The Cottages Community
By Rebecca Poulson
This is a group of people whose choices and circumstances are at the heart of Alaskan history. My research only scratches the surface.
I'd like to thank everyone who has shared their stories and who has worked to document this history. See the bottom for written sources, but I'd also like to specially thank Mrs. Carol Feller Brady, Ellen Hope Hays, and Mr. Gil Truitt for sharing their memories, knowledge, and insights into this community and Harold Jacobs for sharing his knowledge of Tlingit genealogy and tradition. Without their generosity this history would be a closed book.
This is a group of people whose choices and circumstances are at the heart of Alaskan history. My research only scratches the surface.
I'd like to thank everyone who has shared their stories and who has worked to document this history. See the bottom for written sources, but I'd also like to specially thank Mrs. Carol Feller Brady, Ellen Hope Hays, and Mr. Gil Truitt for sharing their memories, knowledge, and insights into this community and Harold Jacobs for sharing his knowledge of Tlingit genealogy and tradition. Without their generosity this history would be a closed book.
The Cottages: Kelly Street. Sitka Historical Society.
Metlakatla Street. J. G. Brady collection, Beineke Library, Yale University
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Kelly Street in 2016.
Metlakatla Street in 2016.
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The school plat; the Cottages are at the bottom. Sheldon Jackson Collection, Alaska State Library Historical Collections
The Cottages was a model community for Christian Natives, former students of Sitka’s Presbyterian mission school. It was located on mission property at the edge of the Sitka National Historical Park, on Kelly and Metlakatla Streets. The first three homes were built in 1888. By 1889 there were 6, in 1900 9, 1910 15, in 1920 18, and 17 in 1930.
Photo Shop Studio photo of Sitka in 1928, showing the Cottages at far right, and the Indian Village on the left, separated by the town of Sitka
It was a tiny community of no more than 18 homes, and fewer than 70 residents; more of a neighborhood than a community. There were strong ties to the Village, where nearly all the rest of Sitka’s Native residents lived until well into the 20th century.
Sitka from the Western Harbor, from the 1869 Coast Pilot of Alaska, First Part.
Why was the Cottages founded? This requires looking back at the circumstances of the founding of the mission itself, in 1878.
In the mid 1780s to the 1810s, the maritime fur trade in sea otter pelts brought great wealth to the region without taking away indigenous control. By the mid-19th century, however, settlers, traders and miners, backed by military force, were aggressively displacing Native people in British Columbia and Washington Territory.
In Southeastern Alaska, the Russians did not have the ability to be aggressive toward the Tlingit. Instead they relied on diplomacy and engaged in mutually beneficial trade. Tlingit clans were the dominant players in regional commerce, trading well into the interior and with British and Americans as well as other Native peoples throughout the North West coast.
After the 1867 Treaty of Cession, southeastern Alaska became part of the United States. Americans had the military might the Russians did not have. They were able to force Native people into the margins of commerce. American traders displaced Natives from trade. I believe that it was this rapid destruction of the indigenous economy, under threat of force, that made missions attractive by the late 1870s, when they were not earlier.
Americans brought the belief that Natives are inherently inferior and must be subjugated for the good of society. The consequences of the treatment of Native people based on this narrative were then taken as proof of their natural inferiority. This discriminatory cycle was probably behind why Native people wanted missions and schools, and ultimately, why, in spite of the sacrifices this group made, the settlers at the Cottages suffered much the same marginalization and loss as other Native people.
In the mid 1780s to the 1810s, the maritime fur trade in sea otter pelts brought great wealth to the region without taking away indigenous control. By the mid-19th century, however, settlers, traders and miners, backed by military force, were aggressively displacing Native people in British Columbia and Washington Territory.
In Southeastern Alaska, the Russians did not have the ability to be aggressive toward the Tlingit. Instead they relied on diplomacy and engaged in mutually beneficial trade. Tlingit clans were the dominant players in regional commerce, trading well into the interior and with British and Americans as well as other Native peoples throughout the North West coast.
After the 1867 Treaty of Cession, southeastern Alaska became part of the United States. Americans had the military might the Russians did not have. They were able to force Native people into the margins of commerce. American traders displaced Natives from trade. I believe that it was this rapid destruction of the indigenous economy, under threat of force, that made missions attractive by the late 1870s, when they were not earlier.
