began to gather in for the customary reception. I had Charlie and Johnny give to the chiefs first, and then to all the principal people, gifts of leaf tobacco; I measured out a cup of sugar and gave it to the chief; then we composed our- selves in our allotted places. The chief regretted that he had no “ Boston food” for us, but gave our cook a large loin of venison, and the whole tribe, as many as could gather into the large house, watched the process of preparing our lunch and eating it. I delivered the customary Christian speech, talking as I would to the primary class of a Sunday School at home, and explained in simplest words the Gospel message. I expressed a wish to hear whether they wanted to receive the Gospel, to have teachers and missionaries sent to them and to make progress towards being real Christian men and women. Muir, Tow-a-att and Kadishan followed with their speeches, and then the chief and all the head men and some of the women ex- pressed themselves. After the speeches I got the chief to as- semble the heads of the different families and we spent a couple of hours enumerating the people and getting what statistics from them we could. Our count showed some seven hundred and twenty-five persons in the tribe. We found the Hoonahs about the most receptive of all of the Alaskans; and this was the beginning of what has been one of the finest and largest of our Alaska missions. The joy of being the first to bring the Word of Life to a large tribe was burning more and more warmly in my heart, and my natives were catching the fire. Before retiring for the night, Muir had asked many ques- tions about the mysterious and unknown “ Bay of Ice ” to the northwest. None of our crew, not even Charlie, had ever been farther in that direction than we were now. The Hoonahs seemed reluctant to have us explore this unknown region and told us fearful stories of the terrors that lined the way. They A VOYAGE OF ENCHANTMENT 195 told of great masses of floating icebergs and the danger that they would turn over on our canoe, smash it and drown us in the icy waters. They told of other dangers which brought a smile to our faces, but were very real to them and to our crew. The great devil-fish in a secluded bay, with arms longer than our canoe and studded with hundreds of strong suckers, lay ready to wrap those arms around our canoe and ourselves and drag us down to be mangled and devoured by the great parrot beak. They told of the rushing tides which would cause our destruction. All of these terrors were controlled and directed by malignant spirits who were especially inimical to strangers and to white men. Although Muir and I made light of these imaginary dangers, our Stickeens were impressed by them. Old Tow-a-att called John and told him to ask us whether God wished us to lose our lives in this terrible passage, or whether He would rather we should go back to the Stickeens who loved us and who were always glad to listen to our words. “You will find no natives up there in that terrible country,” he said. “ There is nothing there to see except ice and moun- tains; there is no gold, no game, no furs. It will simply be a kultus koly (purposeless journey). Better turn back and go to the tribes where you can do something worth while.” But when we persisted, he smiled and said: “ Ah, well, I am with you, whatever you want to do. Far better I die with you among the ice than go back home full of shame without you.” We found an experienced seal hunter, a sub-chief of the Hoonahs, who was willing to guide us for a small wage. And the next morning, full of explorer’s enthusiasm and hope, we steered the canoe towards the then unknown “ Glacier Bay.” XIX THE GREAT DISCOVERY from the hospitable town of Hoonah, steering across Icy Straits towards a wooded island some fifteen miles distant. Here we were told we must take on board our canoe . a supply of wood, as we were entering an entirely treeless bay, and would be for a week or more without fuel, except such as we could take along with us. The heavy, fresh forest on this island with its supply of young trees gave us such an impres- sion of welcome and comfort that I named it “ Pleasant Is- land.” Cruising along its shores we found on its western end an ideal camp—a deep cove set into the island, with sheltering hills on either side and a sloping beach of white sand on which we could haul up our canoe. Here we spent the afternoon in accumulating our supply of dry spruce wood. The axes rang merrily with the sturdy strokes of John and Charlie and the new guide. In the morning, with every available space piled with fuel, we steered towards the treeless and bushless point. On the hither side of this point was a small inlet with a stream of icy water and a few shrubs, with some driftwood on the shore. From a small Indian house issued a wisp of smoke; and when we came within hailing distance there suddenly appeared an Indian with blackened face, gun in hand. He fired a shot over our heads, and in a gruff voice shouted: “ Goosoo ewhan? ” (Who are you? Why did you come here? Where are you going?) John answered, ‘“ We are your friends, and the missionary from Fort Wrangell is with us.” Then came out of the hut some fifteen or twenty men, women 196 O UITE early on the morning of October 24th we set sail ; 4 THE GREAT DISCOVERY 197 and children—the men with guns in their hands. Kadishan, who knew when to be blandly conciliatory and when to put on an appearance of anger, rebuked the men for coming armed, asking them, “ Have you no shame? Do you come to meet God’s man of peace with guns?” After a little parley the un- friendly faces broke into smiles and we were welcomed into the hut. These were the friends of our Hoonah guide and among them was his wife. They were seal hunters and the house was well stored with the stretched and dried skins of the leopard seal, and also with mountain goat pelts, and various kinds of furs. At our guide’s command, his wife brought him supplies of dried salmon, seal grease and goat meat. When we put off from this settlement, the guide’s wife said with a smile: “ This is my husband, and I love him very much. Be sure you bring him back to me.” We left some of our heavier provisions in this house to lighten our load, so that we would be enabled to battle the strong winds and icebergs. Right here, let me give the Thlingits credit for absolute honesty so far as caring for a stranger’s property is concerned. In all my travels in South- eastern Alaska for ten years, although I frequently left just such goods as these people would covet—ammunition, flour, sea biscuits, beans, rice and sugar—I never missed an article on my return to claim my goods; everything was given back exactly as it was left. Indeed, the only goods we ever had stolen from us were some we entrusted to a white sailor who had deserted from a gunboat and was going to one of our Southern missions. The goods we sent by him to these mis- sions were never heard of again. Glacier Bay was not on Vancouver’s chart. We had no description or sketch of it. So far as we were able to ascer- tain, no white man had ever penetrated these forbidding wilds. A heavy mist obscured the mountains; the tide was out, and a multitude of icebergs of all sizes, from the antlered fragments 198 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA of bottle green to the solid house-like blue berg, floated all around us, and were soon to march with us northward up the mysterious bay. We did not then realize that we were explor- ing for the first time the most wonderful bay for natural scenery in all the earth, and that it fell to our lot to unfold this wonder to an admiring world. When the mist lifted sufficiently for us to get our bearings, we saw a new kind of world; gray granite shoulders to the left, sometimes smooth and polished as a granite monument, some- times broken and striated by the steel-like ice rubbing hard across them and chiseling and grooving them as by a giant plane. Small islands, conical, pyramidical or with low, rounded tops, sprung up here and there as we progressed. This open- ing and that on either side invited us to explore it, but our guide, after we had rounded Point Gustavus, steered right in the middle of the channel to get the heaviest current and we were fairly launched into what we called Glacier Bay. All the islands, points, inlets, glaciers and mountains of this great bay —then sixty miles long and now more than ninety, were name- less at that time. We gave the names that are now on the chart. Muir, the scientific member of the party, named the glaciers and most of the inlets, while I named many of the islands and points. But what a week it was! Muir had a good pocket compass with him, as well as a barometer for measuring heights. We estimated distances by our rate of travel. Muir’s pencil was busy sketching the inlets, points and mountains, and we were constantly tracing shore lines and islands in our sketch books, with many an erasure and amendment as we traveled. We soon began to discover the glaciers which had produced these armies of icebergs which were thickening about us. About noon of this day of exploration we discovered the first of the many great glaciers, belonging in what is called first class; that is, those which come down to the sea and break off bergs. THE GREAT DISCOVERY 199 The first glacier Muir named the “ Geike Glacier,” for James Geike, the noted Scotch geologist. It gave an impression of tremendous power and unfeeling sternness to me; but to Muir a glacier was always the friendliest thing in the world; a great tool in the hands of an experienced and almighty Landscape Gardener. This tool was wielded in kindness to shape the world and prepare it for the abode of man. The work the glacier did was a labour of love, and its stern aspect, its roaring voices, its immense masses breaking off into bergs, its relentless march through the mountains as it carved out its own valleys, were to him the products, not only of infinite intelligence but of a kind and loving heart. I could not see them in that light, although Muir was gradually winning me over to his viewpoint. He understood a glacier; I did not. It was Saturday afternoon when we ran into a little harbour, that had a good beach, and made our Sunday camp. Muir was always impatient about these frequent campings. As an In- dian expressed it, “‘ Muir was always hungry for ice.” To camp in a dull, uninteresting cove when we might be seeing majestic heights and wonderful glaciers was to him absurd. He was always longing to see what was beyond. The guide would say: ‘“‘ We must camp here because there is no harbour beyond that is safe; and we will be caught in the ice and perhaps lose our lives among the bergs.”’ I would insist that the guide knew the country while we did not, and that we should take his opinion at all times. Muir would reluctantly give in, grumbling and accusing the natives of cowardice. In the morning after an enforced encampment of this kind, when he would discover what we would have encountered in the dark, he would acknowledge that the Indian was right. But he would never acknowledge it beforehand. If we had taken his judgment as to camps, as Kadishan sagely remarked, “‘ We all would have had our bones picked by the wolves and the devil-fish.” x 200 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA I cannot here give in detail the account of the great week at Glacier Bay. Muir has done that to perfection in his now classic book. Every point we rounded unfolded to us a new surprise. There were no disappointments during that week, unless we except the almost constant clouds of fog that en- veloped us and cut off the view of the mountains. But when these would roll back and the whole landscape would burst upon our enraptured vision, we felt that after all this was the way to see and enjoy the scenery. It was like a stereopticon lecture with the views flashing rapidly upon us, while the voice of the Almighty, describing and commenting upon them, spoke in the thunder of the icebergs. For the sake of our Christian influence I always insisted on camping over the Sabbath. Muir combated this, saying that we would far better keep the Lord’s Day by flying before the winds He sent, and hearing what He had to say to us, than by staying in a cove where we could see nothing of interest. I now believe he was right, and had I the trip to make over again, I would think no more of canoeing on Sunday than of hitching up my horse and driving to church when I was in charge of a country congregation. We camped that Sunday in a small cove beyond the narrow entrance to the Geike Glacier. Muir rose as soon as it was daylight, took a bite of breakfast, stuffed some sea biscuits in his pocket and I did not see him again until nightfall. He must have traveled twenty miles or more that day over those rugged steeps, climbing to the height of two or three thousand feet. Whenever the clouds lifted he would make haste to ascend some commanding height to obtain a full view. When he returned he had so much to tell me, and his words poured forth so rapidly in entrancing descriptions, that it was an hour or two before I could induce him to finish his beans and coffee. And so it was for the whole ensuing week. Every day we would find rain or snow clouds and mist alternating with sun- THE GREAT DISCOVERY 201 shine. The mighty Pacific Glacier at the extreme end of the fiord, the Hugh Miller, Hoonah, Reid, Rendu and Queen Glaciers, each having its own peculiar story to tell, passed in review aS we made our way delicately among the thick float- ing icebergs. Frequently our Hoonah guide would flatly re- fuse to go farther in certain directions, saying that it would be almost sure death to enter these passages. At night we would generally camp on bare rocks, for there are very few gravel beaches in that bay. We would pick up our canoe and perch it high above the tides, while we would pile boulders around our tent pole to keep it steady as there was no soil in which to plant it. We would spread our blankets on these bare rocks, sometimes having difficulty in finding a place large enough and level enough on which to stretch our bodies. The rain and snow would beat in our faces; the wind would wreck our tents; our Indians would grumble and fill our ears with dire forebodings; but we were lifted up in spirit far beyond the power of mere discomfort or danger to dampen our ardour. Muir was a great poet, although he never, so far as I am aware, put his thoughts into verse, but his prose is as poetic as that of Isaiah and Habakkuk. One glorious night when the clouds parted and the moon, almost at the full, showered the mountains and glaciers with silver light, I ascended an eminence fifteen hundred or two thousand feet above our camp, and communed with God and His wondrous world for two or three hours, until the clouds returned and the “ silent music of the night ” was hushed. It was there I made my poem, “A Night in Glacier Bay,” of which Muir pronounced this the best verse: T hose everlasting snowfields are not cold; This icy solitude no barren waste. The crystal masses burn with love untold; The glacier-table spreads a royal feast. 202 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA It was after two or three days spent in exploring the northern reaches of Glacier Bay that the wonderful climax of the trip burst suddenly upon us. A sunrise so unique and so glorious that Muir said: ‘ There was never anything like this before in all the world.”’ Muir published his account of that wonderful morning in a San Francisco paper, while I wrote my descrip- tion, as a part of my first article of the series, ‘‘ The Gospel by Canoe,” for the New York Evangelist. They came out about the same time, without either of us knowing that the other had written a description of that scene. Dr. Henry M. Field, who was the editor of the Evangelist and himself an author of note, displaced his series of travel articles from the first column of the first page of the paper and inserted my story: Early that morning we quitted our camp on a barren rock, steering towards Mount Fairweather. A- night of sleepless discomfort had ushered in a bleak gray morning. Our Indians were sullen and silent, their scowling looks resenting our relent- less purpose to attain to the head of the bay. The air was damp and raw, chilling us to the marrow. The forbidding granite mountains, showing here and there through the fog, seemed suddenly to push out threatening fists and shoulders at us. All night long the ice-guns had bombarded us from four or five directions, when the great masses of ice from living glaciers toppled into the sea, crashing and grinding with the noise of thunder. The granite walls hurled back the sound in reiterated peals, multiplying its volume a hundred fold. There was no Love apparent on that bleak, gray morning: Power was there in appalling force. We could not enjoy; we could only endure. Death from overturning icebergs, from charging tides, from mountain avalanches, threatened us. Suddenly I heard Muir catch his breath with fervent ejacu- lation. ‘God, Almighty! ” he said. Following his gaze to- wards Mount Crillon, I saw the summit highest of all crowned with glory indeed. It was not sunlight; there was no appear- ance of shining; it was as if the Great Artist with one sweep of THE GREAT DISCOVERY 203 His brush had laid upon the king-peak of all a crown of the most brilliant of all colours—as if a pigment, perfectly made and thickly spread, too delicate for crimson, too intense for pink, had leaped in a moment upon the mountain top; “an awful rose of dawn.” The summit nearest Heaven had caught a glimpse of its glory. It was a rose blooming in ice-fields, a love-song in the midst of a stern epic, a drop from the heart of Christ upon the icy desolation and barren affections of a sin- frozen world. It warmed and thrilled us in an instant. We who had been dull and apathetic a moment before, shivering in our wet blankets, were glowing and exultant now. Even the Indians ceased their paddling, gazing with faces of awe upon the wonder. Now, as we watched the kingly peak, we saw the colour leap to one and another and another of the snowy summits around it. The monarch had a whole family of royal princes about him to share his glory. Their radiant heads, ruby crowned, were above the clouds, which seemed to form their silken garments. As we looked in ecstatic silence we saw the light creep down the mountains. It was changing now. The glowing crimson was suffused with soft, creamy light. If it was less divine, it was more warmly human. Heaven was coming down to man. The dark recesses of the mountains began to lighten. They stood forth as at the word of command from the Master of all; and as the changing mellow light moved downward that won- derful colosseum appeared clearly with its battlements and peaks and columns, until the whole majestic landscape was revealed. Now we saw the design and purpose of it all. Now the text of this great sermon was emblazoned across the landscape, “ God is Love” ; and we understood that these relentless forces that had pushed the molten mountains heavenward, cooled them into granite peaks, covered them with snow and ice, dumped the moraine matter into the sea, filling up the sea, preparing the world for a stronger and better race of men (who knows?) were all a part of that great “all things ” that “work together for good.” Our minds cleared with the landscape; our courage rose; our Indians dipped their paddles silently, steering without fear amidst the dangerous masses of ice. But there was no pro- 204 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA fanity in Muir’s exclamation, “ We have met with God!” A lifelong devoutness of gratitude filled us, to think that we were guided into this most wonderful room of God’s great gallery, on perhaps the only day in the year when the skies were cleared, and the sunrise, the atmospheric conditions and the point of view all prepared for the matchless spectacle. The discomforts of the voyage, the toil, the cold and rain of the past weeks were a small price to pay for one glimpse of its surpassing loveliness. Again and again Muir would break out, after a long silence of blissful memory, with exclamations: ‘““'We saw it; we saw it! He sent us to His most glorious exhibition. Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! ” On our way back from this mass of icy glaciers, far up the — bay we passed the greatest of all the glaciers, to which, at my suggestion, Captain Beardslee of the gunboat ‘‘ Jamestown,” gave Muir’s name, when after our second and more extended trip to that finest of glaciers, we went to Sitka; we gave our “ guess chart ” to the officers, who sent it to Washington. But this time we could not, on account of the approaching winter and the fierce snowstorms that were arising, land by the Muir Glacier and explore it. Let me say here, as an illustration of the neglect on the part of the government of this most wonderful of all fiords, that our chart, sketched and penciled as we floated along and published in Washington just as we made it, was for fifteen or twenty years the only sailing chart of Glacier Bay. It was, of course, inaccurate in many details; inlets, rocks and islands were un- marked in it; we made no soundings, no triangulations and no chain measurements—we guessed. Excursion steamers. using our chart discovered new rocks by running upon them. But our glory is that we discovered and gave to the world “ Glacier Bay,” and made possible the visit to this great region of thousands of enthusiastic and appreciative tourists. Yet more than half of this bay is still unexplored and uncharted. AVd WAIOVID NI CGaYaHAOOSIG YAIOVID LSADAVI AHL YaIOVIS ANN XX THE NORTHERN TRIBES HILE the main objective of Muir’s voyage was \ V Glacier Bay, mine was the Chilcat tribe. Our run up the long, narrow channel, called Lynn Canal, was alternated with southerly winds that bowled us ahead ten or twelve miles an hour, and a north wind which the Indians called hoon and which forced us to poke along the shores, taking advantage of sheltering points and favouring tides and eddies. It took us some five days of very hard work to travel from Glacier Bay to the country of the Chilcats. Varying reports picked up at the different camps we passed alternately aroused our fears that there would be war and violence when we reached their country, or said all was quiet and we would be well received. It was the first week in November when we made a careful toilet, our Indians putting on their best clothes in honour of those whom we were about to visit, while Muir and I, not hav- ing extra suits with us, contented ourselves with the display of our flag. We left our camp on an island opposite the beauti- ful Davidson Glacier, paddled past the conical island which gives its name to Pyramid Harbour and approached the delta of the Chilcat River. A long narrow peninsula divides the northern part of. Lynn Canal into two prongs. We took the westward of these, the country of the Chilcats. The people who inhabit the eastern prong are called “ Chilcoots,” although really belonging to the same tribe. It was towards noon of the same day that we paddled into the main channel of the Chilcat River, skirting the shore and steering towards the large town of Yindestukki. Our large 205 206 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA canoe, well manned, with the American flag floating from the mast, gave notice of a visit of ceremony. Doubtless natives at many camps we had passed on our way north had conveyed the news of our coming. As soon as we got within musket-shot of the town, we saw a great commotion in the village. Men were running to and fro and finally we saw them massed in front of the largest community house. The winding channel approaching within a half mile of the town brought suddenly from this little army of natives, who had guns in their hands, a volley which was either a challenge or a salute as we chose to interpret it. A shower of bullets splashed unpleasantly near our canoe. Kadishan allayed our fears by saying this was simply a friendly volley of inquiry to find out who we were and what was the reason for our coming. ‘Therefore, slowly amid the falling bullets, we paddled towards the shore. A line of men came running down the beach, the foremost shout- ing out the customary salute, “ Goosoo wa-eh?” (Who are your). The answer was shouted back: ‘A preacher chief and ice chief coming to give you a good word.” This answer was relayed along the line to the chief, who returned an invitation to us to be his guests. Slowly we paddled ahead, questions and answers alternating, until the bow of our canoe touched the shore in front of Chief Don- nawuk’s house. ‘The men with guns had disappeared, but now they came rushing from behind and within the chief’s house with shouts as if of rage—‘ Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo,” and with violent gestures as if they were going to capture us. Some twenty of them, divided into two ranks, ran right into the shallow river, ranged alongside of our canoe and at a signal swung it up on their shoulders and brought us to the door of Donnawuk’s house, where the canoe was set down and motions made that we should alight. Boys were stationed by our canoe with stones to drive off the many Indian dogs that were making THE NORTHERN TRIBES 207 a rush towards our dried salmon, whose enticing odours at- tracted them. We were ushered with all ceremony into the presence of the old chief, who sat, or rather squatted, on a blanket at the far end of the room. After short complimentary speeches on both sides the chief announced that if we would accept it he would give us a feast. We gladly acquiesced. A young man who had been to Fort Wrangell and Port Simp- son and Victoria and had learned something of the ceremonies held there, was the master of the occasion. He consulted Stickeen Johnny quite frequently, and between them they did the feast up in great style. Muir and I, as guests of honour, were seated on the chieftain’s right and left, then Kadishan and Tow-a-att next to us, while John and Charlie were to act as our servants. The old chief wore his great emblem of authority— a pair of huge silver-bowed spectacles. These gave him his name—Donnawuk (Silver-eye), ‘‘ Donna” being as near as the natives could pronounce the word “ dollar.”’ The glasses had been presented to the chief at a great feast by a Russian officer. Donnawuk could not see through them, and had to lay them aside whenever he wished to inspect us or anything we had. But when making his speech he had them on, doubtless think- ing they lent dignity to his countenance. It was dark before the speech-making began. Rumours of our presence had gone to the other two villages on Pyramid Harbour and to the Chilcoot village, and soon we had men from all of these places. Donnawuk’s house was large, about fifty feet square, two platforms running clear around the building, and the great beams which supported the rafters of the roof were fully two feet in diameter. Before the council opened there were over two hundred blanketed Indians within the house, and as it progressed more came until the room was crowded to suffocation. The chief made his speech of welcome. He knew very little of white men, he said, but acknowledged that they were all 208 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA very wise and powerful. ‘‘ You are all great and wise chiefs, and we know very little, but are hungry to hear what you have to say. Weare proud to be ‘ Boston men’ and not Russians.” The flowery metaphors were much the same as those uttered by our Stickeens at the councils at Wrangell and by the chiefs of all the tribes we had visited. “A dark night, a canoe, a trip in the storm without paddle or sail, men lost, starving and in danger; then a light, a sheltered harbour, food and comfort; the usual round of compliments.” I had often experienced the joy of being the first to bring the Christian message to the tribes, but never felt it quite so keenly as at Yindestukki. As I talked, people came crowding more and more into the room. I heard a cracking sound; they were tearing off the hewn planks that formed the sides of the building and were listening through the apertures. Heads appeared even around the smoke-hole on the roof, eager to hear what we had to say. When I had finished, cries would come, “Go on, go on. A good word, a new word, tell us more.” And here, as always, the message that kept them and held them motionless and avid was the Great Message of the ‘““ Man who came from Heaven to die for us.” Muir, and then Kadishan and Tow-a-att followed. The old chief was among enemies, and could see unfriendly glances from one and another of the Chilcats; he could see them talk- ing together and gesturing towards him; but his speech was a model of kindliness and diplomacy. Its theme was the brother- hood and mutual helpfulness that came with the Gospel mes- sage. ‘“ We are not different tribes,” he said. ‘‘ We are one family. God is our father; Mr. Young and Mr. Muir are our brothers. No one is better than the other. All are equal. All remembrance of former hurts and anger and war is wiped out by this new Word. Let us be at peace. If I have offended any Chilcat, I ask his pardon.” The end of the feast was a fitting climax. The largest village : ‘ : ’ 4 j THE NORTHERN TRIBES 209 of the Chilcats was Klukwan, which was situated some twenty miles or more up the Chilcat River. It was the largest and most celebrated town in the Archipelago. The head chief had a great reputation for wealth and power and also for pride and cruelty. His name was Shathitch, a name which has been anglicized into Shortridge and is proudly possessed by many civilized or partly tamed people of the tribe to this day. The name “ Shathitch,” as nearly as it can be translated, means “ Hard-to-kill,’ intimating that this man of many battles, though scarred, was still alive and defiant. He was on a visit of state to Yindestukki, and there had been feasting before our arrival. We had inquired about him and sent word that we would like to see him. He kept us waiting for three or four hours. It was verging towards our bedtime when the message came that Shathitch was about to pay us a visit of state. The word was passed, a passageway cleared to the door, and there came stalking into the room the old chief of all the Chilcats. He looked neither to the right nor to the left as he advanced slowly up to Donnawuk, shook his hand and then politely shook hands with Muir and me and with Kadishan, passing by old Tow-a-att, and seated himself on the blankets which Donnawuk had assigned to him. He was dressed in his robe of state, an elegant chinchilla blanket. He turned around in order that we might read the inscription on the surface of his robe, and to our surprise we saw printed in black on the yellow the words, “ To Chief Shathitch, from his friend, Wm. H. Seward.” We learned afterwards that the great Secretary of State on his visit to Alaska, soon after its purchase, had visited the Chilcats, and on his return had sent this blanket as a present and mark of his appreciation. For three days we abode at Yindestukki. Shathitch re- turned to his town the day after our arrival, and reports came of drunken feasts up at the large village. But the reason for 210 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Shathitch’s speedy return was that the weather had turned so cold that ice was forming in the Chilcat River, and he was in danger of being blockaded and prevented for weeks from re- turning home. Our plans of visiting Klukwan were shattered by the same weather conditions; but before Shathitch left, he and Donnawuk and Skundoo-oo, the chief and /ht of Chilcoot, walked with me across the neck of the peninsula to a harbour on the east side. I had offered them a missionary and teachers, and had told them of our intention of building a new Christian town where they could speedily learn the white man’s ways and Christian habits and where their children could be edu- cated as Boston men and women. I asked them to name a place where we could build this new town. They selected this harbour, and I formally took possession of it. The follow- ing summer I sent Mrs. Dickinson there, with a supply of school books and Testaments, and had her commissioned as a missionary teacher. Her husband had been appointed by a newly organized company of traders as their storekeeper at Haines. This mission has been in existence ever since and has been very prosperous. The tract of ground I selected and which I stepped off on my next visit covered about five hundred and forty acres. It is now recognized as the best farming tract in Southeastern Alaska, and there are raised the largest and finest strawberries in the world, besides splendid vegetables, grains and even apples and cherries’ Afterwards part of the tract was deeded to the war department, and Fort William H. Seward was built upon it. When the Klondike boom peopled that country with eager gold seekers, a good-sized white man’s town was built. We established a mission at Klukwan up the river, and many of the Chilcats have risen to considerable prominence. One of them, a member of the Shortridge family, was for many years employed in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, and he collected great num- THE NORTHERN TRIBES 211 bers of old stones, copper and wooden implements and curios for the ethnological department of that university. I count my visit to the Chilcats as one of the most important and fruitful of all my visits to the different tribes. These people had a dreaded name throughout Alaska. Their fierce warriors captured hundreds of slaves from the tribes of the south, and many of these had been sacrificed after the old custom. Donnawuk himself, during this first visit, was waited upon assiduously by a good looking slave girl about eighteen or twenty years of age, whom he treated more as one of the family than as a slave. Donnawuk had three wives, only one of whom, a very old and wrinkled crone, was present at the time. When our mission was fully established, Donnawuk, although he never learned to read, and could not go far in his knowledge of Christianity, became and remained a devout Christian, always friendly and delighted with the progress of his people. Let me tell here a story concerning Muir, which has never been published. After his death, when I wrote my’ book Alaska Days with John Muir, I sent a copy of it to John Bur- roughs, who had made several trips with Muir to the Yosemite and Yellowstone Park, the big forests of California and to Alaska. I knew that the two had not gotten along very well together, but supposed that Mr. Burroughs would appreciate what I had to say about his fellow-naturalist. A letter from Burroughs greatly disappointed me. While thanking me for the book and writing words of appreciation, he showed the bad taste to attack Muir. He wrote: ‘‘ What I did not like about Muir was his utter lack of human sympathy. He would not crush a flower, but would ruthlessly hurt the feelings of a friend. He cared for no one’s opinions but his own,” and so on for a page or two of criticism. I have read Muir very differently. While at Yindestukki this incident occurred, the like of which was several times re- Buz HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA peated during our voyages: There was a very small baby in Donnawuk’s house, which kept crying in a feeble voice during the night. Muir and I were both disturbed by the poor infant’s cries, and we got up to find out if it was sick, or if we could not soothe or help it. We were informed that its mother had died, and that there was no milk for the child in the village and no nursing mother who could take care of it. .The baby was starving. One old woman said to John, ‘“‘ Maybe one, two more day it cry, then it die.” Muir turned to John and asked how much condensed milk we had left. The only condensed milk at that time was the old Eagle brand of thick, sweetened milk. John reported eight cans still remaining in our supply. ‘“‘ Bring it here,” ordered Muir. “ Let us see if we can’t feed this child.” ‘Together he and I prepared it with warm water, using our judgment as to what we thought was the right — strength. We fed that baby all it could take, and then Muir walked with it in his arms until its cries were hushed as it fell asleep. Before we left we gave our whole remaining supply of milk to the woman who was taking care of the child, in- structing her how to feed it and how to take care of it. Muir, with his own hands, bathed the baby. He spent five or six hours with that child in the night when he was very tired, helping to save its life. Before we left Chilcat, Donnawuk and the woman who cared for the infant came to us and said, “If this baby lives we will give him to you. He is yours because you saved him.” Seven years later I was astonished by a visit from a Chilcat Indian leading a little boy. She said, “ This is your baby. You saved his life at Yindestukki. Donnawuk promised to give him to you, and now we have brought him. He is not ours any longer. He is yours.” I took him and named him “ John,” and he was afterwards educated at our Wrangell mission and then at Sitka. I heard THE NORTHERN TRIBES 213 of him years afterwards as a respectable Christian native. And yet Burroughs said Muir had no human sympathy! Old Skundoo-oo gave us a good deal of trouble when he would come to Fort Wrangell by insisting upon making medi- cine, and by his efforts to collect blankets on foolish charges from those whom he accused of witchcraft. Shathitch re- mained a heathen of heathens, visiting us during his trips to Fort Wrangell only when he wanted a favour. So many acts of cruelty and tyranny were laid at his door that we almost held our breath when he arrived, and did not breathe freely until he left. A north wind was blowing hard down Lynn Canal when we bade good-bye to the hospitable natives of Yindestukki. We experienced the oon in its fierceness, but we were happy be- cause we made about forty miles that first day. When we visited the Auk Indians, Tow-a-att rebelled. “Why do you go see these worthless savages? ” he asked. “They are human beings and brothers,” I replied. “ Our message is to all men.” “Yes, to men,” grumbled the old chief, ‘‘ but these are not men; they are dogs.” We soon learned that the Auks were poor and despised by all the other tribes; that they were ‘“ worm eaters,’’ living largely on those queer annelids that are found along certain beaches, which worms are often five or six inches in length, and when tapped on a log stiffen up until they are an inch in diameter. I could never bring myself to taste them, although our Indians said they were very much like a clam in flavour. But these sea worms were considered food fit only for the poorest and the slaves. The Auks were remote from the most favourable hunting and fishing regions; they were midway between the Chilcat and Tacoo regions, both of which had access to the interior, permitting these two tribes to trade with the “ Stick Siwashes ” 214 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA for their furs. The Auks had only the northern shore of Ad- miralty Island and some thirty miles of mainland for their habitat. They were cut off from the best salmon streams and seal fisheries. Many of them had been captured as slaves by other tribes. When I insisted on landing there and preaching the Gospel to them, Tow-a-att said, “‘ You must not ask me to lead in prayer at those meetings.” The fine old chief had his pride, and you could not move him. However, we stopped at the two villages, one on the mainland—not far from the present cap- ital of Juneau and near the Auk Glacier, now called Menden- hall Glacier. The other stood on the shore of the deep bay, now called Young’s Bay, on the north shore of Admiralty Island. The poor people were pathetically glad to see us and hear our message. And although no schools and missions were established at these small towns, nearly all of the Auks have become Christianized and have moved to the vicinity of Juneau and Douglas. Some of them have made splendid progress, and the young people are among the brightest and best Chris- tian pupils. Many times these Auk Indians, when I have met them at Fort Wrangell and Juneau, have mentioned with feeling those first meetings we held at the Auk villages when we spoke the message which “led our hearts into the new way.” We passed the mouth of Tacoo Bay and visited a small village by a salmon stream but were unable, owing to the mul- titude of icebergs and the strong wind blowing down the Tacoo River, to explore as far as the mouth of that river. Snowstorms were becoming frequent, and the winter was al- most upon us. So many of the Tacoos made their residence at Fort Wrangell, and attended our meetings and sent their children to our schools, that we were not strangers. A few of the Tacoos had even become members of our church. We had a fellowship meeting in the harbour, indicated on the chart as 4 4 4 4 THE NORTHERN TRIBES 215 “Tacoo Harbour,” where a neat village of half a dozen well- built Indian houses filled with natives gave us welcome and listened attentively to our message. We reported what they said and their condition to Dr. Corleis, and the next fall he and his wife went to that harbour and wintered there, starting a successful mission for that tribe. Then down the coast, passing the deep bay called Port Snettisham until, rounding a point when night was coming on, we steered into Holkham Bay. The rain was falling thickly, and the night was pitch black. Our Indians were be- wildered; we were fairly lost. We stationed a man in the bow with a pole to make soundings, lest we should suddenly be wrecked upon a rock or upon one of the icebergs that filled the channel. We groped for two or three hours in the darkness, sometimes approaching the land, only to find the way blockaded by rocky islets or a wild sea breaking upon the rocks and flinging its spray upon us. Not until a great white cloud appeared before us that seemed to hover close to the water, but which the Indians explained as Sumdum Glacier, did we get our bearings. Towards this we were paddling carefully when suddenly a bright beam of light shone out ahead. We steered towards it, but presently it was blotted from our vision by an intervening island. We worked our way ahead, the light shin- ing with its welcome rays and then blinking out. At last it shone steadily a mile ahead, and we paddled with renewed con- fidence. We supposed we were nearing the village of the Sum- dum tribe, but on landing upon a beautiful gravel beach in a sheltered harbour found a company of half a dozen white men; some of them were lying asleep in their blankets under a fly tent, but two of their number sat on a log by the fire sheltered from the rain. We learned that they were miners who had been working a claim a mile from there at the foot of the glacier. The heavy rains had sent such a flood of water down upon them that 216 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA their wing dams were washed away and they were forced to give up work for the season. I was acquainted with two or three of their number, and, tired and hungry as we were, we greatly enjoyed the hospitality of these men of the wilderness and the hot coffee and pot of beans they tendered us. We were able to reciprocate with fresh venison and ducks, and almost our whole remaining supply of sugar. The next morning we visited the Sumdum village and found thirty or forty men, women and children in a rather squalid house. They had an abundance of salmon and halibut hung over the fire drying. The Sumdum tribe, akin to the Tacoos, with some connection with the Stickeens, had once been large and powerful, but were fast disappearing. The tribal wars and then the scourge of the small-pox almost wiped them out. The next day we took aboard our canoe one of the Sumdums as a guide and essayed to pursue the ice to its lair in the glaciers up Endicott Arm. But the ice was so thick, the bergs grinding upon each other and blocking the way, that after five or six hours’ struggling, without making much headway, our natives flatly refused to go any farther. ‘“‘ You are too late,” they told Muir. ‘‘ We cannot find your ice mountain at this season. You will have to come again if you want to explore this bay any farther.” As usual, Muir was reluctant to give up. Any place of interest which he failed to visit lay on his conscience’as a grievance. To him the native tribes were only incidents; his one object was to see the mountains and the glaciers. But he had to give this one up, and so we bowled before a Tacoo wind down Stevens Passage to Prince Frederick Sound and along its shore, making our way towards the mouth of the Stickeen River and Fort Wrangell. One adventure occurred that very nearly proved to be our last, illustrating Muir’s impatience and the extent to which he could push our native crew. A strong wind from the Stickeen THE NORTHERN TRIBES 217 was buffeting us as we rounded Cape Fanshaw, paddled past Farragut Bay and approached the northern end of Wrangell Narrows. We put in for the night to a wooded cove on the lee shore of a long narrow point called Vandeput. In the morning we rounded this point, but as soon as we left the shelter of the forest we were met by a tremendous gale and high seas. A reef of rocks, bending in a half curve, stretched off from the end of the point as far as we could see. The rain came in torrents, and the spray dashed angrily upon the rocks. Tow-a- att gave word to cease paddling and, turning to us, said: “ We cannot round that reef in this gale; we must turn back and camp.” As usual Muir protested. “It is getting late now, and we must get home. Go on, and make a further effort to get around this reef.” As always, I preferred to let the Indians be the pilots, but I said to Tow-a-att, ‘‘ You would better try a while longer and see if we cannot make it. I, too, am anxious to get home.” “All right,” he said, and resumed his paddling. The reef seemed to be endless. We moved along inch by inch, keeping well away from the breakers. At last the gale became so strong that we were making no progress at all. Muir cried out: “Keep on going. Cross the reef and get along.” Tow-a-att said something, and John interpreted: ‘‘ He say it’s dangerous; the canoe will be wrecked.” *¢ Ah, you are all cowards,” Muir answered. ‘“ Go across, go across.” When John reported Muir’s words to Tow-a-att, the old chief suddenly said: ‘‘ Very well, if we die you die, too,” and turned the canoe sharply towards the reef. In an instant we were in white water with the spray dashing over us. The canoe would be lifted high and then come down with the jagged rocks lying all about us. Suddenly I shouted a warn- ing. There was a jagged rock within a yard of my side of the me: 218 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA canoe. At the same time Muir called out and pointed to one on his side of the canoe, fairly scraping it. We ceased pad- dling. ‘Tow-a-att’s voice rang out sharply: “ Ut ha, ut ha” (paddle, you fools, paddle! ). We bent to our paddles again, and a great wave heaved us high. We redoubled our efforts, and in another moment we were across the reef and in calm water. We were all scared at the peril we had so narrowly escaped, except old Tow- a-att. He steered the canoe into a little cove, left his seat in the stern, and called John to him. Then he gave Muir what I think was the worst scolding that my companion had ever re- ceived in all his life. “You know many things,” he said, “I do not. You can tell us about the sun and stars and the great world outside; you have traveled on the steam horse to many lands, but you do not know Alaska and her waters. Many times on this trip you © acted like a silly child. If we had listened to you we would not be alive now. You forced us to cross that reef when we were taking our lives in our hands. Perhaps you, Charlie, John and Kadishan might have swum ashore if our canoe had been smashed, but Mr. Young and I are not strong, and I am old, and we would have been drowned. Would you be happy now on the shore with us lying among the breakers? Here- after, let me manage this canoe. Don’t act like a fool any more.” Muir did not often acknowledge his faults, but this time he was as meek as a child; he accepted the whole of the chief’s rebuff, and did not give him occasion for anger again. We had one more day of joyful exploration in Leconte Bay, among its hundreds of beautiful blue icebergs. This bay, which is only twelve miles from Fort Wrangell, is a narrow one, shut in by ice and jagged rocks, and the glacier is only about half a mile wide at its front. The Indians named it Hutlai (Thunder Bay). Muir sketched it and made many THE NORTHERN TRIBES 219 notes of it; then with the rising tide we paddled across the Stickeen flats through what is called Dry Passage, and so joy- fully to our friends. We had been gone six weeks and had traveled over eight hundred miles. We had visited seven tribes of natives, thirteen towns and about thirty camps. I had carried the Gospel message to all of these, none of whom had heard the Good Word before. It was to most of them the beginning of an era of peace and progress. Although they were savages, we were tréated hospitably at every point. We had been rained upon, buffeted by winds, and had enjoyed little of what the ordinary man would call comfort; but I do not re- call a moment when we regretted our journey or complained of weather or storm. We had experienced the joy of explora- tion in new regions, as well as the discovery of new people. As for me, this first voyage dispelled my fears and opened my eyes to many things undreamed of before. My fear of the unknown had vanished, and in its place was an undying eager- ness to see what lay beyond. For the first time I felt I was a real missionary, one who was sent and who obeyed the com- mand, “‘ Go.” Our friends, white and native, at Fort Wrangell, had not been able to hear a word from us during our long voyage, and their joy at our return was equal to ours. Muir remained only until the next steamer, and went South, to thrill the scientific world with his writings about the trip, while I could make my reports and publish my articles to a wondering and sympathetic world of Christians. XXI CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION a state of uncertain equilibrium. The unexpected was always happening. The McFarland Industrial Home for Girls must be finished, and the girls must be gathered to fill it; the church building, although occupied regularly, was by no means completed. The disquiet of the community was always apparent. The Christmas season, while it brought boxes of clothing, toys and other articles for distribution to the children, enabling us to have a great celebration, yet did not allay the unrest. Rumours of an intended visitation by the Hoochenoo tribe to collect debts, real and fancied, were always rife. We knew that the Indians in the other tribes and even the Stickeens were making hooch everywhere—some almost within sight of Fort Wrangell; and even in our town, while we could break up the stills of the natives, there were always white men making the horrible stuff and selling it to our In- dians. Colonel Crittenden had established a system of quasi police; Matthew was the head policeman, and the others, such as Aaron, Moses and Thomas, were sometimes called in to aid him in keeping order. But the old Colonel was too much engaged with his own Indian household to keep his hand on the throttle. Contradictory orders, and his failure to see that any of them were enforced, brought confusion instead of peace. The state of warfare between the two families already mentioned kept bullets flying unpleasantly over the town. Charlie Gunnock, a jeweler of the Kake tribe, an innocent by- stander, while witnessing the shooting between the two families 220 ‘ FFAIRS at Fort Wrangell in those early days were in CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION 221 received a bullet in his knee which crippled him for life, and called for the surgical skill of Dr. Corleis, and for my diplo- macy to prevent another outbreak. School and church went on with full attendance, but trouble was in the air. Shortly before the New Year the Hoochenoos became very troublesome. Dr. Corleis and his wife held meet- ings in the Foreign Town, and on the first Sabbath after the New Year they found their people nearly all drunk, screeching women lying about the beach with little or no clothing, exposed to the cold. The doctor, without realizing the danger of inter- ference in a drunken mob, took Matthew and Aaron with him and attempted to break up a Hoochenoo still that was going full blast. The proprietor, who was a kinsman of old Klee-a- keet, the famous medicine-man, resented the interference. A fight ensued, and, although the sober Stickeens had the best of it, Aaron received a deep scratch on his face. Here came in the strange principle of “ Indian shame.” It worked in this way: A and B have a quarrel; A might thrash B and leave him prostrated on the ground; but if B had scarred A’s face there was “ shame ” on that face not to be erased ex- cept by the payment of many blankets. I was ill at the time and in bed. The exposure of the last few days of my great trip with Muir had induced a cold from which I had not re- - covered, and a fever, with splitting headache, laid me up. Therefore I was ignorant of what was going on in the Stickeen town. Following the skirmish, Aaron and his family, which was Tow-a-att’s, discussed the disgrace that had befallen Aaron, stirring up one another to deeper indignation; and on Monday morning a company of some ten men, armed with pick handles and ax helves went up to the Hoochenoo village to collect payment for the insult. Just what happened was never clearly explained, but there was a brisk skirmish with clubs, hatchets and knives—a kind of Donnybrook Fair. The Stickeens, being sober, had the best of it, and, as a result, 222 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA a number of the Hoochenoos received bloody noses and black eyes. The affair was reported to me, and from my bed I sent a summons to Tow-a-att and Moses and Aaron to come to see me. Only Tow-a-att obeyed, Aaron and Moses being too angry, and too sensible of their fault, to wish to see me. Tow-a-att was much troubled. ‘Oh, Mr. Young,” he said, “I think my time has come. My family have not God in their hearts. I will do all in my power to make peace, but they will not listen to reason.” He went back to his house, called the men of his family together and himself offered to pay a large number of blankets to compose the trouble and appease the Hoochenoos, although he had not been concerned at all in the fight. At daylight on the morning of January 10, 1880, the darkest day in my calendar, Mrs. Dickinson and several others of my Christian natives came rushing to my house in great excite- ment. Although dizzy from the fever, I dressed and went at once to the Stickeen village. I found great excitement—men racing around with guns in their hands, inflammatory speeches shouted from one part of the beach to another, all sorts of rumours flying through the air. Scarcely had I reached Tow- a-att’s house when the word was brought that the Hoochenoos were coming down the beach in force, and presently they ap- peared walking through the white man’s town, some forty of them with guns. Most of them were under the influence of liquor, but there was some sort of order in their company— the chief of the Hoochenoos having them under partial control. I was urging the Stickeens to stay in their houses, and Tow-a- att was disposed to back me up. He said: “I have done the Hoochenoos no wrong; let their chief meet me with Mr. Young, and we will make peace and come to an agreement.” I took this message to the Hoochenoo chief, and he was dis- posed to accede to the proposition, but his people were unruly. CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION 223 While I would be talking to one group the others would be going through their war dances and shouting defiance—a mob of drunken savages. Twice I got the Stickeens back to their homes, out of sight of the Hoochenoos; I tried to get the thirty or forty white men who were there to go with me and scatter the Indians, but they were afraid to interfere. One of them, who was known as a distiller, said, ‘‘ Let them alone, and let’s see the fun.” The action of the Stickeens in remaining in their houses was misinterpreted as cowardice. Catastrophe followed. Moses, who was a half-breed and a prospector, had accumulated quite a little gold, had spent it in building a neat white-man’s cot- tage, which he furnished with fine chairs, table and a small organ. ‘The Hoochenoos had advanced as far as his house when some one told them that this was Moses’ house. ‘The mob broke in his door, threw the furniture into the street and began to break it up in sight of the Stickeens. I hastened from Tow-a-att’s house, which was some distance away, and tried to prevent this outrage, but the Hoochenoos were too angry and too drunk to heed me. They plucked at me to detain me, and yelled this and that in my ears. Suddenly I felt some one pulling at my coat, and then an old squaw got me around the neck, screaming I know not what. Before I could get back to the Stickeens they had possessed themselves of their guns and had come out. Moses was beside himself with anger at the loss of his precious furniture. He had in his hand an old Hudson Bay flintlock pistol of large bore and rusty from disuse. Behind him with their guns were Aaron and Matthew, dodging among the boulders. The rest were strung along the beach, only five or six of them in front. Among them was old Tow-a-att. In his hand was a curious carved spear, made of some solid, heavy wood, which had floated from the East Indies and stranded on Alaskan shores. He used the spear as a sign of authority as chief. 