382 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



It will be remembered by many people that when we were ratifying the negotiation between 

 our Government and that of Eussia it was apparent that nobody in this country knew anything 

 about the subject of Russian America. Every schoolboy knew where it was located, but no pro- 

 fessor or merchant, however wise or shrewd, knew what was in it, Accordingly, immediately 

 after the purchase was nia-le and the formal transfer effected, a large number of energetic and 

 speculative men, some coming from New England even, but most of them residents of the Pacific 

 coast, turned their attention to Alaska. They went up to Sitka in a little fleet of sail and steam 

 vessels, but among their number it appears there were only two of our citizens who knew of or had 

 the faintest appreciation as to the value of the seal-islands. One of these, Mr. H. M. Hutchinson, 

 a native of New Hampshire, and the other, Captain Ebenezer Morgan, a native of Connecticut, 

 turned their faces in 1868 toward them. Also, they were known to Captain GustavNiebaum, who, 

 as an ex-employe" of the Eussian American company, became a United States citizen by the terms of 

 the treaty of transfer in 1867. Captain Niebauin was the first to put in an appearance on the Seal 

 Islands after the new order of ownership was proclaimed, for he knew the character of the busi- 

 ness thoroughly. He was almost immediately followed by Messrs. Hutchiuson and Morgan. Mr. 

 Hutcbinson gathered his information at Sitka Captain Morgan had gained his years before by 

 experience on the South Sea sealing grounds. Mr. Hutchiuson represented a company of San 

 Francisco or California capitalists when he landed on Saint Paul; Captain Morgan represented 

 another company of New London capitalists and whaling merchants. They arrived a,lmost simul- 

 taneously, Morgan afew days or weeks anterior to Hutchinson. He had quietly enough commenced 

 to survey and pre-empt the rookeries on the islands, or, in other words, the work of putting stakes 

 down and recording the fact of claiming the ground, as miners do in the mountains; but later agreed 

 to 0- operate with Mr. Hutchinson. These two parties passed that season of 1868 in exclusive con- 

 trol of those islands, and they took an immense number of seals. They took so many that it oc- 

 curred to Mr. Hutchiuson unless something was done to check and protect these wonderful rook- 

 eries, which he saw here for the first time, and which filled him with amazement, that they would 

 be wiped out by the end of another season ; although he was the gainer then, and would be per- 

 haps at the end, if they should be thus eliminated, yet he could not forbear saying to himself that 

 it was wrong and should not be. To this Captains Morgan and Niebaum also assented^ 



The island of Saint George in 1868 was occupied by their deputies, though all the sealing there 

 was done entirely by the natives, the white men giving their chief concern to Saint Paul, where the 

 vast bulk of seal life was exhibited. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE ALASKA COMMERCIAL COMPANY. In the fall of 1868 Mr. Hutchin- 

 son and Captain Morgan, by their personal efforts, interested and aroused the Treasury Department 

 and Congress, so that a special resolution was enacted declaring the seal-islands a governmental 

 reservation, and prohibiting any and all parties from taking seals thereon until further action by 

 Congress. In 1869 seals were taken on those islands, under the direction of the Treasury Depart- 

 ment, for the subsistence of the natives only ; and in 1S70 Congress passed the present law, a copy 

 of which I append, for the protection of the fur-bearing animals on those islands, and under its 

 provisions, and in accordance, after an animated and bitter struggle in competition, the Alaska 

 Commercial Company, of which Mr. Hutchiuson was a prime organizer, secured the award and 

 received the franchise which it now enjoys and will enjoy for another decade. The company is an 

 American corporation, with a charter, rules, and regulations, which I reproduce herein on a sub- 

 sequent page. They employ a fleet of vessels, sail and steam : four steamers, a dozen or fifteen 

 ships, barks, and sloops. Their principal occupation and attriili.ni is given naturally to the seal- 

 islands, though they have stations scattered over the Aleutian Islands and that portion of Alaska 

 west and north of Kadiak. No post of theirs is less than 500 or 600 miles from Sitka. 