Americans brought the belief that Natives are inherently inferior and must be subjugated for the good of society. The consequences of the treatment of Native people based on this narrative were then taken as proof of their natural inferiority. This discriminatory cycle was probably behind why Native people wanted missions and schools, and ultimately, why, in spite of the sacrifices this group made, the settlers at the Cottages suffered much the same marginalization and loss as other Native people.
The Sitka school began in earnest in 1880, and very soon had boarding students – a small group of young men and boys who asked to be allowed to live at the school. The mission laid claim to the present campus in 1882, and students and staff soon built a large dormitory and school building.
The school had growth and success right from the start, in large part because of the desire of certain Tlingit leaders to send their children to the school, and the drive of those early students. Missionary Sheldon Jackson, who founded Alaska's Presbyterian missions, was a prodigious fund raiser. In order to raise funds he fictionalized how depraved Natives were before Christianity, but his story would not have been effective without the clear evidence of success in the mission students' accomplishments, in the growing facilities, and especially in the Cottages.
The school had growth and success right from the start, in large part because of the desire of certain Tlingit leaders to send their children to the school, and the drive of those early students. Missionary Sheldon Jackson, who founded Alaska's Presbyterian missions, was a prodigious fund raiser. In order to raise funds he fictionalized how depraved Natives were before Christianity, but his story would not have been effective without the clear evidence of success in the mission students' accomplishments, in the growing facilities, and especially in the Cottages.
The Cottages band and residents, around 1905, in front of Cottages Hall. Three of the men in the picture (Ralph Young, Frank Price, and Peter Simpson) were Founders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood. Left to right, front row: Eaton Hunter, Ralph Young, Don Cameron, John Cameron, Frank Price, Ben Peck, Tillie Howard, George Howard, unknown, Esther Cook, Mary Cook, Tillie Wells, Bella Simpson, George Bartlett, Ruth Bartlett, David Howard. Second row up: Louis Simpson (boy), Mrs. George Bartlett, Mrs. Albert James, Jean Wanamaker, Louisa Peck, Mrs. Maud Wells, Mary Simpson, John Newell, Lila Newell, John James. Third row up: Mrs. Ralph Young, Mrs. Elsie Newell, unknown, Mrs. John James, Mrs. John Willard (holding child), Mrs. Don Cameron, Mrs. Thomas Cooke, Mrs. George Howard, Mrs. Ray James (holding Ray Jr.), Albert James. Second row from top: Edward Grant, Thomas Cooke, John E. Gamble. Top row: George Howard, Peter Simpson, John Willard, Willie Wells, Ray James Sr., Andrew J. Wanamaker, Cyrus E. Peck Sr. Photograph Sitka National Historical Park, Ellen Hope Hays Collection.
The Cottages Band, 1904. Alaska State Library Historical Collections, Sheldon Jackson College Collection.
Cottage Women's Missionary Society.
Back Row – left to right: Mrs. John James; Mrs. Cook; Miss Gibson; Mrs. Wanamaker; Mrs. Young.
Next row: Mrs. Newell; Mrs. Dundas; Mrs. Ray James; Gibson Young (boy).
Next row: Mrs. Albert James & Baby Dorothy; Mrs. Geo. Howard; Mrs. Willard; Mrs. MacKay; Mrs. C. Bailey.
Bottom row: Jenny Simpson (Sing); Mrs. Simpson; Mrs. Sam Johnson & baby; Ruth Bartlett; Mrs. Bartlett & baby (two of the children are not identified).
Identifications from a Sheldon Jackson College pamphlet, collection Sitka National Historical Park. Photo Sitka Historical Society 91.26, folder 660.
Contrasts and Conflicts
The Cottages presents a problem for us today. Cottage leaders stated that the old ways will bring Native people down. They were proud to be living in American-style homes and wearing American clothes, proud to be speaking English. We see the deliberate abandonment of language, in particular, as a great loss. I think the important thing is not to project our 21st century ideas onto them, and not judge what people did based on our world today.
Even as Cottages leaders stated that they needed to put the old ways behind them, the reality was that life at the Cottages was permeated with Native identity. If we just go by the photographs, and the way it was framed at the time, we would think that these people's identity began fresh with their adoption of an English name.
Even as Cottages leaders stated that they needed to put the old ways behind them, the reality was that life at the Cottages was permeated with Native identity. If we just go by the photographs, and the way it was framed at the time, we would think that these people's identity began fresh with their adoption of an English name.