224 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA I broke away from the angry mob of Hoochenoos and rushed up to Tow-a-att. Stickeen Johnny was with me, al- though he, too, had a gun in his hand. I shouted, “ Call your men back! Don’t you see the Hoochenoos are massing in front of you? They are many, and you are few. Go back! ” I got close to Tow-a-att and put my hand on his shoulder. ‘“‘Come back with me to your house,” I entreated. The chief looked at me with a proud smile. I can see it yet on that grand old face. “ Vukeh!”’ (good), he said, and lifted his voice in command to his people. But he was too late. The volley commenced with a crash on both sides of us. A Hoochenoo not more than three yards away made Tow-a-att his target, and the brave old chief fell dead at my feet with a bullet through his head. Moses, who was standing behind a boulder a rod away, trying to fire his old pistol, also fell. Kitch-gow-ish, Tow-a-att’s brother, also was killed. Two Hoochenoos fell dead, and a dozen on each side were wounded. I felt the wind of bullets in my face; but do not recollect any sense of fear or danger. The combatants were close to- gether and knew what they were shooting at; and I knew they were not aiming at me. The natives knew that the white man’s government would take no heed of what they would do to each other, but would not suffer them to injure a white man without visiting upon them condign punishment. Indian-like, both sides broke and ran back as soon as they fired their muskets, and I was left alone with my dead Chris- tian natives at my feet. Tacoo Charlie, a tall young man who had been attending our meetings, came rushing from his house near by and begged me to go into his house. I finally picked up my old friend, Tow-a-att, who was dead, and Moses, who was gasping his last. With the aid of the Tacoos, who were neutrals in the battle, I carried my dead into the Tacoo chief’s house. It seemed as if the world had come crashing about me. CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION “nS My people were tumbled back into barbarism; the whole fabric of our efforts and faith had been demolished. I went back to the crowd of white men and shamed them into coming out. We disarmed the Hoochenoos and sent the whole band of them back to their village. Lest Dr. Corleis be blamed too much for remaining in his house after his part in bringing on the trouble, I will say this: Mrs. Corleis had fastened herself so tightly about the doctor’s neck that he could not disengage himself. )Father Althorf, the priest, was similarly detained by one of his parishioners. The darkness and despair of the hours and days which fol- lowed are the blackest of all my experiences. We gathered the Corleis family, Mrs. McFarland and her girls, into our house and held council. The Stickeens felt the disgrace of defeat and were sullen and revengeful; some of them blamed me for keep- ing the Stickeens back and preventing them from whipping the Hoochenoos. A few of the Indian mothers took their girls away from Mrs. McFarland’s Home, while others brought their girls to her for safety. A number of my church members openly renounced Christianity and went back to “old fash- ions.” After the battle all was sorrow. The deepest wound of all was the death of our fine old chief. ‘ Better to have lost a dozen others,” I felt, “than this ‘noblest Roman of them all.” When we assembled for family prayer I felt I could not go through with the worship. The white men furnished armed guards to parade in front of our house at the Fort, and there was no further open vio- lence. The Hoochenoos took advantage of a dark night and stole back to their own country. Little by little the ordinary routine was reéstablished. But somehow the life and spirit of our work seemed gone; the faith of the people had been rudely shocked; an orgy of drunkenness took possession of the Stick- eens; although none of them made the stuff themselves, there 226 _ HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA were plenty of white men who kept their stills going and fur- nished the liquor to our people. Drunken Indians would come yelling through the town, some of them even up to the very church doors. In my despair I wrote to Commander Beardslee of the man-of-war, “Jamestown,” at Sitka, describing the state of affairs. He suddenly sent down a revenue cutter full of ma- rines, raided the stills, arrested six white men and took them to Portland, where they were confined in the penitentiary. This was the only aid I received from the government in estab- . lishing order during all of those troublous days. For the murder of our Christian Indians, for the destruction of our Christian fabric, and the retrogression of our natives, the white man and the white man’s government, which gave us no safeguard from such scenes, were responsible. Our experience with the Hoochenoos has necessitated the most heartrending of all my chapters. Let me lighten it up a little by pursuing the story of the Hoochenoos down to the present time. After the war, members of that tribe kept away from Fort Wrangell; the other tribes came as usual to trade, but the Hoochenoos went only to Sitka. Not until 1881 was this dispute between the Stickeens and Hoochenoos settled. The following spring a delegation of the Stickeen tribe met at Sitka with another from the Hoochenoo, in obedience to a call from the commander of the gunboat. Kadishan and Shakes headed the Stickeen delegation. The case was heard, and a peace settlement decreed by the commander. While this was observed and there was no open hostility, the two tribes kept away from each other for a number of years, until the more abiding and effective peace message of Christianity wiped out the remembrances of their grievances. There has been no general conflict between any two tribes of the Archipelago for many years. The Hoochenoos were the last of the large tribes to embrace Christianity. All efforts to settle teachers and missionaries at CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION 227 Angoon failed for a number of years. Two or three teachers and missionaries were sent there, but remained only a short time without having accomplished much. Not until the Sitka training school attracted the young men and women of the tribe did the Hoochenoos show any real marks of conversion from savagery. I have embodied a story of their conversion in a leaflet published by the Presbyterian Board of National Mis- sions, entitled The Wonderful Story of Angoon. These are the salient points: About 1903 Captain Pratt of the famous Training School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, made a visit to Alaska, seeking pupils. ’ Three young girls at Haines, which town Captain Pratt made his headquarters on account of the vicinity of Fort William H. Seward, greatly desired to go with him and get an up-to-date education. The mothers of these girls refused their consent. To them a journey so far was full of unknown terrors. They thought they would never see their daughters again. Among these girls was a bright-eyed active child, named Frances Phil- lips. She cried so long and so hard at her mother’s refusal that the mother relented to this extent: ‘‘ If you stop crying, I will send you to the Training School at Sitka.” So Frances went, and remained in that school for four or five years, being the first pupil to graduate in the eighth grade. She had joined the Church and was the recognized leader of the school in scholarship and in all its activities. While she was there a young man of the Hoochenoo tribe, also, was taken with a strong desire for an education. When his parents refused their consent for him to go to Sitka he ran away, boarded a schooner and went to the school. When Frances was ready to graduate she had formed an attachment with this young man, whose name was Sam Johnson. On one side of his house he was a descendant of the famous Klee-a- keet. Before they were married, at their request a delegation of Christian pupils from the school, led by their pastor, Rev. R. 228 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA J. Diven, had gone to Angoon, which was only sixty miles from Sitka. They held meetings there, and enrolled upward of twenty of the leading citizens in Angoon as prospective church -members. After Sam and Frances were married and moved to An- goon, Frances took virtual charge of the town and its morals. She was one of the strongest characters found among all the natives of Alaska. Gentle, sweet-natured and intensely earnest, she became the “ beloved one ” to the tribe. Sam and his father and brothers had some wealth; they possessed a couple of gasoline fishing boats, had a share in a sawmill and | were men of influence. Frances made Sam build a house large enough fora church. There meetings were held every Sabbath and a prayer-meeting during the week. Frances prepared Sam’s sermons, and he delivered them. Another expedition was sent out later from Sitka, and more converts of the Hoochenoos registered. In the winter of 1922-23 Rev. David Waggoner and myself went to Angoon. We were received most cordially by Frances, who did her very best as hostess. She and Sam vacated their little room in the end of the large house and installed us there. For many days she had been preparing delicacies for us, and cooked our food with great care, everything about the house and the person of its inhabitants being spotlessly clean. She led us from house to house, and told us the history of the different families, all of whom had come under her personal influence. The women had learned from her how to take care of their babies; the young people had been taught by her lessons of morality and decency—in fact, the whole town was transformed. After sev- eral days of meetings and conference we organized the Church of Angoon, with sixty members. Practically the whole town joined the Church. Instead of the screeching and howling of medicine-men and drunken yells, we now hear hymns of praise and prayers of devotion. Instead of being the most feared and ~*~ J 7 | CATASTROPHE AND COMPENSATION 229 hopeless heathen town in the Archipelago, Angoon is now one of the very cleanest and best. Our dear Frances, however, lived only long enough to see her cherished plan of a church organization completed. Sam had been received as a candidate for the ministry. In 1924 he brought his loved wife and little son to the government hos- pital at Juneau; they were both deathly sick. The little boy was first to die, and in a few days Frances followed. We had been going to see her daily for a week when, on Sunday morn- ing, word was brought that she was dying. The little church was not far distant, and Frances sent word to open the doors and windows and to sing: “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. On Christ, the solid rock, I stand— All other ground is sinking sand.” The dying woman joined feebly, with an ecstatic smile on her wan face, and soon passed away. Before her death she had started a subscription in Angoon to build a new church. Sam and his brothers took up this work, and a beautiful little building called “ the Frances Johnson Memorial Church ” was erected, almost éntirely by the Indians themselves. The peo- ple there are poor, but their spirit is most devout. The sequel of Angoon is one of our best examples of what the seeds of the Gospel, sown in weakness, in the midst of terrible dis- couragement, have brought forth. It seems to us altogether worth while. — XXII THE HYDAS > WAS again urged by the Board to launch my missionary | canoe and explore the tribes to the south. When spring opened Rev. George W. Lyon and his wife arrived from California. They were commissioned to Sitka, but stopped at Fort Wrangell for a month in order to learn something about the natives and how to get along with them. Mr. Lyon was a splendid man, but both he and his wife were in poor health, having hardly recovered from an attack of typhoid fever. I was about to make my first visit to the Hydas, who occupied the extreme southern part of the Archipelago. A number of these interesting people had attended our meetings at Wrangell on their trading journeys to the place, and we were struck by their fine appearance and beautiful canoes, the superiority of their baskets, mats and carving, and their eagerness to learn the white man’s ways. Their history may be briefly sketched as follows: Like the Thlingits, their origin is obscure. The name given them by the Thlingits signifies “‘ The people from the South.” They were first known to the whites as inhabitants of the out- lying group called Queen Charlotte Islands, reaching the most of the way from the northern end of Vancouver Island to Dickson entrance, which divides them from Alaska. Their language is entirely distinct from that of the Thlingits and also from the Tsimpshean. The Hydas evince a different origin from the Thlingits. The latter are evidently Japanese, probably the descendants of the Ainus, the older and more barbarous tribes of Japan. But the Hydas are taller, fairer and more advanced in native arts. The 230 THE HYDAS 231 most plausible theory is that they came from the Malay Pen- insula. Their canoes are like those of the Malays; their carv- ings and the figures which are worked into their implements, mats and baskets point to the people of Southern Asia as their progenitors. They always have been a warlike and progressive people. The immense red cedar trees on the Queen Charlotte group furnish material for the largest and finest canoes made in North America. The Hydas were the instructors of the Thlingits and Tsimpsheans in canoe-making, house-building, totem-pole carving, basket-making and other arts. The exact period at which they raided the Thlingits of the Tongass and Hanega tribes, who inhabited the Cordova Bay region, southwest of Prince of Wales Island, and the south- eastern shore of that great island, is lost in the mist of legend and never can be exactly determined. But it could not have been so very long ago; perhaps a hundred years previous to the purchase of Alaska by the United States. They drove the Hanegas northward from the Cordova Bay region, taking pos- session of their towns. The names are Thlingit, but the people, as we found them, were Hydas. They drove the Tongass east- ward towards the mainland at the mouth of the Naas River, and established on Prince of Wales Island the Hyda town of Kasaan, which has a Thlingit name. It is evident that the Thlingits had no chance with these stronger and more intel- ligent Hydas. When peace was patched up between them, jealousy and animosity remained, and to this day the Hydas of Alaska are proud of their origin and despise the weaker and more ignorant Thlingits. Delegations of the Hydas had been coming to me at Fort Wrangell ever since my arrival, asking for missionaries and schools. Sanheit, the head chief of Kasaan, had come in formal state with a large canoe to Fort Wrangell, especially to see me and to ask for a missionary. With him came his niece, a large, finely built and stately young woman, who was known 232 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA as Hyda Susan. She brought with her a little girl seven or eight years of age and placed her in Mrs. McFarland’s Home. The other girls in the establishment were all Thlingit, and little Susie, as she was called, could not talk with them except in the Chinook jargon. So she was handicapped from the first, and to a certain extent ostracized by the little Thlingit girls. Whenever she could she would run across the campus to our house, to play with our baby, and she followed Mrs. Young and me around like a kitten. We became very warmly attached to her; she was so sweet and bright and so unlike the stolid little Thlingits. It did not take us long to fall in love with her, and we asked Mrs. McFarland to sign her over to us, that we might give her our name and adopt her as our child. This she was glad to do, and Susie came to our home about Christmas time that winter. From the first she identified herself with us com- pletely. To her the whites were “we” and the Indians “they.” She had a thin strain of white blood in her own veins; for her father, Kenowan, who was the most famous carver in wood, silver and stone ever known in Alaska, was himself a quarter-breed; that is, he had a quarter of white blood, his father being a half-breed. Susie seemed to be in features, disposition and in all her traits, white. She was very bright and quick to learn. Not very long before her arrival at Fort Wrangell she had gone through a terrible experience. There were three little girls in the family, Susie being the middle one. They had an old slave who was more a father to the little girls than their own parent. The old slave used to carry them on his back across the streams, make toys for them and give them little beads which looked like pearls. These were made from small pods of fucus or transparent seaweed; the old man filled them full of white venison tallow, and they made very beautiful, pearl-like beads. Kenowan was taken very sick with consumption and was THE HYDAS 233 slowly dying. The medicine-men came and performed their incantations, but the chief was doomed. He enjoined upon his wife as his last request that she should send little Susie to the white people to be educated. When Kenowan died his relatives took the old slave, after their fashion, and at a great feast laid him on the ground; and while the natives were dancing around Kenowan’s funeral pyre the medicine-man took a greenstone ax and in the presence of the little girls, who were compelled to look on at the ceremony and who prayed in vain for the life of the good old man, they dashed out his brains and sent him to wait upon his chief in the Happy Hunting Grounds. The horror of this scene never left little Susie’s mind. She tried to describe the scene to us in her broken language, but always broke down and wept so pitifully that we had to make her stop. She never forgot the cruelty and heathenism that surrounded her father’s death. We used to have actually to compel her to go and see her mother and her aunt when they would come to visit her in Wrangell. When we went East on our first missionary lecture tour, in 1883, we took the child with us and left her in a school for girls in Washington, Pennsylvania. She endeared herself to teachers and pupils there and developed quite a talent for drawing and for making fancy work. But, alas, the germs of tuberculosis were in her blood, and she died at the age of seventeen. Her name is en- shrined in our memory along with that of our youngest child, who died at Wrangell shortly before Susie. Our recollections of both are alike—dear and sweet. One of my errands to the Hydas was to secure papers of adoption from Susie’s mother. Sanheit offered to take us around Mesatche Nose (bad nose), the lower point of Prince of Wales Island, to the four Hyda towns in Cordova Bay, Klinquan, Koianglas, Howcan and Sukwhan. So Mr. Lyon and I boarded his canoe in April, 1880, and went with Sanheit to the town of Kasaan, located on a bay of the same name, 234 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA sixty miles south of Fort Wrangell. Here we held meetings and made preparations for manning that town. We were im- mensely interested in “Old Kasaan,” which was not at that time deserted. It possessed the most beautifully carved and tallest totem poles in all the world. Some of them are now in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington City, in the Metro- politan Museum in New York City, in the Museum at Chicago, and quite a number are in the beautiful park at Sitka. The finest of these were the work of Kenowan, Susie’s tal- ented father. That man was an artist. He could take a little hand adz and sit down before you with a post of yellow cedar before him and begin to chip with his adz. In the course of a day he would have an image of your form carved on that pole which could be recognized by any of your friends. Old Kasaan was in the process of replacement by the new town, the site of which had been selected by a salmon canning company. Al- though I made several missionary trips to Kasaan in the years that followed and sent there two different groups of native teachers who had been trained at Wrangell, it was not until 1903 that we completed the organization of a church at Kasaan; the erection of the building soon followed. On our first journey we picked up at Kasaan an interpreter, Paul Jones, a large, old, blind man who had made trips on English gunboats and American cutters, and had acquired a somewhat respectable knowledge of English. He made with me the round of all the Hyda towns and did my interpreting. Our visit to these Hyda centers was full of interest. While we found hooch still going, medicine-men practicing, slaves held in all the houses and all the accompaniments of heathen- dom, yet the towns were so much cleaner, better built and the people so much more prosperous and intelligent than the Thlingits that I was full of joy. We were received most cordially by Chief Skotlkah at Howcan, the largest of the towns. He called all the Hydas to council, kept us there sev- THE HYDAS 235 eral days, sent his young men hunting for deer and listened to us with marked attention. In telling the story of the Hydas I am tempted to adopt Virgil’s method and begin at the sequel: About 1922 I made a trip to the Hyda country on Cordova Bay, which was the first preaching trip I had made to that tribe in more than twenty years. A neat government mail boat landed me at a new town, called Hydaburg. I arrived on Sun- day morning, shortly before the hour for service. I was re- ceived by the minister, who was a full-breed Hyda, owning to the classic name of John Brown. He conducted me over a wide, well built plank walk to the top of a small hill, past a beautiful little manse, to a church. This edifice was not large, but was well situated, and so neatly and beautifully built that it was almost imposing. Within the building was a congrega- tion of Hydas filling every seat, some even standing in the aisles. It was a colourful company, but not gaudy or offensive to a refined taste. Families occupied their own pews, young men acting as ushers were seating the congregation, and the choir of fifteen or twenty voices occupied their places. The pews were very neat, the natural woodwork was well-grained and varnished; a fine window of stained glass in front of the church depicted a scene in the life of Christ. The congregation was well supplied with hymn books, and the choir led them beautifully. I preached a sermon in English, which was evi- dently understood and appreciated. Everything was in good order, and a more devout and orderly service I have never con- ducted. It was a real pleasure to be there. After the service I went down the aisle shaking hands with old and new friends. Very few of those whom I had met on my first visit, about forty-three years before, were present. As I came down the aisle I confronted a fine looking, stalwart Hyda about six feet tall, with iron-gray hair. As I went up to him with outstretched hand, he suddenly put out his own hand, 236 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA palm outward, saying, ‘ Wait, wait, listen! ’ Then, while I halted in surprise, he began to sing. The hymn was “ Beulah Land.” His pronunciation of the words was not very good, because of the inability of those people, as well as the Thling- its, to pronounce certain of our consonants, such as P and B and M and R. He sang: “Tve leached de lan’ of co’n an wine, An all its litches wheely wine.” He sang in that rich, soft, melodious voice that all the Hydas seem to have. Then he stopped abruptly: “You know when I hear that first? ” “No,” I replied. “‘ You lemember maybe forty, forty-two, forty-tree year, you go with Skotlkah out hunting fur seals; you go way out Dickson Entrance to open sea. All day you hunt fur seal; at night you sleep in canoe twenty-five mile flum lan’. Big whales come all around and blow—then you hunt fur seals more. Go lan’ Queen Charlotte Island befo’e night; big camp, all Hydas camp there. Next morning Sunday. You say, ‘ This God’s Day; better not go hunt seal. Stay in camp; I will tell you ,stoly about God.’ Half Hyda go hunting seal, half stay in camp. All day you talk, Jesus-talk. You sing. No Hyda know English, just Chinook. You sing, you sing. Three little boys, so high (indicating with his hand) come to you; all day you teach them to sing; you give them sugar; you feed them lice; you teach them sing ‘ Gulah Lan’.’” “Oh,” I cried, “sing the chorus! ” Then he began again, all the Hydas listening, and smiling: “O Gulah Lan’, sweet Gulah Lan’, As on de highes’ wount I stan’, I look away acloss the sea, Where wansions are repaired for me,” THE HYDAS 237 I was looking for that word; the natives always would sing it like that. We could not get them to say “ prepared ”’; and the vision of his Heaven, a town old and worn-out, being put in repair to accommodate the many new applicants coming from among the poor erstwhile savages of Alaska, flashed be- fore my mind anew. The “ repaired” mansions seemed good enough for the poor Hydas. My heart and eyes were full. My memory repictured that wild camp on North Island of Queen Charlotte’s group—a little cove between the mossy, tree-covered hills and a fine little beach of white gravel; scores of large Hyda canoes drawn up above the tide; seal carcasses - and halibut, more or less fresh, lying on the beach; seal skins hung up in the trees to dry; tents and rude bark houses every- where. Little naked boys and girls running about the beach playing; women in blankets or in cheap calico dresses, all with faces painted with their peculiar cosmetics, which answered the double purpose of preserving their complexions and keep- ing away the gnats and mosquitoes. Men, half-clad, lying about or listening curiously to what I was saying; and the three little boys following me about like puppies, hanging upon every Chinook word I uttered and trying desperately to master the swinging measure of “ Beulah Land.” Then my mind went back farther, a couple of years, to this first visit with Dr. Lyon to the village of Howcan. How the wind howled up the strait between Dall Island and Long Island! The forest of totem poles that greeted us when we rounded the point, scores of them, of all sizes and all of different shapes, from the tall, eighty-foot pole which stood in front of Skotlkah’s house, the brown bear pole surmounted by a finely carved image of a “ Boston man ” with stovepipe hat, to the little plain pole nine feet high on which was the single carved image of a killer whale. A flock of gulls screeched and circled overhead, and the native men and women, wrapped in their blankets, came from their houses to stare at us. 238 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA As we came down the beach we saw thick black smoke pour- ing from the smoke-holes of a number of houses. We knew what that meant, and that in those houses stills for making hooch were operating full-blast; we knew also that at the foot of many of those totem poles were buried the bodies of slaves who had been sacrificed to the spirit of the man in whose memory the new house had been erected. We heard the tom- toms beating, and singing going on, in several houses, and two or three medicine-men came out to stare suspiciously at us as we landed in front of the chief’s house. Then the scenes in the house during the three or four days we had spent at Howcan, the solemn ceremonies at feast time when Skotlkah had his young men cook fresh venison for us, prepare clams and huge boiled crabs. The speeches of welcome and of longing for a new life, our answers, the singing of hymns, the preaching of the Gospel, the forming of the first temperance society at Howcan, the feeble beginnings of the work that was extended through the years. I thought of my report concerning the five Hyda towns in this region; of the interest shown by the East in it; of my successful efforts to have a friend and cousin, Cap- tain J. Loomis Gould, of West Virginia, appointed as the mis- sionary to the Hydas; of my sending a Mr. Chapman, one of our carpenters, to hold the fort until Gould should arrive; of my return there in 1881, when I hunted fur seals with Skotlkah, and all the other trips I had taken to that country since, noting the splendid success which attended the efforts made by Mr. and Mrs. Gould, their sisters, and other helpers; the church, the school and the general progress. And now was the fruition of these efforts, a change so great as to be startling. I had been in touch with this work all these years and had heard especially of the new enterprise of the Hydas and Hydaburg, but had not realized all that had been done. Some two or three years before my arrival, the Hydas of those four towns got together in council and said, “ Let us THE HYDAS 239 leave these old towns, with their community houses and totem poles and all the reminders of our savagery; let us take our sawmill, and put it up again at a new town; let us select a good harbour, and build an entirely new city, all of neat cot- tages, where we can have a government schoolhouse and a church, and where our children can be brought up as civilized Christian beings.” All consented, all were enthusiastic. Almost at one time the people of the four towns loaded their belongings into their canoes or into their new steam and gasoline launches and set sail to the new town site. A young man from Pennsylvania, Rev. John L. Howe, was their newly appointed minister. He was an expert carpenter and cabinet maker, besides being a very devoted minister of the Gospel. The Hydas had been speculating how they could get from the mission Board assist- ance to erect their new church; they knew that help from the East had been the principal factor in building the churches at Howcan and Klinquan; they were leaving these now, when they abandoned those towns, and were wondering how they could get a new church at Hydaburg. Mr. Howe called them in council and made a very sensible talk to them. He said: ‘“‘T have noticed how respectful you are to your dead; how you have always erected memorials to your ancestors. That is very fitting. The white men everywhere have been doing the same, and in their cemeteries you will find wonderful monu- ments to the dead. But of late years many Christian men have been building a different class of monuments as memorials to their dead, such as churches, schools, hospitals and colleges. Now, why cannot you get together and build a memorial church in honour of your dead? One family can erect the steps leading to the church, another the foundation, the third put up the cupola, and others can erect the sides, seats, windows, and so on; and you will have your memorial church. It will not 240 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA cost you nearly so much as those old totem poles, but it will outlast them, and will bring your people to higher heights.” The man who sang ‘“‘ Gulah Lan’ ” was an influential elder in the church, his son was a trustee, his little granddaughter played the organ. I was invited to dinner at his house. Such a neat, orderly house, plainly but well furnished, and such a dinner! All of native foods, but its preparation showed the tutelage of an experienced white cook. Not a drunken man or medicine-man, not a hooch-maker, was allowed within thirty miles of Hydaburg. A town council, alert and enterprising, made laws and executed them. The people were always ap- proaching a higher and higher type of Christian civilization. The Then and the Now! On our way back from our visit to the Hydas, Mr. Lyon and I ran through the noted passage called Skukum Chuck (Strong Water), where the tide rushes furiously like a mighty - river four times a day, swirling among the rocks, dashing its spray, and making canoe navigation impossible unless one is going with the tide. This narrow passage between Dall Island and the main Prince of Wales Island is navigable by small vessels, but its many wrecks have told tales of hazard such as few channels can tell. The country north of Skukum Chuck was inhabited by a branch of the Hanega tribe of the Thlingits who had pos- sessed Cordova Bay until driven away by the Hydas. Their chief town, Tuxikan, lay twenty miles farther north of Klawack and was a large village of community houses with totem poles in front of each house. Although living in a coun- try remarkably rich in natural products, these Hanegas were squalid, dirty and ignorant people. The tribe was large, but seemed to be broken in spirit by its defeats in former wars. We held our meetings, conferred with their chiefs, took the census and were kindly received. My reports, however, succeeded in arousing the interest and CHURCH AND SCHOOL AT SKAGWAY CHURCH BUILDING AT COUNCIL oo? : oR io ' -) et os x } ral # nag » 4 ‘ ' > ’ ’ 7 al ‘ot r i We, Ey ‘ J “hk ’ pe = a : F mi AL a os, > / re | Pee | oe b Bec 35 , thks 7 1" ae Laver noone i. » - << ; : ' rk } f tive : | PE glug Pe pe é : + ‘ iv A vf eam Sn oe eet a een abe ee : Le= 4 ¥ CT a . > ia 2h ad FF t r re Ph ri ba = 5 —eEo THE HYDAS 241 attention of the Board and of the Eastern Church, so that after several years’ delay we established what has proved to be one of our best and most progressive missions at Klawack. The old town of Tuxikan was deserted after a few years; the people all moved to Klawack. Now there is a neat white man’s town, with a large salmon cannery, a neat church and mission, a commodious town hall and a large government school of four rooms, well filled by little Hanegas. This progress had its be- ginning in our short visit. XXITI A BUSY YEAR plied; the sending of the Stickeen delegation to Sitka to meet that of the Hoochenoos and compose peace; the gathering together of what seemed to be the broken fragments of our mission and cementing them into something like a “ ves- sel of honour ”; the gathering of more girls into the McFar- land Home; the beginning of a Boys’ Home; the commission of Mrs. Dickinson as teacher to the Chilcats and sending her to Haines with her husband, who was to be storekeeper there; the pushing of our buildings to completion, especially the McFar- land Home—all of these kept us very busy. From early in the morning until late at night the people were coming to me incessantly. It was a time of real progress. But principally the “ exploration bug” was in my brain. There were tribes to be visited, conferred with, furnished with schools and missions; the Tongass and Cape Fox tribes, in the extreme south of the Archipelago, demanding a visit. A fine-looking old chief called Kashakes came in state asking for a mission. Then it seemed to be absolutely necessary, if we were successfully to solve all of our problems, that I cross the British Columbia line and confer with Mr. Crosby, the Wes- leyan missionary at Port Simpson, and especially with Father Duncan at Metlakatla, fifteen miles farther south. In June we left Fort Wrangell in two large canoes. There were, besides myself, Mrs. Young and our eight months’ old baby; Miss Maggie Dunbar and six of Mrs. McFarland’s larger girls; Andrew, one of our church Indians, and his wife 242 \OLLOWING the Hyda expedition our activities multi- A BUSY YEAR 243 and Henry Haldane, a Tsimpshean Indian. Our voyage south- ward of one hundred and seventy-five miles was made speedily and comfortably. We would make an early start, spread our sails, and, with Sam steering my canoe and Andrew his own, the girls with paddles ready to help on occasion, the trip was one of delight. The Cape Fox village was almost deserted, as it was salmon drying time and the people were at their streams, but Kashakes was waiting for us and made his earnest plea. We stopped at the picturesque old town of Tongass and had quite a visit with the natives. This tribe, once very powerful and warlike, had been decimated, first by the wars with the Hydas and afterwards by the scourge of small-pox. A number of the old houses were deserted and fallen into disrepair. Many of the totem poles were covered with moss, and in two or three cases small trees were growing on the images. But the people were very anxious for a school and mission. The chiefs were more than willing to unite with the Cape Fox people and the Hydas of Kasaan and build a new Christian town. Mrs. Dickinson belonged to the Tongass tribe, and nearly all of them had gone frequently to the missions at Port Simpson and Metlakatla and, therefore, knew something of Christianity. The building of the government fort, which was erected at Tongass when the United States took possession of that coun- try, but which was soon abandoned, gave promise of comfort- able buildings for school and mission. Our visit at Port Simpson was brief. Mr. Crosby was absent up the Naas River with his people, who were putting up ooligan and salmon, but some of them, who had been to Fort Wrangell, were there and greeted us most cordially. Metlakatla was our chief objective, and we stayed there for more than a week, the guests of the wonderful missionary, Father Duncan. I was painfully anxious to see him, to ask him a hundred questions; to get his methods with the natives and instructions from him 244 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA as to how to deal with them. Those were inspiring and help- ful days. That was where SUCCESS was spelled in large letters. Metlakatla was a great town, built after a style evolved in Father Duncan’s fertile brain. It was a one-man’s town. He planned every building and brooked no interference from outsiders or insiders, when he moved his Christian Indians from Port Simpson to where he could have them free from heathen customs, from medicine- men, from all old fashions and from the interference of white men. He laid down for them hard and fast rules on every conceivable subject. As for their houses, he settled upon a model which he thought was next to perfection for their needs, and compelled them to build their houses all alike after that model. It was a plain, square two-story house of four to six rooms, gabled to the street, with no porch or ornamentation. Alongside of each and to the rear he had them build a little Indian house of planks with place for open fire in the center, a smoke-hole in the roof, with frames for drying fish, venison, etc. Here the natives were to camp, prepare their food and clean up as they came in from their smelly and dirty camps in the woods. The houses were all painted alike—white, and the town looked like a barracks. Father Duncan explained that this was in order to avoid jealousy, or the boasting of one man’s work over another. Then the public buildings» First of all the church, a great cathedral built of native lumber, sawed in their own sawmill and constructed entirely. by the Indians under Mr. Duncan’s direction. It was stiff and formal, but majestic with its two high towers. It seated over a thou- sand people. A great bell in the tower assembled the people and woke them up in the morning, and the curfew in the evening sent them to their homes at proper hours. There was © a large fishery and the beginning of a salmon cannery; there was a house for cabinet making, weaving, basketry and other industries; there was a large council house,-a jail, a school- A BUSY YEAR 245 house and a guest house, and Mr. Duncan’s own dwelling. A potato patch was back of each Indian house, and in front were small flower beds. The town was a marvel, compared with the physical and moral wilderness of that Northern country. A British gunboat swung at its anchor in the harbour, and there was a fine dock for the accommodation of steamboats. Mr. Duncan was the sole magistrate of a region as large as New York and Pennsylvania. The British fleet on the Coast was at his beck and call. He had his organized council of Indians, of which he was sole head. He made laws and en- forced them. Some of these laws were most drastic. In one he forbade any white man to camp on the beach within four miles of Metlakatla! The few occasions when whites, with designs on his Indian girls, had resisted this law, had resulted in their incarceration in jail, and the offense would not be re- peated. He had an armed force of native police, twenty-five or thirty strong, and he could, and on occasion did, send these police to seize men in trading schooners who were selling whis- key to his natives, and bring them in chains to Metlakatla. .Bill Stevens, one of our merchants at Fort Wrangell, had fallen into Mr. Duncan’s hands and had been condemned by him to ten years’ pena! servitude in the chain gang at Victoria. Bill did ‘not serve his full term, but the whiskey traders after- wards-gave Mr. Duncan and his police a very wide berth. While I knew that it would be impossible to carry out on American soil Mr. Duncan’s plans, yet the general idea of segregating the Christian Indians from their savage com- panions and heathen influences, and exemplifying an indus- trious, self-supporting’ Christian community, appealed to me, and I was able to put in practice many of his Metlakatla ob- ject lessons. His people taught our girls many things, and the teachers received valuable suggestions. I shall never forget a dramatic evening when, in front of Mr. Duncan’s fireplace, he recounted a conflict waged between 246 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA himself and his Indians on the witchcraft question. It was after his community was established and much progress had been made in Christian civilization. ‘The Council had been organized and was in excellent working order; the president was one of his most reliable old chiefs. The wave of witch- craft excitement, which was so disastrous in Alaska, reached the Tsimpsheans at the Skena River and the Naas, and cul- minated in violence at Port Simpson. Father Duncan’s natives had become greatly excited. A man who was being pursued for witchcraft fled by night to Mr. Duncan’s house, was taken by him and locked up for safety in the jail. In the morning the Council met, without Father Duncan being present, and after a while a delegation of his head men came to his house demanding the fugitive. “ The case is plain,” they said. “The man has confessed. He is a murderer of our people and must be punished.” Father Duncan, standing out in front of his house, heard the delegation, and said to them, ‘‘ You shall not have this man. ‘These stories are all lies, and you ought to know them as such. The man will not be delivered to you.” They went back to the Council House. In the course of a couple of hours they returned, repeating their demands, but this time with guns in their hands. Father Duncan went out alone and confronted them as before. They said: ‘We have listened to you and obeyed you; but in this case, where a man is a confessed murderer of his people by his black arts, we intend to deal with him ourselves. We demand that you give him up to our hands, that we may deal justice to him. We will obey you in everything but this.” “You are wasting time talking,’ Mr. Duncan replied. “ You shall not have this man.” Then at a signal all their guns came up, pointed at Father Duncan. “If you don’t deliver him up,” they said, ‘ we will kill you, and go back to our old fashions.” a a a A BUSY YEAR 247 ‘“¢ Shoot, you cowards, shoot! But, you know, if one shot is fired at me, from around that point will come the British gun- boat, and will blow your houses to splinters; your canoes and all your goods will be destroyed, and they will pursue you and catch and hang you, wherever you are. Shoot, you cowards! ” Down the guns went, and the people filed back to the Coun- cil House. Within a couple of hours they came again with the same demands, and more violently inflammatory speeches. Father Duncan calmly confronted them as before, but flatly refused to yield one inch. They threatened him again, and one of them who had a watch gave him one minute to change his mind, threatening him with death. He laughed at them and taunted them and asked them why they did not shoot. They went back to their Council House, and this time it was about three hours before they returned, the old chief at their head. They had their guns, but this time they were carried reversed, the butts foremost. The chief began: “ Our Father, our chief, we are fools and silly children. We are not fit to have guns in our hands; we have brought our guns and ask you to take them in your house and give them to us only when we go hunting.” Then they solemnly marched up and stacked their guns in groups and departed to their houses. The victory was complete, and the witchcraft excitement was quelled. These and other inspiring lessons were taught us by that fine old gentleman, who, from being a dry-goods clerk in Lon- don, with no knowledge of Church law or of theology, had dedicated himself to the work of Christianizing the heathen; had fought single-handed a wonderful battle at Port Simpson, had taught the Indians as no man before had ever done, and had founded the most famous mission in the world, and was carrying it along in his own arbitrary way, but to success. His advice was invaluable to me. We left Metlakatla feel- ing that the time had been well spent. Our return, although the weather was perfectly clear, was slow and tedious, because 248 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA of the prevailing north winds. We had provisions to last four or five days. The time lengthened to a week, and we were not half-way home. Our girls showed strength only at meal time; the hot sun seemed to enervate us all. First our potatoes gave out, then our beans were consumed, then the tea and the coffee and flour all went. The girls dug clams and caught crabs. A big bald eagle caught a king salmon for us one day and had it on the bank until we robbed him of it. Fortunately, a couple of deer wandered within range of Andrew’s gun, when we were entirely out of provisions, and that fact saved us. To add to our difficulties, my troublesome shoulder came out again, and had to be set. Eliza, the largest of our girls, with the strength of the “ Powerful Katrinka of Toonerville,” set the shoulder, under my wife’s directions, but it slipped out again, and we were unable to replace it. For three days be- fore reaching Fort Wrangell I had to endure the pain, and could not aid in navigating the canoe. We reached. Fort Wrangell in the forenoon of the Fourth of July, and were met by a joyful delegation of our Indians, who had a great celebra- tion that day. The next important event of that year, 1880, was the re- turn, on the 8th of August, of John Muir. This was unex- pected by me, although he had declared his intention the previous fall of returning and discovering the lost glacier of Sumdum Bay. He had been married in the spring, and I did not expect that he would leave his wife so soon for another trip; but when the monthly steamer came in port there was Muir, in the same old gray overcoat. He shouted at me be- fore the boat touched the wharf: “Are you ready? Have you got your Indians and canoe? ” “What queer notion has struck you now?” I answered. “Where is your wife? Where are you going? ” Indignantly he replied: ‘ Don’t you know we are going again to Sumdum and on to Glacier Bay? Did you think that I A BUSY YEAR 249 could lose a glacier and not make any fuss about it? Get your canoe and your crew ready, for you are going along.” Fortunately Dr. Corleis was staying at Fort Wrangell and could look after my natives. The town was peaceful and com- paratively sober. Neither whites nor natives were making hooch in the village, and the trouble-makers were absent. I wished to see more of the Indians, and most assuredly I wanted to see more of my friend Muir and his mountains. Our noble old Captain Tow-a-att was gone, but we took Lot Tyeen, old Shustaak’s successor, and his canoe. It was a smaller craft than the one we had used in the previous ex- pedition, but easily handled. For crew, besides Lot, who was a very strong and experienced man, we took Joe, whom Muir always called Hunter Joe, a stout, intelligent Stickeen, and Billy Dickinson, who had grown up to be a tall slim lad of sixteen or seventeen. A very important member of our com- pany must not be forgotten, my dog “ Stickeen.” Muir ob- jected to taking him, called him a “toy” dog, said he would be a nuisance and nothing else; but I was very much at- tached to the little fellow and persisted in taking him, although I had little thought that our pet would be immortalized in one of the greatest dog stories ever written. Instead of being a nuisance, he gave life to the whole trip, and so completely con- quered Muir that before the end of the voyage he was more Muir’s dog than mine; he followed him everywhere and he and Muir complained loudly when they were separated. I shall not give details of this second voyage with Muir, as we partly retraced our tracks of the season before, but it was even more enjoyable than the first trip. I did not see so many Indians, but had a more satisfactory and fuller view of the mountains and glacier. We came to Sumdum Bay, which we had been unable to penetrate the season before on account of the superabundance of ice. Muir’s words of introduction to this voyage, which follow, are better than any I could write: 250 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA “ How delightful it is, and how it makes one’s pulses bound to get back into this reviving Northland wilderness! How truly wild it is, and how joyously one’s heart responds to the welcome it gives, its waters and mountains shining and glow- ing like enthusiastic human faces! Gliding along the shores of its network of channels, we may travel thousands of miles without seeing any mark of man, save at long intervals some little Indian village or the faint smoke of a camp-fire. Even these are confined to the shore. Back a few yards from the beach the forests are as trackless as the sky, while the moun- tains, wrapped in their snow and ice and clouds, seem never before to have been even looked at.” We found the Jost glacier, traced it to its lair, enjoyed a most wonderful communion with it, were raised into the seventh heaven of delight by its beauty and grandeur, and my crown of joy was complete when Muir dubbed the largest and finest glacier of Endicott Arm ‘‘ Young Glacier.” For ten years the maps printed my name on this glacier; then some aspiring surveyor, doubtless for patronage’s sake, changed the name to Dawes—stole my glacier! I mourned the loss silently, and not until the visit of President Harding