Digital Bob Archive

Juneau's first school teacher was Miss Marion B. Murphy, the daughter of Daniel H. Murphy, Juneau's first lawyer and its postmaster from November 1883 until June 1885. Although she is reported in the school records as Miss Murphy, 10 days before school opened she was married by Father John Althoff at the Catholic Church to Thomas Sunny.

School opened on June 1, 1885, as part of the educational system provided for in the Organic Act of 1884, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior. The system was a little slow in getting started. Although the law became effective on May 17, 1884, it was not until March 2, 1885, that Secretary of the Interior Teller designated the U.S. Bureau of Education to carry out the work. And on April 11, 1885, Commissioner of Education John Eaton named Dr.
Sheldon Jackson the General Agent of Education in Alaska, a position he would hold for more than 20 years.

Dr. Jackson was a controversial figure both in and out of Alaska. Some years earlier, as head of the Rocky Mountain division of the Presbyterian organization, with headquarters at Denver, he had muscled his way into the Alaska mission field over the objections of the division headquartered at Portland, Oregon, of which Alaska was nominally a part.

Nevertheless, he was the logical man to fill the Alaska position which, incidentally, was never Commissioner of Education as is sometimes stated. He had established several mission schools in Southeastern Alaska, he had published a book on Alaska, and he brought to the job both a great deal of energy and something of a following in Washington, D.C.

Miss Murphy, the Juneau teacher, must have been dismayed that June of 1885 when she opened school in the one-room log cabin at Third and Main. Total enrollment that month was 75 and average daily attendance was 47. The total included 40 boys and 35 girls; 5 Americans, 10 Creoles, 56 Natives and 5 Half-breeds.

The \"Americans\" were undoubtedly the children of white miners. The Creoles were members of some of the Russian-Aleut families who had moved over from Sitka, while the Natives would have been both Auks and Takus and perhaps a few others. One of Miss Murphy's most serious problems would have been that few if any of the Native children spoke any English. It may be that some of the half-breeds acted as interpreters to get things started. At best, well over half of the enrollment would have been in the Primary class.

Daily attendance dropped off during the summer months. It was down to an average of 25 in July, 17 in August and 19 in September, but it increased again in the fall as the Natives returned from their summer camps and as work at the placer mines began to taper off. By November the total enrollment was up to 90, of whom 74 were Natives, and in December the average daily attendance was 50. Juneau's first school year ended on January 31, 1886.

How long Miss Murphy/Mrs. Sunny remained in Juneau is not known; she did not again teach school here.