The Life and Times of John W. Clark of Nushagak, Alaska-Branson-508

263 Pages·2015·5.11 MB·English

National Park Service — U.S. Department of the Interior Lake Clark National Park and Preserve
Th e Life and Times of
John W. Clark

o f Nushagak,
A laska,
1846–1896

John B. Branson
ii
PAGE THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN W. CLARK OF NUSHAGAK, ALASKA, 1846–1896
Th e Life and Times of
John W. Clark

o f Nushagak,
A laska,
1846–1896
iii
PAGE
U.S. Department of the Interior
National Park Service
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve
240 West 5th Avenue, Suite 236
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
As the nation’s principal conservation agency, the Department of the Interior has
responsibility for most of our nationally owned public lands and natural and cultural
resources. This includes fostering the conservation of our land and water resources,
protecting our fish and wildlife, preserving the environmental and cultural values of
our national parks and historical places, and providing for enjoyment of life through
outdoor recreation.
The Cultural Resource Programs of the National Park Service have responsibilities
that include stewardship of historic buildings, museum collections, archeological sites,
cultural landscapes, oral and written histories, and ethnographic resources.
Our mission is to identify, evaluate and preserve the cultural resources of the park areas
and to bring an understanding of these resources to the public. Congress has mandated
that we preserve these resources because they are important components of our national
and personal identity.
Research/Resources Management Report NPS/AR/CRR-2012-77
Published by the United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve
Date: 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9796432-6-2
Cover: “Nushagak, Alaska 1879, Nushagak River, Bristol Bay, Alaska, Reindeer and
Walrus ivory trading station of the Alaska Commercial Co.,” watercolor by Henry W.
Elliott, 17-237, courtesy of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University
of California, Berkeley, California. Inset: John W. Clark photographed in San Francisco
circa 1887–1888. Photo courtesy of the Elizabeth Nicholson Butkovich Collection,
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve.
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PAGE THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN W. CLARK OF NUSHAGAK, ALASKA, 1846–1896
Th e Life and Times of
John W. Clark