Cottages families and members of the Presbytery, in front of Cottages Hall, late 1908/early 1909. Top row: W. G. Beattie, Samuel Davis, Frank Price, Tom Walton, Andrew Wanamaker, Ray James, Rudolph Walton, Geo. J. Beck. Next row: Rev. Edward Marsden, Rev. McLean, Rev. I. F. Jones, ?,?, Rev. David Waggoner, Mrs. Beck, ?, Rev. Bannerman, Ralph Young. Third row from top: John James, Geo. Howard, Mrs. Coon, Mrs. Ray James, Mrs. Andrew Wanamaker, Mrs. John Newell, ?, ?, Garfield Bailey?, John Willard
Bottom row: Thomas Cook, George H. Beck (child), Kasseyia Beck (girl in white dress), Cyrus Peck, George Bartlett. Alaska State Library Historical Collections, Sheldon Jackson College Collection, and Sitka National Historical Park SITK 808.
But, a Cottage person's identity would have been based on his or her Native name, family, lineage, relationships and in clan and house history going back thousands of years; identity changed, with conversion, but was not replaced.
And, place. These people were still in the place their ancestors had enriched with complex significance. Only a few hundred yards away was the site of the 1804 Battle of Sitka, the major conflict between the Russians and the Kiksadi clan, that resulted in the cession of what is now the town of Sitka to the Russians. Newcomers would not feel the resonance of that event, of what led up to it and the consequences, instead seeing a pretty view or a resource to be exploited.
So while these people look like they have "assimilated," they knew who they were.
And, place. These people were still in the place their ancestors had enriched with complex significance. Only a few hundred yards away was the site of the 1804 Battle of Sitka, the major conflict between the Russians and the Kiksadi clan, that resulted in the cession of what is now the town of Sitka to the Russians. Newcomers would not feel the resonance of that event, of what led up to it and the consequences, instead seeing a pretty view or a resource to be exploited.
So while these people look like they have "assimilated," they knew who they were.
Some of the Cottages residents in 1912: Bottom row: Dorothy James Truitt, Jennie Simpson Sing, Ray James, Jr.
Middle row: Tillie Howard Hope (the mother of Ellen Hope Hays), Mr. and Mrs. Sloan, Carol Feller Brady's mother Elizabeth Kadashaan James, Carol’s father Ray James with Carol’s sister Flora, and David Howard (Tillie’s brother).
Back row: Ray James’s sister Olinda Bailey, Peter Simpson, Jr., Mary Simpson, Peter Simpson with Baby, Jennie Willard, John Willard, and Ray James’s brother, Albert James. Photo E. W. Merrill Collection, Sitka National Historical Park.
Who were the founders of the Cottages?
The Cottages community included important tradition bearers. Marriages were proper marriages between opposite clans. Perhaps partly due to culture and partly due to economic need, many traditional food gathering traditions were also followed.
Many of the families were closely related. Matriarchs of three families were sisters, whose parents, Kok Gla or John and Lucy or Mary Sloan, while not English speakers or graduates of the school, also lived at the Cottages.
These women are Kiks.adi, Point House. The eldest was Amelia, who later married Don Cameron, who came from Chilkat. Mary Sloan married Tsimshian Peter Simpson, and Lottie was the first wife of George Howard, Tlingit from Kake.
A fourth sister married a businessman born in England, Bernard Hirst. They lived in downtown Sitka, and their sons attended the “white” school.
In 2004, Ellen Hope Hays, who grew up at the Cottages, a Kiksadi Point House woman, whose grandmother was one of the Sloan sisters, showed me this photograph, saying, this is a photograph of descendants of those who fought the 1804 Battle of Sitka. The photograph was taken in 1912, one hundred years after the Battle, and one hundred years before she showed it to me - and her own mother is in the picture, as a girl. The leader of the Tlingit defense in 1804 was a Kiksadi Point House man, Shk’aawulyéil. Her grandmother's great- grandmother was his sister.1 Another granddaughter recently told me that this photograph was taken at the fort site.
There is therefore a wide gap between how the Cottage members saw themselves, in the context of history, place, and lineage, and how the images of the Cottages community look to most people now.
A granddaughter says that Amelia Cameron and her parents did not go to the school, nor did they speak English, but they lived at the Cottages because of clan ownership. Her husband, Don Cameron, was Kaagwaantaan. He was a translator for ethnologist John Swanton, and shared traditional narratives of which he was the bearer.
Many of the families were closely related. Matriarchs of three families were sisters, whose parents, Kok Gla or John and Lucy or Mary Sloan, while not English speakers or graduates of the school, also lived at the Cottages.
