Digital Bob Archive

JULY 1, 1885-The citizens of Juneau are feeling great satisfaction with the progress of the camp and especially in the addition of a church, a court house and a school within the past year. The Rev. Dr. Eugene E. Willard built the Mission Presbyterian Church at the corner of Fifth and Seward streets last year and is now putting up a building for a mission where homeless Indian children will be cared for. The Mission Church is attended primarily by members of the Tlingit community but Dr. Willard also holds services in the court house from time to time. Other denominations have also used the court house, including Father John Althoff, the Roman Catholic priest. He hopes to build his own church in the near future. The Rt. Rev. Charles John Seghers, Bishop of Vancouver Island, whose territory includes Alaska, has selected all of Block 25 in the Juneau townsite for the Catholic church, parsonage and school purposes. The government, after determining that the old Navy buildings on the hill west of town are too far deteriorated to be used, rented a building on the waterfront just south of Franklin Street for a courthouse. The building houses the office of Commissioner Henry States and will be used for sessions of the District Court when it comes here. Citizens? meetings and some social affairs are also in the courthouse.

The Organic Act passed last year appropriated $25,000 for education in Alaska, to be expended by the Secretary of the Interior. Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the Presbyterian missionary, was appointed General Agent of Education in Alaska and he has acted with characteristic energy. One of his first acts in Juneau was to claim all of Block 23 for school purposes and to have a fence put around it. No funds were provided to build school houses so he rented the log building at Third and Main street, used as a carpenter shop for some time past. The building is admittedly small for the purpose, but nothing larger was available. Miss Marion B. Murphy of Oregon was hired as the first teacher and arrived on the May mail steamer. She is a member of the Roman Catholic Church and this quiets some fears that Dr. Jackson would turn the school into a Presbyterian auxiliary. School opened on June 1 and the average attendance for Juneau has been 75, of whom three were white Americans, 10 were Creoles-of mixed Russian and Native blood-and 62 were Natives. Dr. Jackson has promised to attempt to get an appropriation from Congress to put up two school buildings here, one for white and one for Native children, as well as buildings at Sitka and other settlements.