in 1923, when one of the officials of the Department of Topography learned of my loss, and took the matter up with the Department, did I get my glacier back. Yosemite Bay, with its hundreds of waterfalls leaping from mountain sides, its polished shoulders of granite and mystic heights, gave us an abiding memory-treasure. Then up Stevens Passage into Tacoo Bay, up through Gastineau Chan- nel, past the present site of Juneau, across the flats, out around Point Retreat; leaving the country of the Chilcats without a visit and passing by the Auk tribes, we came again to Icy Strait and up to Glacier Bay. The Muir Glacier was our ob- jective this time, and we spent nearly a week by and on it. This most wonderful of all scenic objects was in its glory at A BUSY YEAR 251 that time, and Muir was in his element. Leaving camp every morning at from two to three o’clock, he would be gone all day. At night I would have my Indians build a big fire of resinous stumps, the remains of the forest of a past age that had been overflowed by the great glacier which filled the whole bay a century before. Lot would dig out these old stumps, pile them together and make a big fire for Muir’s guidance. Sometimes he would make torches of the fattest pitch and go two or three miles up to the shoulder of the mountain to meet Muir, waving his torches and guiding him back to camp. This trip of ours to the Muir Glacier prepared the way for what was considered the greatest scenic trip in the world, and every season until an earthquake shook down such masses of ice into Glacier Bay as to block the way against all ships entering it, eager tourists crowded the vessels, and compelled the steamship lines to put on more and larger steamboats to enter this wonderland. The trip westward from Glacier Bay to Taylor Bay and Taylor Glacier has been so completely described by Muir in his Travels in Alaska and his charming dog story, and also in my own Alaska Days with John Muir, that I shall not retrace the ground. It was a fitting climax to a great voyage. By the time we were through with Taylor Glacier, Muir was feverishly anxious to get to Sitka in time to take the Septem- ber steamer south. He happened to remember that there were other things in the world besides glaciers, and that his bride would expect him to keep his promise to return on that boat. We stopped only a short time at Hoonah, then took the un- mapped channel up Hoonah Bay, dragged the canoe across a little neck of land that alone keeps the great Chichagof Island from being two islands, launched it again on Tenakee Inlet, paddled down that long unmapped passage to its mouth, thence southward to Peril Strait, making our visit across Chatham to Angoon; then, bowling before a fair wind, drenched with 252 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA the driving rain, we paddled our way up this strange crooked strait, not one of our crew having ever entered it. In the early morning we just made the rapids where the tides met, our canoe swirling end for end, and finally we managed to get through to Salisbury Sound, thence down the coast some twenty-five miles to Sitka. We traveled two days and two nights without stopping and were very tired and hungry when we reached the hospitable harbour and were rejoiced to find that the steamer had not yet arrived. Two busy days ensued as we were closeted with Captain Beardslee and his officers, drawing sketch maps of Glacier Bay, the arms of Sumdum Bay, Tenakee Inlet and other in- lets and passages that we had explored. We also enjoyed the hospitality of the Lyons, Austins and our old friends the Van- derbilts. Muir took the steamer when it arrived, and I sent our crew, including Stickeen, home by canoe, while I accepted the invitation of the officers of the newly organized North- western Trading Company to go on their small trading vessel to the northward. Paul Schultze, treasurer of the newly or- ganized Northern Pacific Railroad Company, was president of the Northwestern Trading Company and was making his first round of the stations they were establishing in Southeastern Alaska. With him were his brother-in-law, Carl Spuhn, and John Vanderbilt. This voyage of nearly a month, while it was not a missionary or exploration voyage, was of considerable importance to me and to our work; it gave me a fresh knowl- edge of those Northern waters and the tribes that inhabited them. At Killisnoo, near Angoon, where the company had established a store and were soon to build a large herring oil works, I got more closely in touch with the Hoochenoos. I was enabled to take their complete census and confer with the chiefs. The trading company, realizing how destructive it was to the natives and to the fur traders to supply them with molasses for the manufacture of hooch, shut down on that A BUSY YEAR 253 trade and gave an example which other traders were induced to follow. I held a number of meetings at Killisnoo and An- goon while there, and made a beginning, though feeble, to- wards the evangelization of that tribe. The little steamer then cruised up Chatham Strait to the two towns of the Hoonahs and afterwards up to the Chilcat country, where they established a large trading post at our new mission town of Haines. Here I contracted, in the name of the mission Board, with the trading company to put up a small building which could be used as a schoolhouse and church. This was erected that fall. The Chilcats and Chilcoots were beginning to gather at Haines, and old Chief Donnawuk agreed. to come with his people to the new town and join the movement towards Chris- tianity. On our return trip we stopped our vessel at the two towns of the Auks, and I preached to those poor people and conferred with their chiefs; then down Stevens Passage to the Tacoos again; to Sumdum and Holcomb Bay, to the Kakes and around to Fort Wrangell. During that winter I wrote many reports and penned hun- dreds of letters to friends in the East, urging the needs of Alaska. Congressmen, Senators and other influential men in Washington City, New York and elsewhere were written to, and pleas were made for some kind of civil government which would replace the anarchy and lawlessness of the Territory. Our church and school at Wrangell and the reopening of the mission at Sitka, with the beginnings of missions under the care of our partially trained natives, were the only Christian influences in all the Territory outside of the Russian Church and the small mission of Father Althorf at Wrangell. But we were beginning to learn the people, and they were beginning to learn something of our intentions, and that we were there for good and not for evil. We were too busy to become dis- couraged. XXIV REAL PROGRESS HE years from 1880 to 1882, inclusive, were construc- tive. The ten thousand heathen natives of South- eastern Alaska were beginning to awaken. While they had no definite idea of Christianity or of Christian civili- zation, they were learning that such things existed and were better than the old heathen customs and beliefs. Their pride in being “ Boston men ” was growing, and they were anxious to be recognized as on the side of the whites. Fort Wrangell, as the chief trading post, the principal mission and the place of refuge for the poor and persecuted, became the Mecca to- wards which all of the tribes wended their way. Many of the more progressive moved to Fort Wrangell, that their children might go to school and that they might have the protection and help of the missionary; especially the persecuted fled to us for protection. We were overwhelmed with requests to take and care for their boys and girls who were in danger. Mrs. McFarland had more applicants than she could receive. When mothers began to realize that Mrs. McFarland’s girls were happy, light-hearted, healthy, pretty and capable, they wished their own daughters to share the same comforts and pleasures. Instead of being a mere refuge, the McFarland Home became a high privilege, much sought after. Of course, there were periods of reaction and panic, but our schools progressed consistently. In the summer of 1880 Mr. J. W. McFarland, a nephew of Mrs. McFarland’s husband, came from Pennsylvania and was joined in marriage to his fiancée, Miss Maggie Dunbar, our 254 REAL PROGRESS 255 teacher. Afterwards came Miss Kate Rankin as another as- sistant. All of the girls gathered into the Home were clothed from the boxes sent from the East and were taken care of entirely by the donations of Christian people. Of course our letters and reports brought this about, and our mission be- came one of the most popular and best supported of any in the denomination. Then the boys came clamouring for admission to the same privileges; little fellows who had been held as slaves, others who had been proclaimed as “ witches,” and still others who were homeless waifs, came to us for shelter. The better classes began to see the advantages of education and were eager that we accept their sons. Mrs. Young opened her Home for Boys, with a few lads in it, but with no funds to support it. Our horizon was widening, and help must be secured suf- ficient to meet the conditions. A school similar to our McFarland Home was started at Sitka by the Lyons and the Austins; missionaries for the Chilcats in the persons of Rev. Eugene Willard and his talented wife were secured; Mr. Aus- tin’s son-in-law, Mr. Styles, and his wife were sent to the Hoonahs; Mrs. McFarland’s brightest girl, Tillie Kenyon, was married to a half-breed, Louie Paul, and commenced work as a teacher to the Chilcats and afterwards the Tongass people; Captain Glass, recently arrived at Sitka as commander, took sympathetic interest in the young natives and established a system of compulsory education which proved to be very beneficial. There was a moving “ among the branches” in government circles in Washington City, in church circles—not only in one denomination but in others, among people every- where who were interested in the prosperity, education or evangelization of the United States. That this immense ter- ritory should be entirely neglected by all good influences was increasingly recognized as a shame and a disgrace. In the spring of 1881 I was commissioned by the govern- 256 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA ment to collect a number of the youth of the Alaska tribes and take them to the Indian Training School at Forest Grove, Oregon. This school was a new enterprise and was under the direction of Captain Wilkinson, who was an officer in the United States Army, and who from fighting Indians had turned to helping, educating and Christianizing them. He was an intensely religious man and had conducted services on the street corners of Portland and other places where he was sta- tioned. While his enemies said that he had organized the school at Forest Grove in order to secure a congregation that could not get away, we who knew him appreciated his sterling worth, his common-sense methods and his burning desire to help the Indians of the United States. His institution was a smaller copy of the Carlisle Training School under the noted Captain Pratt. It was a polytechnic school in which the young Indians of all the tribes of the Northwest were gathered, taught the principles of the English language, and instructed in such trades and professions as would enable them to be uplifters of their own people when they returned to their tribes. The Nez Perces, Spokanes, Klamaths, Puyallups, Chinooks and many other tribes were represented at Forest Grove. I selected some of our most intellectual boys and girls at Fort Wrangell and then went to Sitka, where with the help of Mr. Austin and Mr. Lyon I secured more. We selected these young people with much care and took the brightest, healthiest and most promising of our young people. There was much opposition on the part of some parents who feared to have their children sent so far away, but I sailed south with about a dozen bright boys and girls and left them at the Forest Grove School. Afterwards some of these young people were sent to the Carlisle Training School and to other institutions of higher learning. It was a step in advance; and yet after some years of experiment we came to the conclusion that to send the Alaska natives to the States for training was a mistake, and REAL PROGRESS 257 that they would be far more benefited if educated in Alaska and trained to fit the peculiar conditions of the Northwest. An instance will suffice to illustrate: The principal trades taught the young men at Forest Grove and Chemawa, where the school was afterwards located, were wagon making, harness making, agriculture and carpentry. The latter trade is useful anywhere, but there are no roads in Alaska, no horses and, in Southeastern Alaska, very little agriculture. They are a fisher folk; they need to learn to build boats and houses; to make nets, rather than wagons; and to pursue useful trades adapted to their own country. Our problems were so different from those of the missionaries among the Nez Perces that when we got as an assistant in our training school Silas, a young Nez Perce, to be our carpenter, he did not fit in well, and his term of employment was very short. One of the joys that came to us early in 1882 was the ar- rival of my second cousin, Captain J. Loomis Gould, from West Virginia. He had been a captain in the Union Army during the Civil War, then superintendent of schools for the state of West Virginia, and a prominent man in educational and civic lines—a man of energy, character, and initiative. © He was ordained a minister preparatory to his work as mis- sionary, and I always considered him one of the very best missionaries who ever came to Alaska. I went with him by canoe to start his work at Howcan, where I had previously sent James Chapman to take charge until Mr. Gould’s arrival. Dr. Sheldon Jackson made a trip with Dr. Corleis, bringing materials for buildings. A young man by the name of McLeod was secured by the Woman’s Executive Committee of the Presbyterian Home Board to put up a sawmill in order to procure lumber for our buildings and for the cottages of the natives. In 1880, when Muir and I had camped at the mouth of Gold Creek on the present site of Juneau, a mile or two be- 258 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA yond we met Dick Harris and Joe Juneau, a couple of gold miners whom I had known at Fort Wrangell and who had come in a canoe from Sitka on a prospecting trip. They found gold that fall, and spent the winter of 1880-1 developing a claim in Silverbow Basin, a couple of miles in the mountains from Juneau. The gold they obtained created much excite- ment in 1881, and miners began to flock to the new camp. More placer gold was taken out, and experts came from San Francisco and elsewhere to examine the quartz ledges in that vicinity. By 1882 some large deals had been made, and the Treadwell Gold Quartz Mine was prospected and many ledges located in the vicinity. I had visited the new camp in the summer of 1881, and found that Dr. Corleis had begun an Indian mission for the Tacoos, who were gathered at Juneau to obtain work and to trade at the stores which had been established there. In 1882 he started to build a log-cabin church, but before he finished this building he decided to return with his family to the States, and I took over his mission, finished the building and called it “The Northern Light Church,” the first church for the whites built in Alaska since the old Russian Finnish Lutheran Church was built in the 1840s. During all these days we had been besieging the govern- ment, through the newspapers and by personal appeals, to give us some sort of civil government for Alaska—to replace anarchy with law. Our efforts that year culminated in our first territorial convention. This was held August 16, 1881, at the new raw camp of Juneau, then called Harrisburg. There were only a few white settlements, but we had a delegation of fifteen men. Our meetings were held in a tent. Mr. W. B. _ Robertson, Jr., was chosen president and I, secretary. Present at our meeting was Governor Newell of the Territory of Wash- ington, who was making a tour with his family, and addressed our meeting. We drew up a memorial to Congress pleading i REAL PROGRESS 259 for the establishment of civil government. It was my duty as secretary to set forth conditions in Alaska and our needs. I made the resolutions as strong as possible, and they were adopted. Senator George of Oregon was on the steamer on which I returned to Wrangell, and we went over the situation. The following year when I visited the East, I had a two hours’ talk with Benjamin Harrison, then United States Senator from ~ Indiana, and afterwards President of the United States. He was an elder of the First Church of Indianapolis, which I was ad- dressing. Dr. A. L. Lindsley of Portland, Dr. Sheldon Jack- son and others were writing and speaking in favour of granting Alaska civil government. These were the first earnest efforts to secure protection and organization for our new Territory. During these constructive years we were learning from our mistakes and beginning to understand something of the nature of our problems and how to solve them. One strong stand, which so far as I know I was the first to take, was the determi- nation to do no translating into the Thlingit language or any other of the native dialects of that region. When I learned the inadequacy of these languages to express Christian thought, and when I realized that the whites were coming; that schools would come; that the task of making an English-speaking race of these natives was much easier than the task of making a civilized and Christian language out of the Thlingit, Hyda and Tsimpshean; I wrote to the mission Board that the duty to which they had assigned me of translating the Bible into Thlingit and of making a dictionary and grammar of that tongue was a useless and even harmful task; that we should let the old tongues with their superstition and sin die—the sooner the better—and replace these languages with that of Christian civilization, and compel the natives in all our schools to talk English and English only: Thus we would soon have ’ an intelligent people who would be qualified to be Christian citizens. 260 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA The Board moved, at first slowly and afterwards strongly, in the direction of this recommendation. They relieved me from finishing the task I had begun of translating the Bible. Our ideas were adopted in the other missions. When the Sitka Training School, afterwards called the Sheldon Jackson In- stitute, was built, English was the only language used on the premises, and always at Fort Wrangell from the first we had made and enforced this rule. To our stand in this regard more than to any other one thing is due, I believe, the exceptional progress of the Southeastern Alaska natives in civilization. Father Duncan pursued a different plan. He himself learned the Tsimpshean language thoroughly, preached in that lan- guage the remainder of his life, and instructed the other mis- sionaries who came to the Tsimpsheans to do the same. The wonderful work which he accomplished has given him a secure place among the very foremost of America’s missionaries. And yet the fact remains that while the Tsimpsheans in the great mission at New Metlakatla, which he founded in 1887, and who still use the Tsimpshean language in their services, are farther back in their knowledge of Christian civilization than the Hydas and several tribes of the Thlingits who have had thirty years less of Christian teaching than the Tsimpsheans. These tribes have talked the English language, and all their young people have been educated in the language of civiliza- tion. The nature of these first years of conflict, discouragement and victory received a striking illustration from the pencil of Nature on the night of October 9, 1882. That was the night of, perhaps, the most wonderful display of northern lights that the continent of North America has ever witnessed. Every- where from Maine to Florida and from Alaska to Mexico the display of the aurora borealis was noticed and described by a thousand pens. The ignorant were frightened, the wise were puzzled, poetic souls uplifted, fanatics convinced that the world REAL PROGRESS 261 was coming to an end, and the whole nation of the United States profoundly stirred. The display at Fort Wrangell had phases not witnessed in the Eastern states. I attempted to describe this wonderful display of Alaska pyrotechnics in an article to The New York Evangelist, and have used this description in many sermons and addresses, illustrating the conflict between the powers of darkness and those of light, between evil and good, and the ultimate certain victory of good over evil. I give it in the original form as published by Dr. Field in The Evangelist: Almost before the sunset glow had faded from the western sky, a black shadow of remarkable depth, length and density appeared, spanning the northern horizon. So dark was it that we thought it a thick mass of cloud, until we saw the stars shining through it with undiminished lustre. It silently grew until the pitchy shade extended far east and west, and towered high into heaven. Presently a faint glow of white light ap- peared above it. This increased by imperceptible degrees, and the huge segment of gloom slept as if it welcomed the light. But the peace was soon disturbed. The light began to send up streamers. Flashes, at first of brilliant white light then gathering colour, red in the east and violet in the west, increas- ing in brightness every second, appeared behind the penumbra, and even shone through the upper edge of the dark segment. Then the darkness awoke to its danger and gathered its forces to combat the light. From the east a black billow several de- grees in height, jagged and curling over like a wave of the sea, swept slowly and majestically to the west, with short menacing starts and motions, as if it would swallow up its enemy, the light. Then a return wave, higher, more rugged, more rapid and fierce in its motion, rushed from west to east. Then two surges from opposite ends of the penumbra dashed against and through each other, little fragments rising like spray into the brightness. Soon there was a startling conflict on this northern battlefield as these great rugged billows, solid in appearance as phalanxes of charging soldiers, and as violent and furious, rushed across the horizon, passing and repassing 262 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA each other in their effort to annihilate the rising glory of the aurora. A curious hollowing out of the penumbra in front of each wave, and a whirling motion behind it, gave the appear- ance of the earth sinking beneath the squadron’s heavy tread and the dust rising thickly in its rear. It was a marvelous display, in shadow pantomime, of angry and malignant power. But the fiercer these assaults, the brighter grew the glory. Brilliant flashes began to appear in one part and then another of the corona;. then a broad blaze would flare up into the sky from its whole extent. The streamers grew in height and brightness, flashing rapidly and changing position every mo- ment. A rose-red glow filled all the northeast. Other colours appeared in different parts of the arc. Great waves of light. rushed from one end to the other. The commotion became more and more violent, the flashes more dazzling, and so sud- den that they resembled discharges from cannon. ‘The most remarkable were those that swept in a second along the whole. length of the corona, rising clear to the zenith in a broad flare, and throwing off bright coruscations on their way. So daz- zling were some of these bursts of light that we would in- voluntarily dodge and shrink as if the heavens were hurling thunderbolts at us; and we could easily imagine that we heard the roar of the celestial artillery, as the light fought against the darkness. It was Milton’s Battle in Heaven over again; swords and spears and chariots of fire striking, flying, driving furiously; hills and mountains hurled across the field, and mighty engines belching forth their flames. It is impossible to describe, or even to remember clearly, all the shifting phases and changing colours of the aurora during the hour in which this conflict was waged. Gradually the light got the mastery, the waves of darkness grew smaller and their motion less violent, until at last the penumbra gave up the struggle and slept again, shrunk to half its former size, and the conquering brightness suffused and almost annihilated its enemy. The corona became quiet also, and of a pearly white- ness next to the shadow, but still flashed and shifted higher up; the streamers grew larger, and some of them rounded in appearance like great horns of light. Our interest was centered in these streamers so boldly scal- AVMDVMS MONULS AGAdWVLS AHL HYHHM SGOOD ANV SWVaL HO NOISNANOD V VPA Ce Be rar a et tia gah ILS mt ee ae re od . 4 ] r pa é i fo Yr BT ee Pa q a7) a ree , ‘ -; %y - A t : ; 7 ap REAL PROGRESS 263 ing the heights of heaven, until attention was attracted anew by a change in the lower body of the light. Almost before we looked, the pearly whiteness had become overspread with soft colours, and that most rare and beautiful phenomenon, an auroral bow, burst upon our delighted vision. Whether due to the moisture of the atmosphere, I know not; but the rainbow colours were all there, luminous with a soft and delicate brilliancy. It was a broad banner of triumph, an arch of precious stones supporting the starry firmament. The streamers soon began to reflect the colours of the bow, and to show also intermediate tints. The arc of light length- ened. In the east and the west, and then in the south we saw thin rays arise, and a white glow rimmed the whole horizon. But the many-coloured streamers of the north, now flashing almost over our heads, were far the brightest. Soon the most glorious sight of this wonderful night appeared. A ring of white light, with a dark center like the penumbra of the northern horizon, encircled the zenith. Flashing streamers lengthening rapidly radiated to all points of the compass. Then God began to paint this also with His colours of hope, until we saw a crown of glory in the heavens, a perfect circle with all the rainbow colours in regular order and wonderful perfection and beauty—a splendid centerpiece for the great rotunda of the sky. The flashing ceased. The still glory of the night grew al- most oppressive in its beauty and filled our souls with solemn gladness. It needed little imagination to see the priceless foundation stones of the Holy City in the northern bow, the attendant angels in the earnest stars, and in the central circle the jeweled court around the throne of the invisible Jehovah. Who could sleep on such a night as that? ~When the colours of the bow and the ring faded, other phases of the aurora de- manded our continued attention, and we looked and wondered and praised, until a beautiful sunrise closed the splendid ex- hibition. AXXV THE FIRE looking Etolin Harbour, and was a large, plain but rather imposing structure. It was almost filled with native girls, and Mrs. McFarland and her two assistants—Mrs. J. W. McFarland and Miss Rankin, Mr. McFarland as handy- man, medical adviser, etc-—had their hands full of multifold duties. The church was growing and its influence widening. Shakes and Kadishan, our influential chiefs, were invited to Portland by Dr. Lindsley for a visit, and on their return im- pressed the people with their account of the number and power of our friends. Everybody wanted to be on the right side of the missionaries, and the prospects appeared very bright. I was using every effort to teach the people self-help. I got the Council to establish a Poor Fund for the care of the old and friendless. This fund was maintained by fines, as- sessed by the Council upon offenders, and also by the con- fiscation on several occasions of goods unjustly stolen accord- ing to ‘‘ old fashions.” One instance of this will suffice: Johnson, a Tacoo sub-chief, had a sister who was the wife of a Stickeen, Sam Tahtain. She was dying of tuberculosis. One day a little girl of Sam’s was walking across the floor of a room in which the sick woman lay. The child was carrying a large pitcher full of water. She stumbled and fell, smash- ing the vessel with great noise. Very soon afterwards the sick woman died. Johnson brought charges against Tahtain’s family, claiming thirty blankets as indemnity, on the ground that the girl by her noise killed his sister. Speeches of violence 264 P “HE McFarland Home for Girls stood on the hill over- THE FIRE 265 in front of the several houses and shame talks culminated, before I knew what was going on, in payment by Tahtain’s family of the thirty blankets. This, of course, was sheer rob- bery, and a reversal to the old heathen customs, which we were trying so hard to put down. I went to Johnson’s house and demanded that he return the blankets. He sullenly refused. I took Matthew with me; we gathered up the blankets and took them to Shakes’ house, ask- ing him to call a meeting of the Council. When it convened, I was present with all the head men of the tribe and especially the members of the Tahtain family, which was a branch of the Shakes family. In a speech I set forth the evil of robbing one another on such pretexts and demanded that those who had donated blankets should take back their property. There was general refusal on the part of the donors. “We are ashamed to take back that which we have given.” “Very well,” I said. ‘“ We need a good donation for the Poor Fund.” Turning to Matthew and Aaron, I ordered them to take the blankets to my house; we would sell them and use the proceeds to take care of the poor. This proposal caused great uproar and excitement. “Why should we give our blankets to the poor? ” asked the Stickeens. Johnson was angry. I said, ‘‘ Those of you who wish to take back your blankets are entitled to them, but those which are not taken will go to my house as I have directed.” Shakes and the Council signified their approval. About one-third of the blankets were reclaimed, the rest went into the Poor Fund. The beach surrounding Etolin Harbour had long been a dis- grace to the town. In going to the Stickeen town we had to step around and over dead dogs, fish and other offal and all kinds of filth. When the tide was high the way was almost 266 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA impassable. I called the Stickeen Council together and ad- vised: ‘‘We must build a board walk from the native town to the stores and also to the church and the McFarland Home. The natives will have to do this themselves, as I can get no money for that purpose from the mission Board. It is time you were improving your town, at any rate. What will you donate to buy the lumber? ” I myself gave a donation, Shakes seconded, and the rest followed. Soon we had in blankets and cash upward of $300.00. This meant considerable self-sacrifice, as the people did not handle much money. It was the middle of winter, but notwithstanding the weather we organized an expedition to go to the sawmill at Chican, sixty miles away, to get the lumber. Shakes, Kadishan, Mat- thew, Konanisty and one or two others proffered their big canoes and a crew for each one. We started about February first. The weather turned very cold for that region and reached a temperature of zero. We sailed down Sumner Straits and around Point Baker and duly arrived at Chican, and there purchased two-inch planks and substantial scantling for their support, filling our canoes to capacity. Head winds retarded the progress of our heavy canoes homeward, but on the evening of the eighth of February we put into a cove on Etolin Island, some fifteen miles from home. Early in the morning of the ninth our little fleet moved slowly out of its harbour and steered towards Fort Wrangell. On rounding the point, eight miles from the town, we were dismayed to see a great cloud of black smoke enshrouding the mission hill. Full of heavy forebodings, we plied oar and paddle with all our might. By the time we reached our home harbour we dis- covered that the house of our pride and joy—the McFarland Home—was burned to cinders. A discouraged and _heart- broken company of missionaries greeted us with tears and THE FIRE 267 lamentation. The work of years seemed destroyed in a mo- ment. While we rejoiced to know that none of the inmates of the Home was injured, yet we found that very little else had been saved from the wreck. Most of the goods were de- stroyed as well as nearly all of the furniture. Busy days of letter-writing and of making new plans fol- lowed. We gathered the girls into the hospital building of the Fort, a few of them returning temporarily to their homes. There seemed to be but one thing to do, and Mrs. Young and I determined upon our course. Personal appeal must be made to the Church in the East, and money obtained to rebuild, as well as funds to establish a training school for boys. I took the next steamboat, the latter part of February, to Portland. There, backed by Dr. Lindsley and his family, I secured cloth- ing and supplies sufficient for the temporary relief of the mis- sion, and the promise of further aid. I attended the spring meeting of the Presbytery of Oregon, and was elected Commissioner to the General Assembly, which was to meet at Saratoga, New York, in May. I obtained from the Secretary of the Board permission to take my family East on a vacation and to spend the coming summer among the churches in furthering our great plans. I secured passage for Mrs. Young and our two small children on the steamer ‘‘ Idaho,” planning to meet them at San Francisco, that we might go on east together. In San Francisco and Oakland further sub- stantial aid for our Alaska missions was obtained. I spent an anxious fortnight waiting for my family there. The time for the arrival of the “‘ Idaho ” passed, and there was no word; the time for the General Assembly approached, and I could not wait. For nearly a month I was in terrible anxiety, as news had come, first, that one of the British steamboats—a possible conveyance for my family—was burned; and then a telegram from Victoria announcing that the “ Idaho” had been wrecked in Peril Straits. Not until I had been in Saratoga 268 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA for some days did I receive word that Mrs. Young had taken passage on a steamer which was sent as a rescue ship when the ‘‘Idaho” failed to report. No cable was laid to Alaska in those days, and very few boats plied the northern waters. Discouraging reports made the round of the papers, and it was with intense relief that the last days of the Assembly brought a dispatch from my wife, dated at San Francisco, announcing her arrival in the East the next week. That General Assembly was a momentous one for Alaska. I was only a very green, unsophisticated and badly scared mis- sionary from the wilds of the Northwest, but I was enthusias- tically received when I ventured on the floor of the Assembly, and the measure passed by the Presbytery of Oregon which I presented was adopted, constituting the Presbytery of Alaska. Reverends J. Loomis Gould, J. W. McFarland, Eugene Wil- lard, John G. Brady, Dr. Sheldon Jackson and myself formed the Presbytery, and I was its Convenor and first Moderator. This consummation of the plans gave us a secure status be- fore the Church, and Alaska began to be one of the most popular and romantic of the home mission fields. Tourists were just beginning to learn of Alaska and to wish to explore it. Many writers, mostly women, made trips from Portland to Fort Wrangell and Sitka and back, on the same steamer, and then wrote books on Alaska. Only two or three of them deigned to stop off between steamboats. Dall’s book and a few of the earlier publications on Alaska, all of them full of mistakes, were copied by these tourists, and their own imagination added to the errors. To write a book on such a country as that, after having made only this one hasty trip, would be like publishing a volume descriptive of the Metro- politan Museum when the author had only scanned the build- ing from the outside and turned back at the entrance. Only one or two of these books survived more than a year or two. Of these early writers only Mrs. Ella Wilkinson, who returned THE FIRE 269 again and again to Alaska, lived a while in the Territory, and was careful as to her data, has produced a volume that is really valuable and will be read for decades. Dr. Henry M. Field, editor of The Evangelist, came to Saratoga especially for me, and I spent five great days in his home at Stockbridge in the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts, and was entertained also in the palatial residence of David Dudley Field. While I enjoyed these visits, my greenness and lack of sophistication in those days was almost beyond belief. I did not know how to act in polite society. But my writings in The Evangelist had given me prestige, and I began to be in demand as a speaker before churches. My wife, children and our Indian girl, Susie, soon arrived, and after a few days at her former home at Whitehall, New York, we launched into our campaign for the aid of Alaska missions. Big projects were in our plans and hearts. A con- stant whirl of social and church activities kept us busy; a series of missionary conventions in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with trips as far east as Rhode Island and as far west as Chicago, and south to West Virginia and Ken- tucky, kept us speaking almost daily. The response of the churches was more than we anticipated. The Board had to put on the brakes. The cry which has been heard throughout the churches ever since was then first raised: “ Alaska is get- ting too much.” Money came for the rebuilding of the McFarland Home, for the Sitka Training School, for Mrs. Young’s Thlingit Training Academy for Boys at Wrangell, for the purchase for our school of the Pennsylvania farm (mentioned later in this chapter), for the support of children at the separate schools and for all the equipment we would need to carry on our missions. Dr. Sheldon Jackson was actively at work in the lecture field, and others, also, seconded our efforts. My wife carried by storm many important meetings of women’s missionary societies, and 270 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA money in plenty was thrust at her for our enterprises. My good wife had a peculiar talent for oratory. She possessed one faculty I always envied her. When I allowed my feelings to overcome me in a pathetic passage, my lips became paralyzed, and I could not say a word. But Mrs. Young could go right on with her speech, with tears flowing down her face and her whole audience dissolved. ‘The saying of Horace, “If you wish me to weep you must first weep yourself,” was exemplified in her case, and money always followed her tears. An important visit was made by us to Washington City that summer. We did not succeed in seeing President Arthur, but met several heads of departments and did our part towards securing civil government for Alaska. Reporters interviewed us, Senators and Congressmen came to see and hear us, and thus we exerted considerable influence. At Washington we succeeded in securing government aid for our Thlingit Train- ing School, which enabled us to carry on that institution on a larger scale until we left Alaska in 1888. A visit to Carlisle Indian School must not be forgotten, as it put us in touch with the government system and led to the education of a number of our brightest youth. There was a visit to my parents and to other relatives in West Virginia, and the leaving of our Indian girl, Susie, at the girls’ school in Washington, Pennsylvania. We returned to Alaska in December, 1883, very tired but very happy in the fact that we had secured the necessary funds to carry on our work on a much larger scale than before. Then followed a time of reconstruction and advancement. Largely through the influence of Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the McFarland Home was removed to Sitka and merged into the Training School there. J. W. McFarland and his wife were sent to the Hoonah village as missionaries; Miss Lyda McAvoy, my cousin from West Virginia, was secured as teacher at Fort Wrangell, and Miss Anna Chisholm as house- i { . THE FIRE 271 keeper for our training school. When Mrs. McFarland was removed to Sitka, those of her girls who refused to go with her were enrolled in our school at Fort Wrangell. The log buildings which had constituted the barracks/of the soldiers were fitted up as machine shops, dining-room, dormitory for the boys, and hospital building for the girls. A farm nine miles from Fort Wrangell on the delta of the Stickeen River, which had been equipped with buildings as a mule ranch to accommodate the pack trains of the Cassiar region, was purchased for five hundred dollars and.called the Pennsylvania Farm. There our boys raised potatoes ‘and other vegetables and fodder for our cows and horses, and it became a very helpful part of our equipment. Hand and foot machines for our cabinet shop, tools for our shoemaker shop, a printing press, farm tools, etc., were procured. My brother, James W. Young, was employed as our farmer and mechanic, andthe school progressed. Our new printing press was set up, and the publication of our school paper, The Glacier, begun. I still had the work of exploration\and founding of new missions before me and of procuring teaclters for the missions. However, for the first time I felt that we were well equipped for the constructive work of civilization. | XXVI CIVIL GOVERNMENT citizens forms one of the gloomy pages of American ‘he struggle of Alaskans for their rights as American history. The beginning of Alaska’s early history reminds me of echo’s answer in the old poem to the word : ‘“‘ Matrimony ”—“ matter o’ money.” After a struggle be- tween contending companies, the Alaska Commercial Company ~ got the lease of the fur seal islands. They paid the United States government three hundred thousand dollars annually for the privilege of killing as many fur seals as they wished. While there were government rules and instructions, these did not seriously hamper this company, which made millions of dollars out of its lease and wished, of course, to continue the arrangement indefinitely. United States Senator Miller of San Francisco was the president of the company. Like the old Hudson’s Bay Fur Company of England, they did not wish the country to be settled and the way made plain for rival fur companies to come in and compete with theirs. They employed every means to discourage the settlement of Alaska and even the education and enlightenment of the natives. They opposed all attempts in Congress to organize Alaska and grant us protection of life or property, courts and officers. The wilder and more lawless the country, the more furs for them, was the old cry. It was evident that this company employed several men at good salaries to “ write down” the country and decry and belittle its resources. As early as 1868 efforts were made in Congress to provide some sort of rule for Alaska. Proposi- 272 ] : J CIVIL GOVERNMENT 273 tions were made to annex Alaska to Canada, to annihilate time and space by making it a county of the territory of Wash- ington, to sell it to a private company, and other absurd sug- gestions. For twelve years no bill for the government of Alaska was discussed on either the floor of the House or Senate in Wash- ington. The fur company had its way. Among the writers employed by the company, Henry W. Elliott (‘“ Fur Seal” Elliott) was the most notable. About 1874 he submitted a report as special treasury agent, in which the information on fur seals is valuable, but when it touches upon any other in- terests of the Territory, it shows either dense ignorance or design to fool the American people. Dr. Jeanette Nichols in her history of Alaska gives a number of quotations from his report which would be amusing if they had not been so dis- astrous in their effect upon the development of Alaska. It was Elliott’s judgment that climatic conditions would always “unfit the Territory for the proper support of any considerable population.” He says: “‘ There are more acres of better land lying now as wilderness and jungles in sight on the mountain tops from the car windows of the Pennsylvania road than can be found in all Alaska.” In an article in Harper’s magazine in reply to criticism upon his report, among other mistakes, he says: “ Though we know now that Alaska will’never be, in all hu- man probability, the land for us, yet we have one great comfort in its contemplation, for we shall never be obliged to maintain costly mail routes or appoint the ubiquitous postmaster there. We shall never be asked by the people for a territorial form of government with its attendant federal expenses; and, much as the Coast looms upon the map, we shall never have to provide lighthouses for its vacant harbours.” Although these assertions of Elliott’s were denied by William 274 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA G. Morris, special agent of the treasury, and others, yet they shaped public opinion and also blocked our efforts for legisla- tion in the interest of Alaska. The noted Alexander Stephens of Georgia is reported to have bluffed Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who was attempting to secure his interest and aid in providing civil government for Alaska. The little, old statesman, crippled and hobbling upon his cane, paused long enough to cackle a deriding laugh in the face of the little doctor of divinity, who was about of the same height. “Huh! ” sneered the Senator. ‘That snowbound wilder- ness—not enough white men there to make a decent county— never will be,” and hobbled on into the Senate. But after our Indian war at Wrangell, the discovery of gold at Juneau brought crowds of eager miners, the establishment of many salmon canneries and other fisheries, and especially of missions and schools. The pressure upon Congress to afford relief to the inhabitants of the Territory compelled action. I have spoken of the First Territorial Convention at Juneau and of my interview with Senator George and Senator Harrison, and the personal efforts on the part of Drs. Lindsley and Jack- son and others in this direction. The situation in Alaska was anomalous, the Alaska Commercial Company fighting us at every point. The Government Bill passed in the winter of 1883-84, while very incomplete and faulty, was at least a step towards giving us our rights. An organic act was passed, and a government and laws for Alaska adopted, based on the Or- egon Code, but amended and shaped to fit the idea of Congress that Alaska was not and never would be capable of supporting any considerable population or of providing any great means of wealth. The Bill did not call Alaska a territory, but a district. It provided a governor, a judge, a marshal, a dis- trict attorney, a clerk and four United States commissioners - and deputy marshals. Schools were provided for to a very limited extent, the importation or manufacture of intoxicating CIVIL GOVERNMENT rye." liquors was prohibited, mining laws were instituted and, at - least, a beginning made of civil government. Senator Harrison, the chairman of the committee which framed the organic act, excused its inadequacy by pleading that this form of government would bring to the residents of the Territory and their homes “ reasonable protection of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” Therefore, in the summer of 1884, came our newly appointed officers. Dr. Nichols truly says: “In 1884 Alaska became a political preserve for the payment of small debts owed by big politicians to little ones.” The first Governor was J. H. Kinkead, who had been gov- ernor of the state of Nevada, but was considered a “ worn-out political hack.” It was freely said in Washington that his political friends had sent him to Alaska to get him as far out of the way as possible. Governor Kinkead was a very hard drinker, as his bulbous nose indicated. He brought with him an immense supply of cases labeled ‘‘ Canned Tomatoes.” These “tomatoes ” were proclaimed as tasting exactly like Scotch whiskey and producing the same effect. His duties as Governor were so limited that beyond a report of eight and one-half pages there is no record of any of his acts. The judge was Hall McAllister, the nephew of the noted Ward McAllister of the “ four hundred” in New York City. This young man, who was a lawyer in San Francisco, and ap- pointed through the influence of the Alaska Commercial Com- pany, was of the newly discovered species, ‘‘ Dude.”” He made his Uncle Ward his model, and closely followed that arbiter of fashion in his manner, his dress, his flourishes and all his actions. The whole government and all its acts seemed so farcical that beyond furnishing amusement to both friends and enemies of the Territory, within and without, it did nothing. The fall of this government, whose officials were appointed Va _by President Arthur, deserves a paragraph: Dr. Sheldon Jack- ‘son remained at Sitka the winter of 1884-5. The quarrels be- 276 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA tween him and the officials became more and more acute. When President Cleveland was inaugurated, these Republican officials still hoped to serve out their term of four years. Dr. Jackson, in an unguarded moment, voiced his provocation by saying that he was going to Washington on the next steamer and was going to have all the officials turned out of office, and new ones appointed. To prevent this they laid a scheme. They connived with Captain Carroll of the monthly steamer. Dr. Jackson had secured his passage and was ready to board the boat, when Marshal Hillier sent a deputy to arrest Dr. Jackson on a charge of misappropriating Russian property. He marched him up to the guardhouse and kept him there until the steamer moved off. One or two of the officials sailed on that steamer, thinking thus to checkmate the little doctor; but it was the mistake of their lives. The doctor was promptly released from jail after the steamer sailed. Rev. Eugene Wil- lard, who was at Sitka, possessed a photographic camera. Dr. Jackson took Mr. Willard to the guardhouse, sat down on the bare floor and posed in dejected attitude with his chin on his hand, while Mr. Willard “ took ” him. Dr. Jackson sailed on the next steamer and went to Wash- ington, taking this picture with him. It was published in Church and other periodicals with headlines: “ Persecuted for Righteousness’ Sake.” President Cleveland was besieged with demands that the Alaska officials be removed, and they went out awhirling, in spite of the fact that the great Ward McAl- lister appeared before the mission Board secretaries in New York, dressed immaculately and gently swinging his jeweled cane: ‘“ Me nephew Hall is a good boy, don’t ye know? He didn’t mean any harm to your work. Won’t you, now, be good fellows, and let him serve out his term? ” The fates, or bad liquor, pursued President Arthur’s ap- pointees even after they left Alaska. The governor broke his arm and had a paralytic stroke, and soon died. The district CIVIL GOVERNMENT 277 attorney fell off the train and was killed. The other officers re- tired to private life, Judge McAllister resuming his practice of law in San Francisco. In the spring of 1885, President Cleveland replaced these officers with a full set of Democrats. Governor Swineford of Michigan was a much brighter and more active man than Gov- ernor Kinkead. He had a mind sufficiently alert to compre- hend something of the possibilities of the great Territory. Throughout his term he laboured for more liberal laws and fairer treatment of Alaska. He attacked the persistent and venal misrepresentations of Alaska by the Alaska Commercial Company and the big fishing interests. He was the first gov- ernor to advocate a territorial legislature and the freedom of American citizenship for the settlers. He showed that the census taken in 1886 was faulty, underestimating by one-half the civilized citizenship of the territory. He did justice to the fine character of the miners and other settlers who were moving into the Territory; he advocated better land laws, increased transportation facilities, better rights for the poor fishermen and miners. He was opposed to big monopolies. When his term of office expired he returned to Alaska as editor of a paper in Ketchikan and made the Territory his home until death. He took the part of the schools and missionaries, and was for a number of years.an active and progressive friend of Alaska. The judge“appointed by Cleveland was the occasion of the worst scandal in the history of Alaska officials, except that which gathered about Judge Noyes of Nome in 1900-1. The judge (Judge Dawn) was a kind of political and social roust- about. He had been in turn doctor, preacher and lawyer, without taking the trouble of fully educating himself in any of these professions. He was appointed by President Cleve- land on the recommendation of Democrats in Salem and Port- land, Oregon. After his appointment, one of those who had signed his petition wrote to President Cleveland protesting 278 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA against the appointment, and claiming that the petition was a sort of joke, signed by him and others to get rid of the appli- cant, without any thought that it would be successful. This drew from President Cleveland the famous letter in which he scored unmercifully those who knowingly endorsed unworthy applicants for office: “How can you expect the President, 2,500 miles distant, to know more about the qualifications of an applicant for office than you who are on the ground? All the President can do in such cases is to trust to the honesty and good judgment of the endorsers. If the appointee is unworthy, those who recom- mended him must bear the odium, and not the President.” Judge Dawn came to Sitka on the same boat with Governor Swineford and the other officials. During the interval between the arrival of the boat which brought them to Alaska and the next monthly