These women are Kiks.adi, Point House. The eldest was Amelia, who later married Don Cameron, who came from Chilkat. Mary Sloan married Tsimshian Peter Simpson, and Lottie was the first wife of George Howard, Tlingit from Kake.
A fourth sister married a businessman born in England, Bernard Hirst. They lived in downtown Sitka, and their sons attended the “white” school.
In 2004, Ellen Hope Hays, who grew up at the Cottages, a Kiksadi Point House woman, whose grandmother was one of the Sloan sisters, showed me this photograph, saying, this is a photograph of descendants of those who fought the 1804 Battle of Sitka. The photograph was taken in 1912, one hundred years after the Battle, and one hundred years before she showed it to me - and her own mother is in the picture, as a girl. The leader of the Tlingit defense in 1804 was a Kiksadi Point House man, Shk’aawulyéil. Her grandmother's great- grandmother was his sister.1 Another granddaughter recently told me that this photograph was taken at the fort site.
There is therefore a wide gap between how the Cottage members saw themselves, in the context of history, place, and lineage, and how the images of the Cottages community look to most people now.
A granddaughter says that Amelia Cameron and her parents did not go to the school, nor did they speak English, but they lived at the Cottages because of clan ownership. Her husband, Don Cameron, was Kaagwaantaan. He was a translator for ethnologist John Swanton, and shared traditional narratives of which he was the bearer.
William Wells Kaads'aati, of the Luknax.adi clan. Photo Alaska State Library, Historical Collections.
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Kiksadi man Rudolph Walton Kawootk' in about 1901. Photo Tongass Historical Society.
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The Cottages community included William Wells or Kaads'aati, of the Luknax.adi, and Rudolph Walton Kawootk', a Kiksadi man. Both were among the “original students” at the school. Both were in line to become leaders, and they and their families made the decision in 1880 to go to the school. Both became devout Presbyterians.
Elizabeth James was sent to Sitka from Wrangell, by her father, Kaasx'agweidi clan leader Kadashaan (a), an early convert to Protestant Christianity. He and his own mother were also tradition bearers, contributing material to Swanton. Elizabeth married a son of Amelia Cameron, one of the Sloan sisters.
Perhaps the best known of the Cottage community is Peter Simpson, a leader in civil rights and land claims. He was a member of the Christian community at Metlakatla, British Columbia led by missionary William Duncan, and part of the exodus in 1887 to New Metlakatla in the United States.
Elizabeth James was sent to Sitka from Wrangell, by her father, Kaasx'agweidi clan leader Kadashaan (a), an early convert to Protestant Christianity. He and his own mother were also tradition bearers, contributing material to Swanton. Elizabeth married a son of Amelia Cameron, one of the Sloan sisters.
Perhaps the best known of the Cottage community is Peter Simpson, a leader in civil rights and land claims. He was a member of the Christian community at Metlakatla, British Columbia led by missionary William Duncan, and part of the exodus in 1887 to New Metlakatla in the United States.
Models
The missionary activity by William Duncan was well known to Presbyterian missionaries, and to Tlingit people, who have strong trade and even family ties to the coastal Tsimshian. In fact, the community was famous all over the coast. Founded in 1862, the Christian Native community of Metlakatla, Canada, had their own frame houses, large church, and a sawmill, and other industries.
It seems likely that the Cottages was modeled at least in part on Metlakatla. We can't know how much of the idea for the community came from the missionaries, and how much may have been the idea of certain Tlingit people.
In 1887, William Duncan led 800 Christian Tsimshean people from Metlakatla, in British Columbia, to New Metlakatla, in southeastern Alaska. The following spring, in 1888, Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson brought Peter Simpson and 31 other boys from Metlakatla to his Sitka training school.1 (7)
It seems likely that the Cottages was modeled at least in part on Metlakatla. We can't know how much of the idea for the community came from the missionaries, and how much may have been the idea of certain Tlingit people.
In 1887, William Duncan led 800 Christian Tsimshean people from Metlakatla, in British Columbia, to New Metlakatla, in southeastern Alaska. The following spring, in 1888, Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson brought Peter Simpson and 31 other boys from Metlakatla to his Sitka training school.1 (7)
Hamilton and Simpson Sawmill, Port Gravina, Alaska. Taken by B. A. Haldane of Metlakatla, Alaska, 1895. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) 297380.
