Digital Bob Archive

Captain Jacob T. Martin was in the news in Juneau's papers a good deal during the nearly 30 years he lived here, but they didn't always get his name right. Now and then he was referred to as Capt. John Martin, but the census returns and other official records have it Jacob. At one time and another in those years he skippered nearly every steamboat used on the Juneau-Douglas ferry run, as well as some other vessels such as cannery tenders and towboats.

In September, 1887, he was appointed by the national organization of the Grand Army of the Republic - Civil War veterans of the Union armies - to organize a GAR post at Juneau. He was successful and William H. Seward Post No. 36 was formally instituted on October 19, 1889. Some years later when one of Alaska's most exclusive pioneers' organizations was formed, the '87 Pioneers, both Captain and Mrs. Martin were active in it.

In the spring of 1897, after Juneau's first big jail break, Captain Martin headed a 10-man posse that participated in the recapture of William T. \"Slim\" Birch, but that is a story for another time. It may have been memory of that law-enforcement activity, however, that prompted the Juneau City Council in 1914, after he retired from seafaring, to name the captain Juneau City Marshal. He was 72 and retired from that position after a year.

During his years on the ferries, Captain Martin must have been as frustrated as were many others by the lack of a fixed local time. One of Juneau's newspapers, The Alaska Searchlight, in 1896, said this about the situation:

\"Juneau has all the times in the world!

\"Standard Time is carried by the mail steamers and used by their passengers and crew. When a steamer posts notice that it will sail at noon, we know that means about eleven o'clock by 'our time.' But what is 'our time?'

\"There is local time. We have two jewelers, E. Valentine and Peter Hahn, and each has a clock in his display window. And each keeps his own time and has his own following. If it is 11 o'clock by Valentine's clock, it is likely to be 11:15 by Hahn's. Or something else.

\"There is Treadwell time by which the mine is run and by which the ferries run, and which is used in Douglas. If the ferry advertises an 11 o'clock sailing, it may be 10, 10:15 or 10:30 by Juneau time, depending upon the season of the year and the vagaries of the Treadwell superintendent. Fortunately, the ferry blows a five-minute warning whistle, giving passengers time to catch it. Usually.

\"We have two schools and each keeps its own time and more often than not they don't agree with each other, or with either of the jeweler's clocks. Mealtime gongs in the hotels seem to be beaten at the cook's pleasure.

\"Between steamer whistles, Treadwell whistles, school bells, church bells, hotel gongs and jeweler's clocks, Juneau has all the times in the world! But don't ask us what time it is.\"