steamer, Judge Dawn suddenly appeared with two white companions at Wrangell, having come from Sitka by canoe. He was entertained by our mission and made a very pious address to the boys and girls of our training school, ex- horting them to be good Christians and to fit themselves to be good American citizens. He instructed a young man who had been appointed deputy marshal to proclaim the court opened every morning and adjourned until he should return. Then he launched his canoe again, steering for Port Simpson in British Columbia. He took with him as.a traveling com- panion an Indian girl, who had been in our school; his two male companions being in like manner provided with young squaws. Thus he disappeared forever from the knowledge of the Alaskans. The reason for his sudden departure was revealed when the next steamer arrived, for it brought a United States marshal from Portland with a warrant for the arrest of Judge Dawn on the charge of embezzling fifteen thousand dollars from his father-in-law. Thus we were left without judge and without court. CIVIL GOVERNMENT 279 The man whom President Cleveland appointed in Dawn’s stead was Judge Dawson of Missouri, an intimate friend of Senator West’s. He was an excellent lawyer and a just judge. But he was a heavy drinker. Senator West had him appointed in the hope that away off in prohibition Alaska he would be weaned from his bad habit and become what he was capable of being—a very influential and helpful citizen, able to shape the needed legislation for Alaska. With the exception of his in- temperance, Judge Dawson seemed to live a moral life. Yet when saloon-keepers were brought before him and tried for infraction of the liquor laws, he would first mete out full jus- tice, and sentence them to pay large fines; then he would step down from the bench and go and drink liquor over the bar of the very man whom he had fined. The citizenship of Alaska at that time was fluctuating. Those who had been in Alaska any length of time and who could be called permanent citizens were mostly squaw-men, who had gone up the coast as miners or fishermen and lived there with their Indian women and half-breed children. The prejudice of these men against the natives can be illustrated from an incident which occurred at Fort Wrangell a year or so after the arrival of the Democratic administration: Louie Paul, who married Mrs. McFarland’s brightest pupil, - Tillie, and had assisted her in her schools at Klukwan and Tongass, was employed by a man named Bangs who came to Alaska on a trading schooner. They sailed down to Klawack on the West Coast. One night Louie came to my house in great excitement. He had returned on the schooner, which anchored a mile or two down the coast from the harbow. He reported a theft committed by Bangs at Tuksekan, the town of the Hanegas near Klawack. Bangs had looted the cache of an Indian chief and had stolen large quantities of blankets, boxes, guns and other Indian property, and had these goods on board his vessel. I took Louie at once to Captain Wilson, 280 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA our deputy collector of customs, and he proceeded to arrest Bangs and put a crew aboard the vessel, and take the prisoner and his loot to Juneau for trial. When court convened at Juneau the case was tried, and although the Hanega chief was present and identified his goods, and the testimony of Louie Paul was very clear and positive, the jury refused to bring in a verdict of guilty against a white man on Indian testimony. Judge Dawson, in a scathing speech, reprimanded and dis- missed the jury, and directed Bangs to return all the stolen goods and to pay the chief his expenses, and also the govern- ment for the expense of the trial. This was a specimen of the justice meted out in those formative days. The minor officers—the commissioners, customs collectors and marshals—averaged much better than the higher ones. The commissioner appointed by Cleveland was Judge James Sheakley, a Democrat, from Mercer County, Pennsylvania. He had been an applicant for governor but was put off with the lesser office. He was a guest in our house for two or three years at Fort Wrangell, a very genial, pleasant, honourable gentleman, who fretted at his petty office, but did his duty to natives and whites and was a steadfast friend of our missions and schools. With the other Democratic officials, he lost his position when President Harrison was inaugurated, but when President Cleveland was reélected in 1892, Mr. Sheakley came back to Alaska as governor. He was undoubtedly the wisest and most progressive governor the Territory had had up to that time. Our customs collector at Fort Wrangell who succeeded Colonel Crittenden was Captain Wilson, a very fine man and very helpful to our mission work. Alaska has had many governors and judges since those old days. In 1900 the Territory was divided into three judicial dis- tricts, and afterwards a fourth was set apart. The higher of- ficials at first were all brought to Alaska from the different states, but after the Klondike, Nome and Fairbanks gold CIVIL GOVERNMENT 281 stampedes, a white population settled permanently in Alaska, and from its citizens the officials have been mostly chosen—an improvement on the old carpet-bag system. After a long continued struggle against bureaucracy, selfish politicians and ignorance concerning Alaska affairs on the part of the American people, and the denser ignorance of Congress, we succeeded in obtaining an elective legislature. Now Alaska is a full-fledged territory, well organized, with good laws well administered. And it is steadfastly setting its face towards the ultimate goal of statehood and the development of its vast re- sources. , With the establishment of civil government in Alaska, came the appointment of Dr. Sheldon Jackson as the first Commis- sioner for Alaska under the Bureau of Education. The ap- propriation for schools was very small at first, but increased year by year. Schools were established all over the territory in the native tribes, and these government schools from Hyda- burg to Point Barrow have been of immense benefit to the whole Territory. The first teachers were nominated by the various mission boards, who were doing Christian work in the regions where the schools were established. Thus a semi- religious character was given to these government schools, and a number of the teachers in them have become regular mission- aries in different parts of Alaska. XXVII THE WORST SAVAGES HIS chapter is not a pleasant one, but is a story that must be told. A former chapter has stressed the de- basing influence of savage life, in which men are cast adrift from the refining influence of home, church and good so- ciety to float in lawless regions among lower races. The follow- ing instances, while extreme, can hardly be called exceptional. So many such cases came under our personal observation that, although always shocked by them, we ceased to be surprised. I have come to the conclusion that there is but one moral safe- guard for a man who is cutting loose from all the ties and re- straints to which he has been accustomed, and that is religious faith and principle. When I first reached Alaska I used to hear of the Karta Bay Copper Mine on Prince of Wales Island in the Hyda country. The superintendent of the mine, which was being worked in a very desultory and trifling way, was a large fleshy man named Bill I. He was from Portland, Oregon, and represented a Portland mining company. He would come to Fort Wrangell for supplies, and soon the report came out that the mine had been abandoned; but Bill had not left the country. When Mr. Lyon and I made our first trip to the Hyda country in 1880 we found Bill at Klawack, and much against our will, on ac- count of his filthy appearance, we were induced to give him passage back to Wrangell in our canoe. My wife, after an ex- amination of the blankets we had loaned Bill for the trip, in- sisted on the use of blue ointment and sapodilla powder on them. She pronounced the blankets “ inhabited.” Mr. I. remained at Wrangell but a short time, and then we 282 THE WORST SAVAGES 283 heard of him living down among the Tongass people, just across the line from Port Simpson. A squaw was with him and other members of her family. We heard that he had a few barrels of molasses and was trading molasses and hooch to the Indians. We also heard that the revenue officers had learned of his illicit trade and had tried to arrest him, but he got wind of the raid and vanished. When the officers disappeared he returned to his cabin and resumed his trade. A year or two afterwards there came to Fort Wrangell a well dressed, fine appearing man whose name was James I. He was the brother of Bill. He came to Wrangell to find his brother and transact some important business with him. He inquired of me and of the commissioner concerning Bill’s whereabouts. Being entirely unused to canoeing and somewhat afraid of the water, he got me to send a couple of my Indians in a fast canoe with a letter to his brother. The trip was at least a hundred miles. He urged his brother to come to Wran- gell as speedily as possible and get through with this business. While James was waiting he told me the character of the busi- ness; that he and his brother were the sole owners of some swamp forest lands on the Columbia River, and he had come to induce Bill to return with him and effect a large sale of those lands. Both partners must appear in any legal transfer of the property. In course of a week there came to the dock a queer outfit. There was big Bill in a flannel shirt with untrimmed beard, _and with him his squaw, her mother and father and two or three other relatives. James and I were on the dock watching the canoe come in. Jim was fairly white with anger and dis- gust. He turned, walked up to the Custom House and asked me to bring Bill along. I did so, and was present at the inter- view of the two brothers. James explained to Bill the situ- ation, saying that there was a chance of making a fortune of at least half a million dollars. “But you know,” he said, 284 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA “that I can’t draw up these papers and complete this transac- tion without you. You’ll have to come with me at once to Portland—and our fortune is made.” Bill heard him through and then said: “I can’t go. I have my business here. Fix it up some way. I can’t leave.” James swore an oath, and then apologized to me for it. He asked me, ‘‘ What business has Bill? ” “ Well,” I answered, ‘‘ I haven’t been to his establishment, but I understand his business is that squaw you saw and a barrel or two of molasses, and a hooch still.” Then James “turned-to” and gave his brother about the worst overhauling I have ever heard, reminding him of their respectable life in Portland, their education and the good so- ciety he had left. ‘If you are bound to live a fast life,” he said, ‘“‘ surely you can gratify your desires among the whites in Portland, and go your pace there. Leave this filthy environ- ment here and come with me. My future and that of my fam- ily, as well as your own, depends upon your returning with me on the next boat.” Bill listened stolidly and then suddenly got up. ‘“ Fix it up as you please,” he said, ‘I am going back to Tongass,” and he strode from the room, went down to his canoe and set sail. It was less than a year after that when Captain Carroll of our monthly steamer heard that Bill was very sick at Tongass. He put into the harbour there and found him dead. He took his body to Portland for burial. In my hunting trips I had gone with my boys in our canoe down to the vicinity of what is now Ketchikan on Gravina and Annette Islands: I found a man on the site of Ketchikan who was called “ Mac ” by the natives and whites. He had a gar- den in a cove and a salmon saltery by the salmon stream, which is now occupied by a big canning establishment. He had a young Stickeen squaw with him. Mac’s house was small but well built and clean. He was putting up an excellent quantity THE WORST SAVAGES 285 of smoked and dried salmon and of cured venison hams. He used to come up to Wrangell afterwards, bringing these articles, and I always bought some from him. He would ask for read- ing matter, especially The New York Evangelist, one of the church papers. He told me that this was his home paper and that he was a member of the Presbyterian church in his home city. After getting his reading matter and trading his com- modities he would fill up on hooch and go back to his abode. A couple of years before I left Fort Wrangell, there came to my attention, as postmaster, a letter addressed to Mr. D. On inquiry I learned that this was the real name of our friend Mac. I forwarded the letter to him by the first canoe. A month or two afterwards I got one of the finest, best written letters I have ever received, from a lady in the Eastern city which Mac had named as his home. This letter was from Mac’s wife. She said she had learned that her husband was in the vicinity of Fort Wrangell. She had got my name from her pastor, and was writing me in hope of obtaining news of the whereabouts of her husband and establishing communica- tion between them. She said: “I hear that he has gone rather wild; but he has been a good and loving husband to me, and he was very fond of our three children; and I wish you to urge him to come back to us. I have never ceased to love him, and his children are waiting to honour and love their father. I en- close a letter to him.” I sent her letter and a copy of the one she had written to me, and also a strongly worded letter of my own down to Mac. He made no reply to me, but I found in the mail that he answered her letter. Several letters passed between them, and I had hopes that he would be reclaimed, would break away from his present environment and go back to his family. But still he continued living with his young squaw, and occasionally got drunk on hooch, and it was even said by the natives that he was making the stuff. 286 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA So passed the time, until one day there came in the mail a registered package marked from Mrs. D. directed to her hus- band, and valued at one hundred and twenty-five dollars. I hated to forward this package, but my duty as postmaster com- pelled me, and I sent it on to him. In a month or two I heard of a big potlatch down the beach at what is now Ketchikan, and free gifts of blankets, beads and hooch were distributed to the Indians; and I then knew that the money which his wife had sent him to pay his passage back to New York had been spent by this renegade in a big potlatch for his squaw and her rela- tives. I had not told Mrs. D. of Mac’s squaw, but I was sorry now that I had not done so. It was a hard task to write the truth at last to this good woman in the East, and I shall never forget the heart-broken letter she wrote in reply. One more of these gruesome stories, and I have done. The winter of 1903-4 my daughter Alaska and I spent at Council City, eighty-five miles east of Nome. Council was a mining camp near the mouth of Ophir Creek, a rich gold-bearing stream. We had an Eskimo congregation as well as one of white miners. We had built a church and had a lively mis- sion. I had brought with me a small box of books, standard works of general literature. The miners used to borrow and eagerly read these books, which I was glad to lend. There used to come to see me, and get my books, an Englishman. He was dressed in English fashion, with knickerbockers; he was always spruce looking and was very intelligent. He could discuss almost any question of art, science or literature. My daughter and I enjoyed his occasional visits. He informed us that he was living down Fish River, eight or ten miles from Council, and developing a gold claim. Our acquaintance with this young man was very pleasant and continued during the winter. Towards spring, an order from the government had come to THE WORST SAVAGES 287 Nome, and the judge there had published this order, which was to the effect that all white men living with native women must legally marry them, under penalty of heavy fine and imprison- ment if they disobeyed. They were not allowed to leave their squaws without fully providing for them. The commissioner at Council and those of all the other towns were ordered to see that this law was enforced. A number of the backwoodsmen came with their Eskimo squaws and were married. One day my young English friend came to my house. He knocked and was admitted to where we were sitting. Pres- ently came a very fat and homely Eskimo squaw, who sidled in to the house and squatted down on the floor in a corner of the room. We did not connect the visit of the two at all, but supposed the squaw had simply come, after their fashion, for some favour. After chatting a while the young man said: “Dr. Young, I wish you would do me a favour.” “TJ shall be glad,” I answered. ‘‘ What can I do for you?” “‘T want you to marry me to this woman.” I started up, aghast. ‘‘ You don’t mean what you say! Surely you don’t wish me to marry you to that squaw? I shall not be a party to a crime like that. You, an Englishman of high education and standing, and I understand a younger brother of an English lord, to ‘mate with a narrow forehead ’ like that is scandalous! ” And I quoted some Tennyson to him. “Oh, I have gone over all that in me mind, ye know,” he re- plied. “ And I have made up me mind. I don’t want to leave here, nor do I want to go back; so I am asking you to marry us according to the law.” “Never,” I replied. “If you want to commit an outrage like that upon yourself and your family and upon all decency and manhood, you will have to get somebody else to tie the knot; I will not do it.” 288 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA So he went over to the commissioner, and was united in mat- rimony with that squaw. I suppose that was the last of him. Now, these cases, disgusting and displeasing though they be, are worthy of consideration. The fact that the most vicious, degraded, ruined and hopeless savages I ever met in Alaska were educated white men from refined homes, does not prove that human nature is hopeless, or that all white men who go to a country like that fall in the same way. That would be far from the truth. There was something wanting in the char- acter of all these men, something weak, something ignoble. These vices are not natural but unnatural; and for every case » of this kind that occurs to my memory I could relate dozens of cases of truth, fidelity and manhood, especially among the min- ing populations of later years. XXVIII NATIVE MYTHOLOGY compilations of the Thlingit and Hyda legends. In selecting a few of the thousands of stories which the natives of two generations ago were so fond of spinning, I am - not going to quote from any of these books, but shall rely en- tirely upon my recollections of the tales related to me first- hand. : Old Kah-tu-yeatley, the wizard whose pitiful story I have told, was the first to give me in detail the story of Yeatl (the Raven) and other legends, during the time that he was confined to the little room in which I placed him for protection. He had been the conservator of the Thlingit ceremonies and songs and director of cremations and potlatches, and his mind was full of stories. With Mrs. Dickinson’s help I got from Kah-tu- yeatley the story of Yeatl in the most complete and graphic form and printed it in one of the early numbers of The Glacier. Kadishan afterwards told more of these stories during our long voyages, when we were scudding before the wind, our captain steering, and the rest of us huddled in the center of the canoe absorbing them. Stickeen Johnny, Hunter Joe and Hyda Paul Jones, also, were anxious to tell these legends, and I was just as eager to hear them. After we had partaken of our supper in camp we would sit on logs around the big fire and the yarns would be resumed. It is not an easy task to collect and write these stories. Each Thlingit you consult has a different version of every story, which he strenuously defends as the only correct one, de- nouncing all others as impositions. And one often finds the 289 A NUMBER of books have been published which are 290 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA vital point of the story to be the very one on which the nar- rator’s memory fails, and another person has to be consulted, or else the teller supplies the deficiency with a palpable inven- tion of his own. Incidents of one story are often transferred to another, causing confusion, and one can hardly be certain when he is right. Sometimes after filling a page with notes, the . searcher after legendary lore will suddenly find himself all adrift, and the story he was pursuing escaped clean. It was like the Irishman’s flea: “‘ You put your finger on him, and he isn’t there.” However, I think that I have obtained the most general and ancient versions of these legends, as they are known to the Stickeens. First PRINCIPLES The Thlingits personified almost everything. The beasts, birds and fishes had human souls and semi-human bodies, the power of speech, passions and habits of the human race. Even the trees and bushes had their hamadryads, or resident spirits, with loves and hates. Their legends make the inferior animals, in the age before the great rising of the tide which submerged all things, to antedate man. The first person in human form was a god who is known by several names: Keese-she-sa-ah Ankow (lord of the tides), Kees-du-je-ae-ity Kah (the man who manages the tides), Yu-kis-ko-kaek (he who looks after the tides). In all these names the dependence of this maritime people upon the sea is shown. Some authorities say that Kees-du-je-ae-ity Kah made all the animals and trees; others that he came into existence in some unexplained way at the same time with them. He created a wife for himself, and a sister, with her husband. They were the only people who existed on the earth. The animals and trees conversed with them. The lord of the tides was im- perious and haughty, jealous of his absolute sovereignty. He made a league with the trees to destroy his nephews as they NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 291 approached manhood. His sister bore many sons, but always, when old enough, their uncle would send them into the forest to fell trees for making canoes. One was killed by a tree shooting its chips violently into his face; another was caught by the branches of a falling tree and crushed to death; another was impaled by a sharp splinter. A fourth was set to hollowing out a log for a canoe, but when he had almost completed it, and was inside, the log broke the sticks used for spreading it apart, and squeezed out his life. THE BIRTH OF YEATL The sister of Kees-du-je-ae-ity Kah was in despair. The death of all her sons filled her with sorrow. She wandered along the beach, waking sad echoes by her pitiful wails. One day, while she was weeping alone, Tluk, the Crane, came to her and asked: ‘“ Why do you cry so constantly? ” “For my sons,” she replied. ‘‘ My brother’s cruel jealousy has slain them all.” Then the Crane, filled with pity, brought her a small, round, black stone, worn smooth by the tides, and bade her heat it red-hot in the fire, and then swallow it. “You will have a son,” said he, “who shall have the endurance of the stone and the vital heat of the fire.” She obeyed, and in due time the wonderful Yeatl was born. He was a very precocious child, and developed with great rapidity. YEATL AND His UNCLE Kees-du-je-ae-ity Kah was suspicious of his nephew from the first, and planned his destruction. When Yeatl was old enough he was sent, as his brothers had been, into the woods to fell trees and make canoes. With his greenstone ax he boldly at- tacked the great red cedars. The malignant trees shot their chips like arrows at him, but the hardness of the stone was in 292 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA his flesh, and the chips fell harmless to the ground. A huge splinter from a wind-riven stump darted at him like a giant’s spear, but was blunted and broken against him. The tall cedar toppled over on the other side from that to which it leaned, and fell upon him, but he tossed it aside as if it were a straw, and cut it into the proper length for a canoe. When he had hol- lowed out the log, and spread it by stout thwarts, that he might finish it inside with his stone adz, his uncle jerked out the thwarts, causing the canoe to spring back and catch Yeatl in the crack, and triumphantly walked away to his house thinking that the boy would certainly perish. But Yeatl spread the log with his hands as if it were moss, and sauntered carelessly into his uncle’s house. The old man was boiling water in a huge basket, woven of the fibers of spruce roots. He did this by heating great stones red-hot, and putting them into the water. Furious at Yeatl’s escape from the canoe, he seized him and plunged him into the steaming basket, clapped on the lid and boiled the boy all day. But Yeatl had two flat charm stones given to him by his unfailing friend, the Crane. These would keep him cool under all cir- cumstances. So he enjoyed his bath, and when the lid of the seething cauldron was lifted, he jumped nimbly out and went to the fire, rubbing his hands together in the blaze, and saying to his uncle, “ It is very cold in that basket; let me warm my- self by your fire.” One must always remember that the Thlingits and the Hydas had no written language, and these tales are pure traditions. Dr. William Henry Green, my Hebrew professor, used to talk about “ the vivid oriental imagination of the Hebrews.” The Thlingits are also Orientals, belonging to the same ethnological family as the Jews. Their fancies would always run away with them, and often the original story would disappear into pure invention. ———— a NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 293 THE CREATION OF MAN The earth was a dreary, desolate waste of rock and moun- tains and sand. Yeatl created the trees and grass, and all plants to clothe the naked earth with beautiful garments. He flew to mainland and islands, and worked until all were cov- ered with green forests. Then he resolved to make man in the likeness of his own original form. He took stones, and said to them, “Stand up; take shape, and walk as men.” They obeyed, but when they walked they rolled awkwardly from side to side, being heavy and unwieldy. Yeatl was not pleased, and cried, “‘ Lie down again.” They returned to stone. Then he took the lichens, hanging in festoons from the branches of the trees, and of this material he fashioned the first of the human beings, who thus got their lithe forms, and swift, light motions. Another form of this legend says that after Yeatl had made man out of stone he reflected that the race he had newly created would partake of the hardness of the rock and thus be im- mortal; and therefore he caused them to return to their original form, and then made man of the lichens, that he might be perishable, and the world not be filled too full. How YEATL Got THE SUN AND THE Moon The world was dark—only the dim cosmic light existed. There was no distinction of day and night. Nothing was clearly visible. Yeatl was wandering about once in search of food, when he came to the mouth of a river, and found a num- ber of beings called Tat-tu-quany (Night People), fishing. He asked them for some fish, but they refused. He begged and then threatened. They answered, “ We are not afraid of you; you have not the sun and moon; you cannot make day and night.” By this Yeatl understood that the Night People were afraid of the light, and dreaded the liberation of two objects called the sun and moon. By inquiry he found out that an old 294 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA chief called Tat-je-ae-ity Kah (the man who keeps the night) had the sun, moon and stars closely shut up in boxes in his large house. Yeatl set his wits to work to obtain them. The lord of the night had a grown daughter. Yeatl saw her make fre- quent visits to a certain spring for water. He made himself into the form of a spruce needle, floating with other needles on the water. When the girl came as usual for a drink she swallowed Yeatl. Thus she became with child, and in due time gave birth to a son. The old woman who took care of her, looking at the baby, said, “‘ His eyes look very much like those of a raven.” The lord of the night came and looked, and said, “‘ Yes, he has Yeatl’s eye, indeed.” Yeatl heard and trembled, but held his peace, and the old people had no suspicion of his identity. Yeatl grew rapidly, and became a spoiled and wilful child. Whatever he wanted he cried for and got. His grandfather doted upon him and humoured him in everything. The boy cried for the box that held the moon. His grandfather was loath to give it to him, but could not stand his yelling, and so yielded. Yeatl opened the box, and the moon escaped to the sky, causing great consternation among the Night People. Then the spoiled youngster cried for the box of stars, and after a delay, during which he drove his mother and grand- parents distracted by his screams, he got it, and presently let loose the stars. Last he began to cry for the sun. The lord of the night set his face like a flint, and held out a long time, but the boy made such a hullabaloo, rolling on the floor, shrieking and screaming, that his weary grandfather was forced to put the precious box into his hands, watching carefully, however, to see that he did not open it. Yeatl waited for his chance and, suddenly assuming his bird form, he flew up through the high smoke-hole of the great house, with the sun in his claws. The lord of the night called to his Yake, or familiar spirit who NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 295 guarded this avenue, and the spirit grappled with Yeatl, but could not hold him. The triumphant bird pursued and caught the fleeing moon and stars and, shutting them up in a box with the sun, went to the Night People and again asked for fish, and was again re- fused. He opened the box a little way, letting out a flood of light. The Night People were frightened, but still refused to yield their fish. Then Yeatl opened the box wider and set the sun, moon and stars to whirling in the heavens. The Night People, with screams and cries of terror, leaped in all directions to escape. Some sprang into the forest and became bears, wolves, deer and other animals; some plunged into the sea and changed to seals, otters, beavers, frogs; some leaped upward, and became birds of the air. Thus the animals were formed, and most of them still love the night and retain their fear of the sun. How YEATL Got FIRE The world was cold and dreary. Its inhabitants had no fires. The principle of heat did not exist in the flint or in dry wood. But far out in the Pacific Ocean, when the sun’s rays slanted, on calm mornings and evenings, fire shot up towards the zenith, and the surface of the sea showed a long path of flame. Yeatl saw the fire, and longed to get its heat for his shivering human children. He knew that he was not equal to the task of procuring it, and besides he was afraid of the risk to his precious long beak. He went to several birds, especially to those that had long bills, such as the crane and the plover, and tried to persuade them to go after the fire. But they were afraid and would not go. The screech owl, Kug, was a large snow-white bird with a very long beak, and was very swift of flight. He had a merry, lilting song, and was always whistling and singing. Yeatl visited him and began to flatter and wheedle him. “ Uh-kah-ny” (my brother-in-law), he said, 296 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA “you are very strong and swift. Will you not fly out to sea and get fire for the inhabitants of the land? ” “T cannot,” said the Kuq, “I am afraid. The fire would burn my beautiful nose.” “ Oh, no,” answered Yeatl. “ You shall not be harmed. If you lose your bill, I will get you another and a better one.” The owl at last consented to make the attempt. Yeatl made a torch from splinters of resinous wood, and bound it firmly to the owl’s long beak. When the fire shot up from the sea Kuq flew boldly out and, lighting his torch, turned back towards the land. Then his troubles began. The wind, in his swift flight, blew the dark smoke from the burning pitch backward and stained his white plumage brown. The fire began to scorch his beak before he got half-way to land. He would have thrown the torch into the sea, but Yeatl had bound the faggot so firmly along his bill that he could not loose it. The flaming pitch flowed around his cherished nose and burned it shorter and shorter. Yeatl, perched on a dry spruce on a high point, bobbing up and down in his eagerness, called from the shore, “Uh-kah-ny, Klukday, Klukday!” (Brother-in-law, make haste! ). When the owl got to the land there was nothing left of his torch but one live coal, and his long bill was burned off close to his head. Yeatl took the coal, and kindled a big fire with it. Then he struck the fire into all wood and moss, where the principle of heat has remained ever since, so that people have been able to procure fire by striking flint, and by rubbing sticks together. When the owl clamoured for his lost nose, Yeatl hunted up a devil-fish (nauk) and took his very short, curved, strong beak and, fixing it upon the owl, said: “ There, you have a much better nose than the one you lost.” But Kuq was not satisfied, and the other birds laughed at him; so ever since he has hidden in the dark forest for shame, and the blow to his pride shrunk NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 297 him in size until he is now only a small brown bird, and he comes forth only in the night, when he may still be heard plaintively bewailing his lost pride: ‘‘ Uk-kloo-o0-00-nuh Kut- sku!” (my beautiful nose! ). The screech owl is still gullible, and when you hear him at night wailing and moaning, if you will go out and hail him and hold up the bill of a crane, or even a stick shaped like a bill, and call, “ Here Kuq, don’t cry. Here is your beautiful nose,” then you will hear him laugh: “ Ha, ha, ha, ha!” Try it the next time you hear him wail. Various ADVENTURES Although the creator of man and the most important per- sonage of the later deities of the Thlingits, Yeatl was often re- duced to great extremities, and had to resort continually to all kinds of tricks and subterfuges to satisfy his insatiable appe- tite. He was a great fraud, and the applause with which the Thlingits receive the stories of his tricks shows a sad lack of appreciation of the sinfulness of deceit. Here are some of the minor adventures: Yeatl once got very hungry for fat. He saw a huge whale (yie) floating like an island upon the sea and diving into its depths. The sight of such an endless amount of blubber filled him with longing. He applied to Shiatle, the fishhawk, to catch the whale, but the fishhawk said, “I can do nothing with such a monster.” Then Yeatl conceived a bold scheme. He took pitchwood and flint, and hovered above the whale watching his chance. When the whale spouted Yeatl flew right in at the ‘“ blow- hole.” Down into the cavernous stomach of the monster he made his way and, kindling a fire, began to fry out the oil and gorge himself. Many days he spent thus cooking and eating, and grew very large and fat. However, this treatment did not agree with the whale, who sickened and died. But Yeatl had 298 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA grown so fat that he could not get out by the breathing vent, through which he had entered so easily. The whale drifted ashore. Yeatl shouted and cried for help. The people who flocked to the spot to get the blubber wondered at the noise made by the dead whale. With their knives they cut a hole through the skin of the great cetacean, but were surprised at finding no blubber, until Yeatl flew out, and mocked them from a secure height upon a tree, with his derisive “ Caw, caw! ” Yeatl gave the leopard seal his spots in this way: He saw the great fat father of all the seals sunning himself upon a sea- girt rock, and as usual began to covet his thick coat of fat. He took a piece of spruce gum in his hand and, approaching the seal, began to cajole him. After complimenting him on his size, strength, swiftness and beautiful silver colour, he said: “There is only one defect about you, and that is your short-. sighted eyes. Now I have here some medicine that will make your sight more perfect than that of any other creature.” His design was to blind the seal with the gum, and then kill him and eat him. But the wise seal suspected his purpose, and when the raven tried to stick the gum on his eyes he dodged. Yeatl made many attempts, but always missed the eyes of the lively seal until the ball of gum was all gone—distributed in little dots here and there all over the seal’s body. These are the spots which are still found on all his descendants. THE ORIGIN OF MOSQUITOES While mosquitoes are not felt in troublesome numbers on the islands of the Coast, they amount to a terrible plague in the valleys of all the rivers or in any part of the interior, and the farther you go north the worse they are. The origin of these pests is as follows: In ancient times there existed a very strong man having the superhuman power of Samson in Sacred Writ, or Quasind in the story of Hiawatha. Like them, this giant could do incred- AN OLD SOURDOUGH, PANNING FOR GOLD - : * ue ,. sujy- > fay @ if ~ te ; ne sy Oyo me A wee “. (eek Jiao i N ta ran Bia a ¥ + ae ’ as ry ’ 7 1 Pe ~—* ’ ' a j rt vl e° NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 299 ible things, such as darting great spruce trees like arrows to long distances, uprooting tremendous boulders and rolling them from the tops of mountains into the sea to become tree-covered islands, pushing aside the opposite rocky points of an island, dividing it into two islands and making a passage for his canoe, and many like feats. But, unlike Samson and Quasind, the Thlingit giant was very cruel and bloodthirsty. His most coveted food was the hearts of men, and his sole drink, their blood. All men dreaded this giant, and many plans were laid for his destruction, but it was found that he was invulnerable. Arrows and spears rebounded from his hide without harming him. It was known that he could be killed if his heart could be located, but where that organ existed was not known. At last, the place of the heart was found out in this way: A man, pretending to be dead, lay down on his blanket on the beach, holding his breath as he saw the giant approach. The monster felt of the man’s flesh and found it still warm. Then he began to exult and roar, “I will eat his heart and drink his blood.” He lifted up the man, who was limp, and let his head sag as if he were dead. The giant took him home and laid him down, departing to whet his knife and procure vessels for the blood. Immediately the man jumped up and seized a bow and arrow. The son of the giant came into the house just then, and the man pointed the arrow at the boy’s head saying, “ Tell me where your father’s heart is, or I will kill you.” The frightened boy answered, “ In his heel.” When the Indian Achilles returned, the man, who had con- cealed himself, shot his arrow through the giant’s heel, and the monster fell down in the convulsions of death. But before he died he roared: ‘“ Though you slay me, yet will I devour you.” The man assembled his friends, and they tore the giant’s house to pieces, making a great pyre, on which they laid the huge body, saying: “‘ We will burn him to ashes, and see then how his threat can be fulfilled.” 300 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA At the feast which followed the cremation the man took a handful of the giant’s dust and threw it into the air, exclaim- © ing: ‘ How, now, will you eat us up, O you giant? ” Immediately the dust of the giant sprung into life, and thou- sands of mosquitoes flew on the men, to drink their blood. And ever since the giant has been devouring his human enemies. The Hyda legends are more delicate and graphic than those of the Thlingits, and always have a moral attached to them. Their story of the peopling of the earth is one which has been graphically written in many a stone or wood carving of the Hydas. The lord of the tides was a man in shape, but lived a lonely life on the beach, digging clams and catching crabs for food. He longed for companionship. The clams in those days were huge fellows, some of them as large as a canoe. One day he was walking disconsolately along the beach when suddenly he heard a peculiar noise. It was a happy sound in different tones; it would burst out, and then there would be an interval of silence. At first he thought it was made by the laughing gull or a duck chuckling to her brood, or the piping of the little ducks or that of the sand piper. A great clam shell lay on the beach, but it was shut. While he was looking at it, suddenly it opened, and he heard happy laughter. Looking inside, he saw a row of baby boys and girls in the shell. He had a paddle in his hand and put it between the shells before they had time to close; then he gathered out the babies and took care of them until they grew up; and that was the way the Earth became peopled. THE GIRL IN THE Moon Our Hyda girl, Susie, told us this story, which was told to her by her grandmother in rebuke of an ugly habit she and her sisters had of sticking out their tongues at their elders when- ever they were prevented from doing what they wished: NATIVE MYTHOLOGY 301 The Moon had a plain white body without a spot on it. He was known to be prowling about the earth to catch somebody and take him or her into the sky for companionship. There was a bad little Hyda girl who was saucy and naughty and used to mock her grandmother by sticking out her tongue at her. “You had better not do that at the Moon, or he will come down and get you,” she said. Of course, this acted as a suggestion to the naughty child, and made her want to do the forbidden thing. One clear night she was sent out to a stream near by to get a basketful of water; she was lugging it home when suddenly she looked up and saw the Moon, and stuck out her tongue at it. Quick asa flash, the Moon came down and seized her. She struggled, and caught hold of a tuft of grass that grew by the path to hold herself down, but the moon was too strong, and took her up into the sky and fixed her upon his breast. There you can see her—a little girl with short, ragged dress, tresses flying, a tuft of grass in one hand and a basket with drops spilling out of the other. Susie said that she often wished to stick her tongue out at the moon, but was afraid he would come and get her. Of course, many of the legends were gross and vulgar. Often when story-telling time was on in an Indian house and I would try to get at the reason for the laughter that arose, they would refuse to tell me, instinctively knowing that the story would not please me. However, the assertion which I have heard frequently repeated that the native legends and even the carvings on the totem poles all had a hidden obscene meaning, is untrue. Most of the legends are clean and sweet, and can be wrought up into innocent stories for children, as has been done by one or two authors. The foul meaning is gen- erally given to these legends out of the obscenity in the prurient mind of the man who makes the assertion. XXIX LAST YEARS AT FORT WRANGELL ‘ , YITH the establishment of civil government for Alaska and the progress of the Thlingit Training Schools at Wrangell and Sitka, our work was simplified, in some respects, and complicated in others. No longer did the missionaries have to act as judges in civil and criminal cases, except in the outlying tribes. But at the same time with the transfer of such authority to the courts and com- missioners, came the harder work of inducing the people to change their mode of life and adopt the white man’s way of looking at things—to do what was right and decent for con- science’ sake. I still had to make many canoe trips to different parts of the Archipelago to install and instruct our native help- ers, and make and carry out plans for the construction of civ- ilized Christian villages instead of the old community houses. On account of our longer experience, the missionaries at Fort Wrangell had to act as instructors of the new and inexperienced teachers and missionaries who arrived from time to time from the States. Some of these were very green, indeed, people from city life who knew nothing of such conditions as those in which we had lived, and who were unable to adapt themselves to the Alaskan environment. While most of these new- comers were excellent, earnest and adaptable, there were some whose experiences were both ludicrous and lamentable. Before the organization of civil government and government schools the mission Board began to send missionary teachers who were supposed to establish schools and hold religious services until regularly ordained ministers should come. 302 LAST YEARS AT FORT WRANGELL 303 As the number of inmates of our training academy at Wrangell increased, there was greater necessity for laying in supplies of food. During the winter months the cod hooks, the herring rakes and the trolling hooks for king salmon were always employed. Our boys enjoyed life to the full when it was their turn to fish or to fill a canoe with crabs and clams. We invested in a herring net, which also served to seine salmon, and we had trawls for codfish, halibut, flounders and sea bass. At the proper seasons we took squads of the older boys and girls to Salmon Bay on Prince of Wales Island, or to Anan on the mainland, and put up large quantities of salt and dried salmon. We cured codfish and halibut, also. Herring we could always get fresh. In the spring, during the “ month of herring spawn,” we went to the proper beach, ten miles from Wrangell, cut and cast into the water, at low tide, spruce and hemlock branches, and drew them forth at next low tide, hung heavily with millions of herring roe. These branches were hung up to dry, and during the whole year the spawn, boiled and of snowy whiteness, formed one of the dishes most prized by our Indian children. Great quantities of blue berries, salal berries, red or black currants, naygoon, salmon berries and other small fruits were gathered, canned, dried or pressed into cakes for winter’s use. Reference must be made to expeditions to the gravel flats of the Stickeen River for the famous “‘ soap berries,” that strange fruit which must be dried and then beaten up until it forms a froth, which looks like pink ice- cream, but tastes very differently. In the fall of 1884 Mrs. Young made a visit to Portland, and she returned with a fine team of horses, a couple of cows, some pigs and a few sheep for our Pennsylvania Farm. The cows were the first that had been at Fort Wrangell, and they filled the natives with admiration, or with terror, according to their degree of sophistication. Our black and white Holstein, gentle as a kitten, scared almost to death old Snook, the famous Stick- 304 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA een bear hunter, who would stand up to a brown bear and kill him with a spear. This cow was feeding in the gateway of the Fort, and I was sitting in my office, when I heard a terrible hullabaloo—some one shouting, “ Uheedydashee, uheedydas- hee, Uh ankow, uheedydashee ” (Help me, help me, my chief, help me! ). I thought that some one was being. killed, and rushed out, to find old Snook dodging behind a stump outside the Fort, scared to death. When I asked him what the matter was he shouted in terror, “ Drive that thing away, drive it away! ” I put my arm over the neck of the cow, saying, ‘ Why, Snook, this is a showat wusoos (woman cow). She won’t hurt anybody.” But Snook replied, “‘ Oh, she know Boston man, but she does not know Siwash.’”’ And he would not stir from his stump until I drove the cow away. But the Indian children, as well as our own, enjoyed the milk, as they also enjoyed the potatoes, turnips, cabbage, cauli- flower, carrots, peas and other vegetables raised on our farm. The fall hunts were the chief events of the season. During my visit East and also by means of articles in our school paper, The Glacier, and in Church papers, I had set forth our need of good rifles and shotguns. Breech-loading rifles were just com- ing in vogue. We received as presents old Enfield and Sharps rifles, and a little later a good 45-.75 Winchester rifle. We ob- tained three or four excellent breech-loading shotguns. ‘The natives of Alaska not being allowed to possess breech-loading guns at that time, our weapons were a delight and wonder to them. During all of the fall months we were sending to the farm for various viands. The usual order was for a sack of potatoes, a sack of turnips and.a sack of ducks. Pennsylvania Farm was the gathering place for millions of ducks, and geese, and our boys were good hunters. I must be indulged in two or three hunting yarns: On one occasion my brother was alone at the farm with the a LAST YEARS AT FORT WRANGELL 305 exception of one of the boys, whose name was “ Shawnish ”’ (Old Father). The boy was so dull and stupid that it was hardly worth while to keep him at school, so he was, kept at the farm. But dull though he was, he was our best and most successful hunter. One day he took the ten-gauge shotgun and went out on the flats. My brother heard a single shot, and after a while Shawnish came in, calling, “‘ Please, Mr. Young, come out with chicchic”’ (wagon). “ What do you want with a wagon? ” James asked. “Oh, to bring my geese in,” he replied. “Geese? ” echoed my brother. ‘‘ You don’t need a wagon to bring in your geese. You fired only one shot. How many have you? ” “Oh, halo kum tux (don’t know). Delate hiyou (very many ).” My brother reluctantly harnessed up the horses and drove out a mile on the flat, and there he found nineteen snow geese, big white fellows with a little brown on their heads. The boy had wormed his way along the muddy slough until he was right amid a flock of many hundreds of the birds. When he arose with cocked gun the geese all stretched their necks high, preparatory to a hasty flight, and the big charge of BB shot from the ten-gauge shotgun raked along the heads, killing a wagon-load of the fine birds. That meant a lot of boiled and fried goose to fill our forty mouths and also feather beds and pillows for sleepy people. During the spring and fall there were frequent excursions after game in the mountains. There were mountain sheep on the near-by hills and even beaver and otter and big bears up the Stickeen and Iskut Rivers. But the big expeditions after deer in the fall were the great events in the life of our boys. I would take two canoes, each manned by three of the stronger boys, and at least four or five experienced hunters. We would select the most likely islands, not too far away, and send back 306 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA the game as fast as we obtained it to Fort Wrangell, where my brother and the smaller boys prepared the meat for smok- ing, drying and salting. Much of it was eaten by our hungry children while it was still fresh. On one trip, in two weeks’ shooting, we killed sixty-six deer, mostly on Gravina Island, opposite to what is now the town of Ketchikan. We saved every pound of that meat. I still long for a taste of Alaska venison—almost the best meat in the world. Although the deer are not so plentiful in Alaska now, still there are thou- sands among the islands of Alexander Archipelago. On this particular hunt we took with us a tall Nez Perce Indian, named Silas, whom we had brought up from Forest Grove to teach our boys carpentry. He was used to hunting deer on pony-back among the forests and hills of Idaho, but to walk through the brush and forests of Alaska dismayed and bewildered him. He got lost the first time he went into the woods, and had to be hunted up and rescued by the Thlingit boys. He killed one deer, a big buck, and after various at- tempts to bring in his game he gave up the task, and came back to camp. One of our stocky Thlingit lads had to go and carry in the deer. Our busy days at Fort Wrangell during those years had their tragedies as well as\their comedies. In 1886 I made a com- bined hunting and missionary trip to, the Tongass, Fox and the Kasaan natives among the southern islands of the Archi- pelago. I persuaded those tribes to band together and build a new Christian town after the Metlakatla style; andithe chiefs selected Port Chester on Annette Island, the site of an old Tongass town, which had been raided’! and burned by the Hydas in former times, as the point where the new Christian town should be built. I secured the approval of the Board for this project, and instructed Louie Paul, who was then liv- ing at Tongass, where Tillie, his wife, was teaching school, to go with Mr. Saxman, then employed as a government teacher . j . LAST YEARS AT FORT WRANGELL 307 at Loring on Revillagagedo Island, to go to Port Chester and lay off the new town and make their report to me and the Board. About Christmas time I received a letter from Mr. William H. Bond, collector at Port Tongass, containing the sad news that Professor Saxman, Louie Paul and an Indian boy on their way to Port Chester on this mission had been caught in a storm, and all had lost their lives. This dreadful catastrophe defeated our project to build a new town at Port Chester; and the following summer Father Duncan) visited that point and selected it as the site for his new Tsimpshean town. After a trip East with a number of his Christian young men and their musical instruments and specimens of the handiwork of his boys, he secured from the officials at Washington a lease of Annette Island for his people. Then, from such churches as the First Presbyterian and the Church of the Covenant in Washington City, Brown Memorial Church of Baltimore, Dr. John Hall’s church in New York, Henry Ward Beecher’s church in Brooklyn and Dr. Gordon’s great Baptist church at Boston, he secured about a hundred thousand dollars, and in the fall of 1887 he moved about' three-fourths of: his people from Old Metlakatla and established his famous colony. We had our joys and our sorrows, as well as these public duties. When'I returned from one of my hunts I found that my mother-in-law, Mrs. Abby Lindsley Kellogg, the sister of Dr. Lindsley of Portland, had passed away. ' The dear old lady had been left a widow by the death, at Whitehall, New York, of her husband, Rev. Lewis Kellogg, about 1882, and we had brought her to Alaska with us in the! fall of ’83. She was one of the sweetest old ladies I had ever' met, but helpless in her new environment, and she soon'followed her husband to the Better World. The birth of our third little daughter in March, 1885, brightened our home and gave us another precious one to live 308 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA and work for. But she did not remain with us long. The Occident of San Francisco printed this notice: “ DIED—In Oakland, California, June 4, 1887, Fannie Louise The youngest daughter of Rev. §. Hall Young and Fannie E. Young, of Fort Wrangell, Alaska. Aged two years, two months and twenty-six days.” Mrs. Young had| taken the baby a month before to San Francisco for treatment, as the! child’s health was delicate. She was a beautiful baby, and everybody loved her. The body was brought home to Wrangell, and Dr. Sheldon Jack- son, who was coming to Alaska on the same steamer, held services at the dock. Our friend, Captain Wilson, conducted the funeral at Wrangell. The following summary is taken from The Glacier telling why the child was loved so dearly by every one: Little Fannie was from her first days a remarkably sweet and lovable child. Patient, quiet, gentle and good, she drew all hearts to her. Her affectionate ways made her the pet of all. Even when her slow constitutional disease caused her to fade as a leaf, her sweetness of disposition was often remarked. She had an angel’s beauty of face and soul, even before she was taken to be one of those angels, indeed, who our Saviour says “do always behold the face of our Father who is in Heaven.” XXX GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL HEN I went to Alaska in 1878, I promised the mis- \ \/ sion Board that I would remain in their service for ten years. That was twice the length of time they required, but I felt then, wisely as it proved, that the longer period would be necessary for a full try-out of the plans I had made for that work. So, although with increasing impatience, I remained my full ten years. The causes of growing dissatis- faction were principally three: First, I was finding out the serious mistakes we had made— not only at Fort Wrangell but also at Sitka and at Indian missions in other parts of the United States. The worst of these mistakes was that of taking into our training schools scholars, especially young men, who were too old. These In- dian boys were possessed of a keen desire to get an education and to learn civilized ways; they were likeable fellows, and most of them were in real earnest; although, occasionally, we had to discharge those who we were convinced came to us just to find an easy living and to “loaf on the job.” But prin- cipally the habits of the old savage life, especially the universal vice of unchastity, made them unfit to be in a home of that kind, and vitiated our efforts to make clean Christian men of our boys. Our cry was that voiced by Jean Mackenzie in Africa: “Oh, for one virgin marriage among these people! ” While some of these young men and young women who had not had an unspotted past were married from the mission homes and lived respectable Christian lives thereafter, yet we were in constant trouble at both Wrangell and Sitka because of the rampant animalism of our young people. Only to those 309 310 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA we took in at a tender age could we point in after years with pride; and even among these were many sad falls. The present plan of government schools and religious or- phanages which start the children towards a clean and intel- ligent life from their first school years, followed by terms in the training schools from the age of eleven on to full man- hood and womanhood, is the only safe and sane plan. It is so much easier to prevent vice than to uproot it after it has grown into a tree. Many, many failures are to be writ- ten in the records of our first industrial schools in Alaska. But let it not be said that these schools were entiré failures. Great good was accomplished at Fort Wrangell by means of our Christian mechanics, James Young and George Barnes and, later, Mr. Lake, our shoemaker, who was also an accomplished band master. The boys were taught useful trades as well as the. rudiments of an English language. Our teachers, my cousin, Miss Lyda McAvoy; Miss Robinson, who within two years married Mr. Barnes; and Miss Chisholm, our house- keeper, assisted Mrs. Young in taking care of and training the girls as well as the boys. Since Mrs. McFarland had re- moved to Sitka with as many of her girls as would go with her, the girls in our Thlingit Training Academy at Fort Wran- gell were much fewer than the boys. But the labour of caring for thirty-five or forty children and youth was too great for our small force. The teachers were fagged and worried, and our resources inadequate. Even with the help received from the government, we always had insufficient funds. Second, the aid received from the government for these schools, while we worked hard to secure it and rejoiced at our success, proved to be a detriment to our work in Alaska as well as in other parts of the United States. It took the gov- ernment many years to recognize the evil of government aid for denominational schools, and to withdraw it. The growing demands of the Catholic Church for help from the government 8 % 4 ; GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL ~ 311 for their schools first awakened Protestant churches and mis- sion boards to the danger of such aid, and induced both Protestants and Catholics to acquiesce in the determination on the part of Congress to confine its efforts to giving Indian youth a polytechnic education in such schools as Carlisle, Hampton and Chemawa. Had we made the Fort Wrangell and Sitka schools simply mission enterprises, doing the best we could by the means procurable from these sources, I be- lieve the failures would have been fewer and the successes more numerous. While much good was accomplished with government aid, it was with joy, at least on my part, that we learned of the de- termination at Washington to discontinue all government sup- port of denominational schools. In 1888 we closed our training school at Fort Wrangell, sending some of our teachers, many of our pupils and our printing press and outfit of tools and machines, to Sitka, an action which centered all educational efforts of our Board in Alaska. The things accomplished during those ten years were many; we look upon them with pride and joy. The “old fashions ” had been almost completely eliminated at Fort Wrangell; the medicine-men, witchcraft, persecution, potlaches, the old re- prisal system, and especially heathenism, had been put down so completely that it had been several years since any of the Stickeens had dared to “ dream” that anybody was a witch. The church membership had grown until it included prac- tically all the adults in the place. The old community houses were fast disappearing, and neat cottages were replacing them. The transformation of the town was slow but quite remark- able. Government day schools, with good teachers, mostly nominated by our Christian missions, had taken the place of the mission day schools. The Sitka Training School had been strengthened and was a2 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA accomplishing much good and attracting the brightest youth of the Archipelago. Industrial schools at Howcan, among the Hydas, and at Haines and Juneau were following along the same lines. All of the principal tribes had efficient mission- aries and teachers; Christianity was triumphant—heathenism retreating. The salmon canneries, the gold mines at Juneau, the sawmills and other industries employed many natives at good wages. Steam launches were replacing canoes; white men’s ways of living were superseding the old rude, savage life. The Indians were progressing steadily, Alaska was becoming popular for its scenic trips and its opportunities for acqujring wealth, and especially for the success of its nian But the third reason for my determination to leave Alaska was the most potent. Always in the back of my mind was that advice from McKay when we were nearing the Wrangell dock in ’78, ‘‘ Don’t become an Indian.” The white population at Fort Wrangell was not increasing; a little handful of intelligent people, not more than six or ten, attended the white services. At first I preached in the mixed Chinook jargon; sermons translated by our “ interrupter ” into Thlingit; and then, falteringly, direct discourses in that tongue; in fact nine-tenths of my preaching efforts were in native tongues. I felt that I was deteriorating mentally and spiri- tually; that my habits of study were breaking down. I grew to have a horror of such services, instead of delighting in them. I wrote to the Board that if I continued to preach in Chinook and Thlingit, soon I would not be able to use the English language. I resigned my position as missionary to Alaska the summer of 1888. The Board was very reluctant to let me go, but I would not be persuaded, and set my face towards Southern California. My family followed in a few months, as soon as arrangements could be completed to transfer our plant to Sitka and to settle with the government. GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL 313 Our Indians at Wrangell and elsewhere were loud in their lamentations at our departure, and I think sincere in their expressions of regret and of personal affection. I shall never cease to love those natives and to work for their interests. I rejoice unceasingly that my steps were led to Alaska direct from the seminary and that I was able to accomplish much of that to which I set my hands. My mistakes were many, and I regret them, both those mentioned and more of which I cannot tell. But I was learning much of use to me in my future work and acquiring knowledge of my own deficiencies. Of my life during the nine years until my return to Alaska in 1897 I must speak briefly. First, I sojourned two years in Southern California as pastor of two little churches of Long Beach and Wilmington. The spring of 1890 brought an urgent letter from my sis- ter asking me to come back to old Butler, Pennsylvania, and see my best of all fathers, who felt that his time on earth was approaching its end. I obeyed the summons, and stayed with Father until his death, which occurred in October of that year. Remaining at Butler until spring, I spent a year supplying churches in Chicago and Cabery, Illinois, and then accepted a call to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where I remained as pastor for three years—1892-95—a fine pastorate among fine people. The intellectual companionship of that college town, for it is the seat of the State Normal School, brought back the joy of study and of sermon composition. One must do his best at Cedar Falls, or fall behind in the mental procession. The best of companionship, with abundant and successful work, made those three years a joy. In 1895 I was called back to my Alma Mater, the College of Wooster, Ohio, as professor of Biblical history and as pas- tor of the college church—Westminster—preaching for two years in this splendid missionary and educational center. I rubbed up against some of the brightest minds and the most 314 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA deeply spiritual souls in all the United States. During the whole of these nine years I was constantly lecturing on Alaska, keeping in touch with the missionaries and people of the Ter- ritory, and growing more and more homesick to get back to what John Muir called “ my beautiful, fruitful wilderness.” In the meantime the Klondike excitement had broken out. Marvelous stories of the discovery of gold in that mysterious land of enchantment were circulated. The whole world was excited; the new strike was exaggerated beyond all bounds. Companies were being formed, and great activity was mani- fest. I knew something about these gold stampedes from my experience with the Cassiar and Juneau gold seekers, and I began to write to our mission Board urging that they send experienced men to the Klondike to preach the Gospel to that horde of gold seekers. ‘“‘ There will be one of the greatest opportunities of the cen- tury,” I wrote, ‘and one of the most crying needs. These thousands of men rushing into the wilderness will present every phase of human need, physical, mental and moral; and the greatest need will be the Gospel of Jesus Christ intelligently preached and kindly put in practice.” At that time the people of the United States thought that at least the greater part of the Klondike was situated in Alaska. While it was known that there was strife between Canada and the United States over the possession of the Territory, most of the people of our country looked upon the Klondike as one of our possessions, and it was apparent that the great majority of the gold seekers were from the United States. The New York Tribune had a cartoon which expressed the sentiment of the country: There was a map of the Northland and the Klondike region, the greater part of which, according to the chart, lay within the borders of Alaska. The British lion was seated erect close by the line which divided the two countries; he was saying: “ J wonder if I couldn’t inch over a little? ” The GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL 315 truth had not then become known that the Klondike was all within the borders of Canada, and that a hundred miles, as the River Yukon wound, separated Dawson from Alaska. In May, 1897, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church met at Winona, Indiana. I was present at the meet- ing, although not as a commissioner. It was a great Assembly and noted especially for two things: The great speech of Dr. George L. Spining of New Jersey, nominating Sheldon Jack- son as Moderator of the Assembly, and the election of that gentleman by a decided majority. Dr. Spining’s speech will al- ways stand as a masterpiece of eloquence, and it carried the Assembly by storm. If I have had reason to be glad of any one turn of fortune in my long life, it is that I was not offered an appointment as governor of Alaska—which President McKinley is known to have considered making to me in 1897. I am a firm be- liever in the doctrine of predestination, although I cannot sub- scribe to most of the hard and unfeeling statements of the doc- trine; but that a wise and infinitely kind and good Providence manages the destinies of God’s chidlren is one of the creed points holding fast to which I have lived and will die. It sometimes seems to me that the Infinite takes a divine, I would almost say a humorous, pleasure in knocking over the fair fabrics of our plans, bringing our castles in Spain tumbling about our ears and substituting what we afterwards invariably recognize as a better plan. So in this case, I firmly believe that my usefulness, and that is to say my happiness, in the work that opened up before me in Alaska has been incomparably greater than if I had been appointed governor. Events marched rapidly in those rushing days of the Great Stampede. I was still writing to the secretaries of our Board urging them to send missionaries to the Klondike. Their re- plies were sympathetic, but intimated that the Board was deeply in debt and was prevented by its rule from appropriat- 316 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA ing money for new work and, therefore, a missionary could not be sent to the Klondike unless some one would especially give the sum required, as a gift, outside of the Board’s bud- get. Dr. McMillan, one of the secretaries, wrote that he was trying to secure such a donation; and very soon I received a telegram saying, ‘‘ Miss Frances Willard of Auburn, New York, says she will put up the money for the Klondike enter- prise if Rev. S. Hall Young will be the missionary.” I had been acquainted with this maiden lady by letter dur- ing my stay at Wrangell, and our mission had been the re- cipient of many favours at her hand. We counted her one of our most helpful friends. On receipt of Dr. McMillan’s tele- gram I called my elders and trustees together, resigned my charge, wired acceptance of the appointment, and as the sum- mer was waning and no time must be lost, I was ready to start northwestward within a week. Directly after sending his first telegram to me, Dr. McMillan sent another saying: “ Miss Willard wires that she thinks so much of you she will send to the Klondike a missionary physician to take care of you. Can you nominate such a man? He should be an educated physician and also, if possible, licensed to preach, that he may help you in your evangelistic work.” ‘It was hard to find such a combination of qualities in any one man, but it happened that Rev. Dr. S. J. Nichols of St. Louis, who was a member of the Home Missions Board, was in New York that week, and when Dr. McMillan stated the case to him he said: “ We have in our Presbytery a young man who is a graduate of a medical college and also a graduate of one of our theological seminaries. We licensed him this spring for one year as evangelist. He applied to the Foreign Missions Board to go as medical missionary, but was not ac- cepted. Perhaps he would go to the Klondike.” Dr. McMillan telegraphed the young man, whose name was George McEwan. He accepted, and in a week we met in Chi- GOOD-BYE, WRANGELL 317 cago and started on to the Klondike together. My prepara- tions at Wooster were hastily made. Half of my salary was left to take care of my family, my daughters being in the preparatory department of the college. My family was to remain at Wooster while I launched on my second great ad- venture. I had a fine “ send-off” from my congregation, and it was “ Northwestward Ho” again, with eager desire to see my majestic mountains and lovely islands once more. XXXI THE GREAT STAMPEDE OT since the stirring days of 1849-50—the days of N the California gold rush—had anything like the gold excitement of 1897 struck the country. In- deed, the whole world was aroused. The fat gold pokes brought out from that mysterious land of the North in the fall of 1896, and over the trail during the winter, had stirred the ~ imagination of thousands. ‘The frontiersmen of California, Colorado and Oregon led the van of the army, which went dashing across the Rockies and the plains of the West by the transcontinental lines, and by steamer to Panama and then up the Pacific Coast, and even by vessels from New York and Philadelphia, which took the longer and slower route around Cape Horn. But most of the stampeders were “ tenderfeet,” of all trades and professions, a majority of them men of intelligence and imagination, who were lured to the Northwest more by love of adventure than by lust for gold. Those from the States gathered at San Francisco, Portland and the two young cities of Tacoma and Seattle on Puget Sound. The Canadians cen- tered at Vancouver. The enterprising merchants and steam- boat men of Seattle offered inducements, and got the largest crowds. Every train of the newly completed Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railways was crowded with passengers, and special trains were rushed to the Northwest Coast. Dr. McEwan was entirely ignorant of all matters pertaining to our journey across the mountains, and I had to transact all the business. I left him at Tacoma and took train to Port- land. The man from whom we had bought our groceries in 318 THE GREAT STAMPEDE 319 former days was William Wadhams, the “ singing elder,” one of the pillars of the church at Portland. I notified him by wire of my plans, and he quickly compiled a list for a rush order of necessary foods, principally flour, bacon, beans and such essentials. I included in my Portland purchases blankets, mackinaw suits, and a tent and materials for camping. Several routes to the new diggings were exploited by dif- ferent companies. A great fleet of little river steamboats had been hastily built and were being launched at San Francisco, Portland, and Tacoma to sail across the North Pacific Ocean through Unimak Pass and Bering Sea to St. Michael—2,300 miles from Tacoma; thence to stem the rapid current of the Yukon River for eighteen hundred miles more to Dawson City. Experienced navigators at Portland, and my knowledge of the long winter and early freezing of the Yukon, convinced me that it was useless to try the longer route, if we aimed to spend the next winter in the Klondike. I decided to take the “ Queen,” which was to sail in a few days from Tacoma, and I directed our goods to be shipped to that point at once. Tak- ing stock of the money furnished us, I was convinced that we had not enough to take our outfit across the passes. There- fore, by the advice and help of friends in Portland, I tele- graphed East, and received by special gift five hundred dollars more. Rejoining the little doctor at Tacoma, I did as all the other Klondikers were doing—purchased a knock-down boat there, and shipped it with our goods. I knew nothing of the new camp of Skagway, but did know something of the route up the Stickeen River, which was being exploited. I thought I could get my old friend, John Colbreath, of Telegraph Creek on the Stickeen River, to take us and our outfit by pack-train to Lake Teslin on what was known as the Hootalinqua Route. I bought our tickets to my old town of Wrangell. But on rejoining my companion at Tacoma, I found him set upon sailing the longer way, via Bering Sea, St. Michael 320 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA and the Yukon River. Knowing well that we could not make Dawson by that route before winter set in, I, of course, in- sisted upon the direct route up the Coast. He was very much displeased, and almost decided to take his half of the outfit and sail to the westward. It was the twelfth of August when we left Wooster, and ten days later when we boarded the steamer “‘ Queen ” at Tacoma bound northwestward. Most of the passengers got on board at Seattle; the dock was almost breaking down with eager passengers and their friends. The officers of the steamship company, reinforced by special police, had all they could do to prevent the hundreds who had no tickets, but were deter- mined to get on board anyhow, from having their way. As it was, the boat was greatly overcrowded. All the berths of the cabins, hastily constructed bunks in the steerage and on the decks, and improvised sleeping places in the social hall, smok- ing room and even on the dining-room tables, were filled by the thronging passengers. I discovered that the captain of the “Queen ” was our old friend Captain Carroll, the ‘“ King of Alaska.”” While we were watching the scramble at Seattle of those who were coming aboard, I was astonished and delighted to see my dearest friend, John Muir, the great naturalist, with two other tree experts coming up the plank. These three men had been making a reconnaissance of the trees of Canada and were to complete their labours in Alaska. Muir took his place by my side, seemingly as joyful at our meeting as I was, and vastly amused at the appearance of the crowd of gold seekers and their outfits. “A horde of fools,” he called them. ‘‘ Babes in the woods would not be more bewildered than these chechacos. How are they going to get all that stuff over the mountains? And look at their shoes—do they expect to climb over the rocks shod like that? And that tent, why it will weigh a hundred and fifty pounds! See the heavy stoves and bulky cooking THE GREAT STAMPEDE 321 utensils! The sheaves of picks and shovels, and the great boxes of tools! I don’t envy you your job of proclaiming the Gospel to such a mob. Why, it’s like preaching to a pack of wolves! ” “T look upon them as my parish; and a most interesting parish it is,” I replied. ‘ Immortal souls, all of them. Why, every kind of human need and human suffering is typed in that crowd.” At Port Townsend Muir got a number of telegrams from San Francisco. Two of the papers there offered him whatever sum he would name if he would join the Klondikers and go into Dawson as their reporter. ‘The telegrams were very urgent, but Muir handed them to me, laughing: ‘‘ These men must think I am a fool, like the rest of this crowd, asking me to leave my nature study and join that mob! Here—you take these. I'll recommend you as a reporter in my place; you will be well taken care of by these people, and all you will have to do is to write them a letter now and then.” I laughed in my turn. “I imagine my hands will be full with my ministerial work,” I said. “ I can’t combine the duty of a reporter with that. Joaquin Miller has already started into the Klondike as a reporter for this paper; are they not satisfied with him? ” “You do not know Miller,” Muir replied, “or you would not ask that question. He may be a great poet and is, but he is utterly unfit for a job like that, and the editors know it. Miller’s disability is this—he cannot tell the truth or dis- tinguish between truth and falsehood. His imagination is al- ways running away with him. The pictures flashed on the screen of his fancy are more real to him than every-day facts. He will tell tremendous stories and describe imaginary events most enchantingly, but the papers and the public want facts about the Klondike rush—statistics, data on which to build their stories. That Miller cannot and will not give.” 322 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA The trip up the Coast, in spite of the crowded vessel, was all joy to me—the deepest pleasure I had experienced for nine years. And to have Muir by my side again to help me see and understand the mountains, the islands and the forests! His eye was so keen and his memory so unfailing that he was always pointing out new landslides, fresh growth, the melting of the ice and the decline of the glaciers, and other evidences of change since we last had witnessed these scenes. “ The Al- mighty is working fast,” he said. ‘‘ He pushes His landscape gardening here faster than anywhere else. It will be a new Coast in another half-century. The old wilderness will be suc- ceeded by a new one; and if selfish men do not come in to mar it, the new world will be still more beautiful than the old. But I fear money-grabbers will have their way in many places and spoil our fine Northwest.” At Fort Wrangell I was greeted most warmly by my old Indian friends and by a few of the whites I had known. But a message from John Colbreath upset my plans. His little pack-train was entirely inadequate for the demands made upon it, and the Teslin route to the Klondike was impracticable. Our goods had to be reshipped to Skagway, and our plans readjusted. Across the table as we ate our meals sat a striking couple, Major and Mrs. J. F. A. Strong of Tacoma. He had been editor of a paper at Tacoma, and with his wife was bound to the new field. Like myself, he had shipped his goods to Wran- gell and had had to reship them there. We formed a friend- ship then that has continued unabated to the present time, as we have followed each other to Skagway, Dawson, Nome, Catalla, Iditarod and later to Juneau, where the Major ruled as governor of the Territory for a term. Major and Mrs. Strong and we camped together at Skagway, and among my pleasant and inspiring friendships I count theirs as in the front rank. THE GREAT STAMPEDE 323 That landing at Skagway—who could forget it? A little nook in the shore at the end of Lynn Canal, that strange body of water which, with its continuation of Chatham Strait, pierces the islands straight as an arrow for two hundred miles. Many were the questions from the tenderfeet, before we en- tered, as to who had constructed the canal, what bodies of water it united and when it was completed. These questions were all answered gravely by the officers and old-timers, and great stories out of their imaginations of immense sums of money expended on the Coast engineering schemes were poured by jubilant story-tellers into the credulous ears of the new- comers. Many descriptions have been written of the new camp at Skagway and its crowds of bewildered gold seekers. As I have attempted to describe these scenes in a former volume, I will not repeat any detailed description.’ But there was the little windy city, whose name, “ Skag- way,” is a corruption of the Thlingit word “ Skoogwa,” which was the cognomen of a mythical old woman who lived in a valley a few miles back from the beach, and who had in her lungs and cheeks the fierce north wind with which she blew away the snows as fast as they fell, thus keeping the valley free from the drifts and the deep snowfalls found at other points on the Coast. The white people supplemented this fancy by one of their own, which said: “ All the winds in the world blew up Lynn Canal, in the summer, and down, in the win- ter.” Into this camp were dumped within a few weeks some twenty-five thousand people, not one in twenty of whom had previously experienced anything like his present condition. There were no docks or wharves, no houses or stores—just a confused camp in the woods. Our goods were gotten ashore on hastily constructed lighters, every man looking after his *The Klondike Clan, Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. 324 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA own goods and piling them on the beach wherever a clear space offered. Miles and miles of those goods, thousands of tons of them; tents hastily pitched under the trees or on the bare sand. Many of these tents and piles of goods were landed at low tide on the beach, and stacked on the sands and gravel by those ignorant of the tides. The owners would frantically snatch up and carry back their goods when the rising tide threatened to engulf them. Horses and mules for packing pur- poses, hand carts, steam trucks, motor sleds for the trail, bar- rows, and hundreds of other appliances utterly impracticable, strewed the beach. Men were racing back and forth or hik- ing up the trails, crazy with anxiety to get their outfits over the mountains. I was lucky to find an old Wrangell friend, Mr. Moore, who was the builder of the only log cabin erected at Skagway. He greeted me heartily, showed me a place which he had kept clear in front of his cabin, and invited me to pitch my tent there. ‘‘ Help yourself to anything you see in the house,” he said, “ but don’t carry any of my cooking utensils away.” He even gave me dry wood for my first fire. Major Strong and his wife and a few other friends occupied the same lot with me. This was the strange beginning of one of the great ex- periences of my life. I count this stampede the most interest- ing, if not the finest of all my adventures in the Northland. It had not the charm of the new discoveries made with Muir, but it had more variety and there was more in it to call out all that was strongest and best in a man, of service to his fellow-men. The scenery about Skagway is varied and majestic. - The much abused term “ picturesque” can be better applied here than to most places on the Coast. The narrow channel of Lynn Canal stretches southward between shoulders of granite. These rise into jagged peaks, the great rugged Indian profile of Face Mountain, the highest peak of all south of the town, TIVUL SSVd ALIHM HHL NO DNIHSOAW 8 a% ra a t- THE GREAT STAMPEDE 325 with other peaks called Bear Mountain, and Harding Peak. To the east the twin peaks, and back of the town the A B Mountain, so called because in the spring the snow in the gorges outlines the first two letters of the alphabet—giving name to the Arctic Brotherhood, organized at Skagway and afterwards at all the principal towns of the Northwest. To the west, on another prong of the bay three miles away, was the camp of Dyea, which was the beginning of the Chilcoot Pass. Up the valley from Skagway stretched White Pass, as it was called, where the most strenuous struggle to get over the mountains took place. The mob was in too great a hurry to take time to make the trail passable. Narrow gorges with precipitous sides, sharp masses of granite rocks sliced off by glacier action and erosion from the mountain sides and piled in the gorges; sharp edges and points of rock to be scrambled over, with no possible way over or around them. And here were thousands’ of horses ready to be laden with goods and driven through these gorges and over these high mountain shoulders. There was no leader- ship, no one to direct the mob. Plenty of packers, but no road to pack over. Hundreds of wagons, but no time or place to make wagon roads—a dazed and baffled crowd of tenderfeet, looking with dismay upon difficulties of which they had never dreamed. When we arrived at Skagway we expected to go over! the mountain by the White Pass. The first day I took a walk of some twenty-five or thirty miles, to the summit and back. It took the hard scramble of an experienced mountaineer, as I was by that time, merely to get myself to that summit and return. Every few rods on the lower trail I would pass a pile of goods which had been “ packed ” so far by the owner. Most of these goods—such as boxes of fresh fruit, canned tomatoes and other canned vegetables, canned fruits and cases of con- densed milk, sacks of rice and beans—most of these were 326 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA destined to. remain here, deserted by their owners, or packed back to Skagway by those who would take the trouble to salvage them. But the poor horses! The carcasses of thousands were ly- ing in the gorges or fallen among the rocks, with their packs still under or on their backs, the victims of the greed: for gold. I witnessed one veritable avalanche of horses into Dead Horse Gulch, the pity of which will never pass from my mind. There was a zigzag of short turns, up which were toiling a pro- cession of heavily laden horses. Near the top of the zigzag, where the path rounded over a shoulder of rock for a little way, toiled a large bay horse. Suddenly he slipped and fell, knocking over the horse next to him, and these rolled over and over down the hill, coming immediately into contact with one after another of the string of horses, these bowling each other . over in turn until there were twenty or more horses falling, lacerated by the sharp stones, slashed into living steaks by the knife-like edges of rock and, landing in the gorge not more than ten feet wide, where the stream was roaring, filled: that gorge with mutilated and dying horses and their packs. The screams of those poor animals still ring in my ears. Not only here, but in other places on the trail, like scenes had taken place, and I was told by the packers that it would take weeks to clear out the jam and make the way passable for horses. Most of them announced their determination to give up the White Pass, and transfer their goods to Dyea, and try the Chilcoot Pass. One man told me, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, “There goes all the money I was able to raise by mortgag- ing my farm in Iowa. I can’t go into the Klondike without any grub, and my grub-stake is all gone. I have no money to pay my way back home; I used it up on my outfit and in buying my horses and getting this far. Now it is gone. I shall have to work my way back on the steamboat to Seattle, THE GREAT STAMPEDE 327 and there try to make enough to send me back to my farm.” Many others told like tales. I had already negotiated with a man at Skagway, who owned a lot of horses, to pack my goods to Bennett at the rate of thirty cents a pound. He said, “If you will wait a month I will keep my contract with you and get your goods over, but there is no need of my killing my horses in a useless attempt just now.” “T shall go to Dyea,” I replied, ‘and try it from that point.” So I directed him to take back to Skagway the few of my goods he: had packed three miles up the trail, and I made all preparations to try it again from Dyea. Three thou- sand horses were killed in a few weeks on the White Pass be- fore the trail was put in safe condition. I had my knock-down boat with me and with the assistance of Captain Wilson, who had been the customs collector at Wrangell, and who had brought a schooner load of lumber to Skagway, I put my boat up, and calked it myself. I held an open-air meeting our first Sunday at Skagway in front of my tent. I had found a few Christians, and had with me a number of Moody and Sankey hymn books, and we had congregational singing. But it was preaching to a proces- sion of dogs, horses and men, that I did. The mass of stam- peders, regardless of their home habits, were too busy to stop long enough to hear a sermon; only a few faithful ones sat on logs or on their blankets in the open, and joined in the services. It was my inauguration into the task of preaching the Gospel in the wilderness. I enjoyed it in spite of the confusion, but I doubt whether any of the excited men heeded the sermon. By this time I had picked up a few friends, who like me were to try the Chilcoot Pass, and were busy knocking their boats together to ferry their goods to Dyea. When I had finished my boat we loaded our goods, in weight about two tons. We invited Major Strong and his wife into our boat, and 328 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA rowed the three miles to Dyea. The Major had found it im- ' possible to attempt the trail that fall, and had decided to start a paper at Skagway. So he and his wife secured a lot and were preparing to build a house upon it. When they had helped land us and our goods on the beach at Dyea, I presented the boat to Mrs. Strong, and they used it occasionally during the winter that followed, and especially to ferry their own goods to Dyea in the spring when they in turn took the Chil- coot Pass for the interior. Dyea was a much older settlement than Skagway. In the early 80’s a trading post had been established there by J. J. Healy, who was a manager for the Alaska Commercial Com- pany’s store at Dawson that first year. Mr. Healy had been at Fort Wrangell engaged in trading with the Indians, and the post at Dyea was designed to supply the Chilcats with the goods they used in trading with the interior Indians. These Chilcats had made a trail over the Chilcoot Pass, which trail the first prospectors who went into the Yukon Valley over the mountains had used. When the Klondike stampede began a number of the lucky ones brought out their dust over that trail and gave the news of the strike to the world. I was surprised to find there an old friend, Mr. John Grant. I had known him when he was the partner of John Colbreath of Telegraph Creek. He was a big, red-faced Englishman. He had been elected mayor of Victoria, B. C., after I had known him at Wrangell, and was quite a prominent character in British Columbia. Here he was running a pack train again, and, as he said, “‘ Was making his Klondike right there.” I contracted with him for taking our goods to Sheep Creek, and he gave me a special rate. To the stores at Dyea we brought our goods, to have them weighed preparatory to loading them upon our horses. The scales were presided over by another old friend, no less than the half-breed Billy Dickinson, my first helper and interpreter at Wrangell, who had been one of THE GREAT STAMPEDE 329 my crew on the second voyage with Muir. I have always thought that Billy favoured his old pastor in the matter of weighing my goods, but if Mr. Grant knew of the short- weight he said nothing. The trail from Sheep Camp was comparatively easy, al- though it was rough enough, but the gorge in its lower part is not so rugged, and there was not such an abundance of sharp rocks and of steep side hills. Sheep Camp was at the forks of the Dyea River and in a somewhat extended flat. There was a tent roadhouse, with many bunks in it for the accommodation of travelers. I packed my Klondike stove on my back to Sheep Creek and made relays of all the goods I could carry, during the two days we spent in transporting our goods that way. At Sheep Camp we found a number of men, mostly big Swedes and Norwegians, who were also finding their Klondike on the trail. These men either lacked sufficient funds to take them to the Klondike the first year, or found it so lucrative to pack other men’s goods that they had given up the trip to the Klondike that fall and were engaged in packing. I found that these packers were striking every few days for higher and higher wages. Some of them were making thirty and forty dollars per day, but they saw chances of making forty and fifty. XXXIT THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST LL who have essayed to write stories on the Stampede A of 97-98, including Jack London, Rex Beach, Robert Service and, least, myself, have felt obliged to spend much time on the White and Chilcoot Passes. The reason for this is that right there was the crux of the whole stampede. In 1849-50 the romance and adventure of the California gold rush centered upon the weary trekking, the alkaline plains, the thirst, the weariness and more especially the fights with the Indians. The thousands who persisted, and struggled and fought their way through to the first American Eldorado, were as nothing to the tens of thousands who turned back in Mis- souri, Nebraska and Colorado, or perished on the Western stretches. To the same degree the Chilcoot Pass was the sieve through which the fine flour was sifted, the gold rocker which was to separate the nuggets from the worthless gravel. The thousands of stampeders whose money was gone when they reached Tacoma and Seattle and turned back eastward; the other thousands who got themselves and their outfits to Skagway and Dyea and there looked at the trail and the mountains, and quit—these were almost exceeded by the other thousands who tried these fearful passes and were defeated by their difficulties. It was all in the spirit of a man—not in his physical make-up. Slim young boys who had stampeded from college, clerks from city offices, soft-handed lawyers, doctors and other professional men, these were more apt to be found at Dawson that fall than the horny-handed farmers and me- chanics who had started out on the same quest. The men of imagination were the winners. The men who fell down, got up 330 THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 331 again, joked about their predicament and tried it once more, were the men who succeeded. The grumbler, the man who knew it all, and the egoist, these failed; the optimist won. The contrasts between the personal character and the atti- tude towards life of the travelers on the trail, and of the same men after they had won through to the Klondike, were striking. Selfishness, disregard for the rights of others, greed, anger over trifles, the falling out of lifelong friends—these were common scenes on the trail. A great charity, the disposition to help those who were in trouble, indomitable cheerfulness, these characterized the man who “ stuck it out ” and went through. It is hard to go on with my personal story without giving an impression of boasting. I can see many mistakes made by my- self during that stampede. If I had it to do over again, I would do it better; but this resolution stayed with me all the long way to Dawson and afterwards—if I felt discouragement, not to show it to others; if I saw a man in distress, to try to help him; always to keep in mind my mission, which was to help alleviate every case of spiritual, mental or bodily distress. To lighten men’s burdens—that was my call, and I tried to heed it. I kept an open hand to feed those who went hungry because they had not possessed the foresight to provide prop- erly. The frequent cases of illness we found on the trail, such as typhoid fever, pneumonia, lumbago, meningitis, had to be cared for, or at least an effort made to alleviate the pain by means of the medicines we had along with us, by personal attention and by obtaining the help of the mounted police when we reached Canadian territory. In many cases these acts of kindness proved to be bread cast on the waters, and found “after many days.” One case was that of Mr. LaRoche, an accomplished photog- rapher who was taking pictures of the trails and the stam- peders. He found me at Skagway and partook of my hospital- ity there in my camp. He came to me again and again as I 332 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA was packing my Klondike stove on my back, making camp ahead of my packers and cooking for them. LaRoche liked my biscuits and my way of cooking beans and bacon. And the enormous amount of these articles which he could stow away in his gaunt form would have astonished one, anywhere else! He would extend his journey ten miles farther than planned in order to get to my camp and eat of my cooking. All through my life since, the splendid pictures which La- Roche made and gave to me, hundreds of which I have had made into striking lantern slides, have helped me in my lectures and have been a boon to the Church. Those meals given to a hungry man have brought a thousand-fold return. The giving of a piece of string at Crater Lake to Phil Sheridan, the nephew of the famous general, resulted in a fine friendship—and in several good meals when I was most in need of them. Help af- forded to a young fellow whose cayuse had shaken off the awk- ward pack until it hung under its belly, the young fellow being wedged with his horse in a small nook beside the trail and un- able to help himself, resulted in the first religious impressions the young man had experienced, and in his ultimate conversion to an earnest Christian life. The spiritual problems of the trail far exceeded in impor- tance the physical obstacles, such as slippery rocks, precipitous slopes, steep ascents and muddy swamps. The strain of mind was far more severe than that of muscle. It took us nearly two weeks to traverse the thirty miles from Dyea to Bennett. It cost me fifty cents a pound to get our outfit that distance. At Sheep Camp and after we had topped the summit, I became convinced that we could not afford to take our whole outfit all the way to Bennett. Our money was getting low, and the winter of the interior was fiercely rushing on its way to meet us and lock the gate to the gold fields by freezing the upper stretches of the Yukon. We must either leave half our goods on the trail, a total loss, or run the risk THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 339 of spending the winter far from our goal or of fleeing back home defeated. I made the resolution to go in “short of grub,” and take my chances. I kept my packers contented by feeding them well, while other packers were striking day after day for higher and higher wages, getting their employers in tight places and then squeez- ing them. Mine stayed by me loyally, and landed what goods I chose to keep, in good condition on the shores of Lake Linde- man. At Crater Lake, that granite cup of cold water on the summit of Chilcoot Pass, I lost my most valuable package, my box of little scarlet paper-covered hymn books. Knowing the rain and snow we would encounter, I had this package done up neatly in black oilcloth. It looked and “ hefted ” like valu- able hardware. Somebody coveted it, and packed it off in the night. I imagine the rocks were pretty blue from the profanity of the thief when he discovered he had stolen nothing more val- uable to him than hymn books—but he did not bring them back. I heard the following summer from one of the Ninety- Eighter’s of the discovery of little books, reduced almost to pulp from exposure to rain and wind, among the rocks of the summit. When we reached Lake Lindeman, the small, narrow bow] of clear water which lies above the larger Lake Bennett, we paid a man who had just finished building a boat, to row our goods to the little neck of land which separates the two lakes. I passed my fiftieth birthday at Lake Bennett. It was cele- brated in primitive style by a little party given me by Mrs. Harry Scovel. Harry, a reporter for the New York World, was the son of President S. F. Scovel of Wooster College. His wife had been a belle of society in St. Louis. Here she was, freckled like a boy and dressed like one, holding jolly court for the gold seekers whom she had met by the way. Harry did not go farther than Lake Bennett, having been recalled by his paper that he might be sent to Cuba to report 334 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA the war of that island with Spain. Mrs. Scovel was learning how to cook and bake on her Klondike stove, and she made a wonderful “ birthday pie ” for me. Of course, we all praised it. Our outfit had been reduced to less than a ton in weight, and the problem was to get it and ourselves down the river to Dawson. The snow was beginning to fall at Bennett, the city of tents encircling the head of the little blue lake. The prob- lem of the five or six thousand men who had reached Bennett was to get lumber, build boats and launch them before the freezing of the lakes. Everything at Bennett had been packed on the backs of men, with the exception of a few heavier articles which had gone earlier in the season on horses and mules over the White Pass. There was no machinery brought to the lake. The only way to get the lumber was by what was called the ‘Armstrong Sawmill.” The lumber was whip- sawed by hand. My shoulders ache yet when I think of the hours I spent up on top of a log, which reposed on a frame seven or eight feet high, pulling the whip-saw up while a stronger man below pulled it down through the log. I was helping a couple of men whose acquaintance I had made on the trail to make lumber for a boat big enough to hold their outfit and ours. Soon it began to dawn upon us that we were not going to succeed in our attempt; the lumber was made so slowly and the winter was coming so rapidly that we feared failure. Still we kept at work, until my plans were sud- denly changed by the little doctor. An old Klondiker by the name of Sullivan (‘“‘ Black Sullivan,” he was called because of his complexion, and afterwards “ Whiskey Sullivan ” from his occupation) had constructed a scow, and was advertising for passengers. Without my knowledge he approached Dr. Mc- Ewan and persuaded him to hand over a hundred dollars to secure our passage on his scow. I tried to get the money back from Sullivan, but he only laughed at me. There was nothing to do but to bid good-bye to my friends of the ‘“ Armstrong THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 335 Sawmill ” and allow them to put up a smaller boat, sufficient to hold their own outfit, while I got our goods on board Sul- livan’s scow and took that means of reaching our destination. There were ten of us who were passengers, with our outfits, on the scow. Sullivan had another scow which he was launch- ing and which was loaded with whiskey, brandy and beer for the thirsty Dawsonites. I did not know of this other scow until we were on our way. Sullivan was captain of the whis- key scow, and named a Scotchman as our captain. His name was Archie ((I do not know his surname), but he had never boated on a river, and knew nothing about such navigation. The troubles we experienced on this voyage of nearly three weeks were many. We had rigged a great square sail on the scow, and it was provided with long sweeps, with a very large one for a rudder, requiring two men to handle it. I cannot dwell upon that voyage down the Yukon. ‘The plan was for the two scows to keep near each other, and when- ever practicable to camp together. This arrangement gave our captain, Archie, the opportunity that he desired more than anything else in life—to get very drunk each night on Sul- livan’s liquor. The passengers were a rather good lot. There was one woman on board, a Mrs. McDonald, the wife of a Scotchman whose brother had a claim on Eldorado Creek. Her husband and a third brother were going in to work for the lucky one, and to find claims for themselves. There was Pete, a hearty, tobacco-chewing, rough but big-hearted working man. His partner, “Shorty,” was also genial and good- hearted, but the master of a most remarkable and varied pro- fane vocabulary. A Polish Jew named Simon was of the party. He was very lazy but most devout, and it was a curious circumstance that whenever there was a specially hard bit of navigation before us which required the services of every man from daylight till dark, Simon’s holiday interfered, forbidding him to do any 336 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA work. We bore with his religious scruples for a while, but after he had received a good drubbing from one of the other passengers he concluded that he was exonerated from blame for working on account of ‘“‘ compulsion,” and did his stunt thereafter, though unwillingly. Of the other men who made up the party on our scow, two were Protestant Christian men, the McDonalds being devout Catholics. We had no trouble with one another, except with our captain. After a day or two of his inefficiency, enhanced by his intoxication, we mutinied, and elected one of the McDonalds as our captain. Launching our craft in a fair wind, we bowled along at a _ good rate through the long lake to a shallow, marshy stream called Caribou Crossing, then through the larger Lake Tagish, and into a stream called Tagish River. Here we had to halt and be inspected by the mounted police. This was my first acquaintance with that famous body of wilderness police whose heroism and romantic adventures have been exploited for half a century in romance and story, and of late in a multitude of moving-picture films. While sharing the universal admiration for this splendid body of men, I began to be disillusioned here at Tagish. We were all supposed to pay a tax in compensa- tion for the “‘ protection ” we were to receive, on our journey, from the mounted police. The officers at Tagish had every- thing in their own hands. They assessed us according to their own judgment and