INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 687 



I will not read it because I have given you an outline, unless you 

 desire me to do so. It is not necessary, because I have given you a 

 sketch of it. 



House of Representatives, Washington, D. C, 



House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 



January 4, 1912. 

 after recess. 



The committee met, pursuant to the taking of a recess, at 1.30 o'clock p. m. 



STATEMENT OF PROF. HENRY W. ELLIOTT, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO— 



Resumed. 



Mr. Elliott. At the close of the season of 1818 the Russian agent in charge of the 

 Pribilof Islands — Kazean Shaishnikov — sent an earnest report to the governor of the 

 Russian-American Co., at Sitka, telling him that, in spite of the utmost effort on his 

 part, it was impossible for him to secure the number of choice male skins which he 

 had been ordered to take. He urged a rest from that killing for a term of years, 

 saving that he feared if it was not so ordered that the seal herds would be destroyed — 

 would "sofftsem ooshall," or depart entirely. 



Mr. Chairman, I want to submit here an inside light on that Russian work,, taken 

 from the letters of this man, exhibited to me in the house of his son, at Unalaska, 

 September 2, 1874. I will not read all these excerpts which I made. I ask that this 

 be put in the record, because they are the first exhibits of this inside work on those 

 islands that have ever been made, and they throw a flood of light on the subject. I 

 was on the Reliance, United States revenue marine, which was under my orders, 

 Capt. Baker commanding, that summer. I submit this as Exhibit G, because it 

 bears out entirely what I am saying here to-day. These are my original transcripts, 

 and they are not copied, but submitted exactly as I made them, as stated, nearly 

 38 years ago : 



Exhibit G. 



The Russian methods of hilling and skipping — Fur-seal islands, 1786-1867. 



Father Shaishnikov's House, 



Unalaska, September 2, 187 A- 

 ' ' Yes, Mr. Elliott, I can tell you much, because my father was a bidarshik on St. Paul 

 Island from 1804 until he died there in 1856. I was born there on St. Paul island at 

 Zapadnie in 1808, and I was educated at Sitka for the priesthood, leaving the Island 

 when I was 15 years old. 



"My father, Kazean Shaishnikov, was born at Kodiak in 1786; he was instructed 

 there in the church school so well that when he was 20 years old he was sent up to 

 St. Paul Island by the governor of the company to serve as a "bidarshik" (foreman) 

 and as a subpriest or lay deacon in the new church just established there. He remained 

 there serving in this capacity until his death in 1856; he was so highly thought of by 

 the company that they always paid all of the expenses of his visits to Sitka and Una- 

 laska and all my school charges and costs. It was my father's protest in 1834 that 

 stopped the killing on St. Paul Island. If it had not been for him and the respect 

 which they had for him at Sitka, I truly aver that not one fur seal would have been 

 left alive on those islands — yes — I will tell you, be patient — I can not talk any Eng- 

 lish, and you can not understand me unless I am slow and careful in speech. Yes, 

 you may set it all down; it is my word and of which I know, and of which, also, I 

 have the writings. 



" It is true that Pribilov discovered the islands, sailing out from this harbor in 1786, 

 but he was only a ship's mate, in the employ of the merchant, Simeon Laybedev; 

 he never did any work on the islands; he was a navigator, and died at Sitka in 1826 

 on his ship, the Three Saints. At least twelve or thirteen different companies began 

 to work on the islands in 1787-88. They took up to the islands nearly every Aleutian 

 eea-otter hunter that was alive there on this island, and many from the other islands 

 around us. They lived in skin tents or shelter during the sealing season, and then 

 most of them came back in November to their homes for the winter, leaving only a 

 few men, women, and children on the seal islands to await their return in the folloAving 

 srjrirj?. In this fashion, you understand, a large number of Aleuts lived on the 

 islands every sealing season then, and yet built few houses. That accounts for the 

 absence of ruined habitations which you have asked me about. I should say that 