Then, in the fall of 1892, when he was about 21, Peter Simpson and some other Metlakatlan graduates of the Sitka school returned south and started Hamilton, Simpson and Company, a sawmill, at Port Gravina – a town they founded - across Tongass Narrows from Ketchikan. The all-Native company eventually had a fishing operation, ran a tug, owned a large store, a carpenter shop, and rental cottages. Gravina burned down in 1904 and was not rebuilt.
Of course most enterprises in southeastern Alaska failed sooner than later, but Native people had more obstacles to success than did non-Natives. For one thing, they were not included as American citizens. Simpson's granddaughter Isabella Brady told how as Natives, they could not get title to the land to rebuild, and said that this is the source of Peter Simpson's lifelong fight for land claims.2
Could it be that the Cottages settlers hoped to have their own industry? Commerce at the Cottages was limited to a boatbuilding operation and sales of handicrafts to tourists, but, by the teens, people associated with the school and the Cottages had moved to other parts of town, and dominated Sitka's boatbuilding and commercial salmon seining, which was an important economic activity at that time.
The boatbuilding operation began in 1906 under Peter Simpson. Men who worked with Simpson, nearly all related by marriage, went on to build most of the hundreds of boats built in Sitka in the 20th century.
Of course most enterprises in southeastern Alaska failed sooner than later, but Native people had more obstacles to success than did non-Natives. For one thing, they were not included as American citizens. Simpson's granddaughter Isabella Brady told how as Natives, they could not get title to the land to rebuild, and said that this is the source of Peter Simpson's lifelong fight for land claims.2
Could it be that the Cottages settlers hoped to have their own industry? Commerce at the Cottages was limited to a boatbuilding operation and sales of handicrafts to tourists, but, by the teens, people associated with the school and the Cottages had moved to other parts of town, and dominated Sitka's boatbuilding and commercial salmon seining, which was an important economic activity at that time.
The boatbuilding operation began in 1906 under Peter Simpson. Men who worked with Simpson, nearly all related by marriage, went on to build most of the hundreds of boats built in Sitka in the 20th century.
Peter Simpson's shop at the foot of Metlakatla Street. Photo Sitka Historical Society.
The boat at center is named "William," perhaps the boat built for Rudolph Walton. Merrill photo Sitka National Historical Park.
Simpson's shop was at the Cottages, on the point of land below Metlakatla Street. In the fall of 1908 he had five men working there, and enlarged his shop. In 1909 they launched a 34-foot boat for Rudolph Walton, the William, and had built “many” others.3 (15) In 1910, when he was nearly 40, Simpson employed his brother-in-law George Howard, who was about his age, and John James at his shop.4 (16)
Sealing boats gathered for blessing by the Orthodox priest. The store may be Rudolph Walton's store. Herring Rock is at right. Merrill Photo, collection Sitka National Historical Park.
George Howard left the Cottages, and built a home and boatshop on the northern edge of the Village in the teens. He built sealing boats and fishing boats. Peter Simpson was often “high boat” in the fur seal hunt in the 1920s.
Andrew Hope at the bandsaw, fisherman Andrew Soinio in foreground, in a boatshop on Katlian Street. This may be Scotty Jennings' boat shop, in the 1920s. Photo from a glass slide in the collection of the Sitka Historical Society.
Andrew Hope, who was a graduate of the Sitka school, married the daughter of Lottie Sloan and George Howard. His eldest son grew up as the adopted son of the Cameron family at the Cottages.
Early day salmon seiners, from The Silver Years of the Alaska Canned Salmon Industry: An Album of Historical Photos by Laurence Freeburn.
Dozens of boats were built by this handful of men and their associates. I've counted over 50 documented vessels (over about 32 feet) built in Sitka in the 22 years between 1909 and 1931, and at least 31 were built by Alaska Native builders. There were many smaller boats as well. The largest output was in the teens, when engine-powered seiners came to Alaska.
Most of these early seiners were financed by the canneries, for top producers, and nearly all of these boatbuilders were also affiliated with the Cottages.
These men did not learn to build boats at the school. I believe they learned by working with Scandinavian and other immigrants of the time, and Tlingit craftsmen combined their woodworking and boat design knowledge to the new technology. Other Native builders built boats in villages and towns all over southeast. There were a few non-Native boatbuilders as well.
Rudolph Walton or Kawootk' was one of the original students at the school. His name was given him by his sponsors at the school, a Philadelphia family who named him after a prominent Presbyterian of that city. Walton was proud of the association, and his family are still friends with the Wilber family, who sponsored him so long ago.
Walton was a carver and jeweler, and sold his work at the Cottages, but then left, and built a store and home in the Village in 1905.