the estimate that they were able to put upon the size of the traveler’s purse. Some they unmercifully “cinched,” while others they let through free or upon small payments of money, supplemented by liquor. I happened to’ have a letter of introduction to the chief officer, given me by a member of their force at Skagway, and this letter secured me favour, and I had to pay only ten dollars to get my goods entered into Canadian territory. While at Tagish my attention was drawn to a small moun- tain of mail sacks, which had been received from the Coast and THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 3S piled up under a tent waiting for the proper officers to forward them down the river. None of this mail, received up to that time and afterwards, reached us at Dawson until the following March! This was one of the most cruel features of our lives in the Klondike that winter—the absence of our mail. Poling through the reeds of the sluggish and shallow Lake Marsh, we came to the upper stretches of the Lewes River. Soon we were rushing down the steep decline of a ten-mile current. A great camp of tents with a few log houses wel- comed us near the head of Miles Canyon. ‘This was the be- ginning of the dangerous rapids five miles long, the lower and most perilous stretch of which was called White Horse Rapids. We camped two days above Miles Canyon, getting ready to shoot the rapids. This terrible rapid named itself. The first white men to descend this stream saw from above what ap- peared to be galloping white horses with tossing manes and tails. Black Sullivan was used to the rapids, and took both his scows through by the aid of his strongest and most intel- ligent men. He first lightened both scows, sending a couple of tons of his goods and those belonging to the passengers on man-back the five miles by land to the camp below the White Horse. A number of men who were used to the rapids were making large sums of money by acting as pilots to steer the boats of the tenderfeet down the dangerous passages. I did some packing with the rest, but when our scow descended I was in it, studying the channels for future voyages. As we shot through the columned walls of the beautiful canyon, veered through Squaw Rapids where the river widened into a score of channels among the scattered boulders, then hung for a moment in an eddy above the dreaded White Horse before dashing through the middle of the foam, we saw a dozen wrecks impaled on the sharp rocks and wedged between the boulders. We learned that some two hundred men had lost 338 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA their lives within a week or two, trying to shoot the rapids themselves rather than employ the high-priced pilots. In fact, all along the fearful way from Skagway to Dawson, death assessed a heavy toll of life. The crazy gold seekers, mad with the gold-lust, took desperate chances. I learned to love those rapids. The breathless rush adown them, grazing by a few inches the rocky points whose touch meant death, was most exhilarating. One felt the joy of battle. We shouted aloud with glee when we shot the last stretch and the white spume dashed over us as the raging steeds tossed their snowy tails in our faces. There were many newly made graves, both above and below the rapids, mute witnesses of the rashness of the chechacos and the peril of the rapids. Then the reloading, and the swift but safe waters of the river down to Lake Lebarge. This long and beautiful stretch of clear water was compassed in a few hours by means of our big sail and a strong wind blowing down the lake. A grateful change of food from our invariable pork and beans was af- forded by the big lake trout for which we trolled as we sailed over the lake. After this came the rapid and dangerous “Thirty Mile River,” where our ignorance of channels came near wrecking us several times. ‘Then on down, past the Hootalinqua, to the end of the Dalton Trail, where we stopped to take aboard five or six passengers who had traversed that trail with pack animals. Here they slaughtered their horses and piled the carcasses aboard our scows, to afford their mas- ters fresh meat during the long winter. A larger and better supply of meat was taken aboard our scow when we had shot the picturesque and exciting Five Finger Rapids and landed in an eddy at its foot. There we found a herd of beef cattle, which had been driven across the Dalton Trail and down the valley. The cattle men came aboard with the quarters of beef, and we swept on again. THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 339 It began to snow before we got the beef aboard, and the weather grew stormy and severe. Out of the Pelly River, as we passed its mouth below Fort Selkirk, came rushing and grinding a vast flow of icebergs, growing always larger and more threatening. For two hundred and fifty miles we floated in this jam of ice. Often it would crowd the channel so closely as to dam the river; the big, flat cakes would leap up clear into the scow. Scores of smaller boats were smashed like egg-shells by these charging floes. Again and again the ice jam forced us on sandbars, where we would hang up, bat- tered by great icebergs charging down upon us. Then we would be forced to turn out all hands, and take those heavy quarters of beef on our backs, packing them long distances through the water and slush to where we could place them securely on the shore, until the boat was lightened sufficiently to float it off the bar and permit reloading again. Day after day this heavy work had to be repeated. Some- times landing was impossible until hours after nightfall, and in the thick darkness, increased by heavy snowstorms, we would get ourselves and our tents ashore, camping in a foot of snow on the frozen ground. Wearily we would pack our grub kits to the camp, stretch our tents between the alders and wil- lows, cook our pots of beans and black coffee, and at midnight turn into our cold bunks. Yet that long voyage down the Yukon had its cheerful phases, when, floating in safe channels, we would sing, spin yarns and forget our trials. Twice during the voyage we camped for several hours on Sunday, and I gathered my fellow-voyagers from our scows and from other boats to cheerful services. Wonderful displays of the aurora borealis, beautiful and imposing mountain scen- ery, adventures with a bear and a moose, both of which we tried, but failed, to get, made our great adventure more joyous, and we learned to make light of it. It took two months of very hard work, to travel from 340 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Wooster, Ohio, to Dawson, where we landed on the ninth day of October in a jam of ice, with a foot of snow on the ground and in zero weather, and with the temperature sinking lower by perceptible degrees every day. We lined-in our scow to the camp just above the mouth of the Klondike River. This was a wild landing place under a high bluff. Every rod of space was occupied by tents. The camp had grown suddenly to the dimensions of an army encampment. Healy, the old timer, doubtless from memory of unpleasant experiences there, had called it ‘‘ Louse Town.” Later the more permanent resi- dents of Dawson had substituted for the disgrace of such a name that of “ Klondike City.” We landed in this camp early in the week. First of all we had to climb the bluff and skid down dry fir stumps and branches for firewood. Then, leaving the doctor to watch camp, I set out on my three-mile tramp to the town of Dawson. The ferrymen were always in evidence to set men across the Klondike, only a few rods’ distance, taking five minutes in the passage and charging a dollar for each passenger. Then the trail through the frozen swamp among straggly willows and alders, down to the big booming new camp. I was surprised and rejoiced to be met half-way and hailed by one of my old Thlingit pupils, whom we had taken into our training school at Wrangell—Tacoo Jimmy. He came running out to greet me, chattering joyfully in a mixture of Chinook and broken English, haled me by main strength into his tent on the trail, and satisfied my hunger with a most delicious meal of fresh biscuits and caribou meat, the latter the fruit of his own rifle. Then down to my new parish of the Klondike! a i oe XXXITI RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE timers who had struck it rich and were already piling up their dumps on Eldorado, Bonanza and Hunker Creeks called the newcomers. The bewilderment of a black- smith set to make a watch, a coal-heaver to conduct a law case, or a farmer to preach a sermon, typed that of all these lawyers, doctors, farmers and merchants dumped down in the wilderness and set to find and produce gold. They did not know the first thing about the business. All, to begin with, were over-Ssanguine. Great expectations had buoyed them up in the strenuous march with their picks over the passes and the weary wielding of unaccustomed oars down the Yukon. Then to land at Dawson, and hear that all the claims on which gold had been found were staked—this discouraged some to the point of suicide. Here again it was the spirit of the individual that counted. Some were still ultra-optimistic. A fine, big farmer from Iowa—I shall never forget him; the backward toss of his head and the squaring of his shoulders when some one announced the fact that no new strikes had been made for the past two months. He laughed heartily, and said, ‘‘ That’s good news; there will be all the more for ws to find.” The fact that the terrible “ grub scare” hung like a black cloud over the camp, was the most serious circumstance. Nearly all had come in short of provisions. Like myself, they had taken a chance. It became apparent that the supply of foodstuffs in the stores and in the outfits of the miners was not nearly sufficient to last until the steamboats could get up the Yukon next summer. The two big stores, the A C (Alaska 341 S EVEN thousand crazy people! That is what the few old- 342 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Commercial Company) and the N A T & T (North American Trading and Transportation Company) had only a few articles remaining on their shelves; all the flour, beans and bacon had been sold. A limited quantity of sugar, canned milk, rice and cereals for breakfast were found in the stores at high prices when we landed, but these staples were soon exhausted. Prices soared to the skies. From the first the standard price for all kinds of food was a dollar a pound; butter was five dol- lars a pound, and ten-cent cans of milk were two dollars and a half each. Even there in the midst of the panic the specu- lators were at work bulling the market, and a fifty-pound sack of flour sometimes sold for as much as a hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty dollars. The expected supply of game had not materialized—panic had seized the camp. For the last three hundred miles of the river we had been meeting men in long poling boats frantically labouring against the ice and the strong current of the river, headed up the Yukon for the “ outside.” These all yelled to us as they met us: “ Turn back! you will starve! There is no grub at Dawson. Turn back, you fools, turn back! ” When we asked about the supply of gold they would answer, ‘Damn the gold—what good is it? You can’t eat it.” But the great majority of those who had come to Dawson were resourceful. They kept their cheerfulness and courage in spite of obstacles. They held on desperately to their outfits, and woe to the man who showed thievish propensities or in- clination to “ corner ” foodstuffs! Most of the chechacos spent the forepart of the winter frantically stampeding to this and that wildcat creek. This habit became an epidemic. Groups of men in all the saloons and stores eagerly discussed the latest rumours. Men were credulous and gullible. Affairs got to be so bad that if a man was seen talking eagerly to another, and the two presently moved off together—that was enough to start a stampede. RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 343 My own situation was a typical one. I had paid out my money freely to the packers and for the necessary expenses of the trip, relying on our partnership money for which I thought Dr. McEwan was caring, to purchase a cabin when we should reach Dawson and to tide us over until money should begin to come in from collections. We landed at Dawson with barely four months’ provisions, and eight months would elapse before the steamboats would bring fresh supplies. But to my amaze- ment, on our first night in camp at Louse Town I learned from the little doctor that $400 of our funds had disappeared, in some way which he did not explain. He had only sixty- five dollars, and I only sixty. What to do, I knew not. I had bargained with Black Sul- livan for a quarter of beef, weighing a hundred and fifty pounds, and Sullivan had agreed to wait for payment until the next spring. I was to pay a dollar and a half per pound for it. There was only that between us and starvation. There was no time to waste in lamenting or brooding over our loss. The burden was on my shoulders, and I must carry it. The second day, leaving the doctor again with our stuff at Louse Town, I went to Dawson. My first inquiries were concerning a place to live in. The thermometer registered ten degrees below zero, and soon it would be sixty below, and men cannot live in tents during the winter in that climate. I went to the saloon of my old Cassiar friend, Bill McFee. It was the largest saloon in the place. McFee was a big-hearted, good-natured fellow, who had been a successful miner and who was somewhat ashamed of his present occupation. He apolo- gized to me when I met him. “ This seemed to be the only business in sight, parson,” he said, “and there is sure big money in it here.” “ Bill,” I said, “I want you to help me get started.” “ Sure, what can I do for you? ” he replied. 344 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA ‘Well, I am short of grub, and almost out of money. I must find a house to live in and a place to preach in.” “Qh,” he replied, “there are some cabins for sale here. Some of the old-timers anticipated just this sort of thing, and put up cabins. Hey, Alec! ” he motioned to a tall, lanky, fair- haired young Scotchman. “ This is Alec Gillis—he has some cabins.” Soon Alec and I were tramping down the street and across the flats. Everywhere there was feverish activity; men were chopping trees, hauling logs, pitching tents, gathering wood; the great camp was whipping itself into shape rapidly. Alec stopped before a neat looking 10 x 12 log cabin. It had one window with single sash. He opened the door and revealed a neat interior, with rough plank floor and no furniture what- ever. “How much do you want for that cabin? ” I asked. “The price is eight hundred dollars cash.” I threw up my hands, and exclaimed: “ It can’t be done.” “Well,” said Alec, ‘‘ I think you can manage it. I will leave this offer open all week, but I can’t come down on it.” I knew it had perhaps taken two men a couple of weeks to build that cabin, and now to ask eight hundred dollars for it!) I was amazed. I went back to McFee’s saloon and told Bill, who was talking at the time with a genial young reporter whom I had met at Skagway, and who greeted me with a smile. His name was Wells, and he was working for the Scripps-McRae League of newspapers, of which the Cincinnati Inquirer was the most prominent. He had been in the camp some weeks and was becoming acquainted with many of its lucky miners. “‘ Say,” he said, “a man was asking about you this morning. He says he knew you in West Virginia.’ Presently there stood by his side a slim man, long-necked and very brown, with a thick mustache, “ This is Mr. Liggett,” said Wells. RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 345 The miner reached out a hearty hand. ‘“ Aren’t you Hall Young? ” “ That is my name,” I acknowledged. “Well, I am Bill Liggett who used to live at Canaan in Upshur County, West Virginia. I went to school to your brother, and worked on your father’s farm at French Creek.” Fresh hand-shaking followed, and a rapid fire of questions. “ Liggett has struck it rich on Thirteen Eldorado,” said Wells. “ Mr. Young is up against it, Bill; perhaps you can help him out.” “Sure, I can,” said Liggett after he had heard my story. “T have a lot of dust that I can’t use until spring, and I am willing to let you have what you want without interest until you can pay me back next summer.” Turning to McFee, he said: “ Let the parson have eight hundred dollars of my dust.” The note was drawn, and I walked off with my poke of gold, hunted up Gillis, and the transfer was made. Then back to McFee’s. ‘‘I must preach next Sunday, and there are only four days left for preparation. Can I preach in your saloon? ” Bill laughed. ‘“‘ You sure are green in this camp, or you wouldn’t ask such a question. Just look around, and see if you think I could clear out this hall long enough for you to hold a meeting.” A mass of men crowded the large room, jostling and elbow- ing one another. Here and there they were standing in groups, and a line of men stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the long bar, while the man behind it was busy serving his thirsty customers. The center and back of the hall was full of tables fitted with all kinds of gambling devices—roulette, faro, poker and all the rest, even craps. A babel of loud laughter, songs, but mostly the conversation of men in anxious consultation. This was the place to get the news. Every kind of business, even a rude sort of banking was transacted. “ At night,” said Bill, “this floor is packed from wall to 346 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA wall, like sardines in a can, full of sleeping men, chechacos in their blankets lying here to get some sleep. ‘This is a house- less, homeless crowd. We couldn’t begin to clear them out, day or night.” ‘ All right,” I replied, ‘‘ I will try elsewhere.” I went to one after another of the saloons, dance halls and stores, but the same scene confronted me everywhere. The lodging houses were simply log buildings packed full of bunks, with no space between them. Back again to McFee’s saloon. ‘‘ My hands are up,” I said to him, “ unless I can get some empty build- ing and fit it up myself.” “J have an idea,” Bill replied, and stepped with me out- side the door. ‘ You see that partly finished house up there? It belongs to a Frenchman, Napoleon Dupres. Let’s go and see him.” We found a little fat Frenchman, working and gesticulating to a couple of men in the building. It was a two-story log house, the lower space being all one room, measuring 25 x 30 feet. There were two doors, front and back, and three win- dows, only two of which had glass in them. The upstairs was divided into six little rooms, three on each side, with a five- foot hall between them. The rooms were ten feet square. “Will you rent your house to me? ” I asked. “Oh, oui,” answered the Frenchman. “IT would like to rent it,” I said, ‘‘ for seven months, or until spring opens.” “Vell,” he answered, “I geef you heem for eight hundred feefty dollars cash now.” “Man! ” T exclaimed. “I am not trying to buy your house; I just want to rent it.” “No,” he replied, “I no sell heem. By’m bye I make plentee money here. I must go outside for vinter.”’ “Will you finish it, and make it warm and comfortable so that I can live in it? ” I asked. RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 347 “ Hoo, non,” he repeated, “ I no monee; you feenish heem yourself.” Bill Liggett had followed me, and now took a hand in the bargain: “See here, Nap, this is a friend of mine, and I am back of him, see? You will have to come down in your price.” “‘ Non, non,” protested the Frenchman. “ Plentee man vant heem; plentee man vant heem.” “ How long will you give this man to raise the money? ” Liggett asked. “T vant heem now,” insisted the Frenchman. “You will give him until Monday,” said Liggett, ‘“ that’s settled.” Then he turned to me with another suggestion. “Come upstairs with me; I have an idea.” We went up and looked at the six rooms. Each one had a small window hole but no sash. The partitions were nothing but thin boards rudely papered. ‘“‘ Now,” said my friend, ‘“‘ there are hundreds of men in this camp who are eagerly looking for a place to store their goods and to sleep in. You will have no difficulty in renting these rooms at twenty dollars a month each, and that will pay your rent of the building. Come and see if we can’t sublet the rooms. Then I will take you where I think you can borrow the money without interest.” So, leaving the Frenchman, we went back to McFee’s saloon, and met men whom I had known on the trail, and some of those who had come down the river in our scow. We soon had twelve lodgers for the six rooms, who agreed to move in with their outfits as soon as I could provide windows and bunks. I prevailed upon Dupres to get these, although he grumbled at the price he had to pay—an ounce of gold, sixteen dollars, for one sash. “Now,” suggested Liggett, “come, and we will get the money.” The gold commissioner, Mr. Fawcett, was the only officer of the Canadian government who had come into the camp and was doing business. The commissioner, or governor 348 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA of the Territory, Major Walsh, had not arrived, nor the court officers. Mr. Fawcett was a lean, whiskered man, with kindly eyes. He greeted me warmly when I was introduced to him. “T am surely glad you have come,” he said. “I am a Chris- tian man, a member of the Wesleyan Church of Canada. What can I do for you? ” I told him my story, and that I was out of money, and asked him if he could introduce me to some one who would let me have what I needed until spring. His eyes twinkled. “Wouldn’t you rather I’d give you the money in hand? ” he asked. “Why, yes, if you can do so,” I replied. He explained that they would get thousands of dollars into their office each week, and it was not possible to send any of the gold dust out to Ottawa before next summer; that he could let me have the money, and more if I needed it, with Liggett and McFee as securities to satisfy the government—no interest charged. Joyfully I went back to my headquarters in the saloon. The papers were fixed up, the big load off my mind. Three days more to get ready for the meeting. More friends gathered around full of interest. Other reporters took up the case, some volunteered to attend to the advertising, compan- ions on the trail offered their hands to assist. A broken-down stove was found in the back yard of Bill’s saloon and was given to me outright, and a little tinsmith agreed to fix it so that I could kindle fires in it, and to furnish second-hand stove- pipe at a dollar and a half per joint for the big stove, and smaller pipes for the Klondike stoves of the miners which would be placed in the lodging rooms. Then a little force of us attacked the pile of moss and chips on the main floor, chinked the gaps in the walls, and boarded up the open win- dow. In two days we had the hall ready for the meeting. Sixty blocks of wood, sawed in stove length, were borrowed RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 349 for seats. A larger log, five feet long, was stood on end for a pulpit. “Come to the meeting! ” screamed all sorts of posters placed on stumps or the sides of buildings in the town and up the trail. “‘ Bring your hymn books and Bibles with you. Everybody welcome! ” Saturday found us comfortably settled in our new cabin and the church fitted, ready for the meeting on the morrow. The lodging rooms must wait until the next week. Our little cabin was at the foot of the hill and about half a mile from our new meeting house. Breaking off occasionally from my work to answer calls, I would visit the sick in the newly erected Catholic Hospital built under the direction of the “Saint of the Northwest,” Father Judge. He had been a Jesuit missionary to the Indians on the Yukon River, and had been sent by his superiors to the new camp at Dawson. He arrived there early in the spring of 1897, and went vigorously to work to alleviate the sufferings of the camp. The typhoid epidemic, which always attacks such new camps, had broken out, and many were sickening. As winter came on, pneumonia in its most violent form, and scurvy, added their horrors. Father Judge visited the pros- _perous miners up the gold-bearing creeks, and sold tickets on a sort of insurance plan—the ticket entitled the holder to be cared for during his illness, or in case of disablement. These tickets were sold at from one hundred to four hundred dollars, according to the length of time insured and the accommoda- tions. A commodious log building sprang up as by magic, and a Catholic church took its station alongside of it. The Sisters of Mercy sent for did not arrive, but plenty of men who had come in “short of grub” were glad to act as nurses for their board. Saint Mary’s Hospital was filled as soon as it was opened and continued full all that winter. The very first day I spent in the camp I was called to see 350 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA some Protestant patients, and thereafter, as long as I was in Dawson, I was almost a daily visitor, finding plenty to do for the poor stricken fellows. Father Judge and I were always great friends, although he was fond of theological controversy, and good-natured arguments took place daily. I found him an eager chess player, and the relaxation of the game was good for both of us. Another friend I found in Mr. Bowen, the young Episco- palian minister, who also had been a missionary to the Indians at Moosehide, an Indian camp two miles down the river. He had been sent by Bishop Bompas, the noted Church of Eng- land prelate, whose diocese was at Forty Mile on the borders of Alaska, fifty miles from Dawson. Mr. Bowen was a fine young fellow, unused to that kind of life but eager to do what he could. That first Sunday and its meeting formed an epoch in my life. I did not expect much of a congregation, but every seat was occupied, and a few were standing in the aisles. A tough- looking crowd of men, unshaved and dressed in rough mack- inaw suits, most of them wearing moccasins on their feet. The river trip had made such amenities as baths and shaving im- possible. Here at Dawson men were living mostly in tents, their houses not being ready. Not a woman attended that morning meeting. I found a man who had a little baby organ. He played for the dance halls. I hired him and his organ for five dollars a Sunday, on condition that the evening meeting would not be continued longer than nine o’clock, so that he could take his organ back to the dance hall. My plea for books had brought about a dozen Gospel hymn books and another dozen of different kinds, all having some of the good old hymns. And such singing! Mr. Fawcett, the gold commissioner, had been the leader of a choir; Mr. Hay- ward, a Methodist, too, had a fine tenor voice, and others came at the call for a choir; and everybody in the house sang. aHLINIM HCHdNVLIS HHL DNIANG NOSMVG » ' iT a i. ai a ‘ .. ota ies " owe ‘ toe Sy ’ af, | 4 4 ’ re? \ « at -% “. ‘ v - ! » 7 P ' ® ‘ ‘ + \ ‘7 \ . > 4 J s ' ‘ é VA F \ ' ' 3 . i + ' all j : f ' . ya ‘ * J : ‘ ‘ cof ' RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 351 Nearly all knew the words of the familiar hymns. I felt at my best. Here was an ideal congregation, not all professed Chris- tians, but all intelligent and eager for a message. A heart-to- heart talk without any thought of conventional sermon forms or theological expositions. Life there was too earnest and straightforward to admit of wasting time in such non-essentials. When it came to the collection, we used a “ blower,” the tin scoop used by the miners and merchants to handle gold dust and to pour it into gold scales or the buckskin pokes. The miners took pinches of dust from their pokes and cast it into the blower, while the chechacos still had coins and bills. Sixty dollars, as I remember, was the collection for that first day—an average of a dollar apiece for the sixty men present —a generous showing for men who were almost all of them “up against it.” A call for the organization of a Bible class the following Sunday, and a plea to make themselves known and help me in gathering together my flock, was stressed in the church notices. Before dismissing the congregation I bethought me of a problem: “ How will we light our building tonight?” There was no kerosene in the camp, the miners bringing in their own candles. The stock in the stores had been exhausted. “I have no candles myself,” I announced. ‘ You will have to help in this. Blow out the candle you would have to use in your tent or cabin, and burn it here. You will not burn any more of it than if you were alone in your cabin. You can take what is left home with you after the meeting, if you desire. I will furnish the candlesticks.” My every request that winter was heeded and met with a generous response. The weeks that followed were among the busiest of my life. First of all, the building I rented must be fitted with another window downstairs, and bunks provided for my roomers, and the hall made comfortable for the approaching sixty-below weather. I was doing the largest part of the work myself, get- 352 . HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA ting help occasionally from those who were not too busy with their own work. It was a week or ten days before my house was completed and filled with lodgers. They paid in advance a month’s rent, and my own rent was secured. I had obtained possession, by the free act of the miners, of a miners’ library, which had been subscribed for and bought by the Forty Mile Prospectors. We had fifteen hundred volumes. The pioneers were eager to have me handle this library, and it was placed in the A C Company’s store, but was soon to be moved into our own building. These volumes, while mostly popular fiction, in- cluded many solid and helpful books—Carlyle, Emerson, the standard poets, historical works, and books of reference. As long as I was in Dawson I handled this library, and it was a great satisfaction to be able to give men of the camp some- thing to read. I soon began to explore the creeks, to make long trips up them to the very borders of the camp. My parish was sixty miles long. Bonanza Creek, which was some thirty miles in length, was a continuous village. You were never out of sight of cabins. Hundreds of the chechacos had taken “lays ” along that creek and were putting down holes here and there in hope of finding a pay streak. The royalty on these lays received by the owners varied from thirty to seventy-five per cent. of the gross output, according to the prospects of the claim. Here and there up the creeks were clusters of stores and lodg- ing houses. The principal village of this kind was at Grand Forks—sixteen miles from Dawson, where Eldorado Creek joined Bonanza. Here I established a regular meeting place in the ‘“‘ Hotel and Saloon ” of Miss Mulrooney, an Irishwoman, who greeted me very warmly when I first reached her hotel. “And it’s yourself!” she exclaimed. “ Don’t you mind me? ” “IT know I have seen you somewhere,” I ventured. RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 353 “You remember the ladies I piloted to your mission at Fort Wrangell from the ‘ Queen’ when I was stewardess? ” “ Ah, I know you now,” I replied, “ and I am glad to find you here.” “‘ Now, tell me what I can do for you,” she asked. “JT am looking for a place to preach. I know you are a Catholic, but you are my friend, also. Can I hold a meeting in your saloon? ” ‘‘ Sure, you can,” she answered heartily. ‘I will put me wet goods under the counter, and clear out the drunks, and let you have me place any time you want it.” So all that winter I preached in the house of the genial woman, who had a sharp tongue to command the boisterous ones and kept them quiet, and a strong arm to enforce her words. Other appointments were made later in the larger cabins and some of the roadhouses on Bonanza, Hunker and Dominion Creeks. Every phase of human need was typed in that great camp. So many men did not know how to cook their provisions, or else ‘had inadequate supplies. They would go frantically on wildcat stampedes, come back to their cabins worn out and discouraged, lie down in their bunks, and sleep until midday, get up and eat a half-cooked meal of pork and beans and soda. biscuits, and go back again to bed. Such men invariably got the scurvy. There was not in Dawson, after the first month or two, an orange, a lemon, an apple, a potato, an onion or an egg. Plenty of gold dust, but nothing that gold would buy. Twenty dollars was offered, in places, for potatoes, and no sellers found. We made tea of cottonwood twigs and even spruce needles, but this was not sufficient. At least one-third of the seven thousand men in the Klondike that winter were tainted with scurvy, and hundreds of deaths ensued. And there was that terrible type of pneumonia. It meant frozen lungs! Men 354 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA stampeding when it was fifty and sixty below zero, inhaling lungsful of icy air, literally froze their cells. This condition resulted in terrific fever and madness. Some of our patients were homicidal madmen, trying to kill their nurses, and had to be subdued by main strength. The attacks lasted three or four days, and ended inevitably in the death of the patient. While there were medicines in Dawson, there was no proper diet, no fresh milk, no delicacies. The hospital and the doctors did fine work, but, oh, the funerals, the funerals! One day I had five of them, all for Protestants, and the number that Father Judge and Mr. Bowen buried were as many, while up the creeks many a poor fellow was put in the ground by his comrades without any ceremony. The life of a missionary in a raw camp like that, while most strenuous, if he takes it right and rises to its every occasion is the most joyful work in the world. This, chiefly because it is a life of sacrifice and service. Hardships are as you take them. The deprivations we met were shared by all, and so were no deprivations at all. We had no wants, because we created none. Our tables, made of boxes, our bunks of poles, our chairs of blocks of wood and our beds of spruce and hem- lock branches, gave us, with our Klondike stoves, all we really needed. Soon the melancholy ones became cheerful, and with the exception of a few, especially those stricken with no dis- ease, who died simply of homesickness, the camp rebounded to a joy in living and a courage in facing whatever came, such as I have never seen excelled anywhere. The harder the life, the greater the resilience of real men. The greatest calamity that ever befell me in the North has- tened to fall upon us the night of November twenty-first. Our roomers were happy in their rooms, our church attendance in- creased to the capacity of the building, the reading room patronized, branch meetings established, and everything was slipping along smoothly and hopefully. That night, about two RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 355 o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by the cry of fire. Springing from my bunk, I saw a blaze in the center of the town. Getting into my clothes, I hurried down the street, my apprehensions growing as I sped, until I found our new church all in flames! Men were gathered around, making futile at- tempts to fight the fire. Only the hymn books could be re- moved from the church. The upstairs, with its fourteen out- fits of food, was a mass of flame. A young man who had come home intoxicated from a dance hall and had lurched down on his bunk without putting out his candle in its miner’s lamp socket, leaving it to melt and fall through and set fire to the blankets, was shivering in the snow—the cold sobering him. Napoleon Dupres was dancing about, cursing everything and everybody, but principally me, in broken English and bad French. Two or three owners of outfits who had hastily de- camped from the burning dwelling were standing disconsolately in the snow. Fifteen hundred dollars of my outlay in money, and all our plans, gone up in flames! The work so well begun, to be started all over again. A terrible blow aimed at our faith and courage! Nothing could be saved from the wreck; but to lie down and weep would have been foolish. Our reac- tion was to redouble our efforts. To add to my troubles, I was made the chairman of a relief committee for those men who had lost their outfits. The gold commissioner, Father Judge, Mr. Bowen and a number of the merchants met to discuss the steps to be taken to care for these fourteen or more men whose outfits were burned. They must be replaced somehow, or at least such provisions got to- gether as would keep them alive until more outfits could be bought in the summer. We had to make a canvass up the creek for dust. We got from the merchants enough provisions, to be paid for next summer at the prevailing prices of steam- boat goods, to supply the wants of these men and tide them 356 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA over the winter. This meant sacrifice. I had to get still more deeply in debt. Two steps were taken to meet our own wants. Shortly our own provisions would be exhausted. I found some relief in this way: I had purchased at Portland a good Savage rifle, with a fair supply of ammunition. Word came that a herd of caribou had crossed the Klondike, forty miles from the town. I loaned my rifle to a young man who was an experienced hunter and who had a team of dogs. He went out and found the herd; he killed some fifty of the fine animals, and brought two of the carcasses to us. This delicious meat helped to keep us in health and spirits. But our staples were getting low. This problem was solved by Alec Gillis, who had sold us our cabin. He came to me with a proposition: “I am going out- side as soon as the Yukon is frozen solidly enough to bear trav- eling on it. I am coming in next summer with a good outfit. I will sell you the grub I have, at the rate of a dollar a pound, if you will give me an order on the outside for the money. I don’t want to pack any gold dust with me, for the Soapy Smith Gang are at Skagway waiting to hold up anybody who has cash. I simply want a paper that nobody else can make use of.” It was a desperate situation. I had drawn beforehand all the money that was coming to me from the mission Board for a year, with the exception of just enough to support my fam- ily. Nothing, therefore, would be due me from the Board until the next August. I pondered the matter in my desperation, and then sat down and wrote to the treasurer of the Board, in New York, a half-humorous and half-earnest letter. I did not whine or complain, but told the straits we were in; and then I asked that the order to Gillis for $500.00, for the five hundred pounds of staple goods I purchased from him, be honoured by the Board, promising to pay the amount from my next year’s salary. RELIGION IN THE KLONDIKE 357 Alec took the order, and cashed it without difficulty in New York. I did not know until the next spring that our treasurer, Mr. Harvey D. Olin, that great and kind man, took my letter to the Sunday School of the Brick Church in New York, and read it without comment. Instantly one of the superintendents sprang up and moved that the Sunday School pay the’five hun- dred dollars. It was carried with enthusiasm, and the Board was not the loser. Another need in Dawson was met immediately. That night of the fire, before I left the grounds, my friend Bill McFee came to me and, putting his arms about my neck, said: “ Par- son,” and his voice was trembling, ‘‘ you are here to help us, and we all love you. I have a proposition to make to you. We fellows have just completed a hall built by the Yukon | Pioneers. I am going to propose to the fellows that they let you use it as a meeting house all winter without charge.” I learned this lesson from all of these experiences: That of all the people in the world the kindest are those who have passed through hard trials, have overcome innumerable dif- ficulties, and have learned the joy of sacrifice from those which they have been forced to make themselves; that the fellowship of the wilderness is the sweetest and warmest of all fellow- ships; and that the Golden Rule has its finest and best ex- emplification in the Great Northwest. XXXIV KING WINTER in the Klondike, I am embarrassed by crowding recollec- tions. It was the busiest winter of all my life. Perhaps on account of that fact it was the most joyful. Among other things, I was experiencing the delight of perfect health im a matchless climate. We had to fight the cold in order to exist. Those who have not undergone sixty-below weather cannot understand what that means. There is something savage, fierce and relentless about it. The cold pounces upon you and grips you like a vise—it will not let go. I had heard something about this intense cold from my friends in the Cassiar, and had provided Dr. McEwan and my- self with the warmest clothing obtainable in Portland, leaving out furs, of course, as these were beyond our means. Here we had thick woolen underwear, heavy flannel shirts, home-knit socks, mackinaw vests, coat and pants, huge German socks that came to the knees and very heavy mackinaw overcoats. The Klondike cap was an institution invented by necessity. It was mostly fur, with a heavy piece across the forehead, for there is where the cold strikes you hardest; thick flaps that come over your ears and around your neck and your throat. Mine also had a strip of fur, to fasten across the bridge of my nose. The difficulty of protecting the nose is this: To have any part of your cap catch the frosty breath that comes in puffs from your nostrils, means two large balls of ice as large as your fist, freezing your cheeks and your lips. You must not wear a mustache—it would catch the congealed breath and 358 [: selecting items from my experiences during that winter KING WINTER 359 freeze your nostrils. Fur mittens, with large gauntlets, are also a necessity. No part of your body may be exposed to the weather. Above all things, no moisture must touch your skin, or that part of you will instantly freeze. There is one alleviat- ing circumstance about this Klondike cold—always during sixty-below weather the air is absolutely still. With a wind at that temperature no one could stir out of doors. Thirty de- grees below zero in the Nome country, with a blizzard howl- ing, is ten times harder to bear than sixty below in the Klon- dike. But one must be always on guard. The nose especially may be frozen very quickly, and very often. You will be racing along the frozen trail, exulting in your untiring muscles and the joy of living, when you will meet another musher whose ghastly white nose is a contrast to his red face. “ Your nose is frozen, Mister,” you will shout to him. “Thanks, so is yours.” You will each grab a handful of the granulated-sugar snow and race on, rubbing your proboscis with vigour, to restore the circulation. You must build your cabin absolutely air-tight. These little dwellings are usually constructed of straight spruce logs. If you are careful in building, each log is hewn smooth on the lower and upper sides so that it fits perfectly upon the log next to it. Between the logs you place with great care the abundant moss or lichen found in the woods. You drive in this packing with a calking iron. You have made a storm-shed in front of your door, and this has been carefully calked and made tight. You have torn up some of your flannel underwear and made listing for the cracks of the door. If you are a man of wealth and have taken pains to secure enough glass, you will have a double window, small but tight, with dead-air space between the two sashes. You will carefully bank up your cabin in the fall, so that no air can leak upward through the 360 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA floor. Your Klondike stove is near the middle of the room, and the pipe, which will often be red-hot, is protected from contact with the woodwork by thimbles of sheet iron, perfor- ated with round holes for ventilation. Your blankets must be heavy and soft, and you should re- new your “‘ feather bed” of spruce branches very frequently. At the beginning of the winter you should provide from the river several cords of water—ice sawed in squares of thirty to fifty pounds each, piled up in an accessible place, and protected from pollution by dogs. You must have a strong, tight, thief- proof cache behind your house or in front of it, where your flour, beans and meat or any foodstuffs that will not spoil by freezing, may be stored. You have made out of your boxes a neat little table, which is generally a shelf inserted in the wall under your window and supported by two legs, and have provided other boxes or blocks of wood for seats. There, Mr. Bear, is your cozy den; but you are not to hi- bernate in it. You are going to be too everlastingly busy to have more than the necessary seven hours’ sleep; but you are going to enjoy life as you never did before—provided you keep busy. This constant activity out in the open air will safeguard you against scurvy, typhoid and that more fatal and terrible disease, nostalgia. If you stop working and yield to brooding and homesickness, you are gone! You will fall into the clutches of some one of the disease enemies that are found in all camps, or a self-inflicted bullet will end your earthly troubles and usher you into the more fearful one beyond. After two or three months of feverish prospecting the ten- derfeet were content to work “ lays ” or to hire out at a dollar and a half an hour to some one of the lucky few who owned large claims. Many grub-staked men who had found wild- cat locations and had staked them, settled down in their cabins until the spring would allow them to prospect their claims. These men either loafed around, and got the scurvy or typhoid, KING WINTER 361 or else they gambled the nights through in the saloons and dance halls. Or, if they were the right kind, they got books from our library, and played chess, checkers or card games with one another, and so passed the winter. The lure of the gambling tables was very strong. For a man who had gone to the end of his money and was living scantily on his outfit, to witness others, by the fortunate turn of a wheel or a card, leap from poverty to affluence, was be- yond the power of many to withstand. I knew of scores of professed Christians, many of them real and sensible ones, and at least three Presbyterian elders, who became desperate gamblers that winter. But the great majority of the men were sensible, conscientious, of good character, with families at home, and would not risk the loss of the means to support them. I had brought in with me two sets of chess men, with checkers and dominoes. I organized a chess and checker club, and started it in my reading room in the church building before this burned. Afterwards we held our nightly club meetings in my little cabin, which was generally crowded. The three of us, Dr. McEwan, Will Farrington and I, occupied three of the four bunks at night, and after the fire I took in George Barrack, one of the roomers who had lost his outfit. But the calls of all kinds which came knocking at my door for multiplex services kept me away from the cabin about one-third of the nights that winter. Nowhere else in my ministry have I experienced so keenly the exhilaration of preaching, as at Dawson. I had no com- mentaries, books of quotations, or histories, and a very limited reference library; therefore, the whole system of sermonizing was changed. I swung out of the exposition style more and more into emphasizing Christianity as a life, rather than as a system of doctrine. And such an audience as I had would stimulate any preacher. My Bible class, conducted every Sunday morning after the regular services, was an inspiration. 362 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Sometimes we had as many as forty men in attendance, all intelligent and earnest in their desire to know the higher and deeper truths of Christianity; not all of them professing Chris- tians, but all of them in dead earnest. Men grew rapidly better in the Klondike if they did not grow rapidly worse. There was no standstill. As the winter wore away, our distress at the non-arrival of the mail grew more and more acute. There was no excuse whatever for this delay. Sixty-five fine dogs, such as were used by the coureurs de bois of Eastern Canada, had been sent to carry the mail and bring the officials into the Klondike. But they did not come. Not one of us got a letter from the States in less than six months after we started into the Klon- dike. Tons and tons of mail lay piled up at Lake Bennett and especially at Tagish, the chief station of the mounted police of the upper river. It was reported, and generally believed, that Major Walsh and the other officials who had started early to the gold diggings were using these dogs in racing about the upper country to Big and Little Salmon Creeks, Lake Atlin and Hootalinqua and Stewart Rivers, in an effort to find claims in rumoured new diggings. Whether these rumours were true or not, the fact remains that the Canadian government grossly neglected the needs of the thousands who had rushed into the extreme Northwest. The distress in the camp on this account was very great. Nearly all of us were short of money. The claim owners who had found gold in abundance had not funds with which to pay their workmen for getting out big dumps for the spring sluicing. And the “lay” men on the creeks, as well as the day labourers, experienced a like shortage. There was very little coin or paper money circulating in the camp. Gold dust at sixteen dollars an ounce was the circulating medium. In addition to this, promises to pay, and notes secured by liens on the dumps, passed from hand to hand, i KING WINTER 363 But the financial distress was nothing compared to the men- tal anguish which all of us experienced. Most of the men had families outside, and could not learn of their welfare. Num- bers had come into the Klondike in the late winter or early spring of 797, and had not been able to hear from their homes for a year or longer. They knew that their families were writ- ing them, but the letters were not coming in. Some had heard six or eight months ago of the illness of wife or child, and were consumed with anxiety. Judging by my own feelings, this suspension compelled thousands of those men to spend sleepless nights conjuring up fearful phantoms of ill. It was not until well on in March that the first dog team came, bringing mail to the Klondike. I can now see those Frenchmen, four of them, with two dog teams, the tall men swinging, one ahead and the other at the “ gee pole,” with long strides, making five or six miles an hour. They brought thirteen sacks, picked at random out of the hundreds piled up at Tagish. Right here I am going to act the part of an iconoclast and do some smashing of the idols which American Anglophiles and Canadian enthusiasts have set up. I am not wanting in respect for that heroic body of men called the Northwest Mounted Police, and the Canadian officers, but after a full experience in the frontiers of Canada and Alaska, I have not witnessed in the United States and Alaska anything in the way of graft that compared with the insolence, rank dishonesty and disrespect for the rights of men which I observed among the officials of the Yukon Province of Canada, and even in the mounted police. Now as to the mail: Thirteen sacks of letters with news from home! The glad tidings flashed to the farthest creeks. For sixty miles around the news spread: ‘‘ Letters from home, let- ters from home! ” Men left their diggings and struck the trail for Dawson. Those who could not leave their work 364 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA banded together, and sent one of their number with orders from each one of them for the delivery of his mail. The town filled over night with anxious men, and still they were coming. Like the rest, I hung around the headquarters of the mounted police, avid for letters. Experienced railroad mail clerks and others who had served in post-offices in the United States of- fered their services to Captain Constantine to expedite the dis- tribution of the mail. The little captain tossed his head back in the important way he had, and replied: “ This is a matter for the mounted police.” That day wore away, and the next and next, without our being able to get any news or letters from home. Then a bul- letin was posted up announcing that in one week from the time of the arrival of this mail they would begin to distribute it! That long line of men already standing in the snow up and | down the street went wild. Two or three of the most experi- enced post-office men went to Captain Constantine and re- monstrated: ‘‘ Why, we can have all of that mail distributed in one day if you will let us handle it.” All expostulations were of no avail. The captain shut himself up away from visitors. I knew these mounted police. Some of them regularly at- tended my services; one or two sang in the choir. I was ad- mitted, as a special privilege, to the log building where the mail was looked over. A sergeant who had frozen his feet in a stampede hobbled from chair to chair directing the operations of two men who were opening the sacks and fumbling over the letters. Along the floor of the long room were piles and piles of letters. The sergeant would look long at one, read the address, hand it to one of the other men, and he would take it to the appropriate letter pile which was arranged according to the alphabet and deposit it there. If the pile was getting top heavy, he would take the little roll of red tape on which the letters were placed and tie up the bundle. When another letter came for that particular letter of the alphabet, he would KING WINTER 365 untie the bundle, slip the letter in and it would be tied up again. ‘There were no boxes in which to pitch the letters, no facilities for rapid work. The experienced men who looked on were full of disgust, and vented their feelings in profanity. The hundreds who had come for mail returned to the creeks awaiting the announced day for its distribution. One day before the set date another bulletin was posted stating the place and time when the mail would be distributed, and it contained the further order that those who were ex- pecting mail must come for it themselves, and that written orders would not be honoured. The hardship which that order entailed cannot be imagined. It meant that whole gangs of workmen, frantically getting out gold dust, must discontinue their labour and come in person long distances to receive their letters. But we soon discovered that even these hard regulations were not “on the square.” The second day after the arrival of the mail I met my friend, Bill Liggett, of Thirteen Eldorado. He had a pile of letters in his hand and was looking them over and tearing them open as he walked to his cabin. “Why, Bill! ” I exclaimed. ‘“ How did you get your let- ters?” } “Oh! an ounce! ” he answered. That meant that he had been compelled to pay an ounce of gold—sixteen dollars—to one of those mounted police to look over the “ L’s ” and get him his letters. Other friends of mine were marching to headquarters, paying like sums and getting theirs “on the side.” It was a great temptation to all of us to fall in with this bribery and obtain our letters before the set time. I am still in doubt as to whether I was justified in “ fall- ing for it.” I had not the requisite “ ounce,” but possessed a five-dollar Canadian bill, and marched up to the mounted police headquarters. My question was, ‘‘ These poor, hard- working mounted police, who are receiving a miserably low 366 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA wage and are seeing men getting almost as much in a day for working down in the mines as they are receiving for a month’s salary—is it wrong to help them a little?” At any rate, I fell, and went to interview my friend the sergeant. He hobbled towards me as I beckoned him. I slipped him the bill. He smiled, and said, ‘‘ Come back this evening.” I returned, and received ten letters. I rejoiced “as one that findeth great spoil.” But to this day, when I am inclined to be self- righteous, this bribery of the police, to quote Dr. Weir Mitchell, “ sits like a toad in the corner of my mind and sneers at me.” There was an expression often used among the gold diggers that such and such a creek was “spotted.” ‘That meant that you could not rely upon the continuity of the pay-streak, which was liable to be broken here and there, the gold disappearing. and occurring again in unexpected places. My “ pay-streak ” of letters was ‘spotted.’ Six months had elapsed, and I knew my wife was writing me every week and that there were many other letters being sent to me from other parties. Six letters from my wife appeared. She numbered all of her letters while I was in the Klondike and in other camps. The earliest in date of the six I received at that time was Number Two and the latest Number Twenty-four. I read them over at least a dozen times. Then the week elapsed, the town filled up again. The tem- perature was about ten degrees below zero, and the snow was falling heavily. Some of the men in the line had taken their places at nine and ten o’clock the night before, and had stood in line all of that time, afraid to move lest they should lose their place. The line, which was double, stretched up the street for three blocks. It was a pitiful sight. Men were stepping from foot to foot restlessly, and nearly all had pyra- mids of snow on their caps and shoulders; many were munch- ing food brought to them by their comrades. When the door KING WINTER 367 was opened it was announced that sixteen men would be ad- mitted at one time. The line advanced and when that number arrived, eagerly pressing into the room of the post-office, a red arm shot across the door and it was shut. I counted the time, and it took an average of twenty minutes to hand the mail to the sixteen men admitted. Then the door would be opened again, and the next sixteen admitted. When four o’clock came in the afternoon the door was shut, and it was announced that it would be opened again the next morning. Not one-third of the mail had been distributed! That night the graft was re- peated on a larger scale, and it was estimated that over a thou- sand dollars was reaped by the mounted police from those who paid them to get their mail out of regular turn! It took four days to distribute those thirteen sacks of mail. It spoke well for the character of those pioneers, nine out of ten of whom were from the United States, that they would submit to such treatment without a riot. Some ten days after the arrival of the first mail came an- other, and the same scenes were repeated. This time the pro- tests became so numerous that the captain employed a larger force of assistants, and even allowed two or three American mailmen to work without pay and assist in the distribution of the mail. There was a larger mail this time. Again I fell into temptation, and got some of my letters “on the side.” After the line was served on the previous mail I went to the post- office and received six more letters. This time, in spite of the fact that I had gotten fifteen letters on the side, I stood in line the second day of distribution and received a lot more. There were still many of my letters, perhaps one-third of them, that did not reach me even in the third mail which came in over the ice before the spring break-up, and I did not receive them until the ice cleared out of the river in June and the mail remaining at Tagish was shipped down the river. Many heart-breaking scenes were witnessed that spring in 368 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA connection with the mail. In one case a young wife had written her husband early in the fall, telling him of her illness and increasing disease, and begging him to take the winter trail and come home. He would have obeyed the first sum- mons, but did not receive it until too late; the last letter from home announced her death. Business disasters, family be- reavements, other bad news; troubles that would have been averted had the mail arrived; all of these lay at the door of a careless government and venal officers. But the abundant news most of us received overbalanced the anxiety and disappointment of others. The war-cloud which was hovering over the United States, trouble with Spain over Cuba, the call for troops, the enlisting of thousands of soldiers, such news as this reached us, not through papers, for none of those came in the mail, but chiefly through news- paper clippings sent by such wives as mine in their letters. Mrs. Young was especially thoughtful and diligent in sending important clippings of this war news. I was keeping the library in the A C Company’s store, and was in attendance daily. I filled two large paper boxes with loose clippings, and that store was besieged with miners eagerly devouring the news from the States. After the clippings had been scanned by the miners I sent them to St. Mary’s Hospital, where they would do still more missionary work. In many ways, besides the mails, the government officials of Canada fell far down in our estimation. When I bought my little cabin from Gillis he said he could not give me a deed to the lot, which was 25 x 40 feet, because it was on government ground, and a price would be asked for it when the proper officials came in. I had paid so much for the cabin that I was naturally anxious about the price I would have to pay for the lot. I consulted my friend, Mr. Fawcett. ‘“ You need not worry about that,” he said. “ All the government will ask will be a sum sufficient to pay for the survey of these lots—perhaps ES KING WINTER 369 eight or ten dollars at the most.” With the first mail came the Judge, who was to hold court. With a number of other lot holders, I asked him what he thought would be the price of the lots. ‘““T cannot answer that question,” replied the Judge. ‘‘ The land commissioner, who will be in shortly, will attend to that.” ‘““Can’t you give me an estimate of the probable price? ” I insisted. “Oh, only a small fee will be charged. No part of Canada charges more than five to eight dollars for such lots,” he said. When Major Walsh, the newly appointed governor, arrived with the next mail over the ice, a number of us, with myself as spokesman, went to pay our respects, and incidentally asked him concerning the price of the lots on which our cabins stood. “Oh, that need not concern you,” he said. “It will be only a trifle. Mr. Wade, the land commissioner, will set a price when he arrives, as that comes under his jurisdiction.” We heard rumours of high assessments. Thousands of men were arriving every day; these had packed their goods over the Chilcoot Pass or by horses over the White Pass during the winter, had sledded them to the foot of Lake Lebarge and there had left most of them, bringing on their sleds just enough to last until the river would open. The chechacos were naturally anxious to build cabins, and were looking for loca- tions, and they must know the price of the lots before ventur- ing to build upon them. I headed a delegation and went to see Mr. Wade, the land commissioner. He was a fat, bluff fellow, who looked at us suspiciously, and answered gruffly: “JT cannot fix a price on these lots in a day. I will have to look over the ground, and see the locations.” “ But you can give us some idea of what it will be,” I in- sisted. ‘‘ Here are all these men, hundreds of them, wanting to build cabins, but they cannot venture until they have some 370 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA idea of how much they will have to pay for the lots on which they build.” “Qh, it won’t be much,” he replied. ‘ But I will tell you this—the more cabins that are built, the less each one will have to pay for his own. Tell the men to go on and build; that no deed can be given for any lot until the beginning of a cabin is made on it, so as to hold the property. I will set a day for the assessment on the lots.” Then the news spread that the price would be small, and all that army of newcomers began frantically to select lots and build. A bulletin said that the walls‘must be up six feet be- © fore the lots could be secured. On the appointed day my friends and I were at Mr. Wade’s office. He kept us waiting a long while, and then came out with a large plat and an- nounced the price that had been assessed on the lots. My little 25 x 40 foot lot was assessed two hundred and fifty dol- lars, and those around it a like amount, while those farther back were a little less. Of course we loudly protested. We cited what the other officers had said, and went in a body to Major Walsh and filed a protest, reminding him what he had told us concerning the government policy in such cases. He was uneasy, and wiggled about in his chair: “‘ It is too much, it is too much. I must talk with Wade about that.” “But you said positively that it would not be more than ten dollars,” I remonstrated, ‘“‘ just enough to pay for the sur- “Well, the government will not get more than that much.” Then he bethought himself of what he was saying: ‘‘ Good- day, gentlemen. I will talk to Wade about it.” Evidently the governor was “in” with Wade on this graft, or else was so much under his influence that he dared not pro- test. I succeeded in getting my lot for a hundred and fifty dollars, but others did not fare so well. Some simply aban- —— oe KING WINTER 371 doned their lots and the logs they had gotten together, and went up the creeks. Here they could build without having to pay such an enormous tax. Mr. Wade lasted only four months in the Klondike, and then was recalled, as the result of the numerous appeals sent to Ottawa on account of his flagrant dishonesty. When he was about to board the steamer on his way out, an exasperated miner who had lost heavily on account of Wade’s extortions, roared: “ If I can’t get justice, I will take it out of your hide! ” knocked him down in the government warehouse, and gave him a good beating. Wade had to take it, but consoled himself with his loot, and boasted: “I don’t mind a thing like that, for I have cleared four hundred thousand dollars in the time I have been here.” The sequel of this case is still worse. We had corrupt court officials at Nome in 1900-1 in the notorious Noyes-McKenzie loot of the miners, but their graft was promptly detected. Most of the gold they had stolen from the Swedish owners of claims on Anvil Creek was restored, the United States Court of Appeals reversing the decisions of the Nome Court; the judge and Mr. McKenzie were jailed, and honest officials sent to undo the damage. But there in the Klondike, though Mr. Wade was recalled and Governor Walsh soon lost his office, inside of a year Mr. Wade was returned, as “ crown attor- ney,” to pursue his nefarious business of graft in a still more insolent and lucrative way, and to carry off with him still more hundreds of thousands in gold. Mr. Fawcett rated in public opinion as our one honest of- ficial and, I believe, deserved the praise. But it is a well- known fact that some of the clerks in his office gained large sums by selling information concerning claims on which gold had been discovered, delaying the recording of these claims until “jumpers ” could set their stakes, and then announcing to the discoverers that others had been ahead of them. On 372 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA account of this graft our Christian commissioner lost his posi- tion, while the real culprits were unpunished. As one of the American miners said, “‘ These Canucks can give the Yanks cards and spades, and then beat them all hollow, at the graft game.” A glaring extortion was perpetrated by the Canadian govern- ment itself. Contrary to the general practice in all other min- ing regions, the government at Ottawa assessed ten per cent. on the gross output of the claims in the Klondike. These claims were for the most part let out in “lays.” The lay men delivered over to the owners of the claims a royalty, amount- ing on an average to fifty per cent. of the gold they dug. Many of the claims were so moderate in value that the ten per cent. assessed by the government took all they made after paying wages to their labourers, heavy rates for lumber, the - board of their men and other expenses. Thousands of these lay men, who had borrowed money at as high as ten per cent. per month interest, giving a lien on their dumps, found them- selves at the close of the season out and injured, without gold and deeply in debt. All of these complaints must be poured into my sym- pathetic ears, but in spite of it the camp was a cheerful one, and the fact that men came to me with their troubles en- hanced my influence over them. AVUNV YANWNAS NI NOSMVC AWIL-GIO eames BOUG SIN Ns « 5a ¥ eA Sh er iii ie“ oR TR PEPER, C8 RED ey ay yiaag hk : — : i iat ec re me ee il me ; ase na P bye , é Aj Pi are ss eat eee es veg ad yes XXXV FRUITION years ago emphasizes one fact: That a minister who joins a stampede, if he is to be successful, must lose all sense of any difference between himself and other men—I mean, all “holier than thou” feeling—and become simply a man among men. He should be able to do whatever there is to do, with hands, head and heart. He ought to know how to build his own church or his own house, if he has to do that; to mush along the trail, with his dogs or alone, when it is sixty below, and like it and keep comfortable. He should know how to make a cozy camp in the woods during severe cold weather without suffering or grumbling. He should be able to cook for himself month after month with scanty and monot- onous fare, without committing suicide. If he cannot do these physical things and observe this mental attitude, he has no business in the Northland, and the people of that land will do no business with him. Without in any degree losing my own respect for my call- ing, I learned not to vaunt my office or to pose as a preacher in habit or dress, but rather to put all that in the background. In a real sense, a minister on such a mission must be a “ good sport ”—a cheerful loser and a gracious winner. It became a matter of pardonable pride to know that I could take my fishing line and my gun into the untrodden wilds any- where in that land, and not go hungry or lose my strength; that I could meet any inhabitant of the wilderness, white or native, on his own trail, partake of his fare in his shack and leave him more happy and contented than when I came; that Ra A MENTAL review of that life in the Northland thirty 374 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA I could be elected as judge of a dog race as readily as I could be chosen chairman of a religious committee. As Easter approached we began to gather in the fruits of the winter’s work. I had become acquainted with most of the Christian people on all the creeks, and we were ready for or- ganization. Outside of the Church of England and the Cath- olic Church, I was the only representative of the ministry at work in the Klondike that winter. Men of all denominations flocked to our church in Pioneer Hall. The membership of fifty-nine that we were able to muster at the organization, on Easter Day, represented eleven different denominations. ‘That number did not include, by any means, all of our following— only a tithe of it. Of the fifty-nine who enrolled only nine were women. That sex had very few representatives in the Klondike that first winter, and still fewer worthy ones. Nine of the men joined on confession of their faith, and the others on statement of affiliation elsewhere. The organization was effected in regular form. When it came to the election of the elders, three men were chosen—Mr. Fawcett, our beloved commissioner; Mr. Hayward from Ta- coma; and Mr. Wells, a lawyer from California, all Meth- odists. When it came to that article in our book which re- quires the elders to adopt the Confession of Faith as contain- ing the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures, there was some hesitation as to whether Methodists could qualify for such an office. They asked to know what the Confession of Faith taught. I had no copy with me, but had a summary of doctrine in a Form Book, and this satisfied them com- pletely. ‘“‘ That is what we have always believed,” they said, and so were ordained. The five trustees represented four de- nominations, two Congregationalists, one Baptist, one member of the Church of Christ, and one Presbyterian. This latter was Mr. Cadenhead of Winnipeg, the chief surveyor of the mounted police. I FRUITION 375 The spring break-up of the ice on the Yukon is always a very great event. Of late years pools have been formed for guessing the time of the break-up, and large sums of money have been realized by the lucky ones. We were too new at the game, and too hard up for money, to venture upon any such hazard, but the whole camp was agog for the event. I have no record of the date, but it was about the middle of May, when signs of spring became evident; the birds had come from the South and were singing their full-throated songs of welcome; the mosquitoes were also singing theirs, but not so welcome; the poor scurvy patients hobbled out of their cabins to sun themselves on logs, and those at St. Mary’s Hospital gathered on the front porch, waving feeble hands and rejoic- ing at the prospect of recovery when the “spuds” should arrive. The snow had melted off the sunny slopes, and gardening had begun. Joyful grumblings and crackings were heard from the big river as the tributary streams filled from the melted snow. Here and there along the margins water was running over the ice. The day was a sunny one, and the old-timers were so confident of the break-up that Dawson was out on the bank en masse. Towards evening the cry was heard, “Here she comes! ” Strange rearing forms as of a fox hunt in old England with hounds and horses leaping, appeared up the river; then the roar as of an avalanche mingled with cracks of artillery and booms of large guns, and an under- tone as of surf on breakers, filled the air. Down the river rushed the horde of charging figures; now the dogs and horses changed to dinosaurs and vitalized houses leaping into the air. Here a great triangle of ice would shoot up seventy feet or more. There with a slow heave a rounded dome would loom thirty feet above the surface, and then break into sharp slabs of ice and subside in the foaming mass. Crack! Smash! Roar! it came. The edges of ice two or three feet thick 376 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA crumbled, reared, sank, dissolved. The tide of the river rose higher and higher, until it filled the banks, the great slabs of ice damming the river. All the cabins on the flats were de- serted at once, their tenants racing towards higher ground, carrying what they could of their most precious possessions. The rising and falling of the water was like the surface of the ocean following a mighty storm. Then, as rapidly as it had risen, the water subsided, and a tremendous army of millions of ice cakes, ranging in size from a foot square to an acre, swept down the river. “We are not chechacos any longer, we are sourdoughs! ” shouted the men and women. The camp rejoiced: ‘‘ Now our friends will launch their boats on the upper Yukon, and soon the camp will be alive with new people, and we will enjoy fresh vegetables, fruits, meats and eggs.” Nowhere else in the world does spring mean so much and meet with such welcome as in those camps of the. North. I was on the waterfront near the close of a warm day the last of May. I heard shouting, and witnessed a surge of the crowd towards the little cove where boats would come in out of the river current. Men were excited, hustling one another, crowding towards this point. Hands were waving gold sacks high in the air. When I got near enough I could distinguish the cries: ‘“‘ Here, I want some! ” “I'll take a dozen!” “See my dust here—I’m in on this! ” Finally I elbowed my way to the bank, and found a small boat of rough boards filled with goods. One man stood in the bow with a small pair of gold scales in his hand, and a blower; another stood in the center of the boat handing out eggs from a box which had been opened. The miners were eagerly crowd- ing and bidding for the eggs. One would receive six or a dozen of the precious “ cackleberries,” would tender his gold poke, and the weigher would pour some dust into the scoop, dash it FRUITION 377 quickly into the scale, up would fly the weight, into the boat- man’s strong box the gold would be thrown, and the buyer would walk proudly off with his eggs. He had paid the sum of two dollars an egg for his precious “‘ hen fruit ’—yes, more than that, for the receiver of the gold had not been particular in weighing it, and the buyer was too proud to kick. Thirty dozen eggs brought seven hundred and twenty dollars, and the owner boasted that he had received a thousand dollars from the careless weighing. Considering that the eggs had been bought in Seattle for twenty-five cents a dozen and that they were not new-laid, being at least six weeks old, an idea can be had of the hunger of these men for something fresh. The joy of spring made men liberal. I received presents of apples, oranges, onions and potatoes, all of which articles sold for a dollar apiece. In a few more days more cases of eggs came in, and the price came down to eight dollars a dozen and remained so until fall. I was coming one Monday from my meeting at The Forks, sixteen miles from Dawson, packing on my back a sack of gold dust containing ten thousand dollars and weighing fifty pounds. For taking this gold dust from Eldorado to Dawson I received twenty-five dollars. My com- panions on the trail were Captain Ellis, the owner of an El- dorado claim, and a Miss Morrison, a young lady who had been a school-teacher but had got the gold fever and had come down the river on one of the first boats. She dressed like a man, and enjoyed her first experience in roughing it. After the fashion of those days, we hit the trail about seven o'clock in the evening. It would be daylight all night, and the air was cooler than in the middle of the day. We trudged along single-file, splashing through the mudholes and picking our way around the deeper pools. At eleven o’clock we stopped at an improvised roadhouse on lower Bonanza to get a meal, as we were quite hungry by that time. Captain Ellis treated us, and ordered bacon and eggs and coffee. We had fresh 378 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA biscuits and potatoes besides. The cost of our midnight meal was six dollars each, and Captain Ellis paid it with joy. One day one of the New York reporters came to my cabin breathless with news. “I have just heard that a ‘ P-I’ (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) has come to the camp with won- derful news of the war. Let’s go and find the owner of that paper.” So we hiked to the mouth of the Klondike, where the man had just landed with his boat. We hurried up to him. It was the last of May, and he had a paper dated the second of May, which contained the news of Dewey’s victory at Manila. “How much for the paper? ” we asked. The newcomer had not as yet “ got onto ” his job and said, “I don’t know; it is nearly a month old.” “We will give you $10.00 for it,” we said. “It’s yours,” he quickly replied, and handed it over. We went to the trustees of the Pioneer Hall and secured the use of the hall for one night, paying twenty-five dollars. We placarded the town with signs reading: Wonderful News! Victory at Manila! CoME AND Hear IT READ AT PIONEER HALL. Joaquin Miller will read his famous poem “To My Comrades of the Chilcoot.” Male Quartette and Other Music Come and Hear from Home! Admission $2.50 Proceeds for St. Mary’s Hospital. The reporter attended to the advertising. Nearly all the war news we had received before had been by means of clip- pings. The crowd was crazy for news. At eight o’clock in the evening we admitted as many as could crowd into the hall, those who could not get in being assured there would be an- other chance for them after two hours. We took turns at read- ing the paper. We read the account of the great victory, FRUITION 379 stories of the enlistment of soldiers all over the United States and other miscellaneous news. Our quartet sang from time to time, and the poet repeated his Chilcoot poem and others of his writings. At the close of the program we let the crowd depart, and instantly the house was filled again. We repeated the program to three audiences that night, and at two o’clock desisted, hoarse and tired. We cleared over six hundred dol- lars for the hospital. The next night we announced a reduction of the price of ad- mission to one dollar, filled the hall again, read to four audi- ences, and cleared some four hundred and fifty dollars for the new Good Samaritan Hospital, which we were erecting under the auspices of our Klondike church. This paper was the only one that came in before the break-up of Lake Lebarge, which occurred about the twelfth of June. The rotting of the ice on the lakes and the break-up made a cessation of some two weeks in our news. Then came in another paper with news of the siege of Santiago and other war news. We were looking for the owner, but unfortunately he had heard of the money we made on the former paper; so he kept his, hired the hall himself and put the price of admission at a dollar and a half, read it to four audiences and cleared between six and seven hundred dollars, making a good grub-stake from his investment of five cents. Now came the vast army of gold seekers, business men, traders, crooks and camp followers. Thousands of tents filled the flats and clung to the hillsides. Twenty thousand boats and scows descended the rapids from Bennett. These, swelled in number later by those who came up the Yukon on steam- boats, increased the population at Dawson to a figure variously estimated at from forty to fifty thousand. Not only tender- feet from the States, but old-timers from the gold fields of Colorado, California and British Columbia, and even from Australia and South Africa, hastened to the new strike. These 380 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA experienced men, full of the courage and sense of freedom and justice of their former camps, helped to bring order out of confusion and to put a curb upon the avarice and dishonesty of those inclined to exploit the camp for their own gain. With the army of gold seekers came a number of preachers —three Canadian Presbyterian, one Wesleyan Methodist, one Lutheran, one Salvation Army and others. The Presbyterian ministers from the Canadian Church were headed by Dr. Andrew Grant, who was superintendent of the new enterprise. He was a tall, brawny, freckle-faced Scotchman, with much previous experience on the frontiers, an able, resourceful man. He had the bluff manner possessed by most of the Canadians and those from the British Isles. His first word to me was, “What are you doing here? ” intimating that I was encroach- ing on his territory. It was the attitude taken by many Cana- dians and Englishmen towards the Americans. By that time the United States had decided that the Klondike was in British territory, but the Canadians had not yielded to the claim of the United States that Skagway and all of the coast of South- eastern Alaska belonged to this country. Dr. Grant and those with him naturally felt that I was on their ground, and had no authority to organize the Klondike church. But we got along very well, considering the difference in our standpoints, and alternated in conducting services and the other duties of the ministry. We had organized the Good Samaritan Hospital, and I had raised some money for it, and had also begun the labour of building a new log church. We went on with this labour, I doing most of the canvassing up the creeks. But it soon became apparent to me that my organization must be turned over to the Canadians. The Yukon Province of Canada had been fully organized, and new officers were being sent in—not only to Dawson but to other camps. While I was invited by Dr. Grant and the Canadian Church to re- FRUITION 381 main as pastor of the church I had organized, I soon found that this would not do at all. It would necessitate my becom- ing a Canadian citizen and relinquishing the dream which was beginning to float before my vision of the evangelization of the great Territory of Alaska. Fully five-sixths of those who joined the Klondike stampede were from the United States. Not one in ten of those who landed at Dawson could get rich claims in that region. News of gold discoveries within the borders of Alaska, at Rampart, Circle City, Eagle, up the Koyukuk and on the Northwestern Coast was rumoured about the camp. Almost immediately began an exodus from Dawson down the river by those who had built their boats at Bennett and Lebarge and were ready to go on to the undiscovered country down the Yukon in hope of finding rich camps in what the Americans, disgusted with Canadian misrule, called ‘‘ God’s Country.” During the early summer I made a trip by steamboat down the Yukon, stopping at Eagle long enough to preach and con- sult with the Christian people there concerning the establish- ment of a mission. This was a new and thriving little town, just across the border from Canada. Casting about for a place to preach, I entered a saloon at Eagle. Soon I secured the hearty permission of the saloon-keeper to use his saloon tent as a place of meeting. He put his wet goods out of sight and helped me improvise benches and get ready for our service. The tent was well filled, and the singing and all the service inspiring. Without exception, I found this attitude of mind in all the new camps. Thousands of people from churches in the East come with every stampede, and although many grow careless and neglect the outer forms of their religion, the faith is still there, and other thousands are hungry and thirsty for the preached word. Then down the Yukon to Circle City, which is two hundred and eighty miles down the river from Dawson. This was an 382 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA old town and had been a very thriving one. It was said to be the largest purely log cabin town on the continent, for no sawmills had been built there. I did not stop off at Circle or take steps to establish a church there, because I found the Episcopal Mission had ministered to that town, and one of their pastors was at work. I made it a rule in my pioneer days that in small camps where one could do the work ef- ficiently, if there was a man of another denomination there I would move on. Over-churching small camps and towns is not only a foolish mistake, but it is a crime against the real work of the Church. Fort Yukon was another mission ministered to in early times by the Church of England; it is now occupied by the American Episcopal Church, Rev. Peter Rowe, Episcopal Bishop of Alaska, having commenced his work there. . But Rampart, four hundred miles down the Yukon, was dif- ferent. Here large numbers of gold seekers, desperately striv- ing to reach Dawson, in the fall of 97 had been blockaded by the ice and forced to spend the winter there, seven hundred miles from their goal. A number of steamboats laden with passengers and goods for the Klondike were tied up in that vicinity. An Indian brought into the camp some gold dust, and Manook Creek, named after the chief of a small tribe near by, was discovered and staked. A very busy and thriving town had arisen as if by magic. I stopped off here, and was in camp a week or more before a steamboat up the river could convey me back to Dawson. Here again was real pioneering work, and the excitement and joy of it still stirs my blood. I found Christians, a lot of them, in the camp. Boats were coming down the river, and their crews were stampeding in all direc- tions, hunting for gold. Two large companies had built stores, many saloons were in evidence, and all the signs of a pros- perous camp were in the air. There was no house available for my first Sunday service, but a great pile of logs on the FRUITION 383 bank afforded seats for my audience. A man with a cornet was found and engaged, placards called a meeting, and there were perhaps a hundred and fifty men lolling on the sand. We had a great meeting, disturbed only by the swarm of mos- quitoes. After the service I raised money sufficient to purchase a mission site at Rampart. Then back to Dawson, to con- tinue my work in company with Dr. Grant and Mr. Dickey. Late in August I took a little steamer up the river. This boat had been built at Bennett and had been lined down White Horse Rapids and brought to Dawson. We had to portage at White Horse, take another steamer above the rapids, and so back to Bennett. Then I tramped over the White Pass Trail, thirty miles to Skagway. Here I found Rev. Mr. Sin- clair, another Canadian minister, a man of fine ability and with the true spirit of a pioneer. He had already erected a church there. Mr. Dickey, the first Canadian minister who preached at that point, had reached the camp soon after I left it, and had spent the early part of the winter erecting a community church. The year that had elapsed since I had taken the Klondike trail from Skagway had worked an amazing transformation in that town. Then it had been but a confused camp in the woods, without houses, stores, law or order. Now it was a neat little city of from six to seven thousand people, with four large docks, a good water system, electric lights, tele- phones, the beginning of a railroad, and all the comforts and luxuries of a civilized city. Four or five large hotels accom- modated travelers, a United States commissioner held court, two companies of United States soldiers assisted in keeping order. Soapy Smith and his gang were no more. This ener- getic and unscrupulous leader of crooks, after dominating the new town and having his own evil way most of the winter, had met his deserts. Trying to break up a meeting of im- provised vigilantes convened for the purpose of putting an 384 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA end to Soapy’s reign, which meeting was held at the warehouse on one of the docks, Soapy had gone too far, had attacked with his gang a guard posted at the entrance of the wharf, and in a duel which lasted but a minute Soapy was shot dead and the guard was so badly wounded by him that he died in three or four days. The gang was dispersed, and most of its members were apprehended, taken to Sitka for trial and sent to the penitentiary. Skagway was an orderly, neat, law-abiding city, and the church was flourishing. Other denominations were be- ginning to build. I sailed to Seattle in a few days, and on my arrival somewhat stirred the church people of that booming city with the re- ligious news from the Klondike, meeting many of those whom I had known in the gold camps. I communicated by letter and telegram with headquarters in New York, and was directed to return to Skagway, take over the church and send Mr. Sinclair into the interior. I sailed back to Skagway, but did not re- main. I found Mr. Sinclair was too late to make the trip to Dawson, that he was doing splendid work at Skagway and was much beloved there. Therefore, I made arrangements that he remain, finish his building projects and act his part as pastor there, being supported by the Presbyterian Board, and then go into the interior in the spring, when he would be relieved by one of our American preachers. All of this took about three weeks. In late September I took train at Seattle, stopped a day or two at the meeting of the Synod of Washington, which convened at Spokane, and then joyfully home to my family at Wooster, and on to New York to lay plans for a greater enterprise. XXXVI THE NOME RUSH Y reception in New York and among the Eastern M churches was warmer than I had anticipated and far better than I deserved. The chief topic of con- versation everywhere was the Klondike, and the secretary of the mission Board was deluged with demands for my lecture, “ A Year in the Klondike.” I was obsessed with a burning idea —to get together a company of capable and enterprising min- isters who could go with me and follow the thousands of Amer- icans rushing away from Dawson down the Yukon in their boats to gold fields which were being exploited in the great in- terior of Alaska, and also the other thousands who were sailing on vessels from Seattle and San Francisco to the Bering Sea Coast, and up into the Arctic to the Kobuk region, and even to the Kuskoquim and Koyukuk Rivers. Into this vast region the people of the States were swarming, and I forecast the con- ditions that would prevail among those who still were tender- feet in these wild camps where rumour had located gold. All that winter I swung around the circuit of the churches in the principal states of the East. My family moved to Brook- lyn, and my office was in the rooms of the Board. I was av- eraging more than a lecture a day all winter, besides answer- ing hundreds of letters which were pouring in, asking for lec- ture dates. In the spring of 799, with joyful anticipations of new and greater adventures, I turned again to the Northwest. Dr. M. Egbert Koonce, one of four new workers for the Alaskan field, started with me; the rest were to follow later. Koonce and I outfitted at Seattle, and arrived at Skagway about the first of 385 ~ 386 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA May. It took us nearly three weeks to get our outfit over the White Pass and down to Lake Bennett. While at Skagway, one of the strongest temptations of all my experience assailed me. The great Harriman Scientific Expedition arrived on the steamer ‘‘ George W. Elder.” Many noted scientists were in the party, including Merriam and Dall of the Smithsonian Insti- tute, Fuertes of Cornell, John Burroughs and, greatest of all, my old friend, John Muir. They were to cruise all along the Alaska Coast to the Aleutian Islands, range along both shores of Bering Sea and into the Arctic Ocean, spending the summer in entrancing exploration. Muir introduced me to Mr. Harri- man, who cordially invited me to go with them and share Muir’s stateroom. What an enticing proposition! My whole soul and body ached to go, but my own, no less important, ex- pedition was on foot, and I had to refuse. The railroad was completed to the summit, and we could convey our goods by this means to that point. Beyond we had the usual strenuous, trying time in getting pack-horses and wagons to take our goods to Bennett, and we had another de- lay getting boats ready to make the river voyage. At Bennett I found Rev. Mr. Sinclair, whom I had left at Skagway, and Rev. John Pringle, that sturdy pioneer from Canada. They were busily working on the new church they were erecting—that rustic building with criss-cross slabs for the outer covering, the skeleton of which still attracts the at- tention of tourists. I worked with them for a week, and I am interested in noticing that the shingles I put on are still doing their duty on the roof. We secured a couple of boats from a Swede, “ Yohn Anderson.” Mr. Hayward, who was one of my elders at the organization of the Klondike church, was return- ing to Dawson, and took passage in one of our boats. Two other ‘ Yohns ”—-Yohn Yonson and Yohn Yacobson—shipped as crew to work their passage. Another man, an American, went along on the same terms. This man and Anderson a THE NOME RUSH 387 formed the crew for our boat, while the other Yohns with Hay- ward manned the second boat. I steered my own boat through the lakes and a number of the rapids. At Dawson we found Dr. Grant, with a large congregation, worshipping in the com- pleted log church, and the Good Samaritan Hospital accom- plishing well its great humane task. Then on to Eagle on the Alaska side, our first objective. ' Here we were to make ready for the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Kirk, whom we were to await at that point. Eagle was a booming little town, eager miners were working on American Creek and other points. A company of soldiers was at Fort Egbert, and the citizens of the town were confident of its large growth and were full of enthusiasm. We secured a temporary dwelling house for the Kirks and a lot for the future church. Plans were all completed for the organization of the new presbytery. Mr. Kirk had put the bill through the Church’s General Assembly. Norman Harrison was to stop at Skagway and take charge of that church. We expected Mr. Corser to come on to Eagle, but Dr. Thompson, finding the important charge at Wrangell vacant, diverted him from our enterprise and left him there. When the Kirks arrived we had the momentous first meeting of the Presbytery of the Yukon. As I had been appointed convenor, I was also the first moderator. Rev. Dr. Marsh and Rey. Mr. Spriggs of Point Barrow, with Kirk, Koonce and my- self, were enrolled as charter members. This presbytery, which has never grown to large proportions, although it covers more ground than any other in our body, has done a splendid work for the Northwest, and has commanded a respect and in- fluence far in excess of its numbers. Leaving the Kirks at Eagle, ‘‘ Kooncie ” and I launched our boat again, stopped and preached at Circle, fought mosquitoes through the sluggish flats, and arrived at Rampart during the latter days of July. Here I paused long enough to introduce 388 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA Koonce and get him started at his work. Then I took passage on a boat, crowded with eager gold seekers, down the river towards the newly discovered camp at Nome. The boat was greatly overcrowded; the miners would not listen to the prot- estations of the company and of the captain, but took the boat by storm, loading their outfits upon it and preventing the cast- ing off of the cable until they were all aboard, and so the boat, dangerously overloaded, steamed down the river. The news of wonderful beach diggings at a new camp on Seward Penin- sula, variously called Nome and Anvil, had somehow reached the upper camps. Many from Dawson were on board. The third week of August found me at St. Michael eagerly trying to get passage to Nome—one hundred and twenty miles dis- tant. Men were building small boats, chartering Eskimo oomiaks and fishing smacks, and hastening to the new dig- gings. At St. Michael I found Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who was mak- ing his annual tour of the schools on the revenue cutter, “Bear.” “Hurry on to Nome! ” he cried. “ You will find the greatest task of your life in that new camp.” I learned that Rev. L. L. Wirt of the Congregational Church had passed me while I was waiting at Eagle, and had arrived at Nome a week or ten days previous. He had remained there only a few days, and had raised some money, and departed with it to get lumber and material for a hospital and church. Therefore, the new camp was without a minister of any de- nomination. Finding it impossible to get my provisions to Nome by rowboats, and learning that a small steamboat be- longing to the Alaska Exploration Company was to sail in a day or two, I walked a mile and a half through the mossy tundra to the point where this boat was tied up, and engaged passage. I could not find any means of getting myself and my goods to this vessel, until I discovered back of one of the stores an abandoned boat with gaping seams. I got a few ~—— Ie THE NOME RUSH 389 planks, some nails and oakum for calking, and went to work labouring at the uninviting craft until three o’clock in the morning, when it was completed sufficiently to allow its launch- ing. When I went to get my pile of goods to take them aboard, I discovered the loss of my most valuable war-bag, which con- tained my best clothing, extra boots, trousers and overcoat and many other indispensable articles provided for the coming winter. Some thief, undoubtedly a white man, had coveted and purloined the sack. I improvised a pair of oars from boards and, at the very end of my strength, ferried my goods in three trips with the little boat, and got them to the steamer a short hour before its time of sailing. It took us two days and a night, bumping the waves and bucking the head wind, to make the short voyage to Nome. We anchored a mile from shore in very shallow water. A for- est of masts surrounded us, and all sorts of small craft, dories, oomiaks, kyaks and ship’s boats were plying between the various ships anchored in the offing and Nome. The captain had been swearing at the weather the whole voyage, and now he said to us, “ I am going to put you ashore. There is a storm coming up which will wreck us, if we lie here. No anchor would hold us in an hour from now. We will put you ashore in the dory, and then we will sail to Sledge Island, twenty miles away, to anchor in its lee until the storm abates. I can’t land your outfits, for there is not time.” There was nothing to be said on the part of the passengers, and so with poor grace, each one of us taking on his back a little sack with his blankets, we bundled ourselves into the dory, were rowed to the beach, and there, trying to get ashore, our dory was capsized and we rolled over and over with our bundles in the surf, and struggled ashore half-drowned and al- together miserable. The camp was dark. Here and there a lantern flashed its light along the beach. One or two lamps sent feeble rays through the fog from shack or tent. Stumbling 390 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA over guy ropes, groping my way between tents, piles of goods with tarpaulins over them, driftwood:and beach débris, I came to a board shanty with a shingle in front marked, “ Lodging.” Here I found an old Dawson acquaintance, Mrs. McGrath. She greeted me heartily, and helped remove my soggy outer garments. When I asked about lodging she said: “Sure, ye can. Just spread yer blankets on the flure here, and find a place where no one else is layin’.” I then took stock of my money, and found the amount only five dollars and twenty-five cents. When I inquired the price of lodging, she said, ‘ As it’s yerself, I’ll only charge ye a dol- lar and feefty cents.” That seemed plenty to pay for the privilege of spreading one’s own blankets on a rough board floor, but I did not com- plain. She took me to a tent where meals were served, and another dollar and a half went for pork and beans. In the morning still another meal, and then my five and a quarter be- gan to “ look like thirty cents,” but still I could not resist the great temptation, when I heard a small boy crying, “Seattle Post-Intelligencer,’ which was a month old, and I purchased it for fifty cents. Only one twenty-five cent piece remained of my money, and here I was, a stranger in a strange land, my outfit twenty miles away and not to be put ashore for a num- ber of days. No tent, no grub, “no nothing! ” It seemed very comical to me, and I was laughing when I entered the A B Company’s store. A whiskered man who was warming himself spoke to me. ‘‘ You seem to be pleased about something,” he said. “ Have you struck it rich? ” “A rich joke on me,” I answered, and then explained my predicament. He jumped at me and began pumping my arm. “You are Dr. Young, aren’t you?” he asked. “ Dr. Jackson told me you were coming. I have been trying to hold some meetings here, for I am an elder from a San Francisco church.” His name was Fickus, and he was a splendid specimen of THE NOME RUSH 391 frontier workman. A carpenter, he had been putting up one of the large stores. He was now awaiting the sailing of a steamboat to return him home. He offered to lend me money until I could get started. “Let’s wait a while,’ I said. ‘“‘ Something may happen.” The anticipated event occurred very promptly. While we were talking a man came into the store and with rapid strides walked up to me and said, “‘ You are a minister? ” Yes,” I replied. “Can you marry people? ” “ Indeed, I can.” “Will you marry me?” — “ Certainly, if you have the girl.” “That I have,” he said, “the best in the world. She came on that steamer last night.” So with Mr. Fickus as witness we tramped through the mud to a tent, there found a pleasant young lady waiting, and I united the happy couple in matrimony. For this service I received a fée of twenty dollars. My troubles were over, and my food assured for a few more days. Let me say right here, that Alaska is the best place in the world for you to land in if you are dead-broke. I shall have more stories to tell of the open-handed generosity and help- fulness of the men of the wilderness, as compared with the selfish aloofness of the people who dwell in the lonesomest place in all the world—a great city. Although events had crowded rapidly in the Klondike stam- pede, the hurrying, the cares and the trying experiences did not approach those at Nome. This great camp was formed suddenly. There was the treeless tundra, moss-covered and swampy; before it stretched the shallow Bering Sea, the beach sloping gradually, and ships drawing much water could not safely approach nearer than within two miles of the shore. On account of the charging ice in the fall and spring, the fierce 392 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA and sudden storms, the constant assaults of the choppy seas, it was almost impossible to build breakwaters that would stand. The little Snake River had a shallow bar at its mouth, and there were no sheltering coves for forty miles up and down the Coast. Hither had come some Swedes with prospecting tools. They had found gold near the mouth of Anvil Creek, and this strike had proved so rich that a small stampede had fol- lowed, and the creek was shortly staked from source to mouth. Before the excitement of this discovery had subsided, miners panning the sands of the beach had found astonishing quan- tities of fine gold. The news spread rapidly, and caused great excitement. The phenomenon of beach diggings which could not, according to law, be staked, but were open to any num- ber of men who chose to work them, was something new in mining. It was a great “ poor man’s proposition.” Some of the early prospectors were rocking out from twenty to a hun- dred dollars a day in fine gold, right on the open beach. As the news spread, men who had failed on the Yukon, at Rampart and other points, but principally the poor deluded miners who had flocked to the Kobuk, Noatak, and Selawick Rivers, which flowed into Kitzebue Sound in the Arctic Ocean, returning home, hungry, weather-beaten and heartsick from failure, found themselves at Nome. This new booming camp opened an opportunity for them to retrieve their lost fortunes. So the wild camp began; tents were pitched for ten miles east and west of Nome. Hastily, three trading companies, the Alaska Commercial, the Northwestern Trading Company, and the Alaska Exploration Company, erected buildings on the tundra near the mouth of Snake River. Anvil Creek was rap- idly worked during the short open season, and its thousands of dollars in gold increased the excitement. The great camp was too busy to pay any attention to sanitary conditions. Men did not take time to put down wells or to secure a supply THE NOME RUSH $93 of pure water. They were drinking the seepage of that impure camp. Typhoid fever was inevitable; it descended upon the crowd in its most virulent form. A company of soldiers who had been sent at the beginning of the camp were erecting quarters. Men began to sicken and die so fast that attention was finally averted from mining to caring for the sick. I found my hands full of humane work the first day I landed. Before a week had passed it was estimated that one-third of the men at Nome had typhoid fever. I found three men desperately sick in one tent, two of them delirious and no one to care for them. Men died in lonely tents before they were discovered. I had eleven funerals in one week, all typhoid cases. Humane work must be organized if lives were to be saved and the epidemic checked. Of course, the religious work could not be neglected, where- fore the first Sunday after I landed we had a meeting in the up- stairs of Minor Bruce’s warehouse, a room reached with dif- ficulty, as we had to stumble over piles of raw