o f Nushagak,
A laska,
1846–1896
John B. Branson
L ake Clark National Park and Preserve
2012
A circva 1880s photograph that belonged to Clark and was annotated, possibly by
PAGE
him: “Eskimo caches or store houses with entrance to a hut.” Salmon hang from
the left cache while the center cache has king salmon filets, or possibly seal skins,
hanging from a drying pole. The column on the hill at Nushagak marks the grave of
village founder Fedor Kolmakov. Photo courtesy of the Elizabeth Nicholson Butkovich Collection,
U.S. National Park Service.
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PAGE THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN W. CLARK OF NUSHAGAK, ALASKA, 1846–1896
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................ vii
GLOSSARY .................................................... x
LIST OF MAPS ............................................... xiii
INTRODUCTION ............................................... 1
TIMELINE OF THE LIFE OF JOHN W. CLARK..................... 5
CHAPTER 1: Obscure Roots..................................... 7
CHAPTER 2: The Western Union Telegraph Company
Russo-American Expedition, 1866–1867 ............15
CHAPTER 3: The Alaska Commercial Company and Trading
on the Yukon River, 1868–1874 ....................41
CHAPTER 4: Clark Trades on the Kuskokwim River, 1874–1878 ...49
CHAPTER 5: Clark Becomes Ensconced on Nushagak Bay, 1879....53
CHAPTER 6: The U.S. Signal Service-Smithsonian Years in
Nushagak, 1881–1885 ............................65
CHAPTER 7: The Demise of Charles McKay and His Legacy of
Scientific Inquiry..................................79
CHAPTER 8: The Moravian Missionaries Arrive at Nushagak
Bay in 1884, and the Dawn of the Bristol Bay
Canned Salmon Industry ..........................93
CHAPTER 9: Clark Marries, and Rival Churches Spar, 1887........113
CHAPTER 10: Clark and the Bristol Bay Commercial Salmon
Industry ........................................123
CHAPTER 11: Clark and the Wood River Fish Trap ...............153
CHAPTER 12: The Alaska Commercial Company and
Trader Clark ....................................159
CHAPTER 13: Clark and the Naming of Lake Clark,
1890–1891......................................167
CHAPTER 14: The Last Years of John W. Clark of Nushagak .......199
vii
PAGE
CHAPTER 15: Clark’s Contribution to Alaska History .............219
BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................224
INDEX ....... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239
viii
PAGE THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN W. CLARK OF NUSHAGAK, ALASKA, 1846–1896
Acknowledgments
A
LTHOUGH writing is essentially a solitary endeavor, a book such
as this relies on the assistance and prior work of many others. I freely
quote many other writers in order to fully flesh-out the life and
times of John W. Clark; James W. VanStone and John A. Hussey being two
of the most important. There are many other people and institutions due my
gratitude for helping me every step of the way as I researched and wrote.
First to credit are Tim Troll, Executive Director of the Nushagak-
Mulchatna/Wood Tikchik Land Trust, with whom the National Park
Service has a cooperative agreement to produce a biography of John W.
Clark, and Jerry Liboff, expert on Bristol Bay history. Both encouraged me
to write about Clark and freely shared their own research with me. Also, I
want to thank Hjalmer “Ofi” Olson, local historian and emeritus CEO of
the Bristol Bay Native Corporation, for reading an early draft of the book
and sharing his knowledge of Nushagak Bay history.
Several Clark descendents gave me encouragement and material
help in the form of family lore and the sharing of family photographs. First
among those was the late Elizabeth Nicholson Butkovich, the last remain-
ing grandchild of Clark at the time of her death on February 27, 2011,
and her sons Herman Herrmann, Jr., and Dennis Herrmann. In addition,
the late John W. Nicholson supported my research about his grandfather,
and his sons William and Hans Nicholson have been very helpful. Robin
Samuelsen of Dillingham, John Clark’s great-great grandson, read a draft
manuscript and gave me much encouragement.
Another direct Clark descendent, a great-great-granddaughter,
Georgia Tolbert of Anchorage, who was a history student of mine forty-
three years ago at the Bristol Bay High School in Naknek, documented
her Thiele families’ kindred ties to Clark for me while he was trader on the
lower Kuskokwim River in the 1870s.
A debt of gratitude is also due to Jo Antonson, Alaska State Histo-
rian, who encouraged me to use the context of Clark’s life in Alaska to sup-
plement the paucity of primary source materials. Roz Goodman, a librarian,
read the first draft and made important suggestions to improve the book.
Kathie Arndt of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections, Elmer
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PAGE THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN W. CLARK OF NUSHAGAK, ALASKA, 1846–1896
E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Andrei
Znamenski of the University of Memphis both kindly provided me previ-
ously unpublished facts about Clark translated from Russian Orthodox
Church records.
Ann Fienup-Riordan shared some of her research with me. Ray
Hudson read the manuscript and offered good advice. Ray also put me in
contact with San Francisco area researcher Marvin Collins, who gener-
ously shared materials he had on Clark and on nineteenth-century Bristol
Bay history. Historian Walt Borneman read the manuscript and offered
some constructive advice.
John Weise shared his genealogy of the Vasili Orlov family of
Nushagak, which significantly adds to the knowledge of the background
of many Clark descendents. A special thanks is due to Sharon Prien, li-
brarian at the Alaska Resources Library & Information Service (ARLIS),
who kept me in books and articles related to nineteenth-century western
Alaska history.
Kay Shelton, formerly of the Alaska State Historical Library in
Juneau and other staff there, helped me improve the manuscript, includ-
ing Anastasia Tarmann. Bruce Parham, Director of the Regional Archives
at the National Archives and Records Administration Anchorage office;
Steve Henrikson, Curator of Collections of the Alaska State Museum;
and Aron Crowell, Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic
Studies Center in Anchorage, have been of great assistance.
Other Alaskans who assisted me include—Mel Brown; Melvin
Monsen, Sr.; archeologist Matt O’Leary; Yup’ik translators Marie
Meade and Monica Shelton; Bruce Merrell of the Loussac Library; Rose
Speranza and Rachel Seale at the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections,
Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks; and Bryan
Taylor, Reference Specialist at the Atwood Resource Center of the
Anchorage Museum.
A number of researchers assisted me in attempting to trace the ob-
scure early years of Clark. Researcher Mary L. White of Ithaca, New York,
first made the suggestion that Clark might have been an orphan. Professor
Tyler Anbinder of George Washington University suggested I contact re-
searcher Mary Elizabeth Brown of New York City in an attempt to locate
Clark’s Catholic roots in the city. In addition, Ms. Brown introduced me
to researcher and graphic designer Janice Carapellucci of Brooklyn, New
York, who spent many days trying to trace Clark’s still-elusive background.
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PAGE THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN W. CLARK OF NUSHAGAK, ALASKA, 1846–1896
Janice copy-edited and designed this book—my sincere thanks to her for
all she has done to make the Clark biography attractive, historically factual
and informative.
Mitchell Toda of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Harold
Wallace and Ellen Alers at the National Museum of American History,
historian and author Sandra Schlachtmeyer, staff, including Hannah
Palin at the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Division, and Greg Schmitz, media conservator at Alaska Moving Image
Preservation Association, helped.
Peter J. Blodget and Anne Reid from The Huntington Library,
David Kessler and Susan Snyder from the Bancroft Library, Victoria
Bradshaw and Alicja Egbert from the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of
Anthropology, Susan Goldstein from the San Francisco Public Library,
staff at the California State Archives in Sacramento, staff members at
the California Historical Society in San Francisco and staff at Stanford
University’s Cecil Green Library, Special Collections, all accorded me
much assistance. Ruth Steele from Western Washington University
Archives & Records Center and Lanie Graf at the Moravian Church
Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, gave me access to records and pho-
tographs pertinent to Clark.
Several of my colleagues from Lake Clark National Park and
Preserve are also owed my thanks and acknowledgment for the help.
Elizabeth Wasserman, Katie Myers, Dan Young and Ginger Irvine
helped me in innumerable ways to make this project succeed. My su-
pervisor Jeanne Schaaf, Chief of Cultural Resources, and Superintendent
Joel Hard always gave me the utmost encouragement and support in the
endeavor to tell the story of Clark.
Lastly, I would like to thank the tremendous generosity of Bob
Gillam and his son Rob Gillam of McKinley Capital Management in mak-
ing the biography of John W. Clark come to fruition. I also want to thank
the Bristol Bay Native Corporation and its Shareholder & Corporate
Relations Manager Andria Agli and for their interest in and support of
the project. Thanks to Mark and Sandy Lang of Port Alsworth for their
kind support of the book.
John B. Branson
Port Alsworth, Alaska
August 2011