In 1906 he was at the center of a school integration case, when his step-children were barred from attending the “white” school. The testimony in this case, especially the way Natives are treated, reveals the gross racial bias against Native people that was not usually on display. He was involved in clan affairs, for which he was condemned by the missionaries; while his attempt to get his kids a good education resulted in condemnation by the other whites.
This epitomizes the bind that Cottage people were in: they made the sacrifice of their traditions and language, and possibly of clan leadership, in order to secure a future for their children. But in spite of their proper clothes, education and manners, they were still treated with gross bias by community leaders – possibly, as for Walton in the Davis Case, even more so, because they did it well, challenging the narrative of inborn white superiority.
Most of the founders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood - the seminal civil rights organization - had been educated at the Presbyterian mission school and were affiliated with the Cottages.
We are fortunate to have people with us today who grew up in the Cottages, and who tell their story, and write about what it was for children in the 1930s, the last days as a community.
They describe the joys of growing up with the Sitka National Historic Park for a backyard; of playing with cousins, and feasting on traditional foods, when families went fall fishing, or to canneries in the summer. And the grandparents, aunts and uncles and great-aunts and uncles, as well as parents who practiced and taught traditional food gathering. How musical many of the residents were, and the excellence of the Sheldon Jackson School choir and basketball programs, and how warm and welcoming the Sheldon Jackson school staff was to these young kids. And the spontaneous picnics, and church-centered celebrations of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and being a part of the Sheldon Jackson School community.
But the striking thing in these narratives is that most are stories of survival. What unfortunately shaped this community was the unbearable amount of premature death, and the unfortunate consequence of repeated losses, of trauma: what we now call post-traumatic stress syndrome, with symptoms like alcohol abuse, depression, and emotional withdrawal. That in turn traumatized the next generation. The breakdown of the community in the 1930s, I believe, was a direct result of forces that were against Native people from the very start.
By the 1880s, most Americans saw enormously improved living standards and life expectancy. But this improvement was not enjoyed by Alaska Natives. Even in the 1930s, homes in the Cottages did not have running water. Economic and social marginalization stemming from racial discrimination probably had something to do with it, but whatever the cause, Alaska Natives saw a horrific rate of premature death. At least two men's deaths were related to working even though they were sick, because they could not afford not to.
Ellen Hope Hays, who was a child of the Cottages, said that it was disease that had the biggest impact on Native people, more than racism or alcohol.
I went to the Division of Vital Statistics in Juneau and copied out the deaths in Sitka in the 1930s. When I ordered the list by age at death, I was shocked. At least eighty percent of the family names of those who died at age 30 or younger are those of Native families.
Peter Simpson outlived all 15 of his children – only two lived to adulthood, and both lost children of their own, and died leaving others. Carole Feller Brady's entire family died – both parents, three sisters, and two brothers – by the time she was still only a teen. Many of the families were closely related, and the small size of the community made these intense losses devastating.
In 1937, four young men from the Cottages - two graduates, a current student, and the young husband of a graduate - drowned. In 1936 and 37, five other Cottages residents also died prematurely. This is from a community of only 17 homes.
Nine of the seventeen people in the photograph of Cottages families in 1912 died prematurely.
By the 1930s, Sheldon Jackson School staff were concerned about the situation, in which alcohol abuse was a problem in many homes. Cottages founders tried to revive the Cottages Society, but the devastation of so much trauma was out of anyone's control.
Carol Feller Brady, whose two idolized older brothers were among the drowning victims, and whose father died of tuberculosis the year before, tells how school superintendent Les Yaw told her sister not to be too hard on their mother, who was drinking: “her heart is buried six feet underground.”
Everyone we've interviewed had stories of tremendous loss, of siblings, parents.
But all those people also have beautiful stories of family, food, and traditions. Their stories help us to understand how they survived circumstances that overwhelmed others, whether by force of will, by not looking back, or by cultivating forgiveness. “Life was hard,” is as close to a complaint as we've heard.
We can also learn from the story of the Cottages how racism shaped the experiences of Native people, and how those same stereotypes and assumptions persist today, tragically stemming from the consequences of the same stereotype, generations of deliberate categorization of Natives as inferior.
Selected sources:
Joyce Walton Shales, “Rudolph Walton: One Tlingit Man's Journey Through Stormy Seas, Sitka, Alaska, 1867-1951” (Ph. D. diss., The University of British Columbia, 1998)
Sergei Kan, Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1999)
Twelfth Census of the United States, Census of Alaska, Southern District, Sitka, Alaska 1900, accessed at family search.org.
