TRUCK FIRE – Firefighters knock down a fire in a Ford Explorer truck in Arrowhead Trailer Park in the 1200 block of Sawmill Creek Road Saturday evening. One person received fire-related injuries and was taken to the hospital, Sitka Fire Department Chief Craig Warren said, and the truck was considered a total loss. The cause of the fire is under investigation, Warren said. The fire hall received the call about the fire at 5:33 p.m., and one fire engine with eight firefighters and an ambulance were dispatched, he said. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

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Daily Sitka Sentinel

The 1867 Transfer: A Midshipman’s Story

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the sixth in a series by Alaska historian Chris Allan about 1867 newspaper accounts of the Alaska transfer by writers who were present at the ceremony in Sitka.


By Chris Allan
Special to the Sentinel
    After Andrew A. Blair graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1867 he was assigned as a midshipman to the U.S.S. Resaca. The ship was promptly sent northward from the coast of Panama to Sitka to extinguish a yellow fever outbreak among its crew. As a result, Blair was on hand when the John L. Stephens arrived carrying over 200 Ninth Infantry troops and the U.S.S. Ossipee delivered to Sitka a delegation of American and Russian commissioners for the October 18, 1867, transfer ceremony. Weeks earlier, Blair had purchased a canoe from local Tlingits and was filling his days with hunting excursions and trips to town to buy furs and what he called “Esquimaux curiosities.” At the end of his description of the transfer ceremony he refers to Dr. Byron Adonis of the New York Herald and to an act of protest by an important Tlingit leader. In the last line Blair quotes from Alexander Pope’s poem An Essay on Man (1734). Blair’s two-volume journal is housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
   
   

Journal of Andrew Alexander Blair
    Of the U.S.S. Resaca
            October 18, 1867
   

        Early this morning I saw a steamer coming in and soon after she made her number (by displaying signal flags), proving to be the Ossipee. When she got in the Captain went on board and I went to the John L. Stephens and took Gen. (Jefferson C.) Davis and two of his staff over to the Ossipee. When we got onboard I saw McCormick, Butts, Lotten, Roberts, Judd, Turnbull, Dayton, and Sprague having been ordered from her to the Pensacola at Mare Island naval shipyard in California). The Ossipee brought up Gen. (Lovell H.) Rousseau, the two Russian Commissioners, the Collector of the Post and one or two others. They came up the inside passage all the way from Victoria to Cape Ommaney, making the passage from San Francisco in 22 days. Gen. Rousseau seemed to be in a pretty big hurry to get back so he gave orders to have the troops landed and everything ready for the ceremony at 3 o’clock.

Andrew Alexander Blair, midshipman on the U.S.S. Resaca, was present for the October 18, 1867, transfer ceremony and described the day in his journal. (Beinecke Library, Yale University)


        We sent all the boats we could spare. The Jamestown and Ossipee sent theirs, and the troops were all landed at the boat house and marched up to the open place in front of the Governor’s House where the flag staff is. All the Russian troops were there also. I went over at 3 o’clock in the gig (a row boat) with the Captain and Mr. Ames. We called at the Stephens for the ladies but found that they had all gone over some time before we got there. We went to the Governor’s House and went into the parlor where we found the Governor, the two Russian Commissioners, Gen. Rousseau, Gen. Davis, Capt. (George F.) Emmons of the Ossipee and a great many others.
        When they all got ready we went out to the flag staff where the troops were drawn out. The troops presented arms, we all took off our caps, and they started the Russian flag down, but it pulled some way or other and the inside edge tore off, leaving the main part of the flag hanging aloft and no way to get it down.
        Several of the Russian soldiers started up the guys to get it down but they were all tired out before they got up. All this time the Ossipee and the battery ashore were banging away at a salute of 21 guns apiece and the colors were shown from the mastheads of our ship and the Ossipee, Russian at the fore, American at the main and mizzen. After fooling for about 15 minutes they suddenly thought of hoisting a man up with a tackle of which there were two on the flag staff. They hoisted him up in a jiffy and he got the flag but instead of bringing it down with him, he dropped it on the heads of the soldiers below.
        After some delay on account of the battery, the American flag was hoisted, saluted by the battery onshore and the shipping in the harbor. The people around gave three cheers, the bugles played, the troops were marched off and embarked and we all returned to the parlor and took a glass of champagne and returned onboard.
        As the reporter for the Herald was present that paper will probably contain the pretty sentiment about the “stars and stripes” waving triumphantly, etc., etc. At the Indian village the head chief Michael Kaukan (Mikhail Kukhkan) hauled down the Russian flag from the staff in front of his house and after a pow wow hoisted it up again and they all came to the conclusion that although they gave the country to the Russians they did not agree to give it to everyone that happened to come along, so Uncle Samuel must move off. “Lo! The poor Indian.”
   

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20 YEARS AGO

March 2004

Businesses using the Centennial Hall parking lot testified Tuesday against a proposal to charge them rent in addition to the $200 annual permit fee. City Administrator Hugh Bevan made the proposal in response to the Assembly’s direction to Centennial Hall manager Don Kluting to try to close the $340,000 gap between building revenues and operational costs.


50 YEARS AGO

March 1974

Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand President William S. Paul Sr. will be special guest and speaker at the local ANB, Alaska Native Sisterhood Founders Day program Monday at the ANB Hall.

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