554 , ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



Presbyterian Ohnrcli. This missionary organization was the first of 

 the American churches to enter that neglected land. Finding no 

 schools, they established them side by side with their missions, pro- 

 posing to furnish educational advantages until the General Government 

 should be ready to do it. Therefore whenever the Government was 

 ready to undertal^e the work in any village occupied by the Presbyte- 

 rians, they turned over their schools to the Government. As the Pres- 

 byterians had a body of efficient teachers already on the ground, 

 acclimated, experienced in the work, more or less acquainted with the 

 native language, and possessing the confidence of the people, it was 

 both more economical to the Government and for the best interests of 

 the schools that they should as far as possible be reemployed, which 

 was done. 



Special requests having been received for an early inauguration of 

 the public-school system in Sitka and Juneau, I gave them my first 

 attention. 



^<^itl'a. — By permission of the collector of the port, who is the custo- 

 dian of the Government buildings, I took possession of a log house in 

 the center of the village and repaired it as best I could under the cir- 

 cumstances. In this building a school was opened on June 22, 1885, 

 with Miss Margaret Powell, of western Pennsylvania, as teacher. The 

 pupils were from white and Russian creole families. On the IGtli of 

 November, 1885, a public school was established for the native children, 

 with Miss Kate A. Rankin, of western Pennsylvania, as teacher. 



Juneau. — This was the principal mining center of Alaska, with the 

 largest American poi)ulatioii of any place in the Territory. A log car- 

 penter shop was erected and fixed up for the schoolroom, and the school 

 opened on the 1st of June with Miss Marion B. Murphy, of Oregon, as 

 teacher. Looking forward to the erection of a suitable school building 

 in the near future, I selected a block of land in the center of the village, 

 with the concurrence of the United States Commissioner, and had a 

 cheap fence thrown around it, in order to secure it for school purposes. 



Hoonah. — This important village is 130 miles by water north from 

 Sitka. The school, originally started by the Presbyterian Board of 

 Home Missions, was transferred to the Government and the fall term 

 0])ened on Tuesday, September 1, the teacher being Mrs. Maggie IJun- 

 bar McFarland, wife of the missionary at that place. 



Fort WrangeU, 333 miles southeast of Sitka, liad a school which had 

 been under way since 1877, supported by the Woman's Home Mission- 

 ary Society of the Presbyterian Church. It was transferred to the 

 Government and opened the 1st day of September, with Miss Lydia 

 McAvoy as teacher. 



Haines (200 miles by water north of Sitka). — This school hkewise 

 was transferred from the missionary society and was opened the 1st of 

 September, with Miss Sarah M. Dickinson, an educated half-breed, as 

 teacher. 



Jaclcaon. — This village is 533 miles by water south of Sitka. The 

 school that had been opened by the Presbyterian missionaries in 1881 

 was likewise transferred to the Government and opened as a public 

 school on the 1st of September, 1885, with Miss Clara A. Gould as 

 teacher.- 



There being no regular communication between Sitka and western 

 Alaska, and as it would take the entire season to go from Sitka to San 

 Francisco, visit the leading places in western Alaska and return, I was 

 unable the first year to do more for that section than to send Mr. Salo- 