Thirteenth Census of the United States, Population - Alaska, 1st District, Sitka, Alaska 1910, accessed at findmypast.com.
Ted C. Hinckley, Alaskan John G. Brady, Missionary, Businessman, Judge, and Governor, 1878-1918 (Miami, Ohio: Miami University, 1982)
Don Craig Mitchell, Sold American, The Story of Alaska Natives and Their Land, 1867-1959 (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2003), 65-110
A. E. Austin, “History of the Mission” The North Star 5 no. 12 December 1892 1-4
Zachary R. Jones, “'Search For and Destroy': The US Army's Relations with Alaska's Tlingit Indians and the Kake War of 1869,” Ethnohistory 60, no. 1 (Winter 2013), 1-26
Susan Neylan, “Longhouses, Schoolroom, and Workers' Cottages: Nineteenth Century Protestant Missions to the Tsimshian and the Transformation of Class Through Religion” Journal of the CHA 2000 New Series 11, 51-86
Peter Murray, The Devil and Mr. Duncan (Victoria, British Columbia: Sono Nis Press, 1985)
1.This and most of the other Tlingit genealogy from Harold Jacobs, personal communication.
(a) Kadashaan was Kaasx'agweidi - personal communication, Harold Jacobs
2.Murray, p. 207 (boys to S.J.); William Gilbert Beattie, Marsden of Alaska (New York: Vantage Press, 1955), p. 19 (boys to S.J., incl Simpson); North Star, September 1888 (Simpson in school here).
2 Isabella Brady (grand daughter of Peter Simpson), personal communication
3 North Star, March 1909, p. 2 (boat for Walton, many boats past few years), Chronology p. 38 (Walton’s boat the William)
4 1910 Census (Simpson, Howard, James building).
Most of these early seiners were financed by the canneries, for top producers, and nearly all of these boatbuilders were also affiliated with the Cottages.
These men did not learn to build boats at the school. I believe they learned by working with Scandinavian and other immigrants of the time, and Tlingit craftsmen combined their woodworking and boat design knowledge to the new technology. Other Native builders built boats in villages and towns all over southeast. There were a few non-Native boatbuilders as well.
Rudolph Walton or Kawootk' was one of the original students at the school. His name was given him by his sponsors at the school, a Philadelphia family who named him after a prominent Presbyterian of that city. Walton was proud of the association, and his family are still friends with the Wilber family, who sponsored him so long ago.
Walton was a carver and jeweler, and sold his work at the Cottages, but then left, and built a store and home in the Village in 1905.
In 1906 he was at the center of a school integration case, when his step-children were barred from attending the “white” school. The testimony in this case, especially the way Natives are treated, reveals the gross racial bias against Native people that was not usually on display. He was involved in clan affairs, for which he was condemned by the missionaries; while his attempt to get his kids a good education resulted in condemnation by the other whites.
This epitomizes the bind that Cottage people were in: they made the sacrifice of their traditions and language, and possibly of clan leadership, in order to secure a future for their children. But in spite of their proper clothes, education and manners, they were still treated with gross bias by community leaders – possibly, as for Walton in the Davis Case, even more so, because they did it well, challenging the narrative of inborn white superiority.
Most of the founders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood - the seminal civil rights organization - had been educated at the Presbyterian mission school and were affiliated with the Cottages.
We are fortunate to have people with us today who grew up in the Cottages, and who tell their story, and write about what it was for children in the 1930s, the last days as a community.
They describe the joys of growing up with the Sitka National Historic Park for a backyard; of playing with cousins, and feasting on traditional foods, when families went fall fishing, or to canneries in the summer. And the grandparents, aunts and uncles and great-aunts and uncles, as well as parents who practiced and taught traditional food gathering. How musical many of the residents were, and the excellence of the Sheldon Jackson School choir and basketball programs, and how warm and welcoming the Sheldon Jackson school staff was to these young kids. And the spontaneous picnics, and church-centered celebrations of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and being a part of the Sheldon Jackson School community.
But the striking thing in these narratives is that most are stories of survival. What unfortunately shaped this community was the unbearable amount of premature death, and the unfortunate consequence of repeated losses, of trauma: what we now call post-traumatic stress syndrome, with symptoms like alcohol abuse, depression, and emotional withdrawal. That in turn traumatized the next generation. The breakdown of the community in the 1930s, I believe, was a direct result of forces that were against Native people from the very start.