skins and furs in the storeroom below, climb rickety stairs and accommodate ourselves to the dim light of the attic. But we had a great meeting, splendid singing by trained voices. An experienced musician who had trained large choirs played the organ and led the singing. Altogether an inspiring service, with intel- ligent and earnest men and women in attendance. For six and one-half weeks I was the only minister at Nome to do this work. I was made chairman of four relief committees—the Odd Fellows’, the Town’s, the Citizens’, and the Mission Com- mittees. Day and night I was besieged for help. Men would come to my tent at all hours of the night, wake me up and take me to see their sick comrades. The steamers which were coming and going were taking to their homes, “ outside,”’ hun- dreds of men who had been sick and who must leave camp or die. Most of these men were without money, and enough was 394 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA raised by charity to pay their passage to Seattle. I was over- whelmed with this tide of distress. The Odd Fellows Lodge, of which I was a member, had the first relief committee, and did the finest humane work I have ever witnessed anywhere. Busy miners working for grub-stakes dropped their own work to care for their comrades. I learned to think more of my fellow-men, even gamblers and saloon-keepers, than I had ever done before, so many were the instances of loving kindness and self-sacrifice in that camp. XXXVIT PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION work, Mr. Wirt returned from Seattle, bringing with him materials for the erection of a hospital at Nome, nurses, medicines and an additional physician. With Mr. Wirt came a young man of exceptional ability, Mr. Raymond Robins. He had been a lawyer, then a Klondike stampeder, had been marooned at Holy Cross Mission on the Yukon River, and as he has often related in his addresses at Chau- tauquas, Christian Endeavour Conventions, Y. M. C. A. rallies and other great gatherings of Christian people, “ The Lord took hold of him, and by hard knocks and words of salvation converted him from a rationalist and agnostic to a humble and earnest Christian.” He dedicated himself to Christian work and although unlicensed and unordained by any religious body had allied himself to the Congregational Church, and was here at Nome to assist in whatever way he could. While Mr. Wirt felt some resentment at my appearance at Nome when he had already ‘“ preémpted ” that claim for the Congregational Church, he recognized the necessity of the work I had been doing, occupied my pulpit, in a warehouse, and began vigorously to erect his hospital and to finish a building which had been begun by a Quaker school-teacher as a reading room, and which was moved to the lot selected by the Congregational Church and finished as a chapel. In the meantime I was still more overwhelmed with the mul- titude of my duties in humane work. The camp was in a 395 \ FTER six weeks of this hard and often distressing 396 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA panic. The two or three steamers that lay in the offing at Nome ready to sail ere the ice should form had all their berths engaged by those who were getting away for the winter, and temporary bunks were erected in social halls and passageways. Suddenly the disease we had all been fighting pounced upon me. I resisted the efforts of my friends to put me to bed. “I have not time to be sick,” I protested. ‘“‘ These sick men must be taken care of and passage secured for those who ought to go out to the States.” But the typhoid was too strong for me, and the upshot was that I had to succumb, and lie down in my robes in the shanty of the Perrigos for a long siege of desperate illness. Mrs. Per- rigo was my nurse, Dr. Davy my physician, and the whole camp my sympathetic and helpful friends. The Odd Fellows were the first to come to my aid, then the Christians of the camp, and ultimately everybody seemed interested. They kept me alive by pure love; they would not let me die. The fever generally runs its course in from three to four weeks, but mine burned in my veins for seven and one-half weeks. I sank to the utmost extreme of emaciation and weakness. Nausea, chills that threatened‘to shake me to pieces, delirium, internal abscesses and many other weapons were hurled at me by the grizzly monster. Billy Murtagh, an Irish-Catholic saloon- keeper, was, after Mrs. Perrigo and Mrs. Strong, my chief nurse, and it was he who, when Dr. Davy said that I was be- yond hope, that nothing would remain on my stomach and that the end must come shortly, shouted, with an oath, ‘“‘ He shan’t die! We won’t let him! There is a cow here—let’s get some fresh milk, and see if he can take that.” That wonderful cow! An interprising man had shipped her to the camp and was selling large quantities of milk to the typhoid patients. She was said to yield twenty gallons a day, though she did not look as if she could give one. “ Bunchgrass Bill” buckled on his guns and interviewed the owner of the PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 397 cow. Billy got real milk for me, and for three months super- intended the milking of that cow, and he brought the milk to me, generally himself, in a beer bottle. That life-giving beverage gave me a little life; soon my fever broke, and my worn-out system rallied, but it was long before I recovered my strength. I count that deathly illness at Nome as one of the greatest of the many blessings ever given me. The chief element in the blessing was the insight I received into the real kindness, goodness and sterling worth latent in the hearts of even the rough element of society. I have seen and experienced so much of real kindness and tenderness from the roughest men of the North that I have grown to look for and expect real good in every one of them. “ Bunchgrass Bill,” the noted “‘ bad man,” saved my life and would have gladly laid down his own for me. Of course, my humane and religious work was turned over to Mr. Wirt and Mr. Robins. There were a number of good physicians already at Nome, who with those who came with Mr. Wirt did efficient service in combating the disease. Early in my illness a letter reached me from Mission headquarters in New York, by the last boat to arrive at Nome, directing me to hand over my work to the Congregationalists, as they were on the ground first, and to go to some other point and there recommence my labours. While this was strictly in accord with the agreement of comity between the two Churches, it was a wrong thing to do in the circumstances. The Board had no conception of the great stampede which would pour its thou- sands on the tundra at Nome the following spring. I was too ill, when the letter arrived, to be moved, much less to be sent out on the steamboat. I obeyed the letter of the command, and asked Mr. Wirt to take over my church work. Shortly be- fore Christmas I was moved from the Perrigo house to the hospital. Here I remained until I was able to stand up and 398 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA move about a little, when I returned to my friends, the Per- rigos, and afterwards continued my tedious convalescence in a cabin of my own which I had rented. Hard as was my experience, I am convinced that the suffer- ings of my wife and daughters, who had moved to Ithaca, New York, were greater. They learned by the last boat which sailed from Nome in October that I was desperately ill with typhoid fever. It was almost six months before they could hear again, and learn whether I was alive or dead. The isola- tion of the camp in the far Northwest at that time is beyond comprehension by those who have not been placed under such circumstances, and even by those who are in the North at the present day. Now we have telegraph lines, wireless and radio, and can flash news instantly to almost the farthest regions of Alaska. Weekly and often semi-weekly mails reach Nome by ~ dog team and even by airplane. A railroad is completed to within seven or eight hundred miles of Nome. But during the winter of 1899-1900 there was not even a trail from Nome to Dawson or to the open Coast. Just after the New Year, Mr. Wirt with a fine team of Malemute dogs driven by an experienced “ musher ” left Nome bound for Seattle. They had to break their way through an absolutely trackless wilderness for twelve hundred miles be- fore they reached the Coast at Katmai on Cook’s Inlet, and then make a tedious and perilous journey to Kodiak, and, by a little steamboat, to Valdez and out to Seattle, a trip that consumed nearly three months. They brought the first news from Nome. The tidings reached my family in March. Imagine their suffering during those long winter months! They were the ones to be pitied, not I. It was three months from the time I was taken sick before I was able to stand on my feet, and six months before I was able to walk a mile. My strength came back very slowly. As soon as I was able to preach I assisted Mr. Robins, who was ‘ JNOT SHIN ALNUML SINGL 40 ALIO V 006T NI HNON PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 399 learning to preach and succeeding wonderfully in his new vocation. In April I made a trip by dog team to the new camp of Council, eighty-five miles east of Nome, and there organized a mission which was to expand into a church. I returned to Nome by the first available boat the second week in June, just in time to meet the vanguard of the army of thirty-five thou- sand gold seekers who were dumped on that inhospitable tundra during the summer. Here was confusion worse confounded. Quite a number of the Klondikers had made the two-thousand mile trip by dog sled from Dawson to Nome in the early spring. They were as nothing, however, compared with the multitude who braved the perils of the North during that summer. An epidemic of small-pox and one of German measles scared the incomers and delayed the landing of thousands. The appeals of Mr. Wirt and others had brought scores of physicians and trained nurses. The liability to illness by typhoid had been exaggerated by reports, and six times as many nurses as could find employment were landed in that camp of fifteen thousand tents. Out on the mossy tundra wearily plodded thousands of tenderfeet seeking for new gold diggings. Even those among them who had been out to camps in the woods knew nothing about this kind of camp. For seventy or eighty miles back towards the interior there was no timber at all except a few patches of stunted willows and alders. The Christmas tree which the thir- teen white children at Nome enjoyed had to be brought by dog team a hundred miles. It was decorated with walrus- ivory toys and with others made of driftwood and the furs found in the country. A genuine team of reindeer, driven by orthodox fat Santa Claus with real icicles on his whiskers, had brought a touch of genuine Christmas colour and joy into the bleak Arctic region. Now, in the summer stampede, the campers missed the trees 400 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA and the big flashing log fires. The mosquitoes were a veritable Egyptian plague; many of them were so small that they could not be seen without the closest inspection, but, as the miners were wont to say, “‘ The smaller the hotter.” When I returned to Nome from Council I was compelled to go to the hospital for two weeks for an operation, and, indeed, all that summer I was far from being well. But the work must be done, and I must do it. Many hundreds of Christians were there who must be provided with religious services. Mr. Robins in his little chapel was overcrowded. As soon as I was able I bought a large tent, which had been brought to serve as a saloon or lodging house. But the owner had the gold fever and wished to go prospecting, so he sold me the tent. I pur- chased lumber enough for the floor, wainscoting and benches, secured a lot at boom prices, and soon had my church in order. | Too many pianos were brought to Nome for the demand, and I rented one of the surplus. Miss Steiner, of the noted musical family, who was a most accomplished pianist and composer of operettas, played for me that summer. Margaret McKenzie, a soprano, afterwards an opera star; Zimmerman, who had sung in grand opera in Europe; and a bass and alto of equal talent formed one of the finest quartets I have ever heard. An eager congregation rattled over the boards of the hastily laid sidewalk and plodded through the mud to fill my church tent. Mr. Kirk came down on a river steamboat from Eagle in July, and Mr. Koonce from Rampart, and another Presbyterian minister who had come as a pastor—all helped in my services and started meetings in different parts of this great camp. After a summer of hard but inspiring work I was able to or- ganize a church with thirty-two charter members, representing a number of different denominations. The Congregational church had been organized, and also was filled, that summer. Space will not permit me to detail a full account of the Nome stampede. The conditions were very different from those at PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 401 Dawson. So many gold-bearing creeks were discovered in the older camps that the forty thousand stampeders could be kept interested and racing about the country, many of them to find pay-streaks. But the Nome diggings were confined to the beach and to four or five small creeks—Anvil Creek, near Nome; Sinuk, twenty miles northwest; Bluff or Topkok, fifty miles east; Ophir, eighty-five miles inland; Teller, ninety miles northwest. These yielded considerable gold, but with the ex- ception of Ophir the diggings were soon exhausted. ‘The fine gold found on the beach yielded rich returns only in small spots. The famous ‘‘ Third Beach Pay Streak ” had not yet been discovered on the tundra. Not one in ten of the thou- sands who had sailed to Nome could make even a scanty living. The exodus by the outbound boats in the fall crowded them almost as full as the incoming steamers in the spring. Only five or six thousand remained at Nome the winter of 1900-01. During the summer my duties were many and varied. Be- sides preaching and organizing the church there was still much welfare work to be done. With the putting down of wells and the establishment of a reasonably good water system, the typhoid epidemic had subsided. The small-pox scare proved to be mostly imaginary, and while the German measles were often fatal to the Eskimos of Seward Peninsula, they were not so to the whites. Many families from the States had come to Nome, and com- fortable houses were being built. Saloons and gambling houses ran wide open for a while; considerable violence and lawless- ness occurred. We had seven funerals in ten days, all violent deaths—four murders and three suicides. But considering the conditions, there was remarkably little disturbance. The vast majority of that crowd were law-abiding, self-respecting citi- zens, who had gone there to better their conditions by lawful means. The saloons, of course, reaped rich harvest, “ working the miners.” 402 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA I arrived at my home in Ithaca, New York, in the fall of 1900. I was physically in very bad shape. For two months or more a surgeon was cutting at me, and all the following winter I was a sick man. I was burning with the desire to find men for the many new camps which had been started in Alaska. Kirk was at Eagle and Koonce at Rampart. They both built new log churches and were ministering successfully to them. Koonce had gone to Council for a while, wintered at St. Michael, having a company of soldiers for his congregation, and returned to Rampart, where his parish extended to the many creeks that were being exploited and prospected. He was an ideal frontiersman, could outwalk most of the prospect- ors, could go long distances on his snowshoes, sleep comfort- ably in his sleeping bag on the snow, and retain, with all his “hardships,” a cheerful spirit and unfailing willingness to help. The most popular woman in Alaska for some time was Mrs. Kirk, at Eagle; refined, gentle, sweet-natured. She made a home for the lonely tenderfeet from Eastern cities who found their way to this hospitable log manse. She was a most ac- complished musician, and men walked miles and miles to listen to her play the piano. Homesick city boys rolled on her rug and kissed it with tear-filled eyes as they thought of the lux- urious homes they had left. But there were other busy camps besides Eagle and Rampart which needed the same kind of ministration. I had left the Nome church in charge of Rev. Luther M. Scroggs, who was to care for it during the winter and until I could find a perma- nent pastor. Teller was a booming camp of great promise, and Council was another. There were other promising camps up the Koyukuk in the Kuskoquim country, where new strikes were frequently reported. When I was able to resume my speaking I was in constant demand by the churches in the East. The financial condition of the Board was not improving, and the new missionaries must PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 403 be supported by special gifts. Speaking campaigns in all the great cities of the East occupied Sundays and week days until the spring. I was the first commissioner from our new Presby- tery of Yukon to the General Assembly, which met in Phila- delphia in May, 1901. My fellow-commissioner was Peter Koonooya, an Eskimo elder from Ootkeavik church at Point Barrow. Peter was a very bright Eskimo. He could speak tolerable English, could read and write, and was a talented etcher and carver in ivory. While undoubtedly the discussions on the “ revision question ” were Greek to him, I am confident that his vote was always right—for he watched me closely, and voted as I did on all questions. In Philadelphia an incident occurred which deserves men- tion: Six or seven of us from different home mission fields were on the platform at an evening Home Mission rally in the great hall. Each of us had ten minutes in which to exploit his field. My warm friend, Dr. W. S. Holt, synodical missionary of Oregon, preceded me on the platform. Two rich elders, John H. Converse, who was vice-moderator of the Assembly, and John Wanamaker, were on the platform with us. Holt was making a special appeal for a gift of five hundred dollars to support one of his missionaries. At the close of the meeting Mr. Wanamaker handed him a check for the amount. I pleaded for a man to go to the new camp of Teller, Alaska. No immediate response was made, and Holt exulted over me. In the course of my address I mentioned, as illustrating the rise of our camps, how Skagway had arisen in one year from a con- fused camp in the woods, without houses or streets, to a thriv- ing city of six thousand inhabitants, with electric lights, tele- phones and all other accompaniments of civilization; and I mentioned also the new railroad and the fact that the running stock was furnished by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, “ of which our esteemed vice-moderator, John H. Converse, is president.” 404 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA The next evening there was a great reception in the Academy of Fine Arts. Mr. and Mrs. Converse were among the hosts who were shaking hands with the long line of commissioners. As Mrs. Young and I came up to him he called out joyfully, “ Hello, Alaska! How much are you going to charge me for advertising my locomotives? ” Quickly I answered, “‘ If you ba veh to support our mis- sionary for Teller, Ill call it square.” “T’ll do it,” he said. And thus we received from this gen- erous man fifteen hundred dollars a year as long as the mission at Teller endured. Back to Skagway, the spring of 1901, and down the Yukon to Dawson in company with Dr. Marsh and his family, who were returning to the Arctic Mission, and with them Elder Koonooya and his wife, Mungooya. At Eagle we held a meet- ing of the presbytery. While the Marshes were waiting there for a steamer, Peter and I got in a small boat, with my outfit, and floated with the current to Rampart, six hundred miles. The weather was hot, and the mosquitoes were a frightful plague. So plentiful were they that Koonooya’s black coat ap- peared gray. We wore helmets and gauntleted buckskin gloves, otherwise we could not have withstood the plague. Continually I had to be brushing the mosquitoes off the glass of my helmet in order to see sufficiently to steer my boat. For hours, when in the thickest of them, we would go thirsty—not daring to open our helmets sufficiently to take a drink of water. At night we would camp out on some sandy island in midstream. I had a mosquito-proof tent with canvas floor and flaps fur- nished with double mosquito bar, which we could secure with a spring clothespin. We would set up our stoves, make all snug, and then with our candles would touch the mosquitoes which had smuggled themselves in and were on the walls wait- ing to torment us. When we reached Rampart I found that Koonce was down PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 405 on the Coast and that his church was temporarily closed. We had services there, and when the steamer came with the Marshes we got on board and went to Nome. Here we found Koonce. Our church-tent was out of repair, and Christians of all the different denominations were worshipping in the Congregationalists’ newly erected church. I had been appointed General Missionary for Alaska, and my duties were to visit all the points I could cover, and report on their condition to the Board. In September, in company with Dr. Jackson, who was returning from his school trip to the Northwest, I took the steamer ‘“ Roanoke” at Nome to Un- alaska in the Aleutians. There we learned that President McKinley had been assassinated in Buffalo. The doctor and I took passage from Unalaska on the little steamer, “‘ Bertha,” along the Coast past Kodiak to Valdez, which was then a new and booming town. When we arrived we saw the flag at half- mast—the President was dead. Dr. Jackson went on to Sitka on the “ Bertha” while I remained to take another boat, as it was in my line of duty to make a tour of the Southeastern Alaska missions. Arriving at Juneau I induced Rev. James H. Condit and Rev. Mr. Jones to go with me in a boat down to Killisnoo and Angoon and then up to Hoonah. There was no minister at Angoon, and the village was still about the toughest in the Archipelago. Rev. Mr. Carl was at work in Hoonah, while Mr. Jones was pastor of the native church at Juneau and Mr. Condit of the white church. After leaving Hoonah I visited our missions at Kake and Wrangell; then proceeded by the large steamer to Ketchikan, by mail launch over to Cholmondeley (‘‘ Chumley ”), a portage of three miles, and on to the copper-mining town of Sulzer. Thence I traveled to Klawack, where Rev. David Waggoner and his bride had lately arrived and commenced their work; thence back to Wrangell, down to Seattle and then East to 406 . HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA New York, where I made my reports and resumed my work among the churches. Still boosting Alaska and its missions, I spent the rest of that winter speaking to churches, and attended the meeting of the General Assembly in Fifth Avenue Church, New York, the spring of 1902. Mr. Koonce was our commissioner from the Presbytery of the Yukon, and to reach the Assembly he had been compelled to start with his dogs in February. He had traveled twelve hundred miles with his dog team via Circle, Eagle, and Forty Mile to Valdez. Peter Koonooya had carved an ivory gavel from a walrus tusk which I procured at St. Michael and I presented this gavel to Dr. Henry Van Dyke, who was chosen moderator. In my speech of presentation I exploited Koonce, telling of his trip with his dog team on his way to the General Assembly. The other commissioners crowded around Koonce in the anteroom, wishing to shake the hand of the man who had done this wonderful thing. He was the hero of the Assembly. I returned to Alaska in the spring of 1902, this time taking my family with me. My oldest daughter had married, and there was but my wife and our daughter Alaska. We went by the Canadian Pacific, the grandest scenic route of all, and took our household goods and my library to Skagway, which was my headquarters for a year. I cared for the church in the ab- sence of a minister, and traveled around the Archipelago as far west as Valdez in my duties as superintendent. One of my tasks was to defend our mission property from jumpers and to secure patents for the lands that had been granted us by the government. I established the mission at Klukwan, met with the Presby- tery of Alaska at Wrangell, presided at the organization of the church at Kasaan, and had a very busy year in that region vis- iting again our old missions. It was a wonderful experience and pleasure to me to see the rise of these savages from ig- SDOd HO WVHL SIH CNV NOS&UVd DNIHSOW HHL PROGRESS AMID CONFUSION 407 norant and squalid heathenism into Christian citizenship. In the spring the wanderlust was in my veins again. Leaving my wife at Skagway, I sailed with my daughter Alaska down the Yukon, visited my old church at Dawson, stopped a while at Eagle, where Mr. and Mrs. Kirk had been succeeded by Mr. Ensign and his wife, then down to Rampart for a visit with the Koonces. Dr. Koonce had brought a wife from Pennsylvania on his return from the Assembly. Koonce had made a trip the previous fall to the new excite- ment at Fairbanks on the Tanana, and had secured a lot at Chena, a town ten miles down the river from Fairbanks. He made his report, and I instructed Mr. Ensign to go over by dog team from Eagle and look after that work. Now I was bound towards Fairbanks, but when I reached Rampart all the reports from the new camp were most discouraging. Pros- pectors and miners were returning by hundreds, asserting that the pay claims were few, poor and hard to work, and the camp was “a frost.” As our missions at Teller and Council demanded attention, and an opportunity seemed to open to make a visit to Point Barrow, my daughter and I took steamer again to St. Michael and on to Nome, where I supplied the Congregational church a few Sabbaths and went on board the revenue cutter “ Bear,” hoping to get a trip to the extreme northern point of the con- tinent. But the ice pack closed in that year, and the “ Bear ” could not make its way northward. My daughter and I took a trip in the little trading boat, ‘‘ The Sadie,” to Teller, York, Cape Prince of Wales, and up into the Arctic Ocean and Kotzebue Sound, to Deering and Kiwalik, which were mining ‘ and trading camps; and on to the Quaker Mission at Cape Blossom. Then back to our mission at Teller, where I had stationed a Presbyterian, Mr. Meacham. He had served that mission until the arrival the previous season of Rev. Herman Hosack, the man supported by John H. Converse. Mr. Hosack 408 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA had made a trip by reindeer team one hundred miles from Teller to Council, where he had partially erected a log church. After a duck and goose hunt in the lakes back of Teller, we sailed to Nome and thence to Golofnin Bay, up the Fish River to the strange, wild mining camp of Council. A most interesting winter followed. I finished the neat log church which Mr. Hosack had commenced. A village of Es- kimos being on the flat by the river, I held three services every Sunday, one for the whites in the evening and two for the Eskimos. We had a flourishing Sunday School, these natives being above all things religious. The miners were not generally so devout, but we had good meetings all winter, and in the spring organized a white church with a dozen charter mem- bers. Dan Sutherland, who has since served four terms as Alaska delegate to Congress, presented my daughter with a beautiful Siberian dog, and the wife of a meat man gave her a wonderful cat, which was half wildcat, and promptly thrashed all the Malemute and Husky dogs in the place. We returned in May by sled to Nome, ready for the next great adventure. My daughter Alaska found hers to be the venture of marriage, and was united the first day of June, 1904, in the Congregational church of Nome, to Captain Kleinschmidt, a miner and boatman of Teller. So she re- mained on Seward Peninsula, while I was getting ready for my new exploit. XXXVITI THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE the summer of 1904. Real estate was high, the price of lots in the heart of the town being prohibitive. There was plenty of work to do, but the conditions were less favourable. Rev. Howard Frank, just graduated from Prince- ton Seminary, with his bride had floated in an open boat down the Yukon to Tanana, at the mouth of the river of the same name. I met them there when I came up the Yukon in a boat. They established themselves at Chena. Two weeks later I went on to the larger town of Fairbanks, and found a city mostly of log houses, with a few frame buildings and plenty of tents and some ten thousand people, with another ten thousand working or prospecting on the creeks near by. The Fairbanks stampede differed from the other two in having a much larger proportion of experienced miners; men who had been in the Klondike stampede six or seven years before and in the Nome rush, and had learned something of _ the trade of gold mining. I found here hundreds of old friends and met with sympathy and codperation from the beginning. Bishop Rowe and Archdeacon Stuck of the Episcopal Church had just arrived, and were preparing to build a church and hospital. Two large sawmills were at work turning out lum- ber, and the sound of hammer and saw was heard on all sides. Judge Wickersham, who was destined to be the most influential man of all who worked to shape legislation and make laws for Alaska, was holding court. He helped me obtain the log courthouse for Sunday services. I lost no time in securing a site for church and manse. r SHE camp at Fairbanks was a year old when I arrived, 409 410 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA I established meeting places in roadhouses on the creeks, and continued holding services there as long as I remained at Fairbanks. From the first I was greatly encouraged. There were in proportion more women in Fairbanks than at either of the other stampedes, and many of these women were Chris- tians and used to church work. My wife came from Skagway, and we lived in the little shack for two years. When my build- ing was up I organized a church of some thirty members rep- resenting seven or eight different denominations. The work in this great camp of Fairbanks was enchanting; something interesting occurred every day. This camp, unlike the others, during the time I was there was free from any grave epidemic. The water supply was abundant and sweet, the sanitation of the camp good from the first, and the people who flocked there had learned how to dive in that country, and not die. The climate was on an average at least fifteen degrees warmer than that of Dawson, although each winter of the three I spent on the Tanana the temperature reached sixty degrees below zero, and once the government thermometer registered seventy-two below. But I am going to make emphatically an assertion, in spite of the low temperature, that may seem very strange to my readers: The Fairbanks climate is the most healthful and com- fortable I have ever experienced. When it is severely cold the air is still and is drier than at Dawson. It is a reliable cli- mate;.it is consistently cold in the winter and almost invariably warm in the summer. I have experienced 96 degrees of heat in the shade there, but the summer is dry, and the nights are cool, and one can always enjoy a good night’s sleep, provided he can bar out the mosquitoes. The children never lose a day from school, winter or summer, on account of the weather. Our houses are built wisely and snugly. We dress according to the demands of the climate, and epidemics, such as the whooping cough, measles, mumps and other diseases which THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 411 prey on little folks, seem to shun that climate. Deadly mi- crobes do not find sixty below healthy for their constitutions, and are not found there. But I have learned more and more the truth of Emerson’s two proverbs: ‘‘ We find in any place just what we bring into it.” And, “‘ Every man makes his own weather.” And I say, “‘ Every climate and country is as we make it and as we take it.” The first winter the only food articles which were scarce were fresh meats; few cattle were brought in and extensive hunting expeditions had not been organized. The staple ar- ticle was rabbit. I had forty or fifty good-sized carcasses hung up in my shed. They were so plentiful that early one morn- ing, in a couple of hours’ shooting, two of us got thirty-two of the fine animals. When the snow came and sledding was good, hunters brought from the surrounding country moose in plenty. A great caribou herd, estimated at twenty-five thou- sand in number, raided the country, and carcasses of fine meat were everywhere. The best of all meats, the mountain sheep, which were found in the foot hills of Mount McKinley, were brought in later. Besides these we had bears from everywhere. The second year of the camp, many women from all parts of the world, including Australia, South Africa, the Scan- dinavian countries and other lands, came to Fairbanks to be united to their promised sweethearts. Indeed, my principal dependence for a livelihood was upon wedding fees. They were always generous and hearty. I was putting all the money I could get hold of into the church; prices were high, and my salary small, so the fees were very acceptable. In addition, I wrote the editorials of the first newspaper established there, The Times, of which Mr. Robert McChesney, now my son-in- law, was editor. Together we managed the Russo-Japanese war—and brought it to a successful conclusion! My largest wedding fee came in this way: One very cold morning there drove up to our door a large dog team of splen- 412 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA did Malemutes. A man of about fifty, with icicles on his whiskers, helped a lady from the sled, and they came in. When we had thawed them out they announced that they had driven from the Koyukuk, six hundred miles, to be married. The lady had been a member of my congregation at Dawson; her husband had died in the Koyukuk, and so had the wife of this man who now accompanied her.. When the widow and widower concluded to join their fortunes together the lady said, “If you wish to marry me, you will have to take me to Dr. Young at Fairbanks. I will not be married by a magis- trate.” The task was a light one for this man of the wilder- ness—they struck the trail and here they were. After I had performed the ceremony the happy groom began to fumble in the pocket of his mackinaw, but not until his wife helped him was he able to extract his big fat buckskin poke of gold dust. “T have no money, parson,” he said, “ but I have a lump here that I thought I would give you.” He fished down in the gold and brought out a chunk about the size of my thumb. When my wife weighed it at the bank, for she always claimed the wedding fees, we found it was worth ninety-six dollars! In the fall of 1905, Dr. Leonard, the secretary of the Mis- sion Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Dr. Par- sons, a Methodist minister, came to Fairbanks. I received them cordially, but when they asked about the propriety of establishing a Methodist Church in Fairbanks, I said, ‘ You will, of course, do as you please; but my policy has always been to stay out of a declining camp when a pastor of another evangelical denomination was at work. This town is going down and will continue to do so, like all placer camps, for years, and there is no room for effective work of the two de- nominations. Instead of one strong self-supporting church, you would make two struggling, weak ones.” THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 413 The good secretary agreed with me, but said that he was under orders of his Board to establish a church at Fairbanks, and it was done. My Methodist members, as many of them as would go, went out of our organization and joined the Methodist church. A number of Methodist ministers came in succession to Fairbanks; but the work grew so slowly that now for many years it has been abandoned, and the Methodist members who remained came back to the Presbyterian church. This is just a sample of the mistakes of over-churching I have mentioned. In the spring of 1906 I was compelled to return to Seward Peninsula to look after the interest of our missions there, leav- ing Fairbanks in charge of Mr. Frank, whose church at Chena had declined with that town, and who agreed to care for the Fairbanks church until a pastor could be secured. A catas- trophe occurred that summer, from the effects of which I have never fully recovered. I had boxed up a library of fifteen hun- dred volumes, with my papers, diaries, etc., leaving them to be shipped to the Coast. My library was the finest and largest, I think, in the North. Among other documents were letters from my old friend, John Muir, and from many other com- panions, letters for which I would not have taken any sum of money; books autographed by the authors, and others from valued friends; an elegantly bound set of the life and letters of William H. Seward, three volumes, given me by his son, William H. Seward, Jr., and other keepsakes of equal value, with memoranda which I was saving for future use. They were shipped on the river steamer, “‘ Leah,” which was wrecked, and my library was reduced to muddy pulp. Others who had lost goods by the vessel, and myself, sued the company for damages. We proved that the boat was a mile out of its course and that the pilot was drunk, but the judge at Seattle (who was after- wards impeached and dismissed for venality) decided that it was an “act of God,” and we got nothing for our loss. 414 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA We spent the winter at Teller, which from being a booming town had declined to a small village where a few gold miners, traders and hotel men occupied about one-tenth of the houses that had been erected in booming times. My work was principally with the Eskimos, although I had a small white congregation. We lived in this terribly stormy place and were comfortable, although there were days when we could not stir out of the house without danger. Men had been lost in the driving snow trying to cross a street and had wandered out to their death. Sometimes the streets of Nome were piled so full of the drifted snow that the citizens could get into the street only by climbing out of the second-story windows, and often they had to use steep ladders up from them to the surface of the snow. But such incidents never seemed dreadful to us, did not affect | our comfort, and were only occasions of jokes and laughter. During the winter I had to make several trips by dog team to Nome, ninety miles away. On two of those trips, for twenty miles or more, I could not see the lead dog of my team for the drifting snow, but had to let him pick his own way, which he did with unerring instinct. The roadhouses at which we stopped were all buried deep, and we were lucky if we were able to locate them by means of their stovepipes. I had to return to Fairbanks in the spring of 1907. I sup- posed that my stay there would be only temporary, as I had been appealing for a pastor for that church; therefore I sent Mrs. Young on up the Yukon and out to Skagway, while I went up the Tanana. Mr. Frank had left Alaska before my return. I erected a commodious manse at Fairbanks, to have it ready for the new pastor when he should arrive. But the promised missionary was taken sick, and I was compelled to remain there another winter. I had planned to go on mule- back across Broad Pass and down the Susitna Valley to Seward, four hundred and fifty miles distant, as I was anxious to reach THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 415 Cordova, then beginning its boom. But this pleasure trip was denied me. I built the manse, and lived in it that winter. Although Fairbanks was declining in population, enough were there to keep me busy and afford a pleasurable winter of work. With the summer of 1908, came Rev. James H. Condit and family. Mr. Condit had ministered to Juneau Church for some years, and had now come from Sioux City, Iowa. He remained as the efficient pastor of Fairbanks for five years. In 1908 I sailed again down the Yukon to Nome and out to Seattle, then up the Coast to the new booming town of Cordova. The copper of Alaska, which had been secondary to gold in the interest excited, had now come to the front. What were boasted to be the largest copper mines in the world were dis- covered at the base of Mount Wrangell and up the eastern tributary of the Copper River, a wild, broken region of glaciers and icy mountains. There the Morgan-Guggenheim syndicate had obtained large holdings; they also got their grip on two great coal fields, the Katalla or Bering Lake field in the ex- treme southeastern part of the main body of Alaska, and the Matanuska field at the head of Cooks Inlet on the central southern coast. During President McKinley’s administration a skeleton, partly truth and partly error, had been unearthed, and it was charged that the coal claims and copper claims exploited by the great syndicate were fraudulent, and that the big company was plotting to corral the vast wealth of Alaska. Without going into the merits of this question at all, the public is acquainted with the fact that Ballinger, the secretary of the interior, lost his office and when Roosevelt succeeded McKinley he withdrew the coal fields from further location, threw the claims already staked into the courts and curbed the power of the syndicate. Katalla had been the center of the coal and copper excite- 416 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA ment, and the syndicate had commenced a railroad from that town up the Copper River. This was abandoned, and the town of Cordova was located west of the Copper River Delta. This new town was attracting great attention and was a stirring little city, with town lots selling at sky-high prices, the Copper Valley railroad being pushed with energy towards the copper mines; a crazy excitement was apparent. I found the climate somewhat like that of Southeastern Alaska, mild and very wet. The snowfall at times was very heavy, but the temperature seldom reached so low as zero. I commenced my meetings in a rude hall under a drug store and secured a little cabin on a hill for myself and wife, who joined me here during the winter. Two years of hard pioneer work followed, a work of building and organizing. During the summer of 1909-10 I made fre- quent trips to Katalla, Latouche and Valdez on the Coast and up the railroad line to the camps of the workmen as far as Chitina, the beginning of the government road at Fairbanks and Kennicott, where the big copper mine was located. In 1909 came the notable man from New York City, George W. Perkins of the J. P. Morgan Company. He chartered the steamer ‘“‘ Spokane,” fitted her up as a great yacht and brought his family and other friends on a tour of the new railroad. He gave us six hundred dollars for our church, and his gift, with other donations made by employees of that company, enabled us speedily to build a neat edifice for the church which was organized that winter with about forty members. For many the chief attraction of Cordova was that railroad and the glaciers which bordered it, and the thundering ice masses crashing into Copper River. I went through the exciting times described by Rex Beach in his Jron Trail, and spent many delightful hours with Professor Martin of the University of Wisconsin, who was studying the movements of Childs Glacier. It was coming forward and threatening to sweep away the two-million-dollar iron bridge which spanned the THE FAIRBANKS STAMPEDE 417 Copper River. Many hours I spent in front of that glacier, and was often chased up the bank and even up into the trees, when great tidal waves caused by the ice masses falling into the river swept across the Copper and far up the bank. Late in the fall of 1910, at the call of the Board, I left Cordova to take up office work in our building at New York, and to form further plans for the evangelization of the great interior and the West Coast. Dr. Koonce was brought back to Alaska and installed as pastor of the Cordova church, while I took up the lonesome life of a denizen of the city, to “ prowl in the canyons of dismal unrest.” XXXIX FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEW YORK the camps of the Northwest without coming East. I found everything new and strange. The horse and carriage had resigned in favour of the automobile. The great surge of modern life and invention had swept away old cus- toms and new things had come with a rush. From the first, the city oppressed and dismayed me. Soon after taking up my task at 156 Fifth Avenue, I was called upon to address the New York ministers’ meeting in the Assembly Room of the Presbyterian Board. Dr. Lyman Abbott, who was to have addressed the meeting on “ Recollections of Henry Ward Beecher,” yielded his place to me, and, perhaps because of the attraction of his great name, the room was full of the bright men of New York, Brooklyn and vicinity. I was introduced by old Dr. Patterson, who had been a friend of my father’s, and was one of the revered veterans of the Church. He spoke at great length while addressing me, and pursued a line I have always found distasteful and embarrassing: “ Our be- loved brother, Dr. Young, from the great icy wilderness of the North—‘ Seward’s Folly.’”” Then he went on to speak of the terrible hardships I had encountered and the dangers I met with, making me a very much embarrassed quasi hero, ashamed of undeserved praise. When he got through, and had released me from my suffering, I commenced my address by thanking the good doctor for his kind words, but entering a complete disclaimer to all that he had said about Alaska and my life in it. “There may be hardships in that great Territory of the 418 | \OR eight continuous years I had been sojourning up in FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEW YORK 419 Northwest,” I said, “ but I have never found many. Life there is the freest, most pleasurable and most comfortable to be found anywhere. I live there because I like to do so, and work there because it is to me the most satisfactory work of all. As to the dangers of that life, I consider it far more dan- gerous and risky to cross Broadway with its thousands of deadly machines dashing here and there than to go with my dog team from one end of Alaska to the other.” The brethren laughed, and thought I was simply joking, but the point of the story is this: My dear old friend who intro- duced me, and another doctor of divinity, while going home from that meeting were both knocked down by the same auto- mobile on Fifth Avenue and were nearly killed. While on the subject of the relative merits of Alaska and New York City as places of residence, permit a story or two. One very hot day in my office when the sun’s heat reflected from skyscrapers smote you in the face like a furnace blast and made our comfort day or night impossible, there came from the press Robert W. Service’s latest volume of Northern poems, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone. I devoured it as eagerly as a child gulps ice-cream on a sultry day. It actually cooled me off to read those splendid appreciative lines of ‘“ our Kip- ling of the North.” When I got to the poem entitled, “I’m Scared of It All,” I could hardly contain myself. I rushed into the office where my chief, Dr. Charles L. Thompson, was sweltering at his desk, and cried out: “ Here is a man who has expressed to the life what I have been feeling all these years in New York, but had not the brains to put in words.” I read: “Tm scared of it all; God’s truth so I am! It’s too big and brutal for me. My nerve’s on the raw and I don’t give a damn For all the hurrah that I see. 420 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA I’m pinned between subway and overhead train Where automobiles swoop down. I’ve got to get back to the timber again; I’m scared of the terrible town.” I afterwards selected a lot of Alaska pictures and sent a photographer into “ the canyons of dismal unrest ” in the city of New York, and made of this verse an illustrated poem in one of my lectures on Alaska. It took me two years to find the appropriate pictures, but it seemed to take mightily in the churches and lecture halls. When the spring of 1911 began to open, I was making a strenuous effort to find a man to go to the interior of Alaska again. Two new camps had opened, Ruby on the Yukon and Iditarod far to the south on a branch of the Innoko River. These camps were booming and were without religious care. Advertisements, personal trips to the seminaries and vigorous correspondence failed to find a man to send to these needy points. At last it became evident that if they were to be manned I myself would have to return to the interior. I was homesick, though having lived in New York not six months, so I struck the trail again, leaving my wife with our daughters in New York. The spell of service was upon me, and the trip to Skagway, and down the Yukon by steamer to Ruby, was an inspiration. This camp was by no means comparable to the camps of the three great stampedes, but there were more than a thousand people there, with prospects enough to fill the miners with enthusiasm. But Iditarod was the larger camp, and its call more in- sistent, so | took steamer again down the Yukon, two hundred miles to Holy Cross, and thence by small steamer up the crooked, sluggish Innoko, and the more crooked and sluggish little Iditarod, to this far-away camp. I found some five thousand eager miners at Iditarod and its twin sister, Flat City, eight miles distant. A creek called Flat Creek yielding FRIENDLY ALASKA AND LONELY NEW YORK 421 large returns had been struck a year previous, and the miners had hopes of a great camp. On the Innoko, at a town called Ophir, was another gold strike, and across the low mountains on the great river Kuskoquim, still others. Two very busy summers and a busy winter ensued. A larger proportion of Scandinavians, Swedes, Norwegians and Danes, were here than in the other camps. Fine people these, re- ligious and Protestant, belonging to the Lutheran or Swedish Evangelical Churches. The winter was very cold and stormy. I had a dog team, given me by a woman of not unspotted reputation for whom I had performed the wedding ceremony at Fairbanks, but who had left that husband and what Christ said to the woman of Samaria was true of her: “ He whom thou hast now is not thy husband.” But she had a dog team, five puppies of one litter, which she had brought up from “ puppyhood,” trained to be a fine team and could no longer take care of, so she decided to give them to me, saying, “ As I am not good myself, I wish my dogs to do some good.” With these dogs I made many trips to the surrounding camps during the winter, ministering to the sick miners and to the camps on the creeks wherever I could find an audience. These two isolated towns, cut off during the winter from all _ the rest of Alaska and reached only by the mail-dog teams which came twice a month, formed a field different from those to which I had ministered, but none the less interesting. I had to be everything to those people, from spiritual adviser to umpire of a basket-ball game. Of one thing I have al- ways been glad, that I had had the foresight to collect from churches, Sunday Schools and women’s societies many mail- sacks full of books, magazines and periodicals, and thus could establish a reading room at Iditarod. Only mail of the first- class could come in during the winter, but these abundant supplies which reached me in the summer found their way to lonely cabins three hundred miles distant, and the miners often 422 HALL YOUNG OF ALASKA said: “ They kept us from going crazy.” Men gathered into my little reading room daily, and remained long into the night, reading, playing games, keeping warm and cheerful. Direct spiritual fruits were not lacking. It became evident during the winter that we must have a meeting of the Presbytery of Yukon and send a commissioner to the General Assembly in the spring of 1912. We had been compelled to pass by a number of Assemblies, and the ques- tion arose whether it was worth while to sustain this pres- bytery, or whether it should be disbanded and merged in the Presbytery of Alaska. I had faith in the great field occupied by the young presbytery and was much opposed to dissolv- ing it, so we arranged a meeting at Cordova in April of that year. This decision necessitated a trip with my dog team five hundred miles over three ranges of mountains and across three river valleys to Seward, and a steamboat trip of two hundred miles on to Cordova. My friends at Iditarod and in New York were chary, and disposed to put obstacles in my way, fearing that I could not make the hard trip in safety. They did not know the real pleasure which I have always taken in such trips. I left my friends in Iditarod the fourth of March. A young Scotchman, by the name of William Breeze, went with me to take care of the dogs and help me in the trip. It was a very hard “ mush,” but full of joy. It was spring time, and the snow was heavy, with frequent fresh falls of it. But I had no trouble, with the exception of a fall on the ice of the upper Kuskoquim which resulted in a severe attack of lumbago, so that for two weeks of the trip I could not move without great pain. I made my own the philosophy of an old- timer whom I met.at a roadhouse near Rainy Pass just after I had met with the accident. He had suffered from the same affliction himself and said, ‘‘ Waal, the only way to do when you git the lumbago is jest to keep on mushin’.” Breeze would have to lift me out of my bunk in the morn- AGNOOHDdaA ANV VALIS -! ‘ e ‘4 ; t ’ i< =) i, a ¢ 7a) ~ - Il Pr 1 1012 01046 ! | | H | wiht