EDITOR’S NOTE: In connection with the upcoming Alaska Day celebration, the Sentinel is presenting this series about the early days of Sitka under American rule, as recounted by William S. Dodge. Dodge was present at the Oct. 18, 1867 transfer and stayed on to become a leading citizen of the town. His account appeared in the July 6, 1876 edition of The Alaska Herald, a semi-monthly newspaper published in San Francisco between 1868 and 1876. During its years of publication the Alaska Herald had an international circulation, and is not to be confused with the Alaska Herald, a Sitka newspaper in the 1890s. This series may represent the first time this detailed history of Sitka’s first municipal government and school system has been published since it first appeared in the 1876 Alaska Herald. Alaska historian and researcher Chris Allan discovered this unique first-hand account of post-transfer Sitka and made it available to the Sentinel.
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Alaska Since The Cession
REMINISCENCES OF SITKA, ALASKA
WRITTEN FOR THE ALASKA HERALD, BY A PIONEER RESIDENT
INCIDENTS OF THE TRANSFER
Among the few notable political events of the year 1867 was the acquisition from Russia, by the United States, of the Russian Possessions in America. It was regarded at the time by all statesmen as a political victory over England, and as a grand coup d’etat on the part of William H. Seward, the American Premier.
As a result of this purchase came the transfer, occupation and settlement of this far off land to and by the American people.
The preliminaries of this cession, the dispatches and instructions of the two Governments, the protocol and inventories of transfer, have long since been published to the world, and are now to be found in nearly every respectable library in the United States. Suffice it to say, in this regard, that on the 18th day of October, A.D. 1867, at New Archangel (Sitka) was presented a spectacle which, considering the place and occasion, was both solemn and grand, affecting many to tears.
On the Russian side, as actors and witnesses in this pageant, were Prince Dmetry Maksoutoff, Imperial Governor of the Colonies, and the Princess, his wife; Admiral Alexis Pestchuroff, the Russian Commissioner, and Baron Von Koskul, the agent of the Russian American Fur Company; the Russian soldiery, the Director, and sub-officials and employees of the company together with the entire population in general—Russians, Aleutians, Creoles and Indians.
On our side were Brigadier-General Lovell H. Rousseau, American Commissioner; W.S. Dodge, Secretary of the Commission and the appointed Collector of Customs for the Territory; Col. Jeff C. Davis, commanding Department of Alaska, and his staff, and two companies of U.S. troops. In the harbor lay the Russian steamers Alexander and Politkofsky, the ship Ceritza, the barks Cyane and Menschikoff and the brigs Constantine and Sheilikoff. Of the American vessels there were the men-of-war Ossipee and Resaca, the steamship John L. Stephens, the steamer Fideliter, two barks, the Milan and another the name of which I cannot now recall—altogether quite a fleet, giving the quaint old town decidedly a commercial air.
The day was one of cloud and rain, mixed with stray moments of sunshine, and the mountain peaks gathered in so closely around, hung with curtains of deep, somber clouds, seemed as if in mourning over the contemplated change.
It was natural that, as the Russian flag was hauled down, it should be saluted by the Russian troops with salvos of artillery and the prostration of the people. It was a matter of international comity that the Ossipee and Resaca should join in saluting a flag which, though no longer dominant over that broad domain, was nevertheless autocratic in its power over a mighty nation and vast outlying provinces embracing two hundred millions of people. It was natural, too, that as it descended, the Prince should sigh deeply, and that the Princess, lovely in person and still more lovely in character, should vent her emotion in tears; for was it not an end of the exercise of imperial prowess by the one—the cessation of a rule which had been since 1864 tempered with prudence, wisdom and mercy? The breaking up, by the other, of a little imperial home, the rending of social ties, the separation from all the scenes and associations that had made her life so pleasant since she had become consort to her chief?
Amidst other salvos of guns, joined in by the Russians, the Stars and Stripes were raised to the place so lately occupied by the emblem of the Russian Bear, Prince Maksoutoff, in a few words, passed the political control of the country over to General Davis, and the transfer was deemed complete.
American rule was now supreme; but it was all military.
PIONEER NOTABLES
There were gathered at Sitka, as the date of the cession, about two hundred white men, exclusive of the Russians and the military. Among the prominent men who had sought that isolated country to horoscope its future and their own, were H.D. Baker (lately deceased), Gen. N.J.T. Dana, D. Shirpser, Hon. Samuel Storer and Hon. J.H. Kinkead. The first was the representative of an embryo fur company which had, through the efforts of Gen. John F. Miller and others, as far back as 1866, been greatly instrumental in the successful negotiation for the Territory. He was there to negotiate a purchase of the property of the Russian American Fur Company. Dissatisfied as to certain property being turned over to the U.S. Government which he thought properly belonged to the company and was necessary to its use, he returned to San Francisco, and all negotiations in that direction ceased. Gen. Dana was the agent of the American Russian Commercial Company (popularly known as the Alaska Ice Company). His mission, too, was to purchase the property of the Russian company, with a view of continuing the fur trade; but he, deeming that Prince Maksoutff asked too high a price for “worthless stuff,” and that the whole property would yet go begging for a purchaser, missed his opportunity. Messrs. Storer, Shirpser and Kinkead were merchants, and soon maintained large stocks of goods and commanded a large trade. All were men of fine intelligence, of superior mental culture, and well stocked in executive talent—men who would honor any council or assembly anywhere.
Among the others of the genus homo was Thomas G. Murphy—a politician, lawyer, priest, editor, printer, author and poet, omnibus in unum—and he at once rose to a wonderful prominence on the surface of Sitkan society. Genial, jovial, full of story, bubbling with an excess of the product of the Blarney-stone, he was everywhere, knew everything, and was first and foremost to execute all things. He was the exuberant, irrepressibly spirit of the country. Strongly imaginative, full of faith and hope, possessed of an organ of self-esteem that knew no abasement, he leaped at once to the front of events, and astonished all with the ideas he advanced, the schemes he proposed and the strategy he displayed in their execution.
ORGANIZING A GOVERNMENT WITH NEATNESS AND DISPATCH
Three days after the cession, the 21st of October, 1867, the town was startled with a written call for a meeting to consider the propriety of organizing a civil government for the Territory. The call was signed by Murphy. The meeting was to be on the 26th. It was attended by a few persons; a preamble and resolutions were drawn, expressive of civil liberty and declaratory of civil rule, and Murphy was declared head of the Government—a government without a constitution, charter, laws or ordinances.
W.S.D.
Monday: The citizens have second thoughts