By the 1880s, most Americans saw enormously improved living standards and life expectancy. But this improvement was not enjoyed by Alaska Natives. Even in the 1930s, homes in the Cottages did not have running water. Economic and social marginalization stemming from racial discrimination probably had something to do with it, but whatever the cause, Alaska Natives saw a horrific rate of premature death. At least two men's deaths were related to working even though they were sick, because they could not afford not to.
Ellen Hope Hays, who was a child of the Cottages, said that it was disease that had the biggest impact on Native people, more than racism or alcohol.
I went to the Division of Vital Statistics in Juneau and copied out the deaths in Sitka in the 1930s. When I ordered the list by age at death, I was shocked. At least eighty percent of the family names of those who died at age 30 or younger are those of Native families.
Peter Simpson outlived all 15 of his children – only two lived to adulthood, and both lost children of their own, and died leaving others. Carole Feller Brady's entire family died – both parents, three sisters, and two brothers – by the time she was still only a teen. Many of the families were closely related, and the small size of the community made these intense losses devastating.
In 1937, four young men from the Cottages - two graduates, a current student, and the young husband of a graduate - drowned. In 1936 and 37, five other Cottages residents also died prematurely. This is from a community of only 17 homes.
Nine of the seventeen people in the photograph of Cottages families in 1912 died prematurely.
By the 1930s, Sheldon Jackson School staff were concerned about the situation, in which alcohol abuse was a problem in many homes. Cottages founders tried to revive the Cottages Society, but the devastation of so much trauma was out of anyone's control.
Carol Feller Brady, whose two idolized older brothers were among the drowning victims, and whose father died of tuberculosis the year before, tells how school superintendent Les Yaw told her sister not to be too hard on their mother, who was drinking: “her heart is buried six feet underground.”
Everyone we've interviewed had stories of tremendous loss, of siblings, parents.
But all those people also have beautiful stories of family, food, and traditions. Their stories help us to understand how they survived circumstances that overwhelmed others, whether by force of will, by not looking back, or by cultivating forgiveness. “Life was hard,” is as close to a complaint as we've heard.
We can also learn from the story of the Cottages how racism shaped the experiences of Native people, and how those same stereotypes and assumptions persist today, tragically stemming from the consequences of the same stereotype, generations of deliberate categorization of Natives as inferior.
Selected sources:
Joyce Walton Shales, “Rudolph Walton: One Tlingit Man's Journey Through Stormy Seas, Sitka, Alaska, 1867-1951” (Ph. D. diss., The University of British Columbia, 1998)
Sergei Kan, Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1999)
Twelfth Census of the United States, Census of Alaska, Southern District, Sitka, Alaska 1900, accessed at family search.org.
Thirteenth Census of the United States, Population - Alaska, 1st District, Sitka, Alaska 1910, accessed at findmypast.com.
Ted C. Hinckley, Alaskan John G. Brady, Missionary, Businessman, Judge, and Governor, 1878-1918 (Miami, Ohio: Miami University, 1982)
Don Craig Mitchell, Sold American, The Story of Alaska Natives and Their Land, 1867-1959 (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2003), 65-110
A. E. Austin, “History of the Mission” The North Star 5 no. 12 December 1892 1-4
Zachary R. Jones, “'Search For and Destroy': The US Army's Relations with Alaska's Tlingit Indians and the Kake War of 1869,” Ethnohistory 60, no. 1 (Winter 2013), 1-26
Susan Neylan, “Longhouses, Schoolroom, and Workers' Cottages: Nineteenth Century Protestant Missions to the Tsimshian and the Transformation of Class Through Religion” Journal of the CHA 2000 New Series 11, 51-86
Peter Murray, The Devil and Mr. Duncan (Victoria, British Columbia: Sono Nis Press, 1985)
1.This and most of the other Tlingit genealogy from Harold Jacobs, personal communication.
(a) Kadashaan was Kaasx'agweidi - personal communication, Harold Jacobs
2.Murray, p. 207 (boys to S.J.); William Gilbert Beattie, Marsden of Alaska (New York: Vantage Press, 1955), p. 19 (boys to S.J., incl Simpson); North Star, September 1888 (Simpson in school here).
2 Isabella Brady (grand daughter of Peter Simpson), personal communication
3 North Star, March 1909, p. 2 (boat for Walton, many boats past few years), Chronology p. 38 (Walton’s boat the William)
4 1910 Census (Simpson, Howard, James building).
