Guide to the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of National Missions Department of Work in Alaska Records

Presbyterian mission work in Alaska began informally in 1877. The Rev. A. L. Lindsley, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Portland, Oregon, supported Amanda Reed McFarland, a minister's widow, who went to Ft. Wrangell to take over a school that had been established by a layperson sent by Lindsley, but was currently being run by an Alaskan Native person. Sheldon Jackson accompanied McFarland, and when he returned to the States, he raised money and recruited workers for Alaska missions through publicity and personal tours. At the urging of Dr. Lindsley and Jackson, the Board of Home Missions assumed the responsibility for the Alaska field in 1878. The Rev. John C. Brady, later governor of the Territory of Alaska, and Fannie E. Kellogg, a teacher, both recruited by Jackson, went to Sitka in 1878. The mission school developed into the Sheldon Jackson School, which was later known as the Sheldon Jackson Junior College, until its closure in 2007.

In 1878 the Rev. Samuel Hall Young was sent by the Board of Home Missions to Ft. Wrangell where he established the first Protestant church for Natives in Alaska in 1879. He and the naturalist John Muir visited Chilkat Bay. He established a mission among the Chilka Indians at Dtehshuh later renamed Haines after Mrs. F. E. Haines, the first secretary of the Woman's Executive Committee. The first resident missionary family arrived in 1881, and a boarding school was established in 1883. Haines House, a home for children and youth, remained in service in different forms until the 1960s.

In 1880, Sheldon Jackson invited the secretaries of the mission boards of the Protestant denominations to a meeting that established a comity agreement for dividing the mission work in Alaska. The Presbyterians accepted responsibility for Southeastern Alaska, where they had already initiated mission work, and for the far northern regions. Despite the comity agreement, inter-church relations were not always smooth, particularly after the arrival of smaller groups and denominations such as the Salvation Army and the Pentecostals.

In 1885, Sheldon Jackson was appointed General Agent for Education for the Department of Interior. He combined educational work with an annual inspection tour of the missions, and he lobbied Congress for Native rights and for support of his project to bring reindeer as a food supply to Alaska in 1892.

From 1878 to 1923 mission work was supported by two boards, the Board of Home Missions and the Woman's Executive Committee (after 1897, the Woman's Board of Home Missions). The Woman's Board supported some of the medical work, and administered Haines House.

In 1901 the Board of Home Missions appointed Dr. Samuel Hall Young as its first General Missionary to Alaska. He served until 1912, when Dr. James H. Condit was appointed and served until 1922. Young again accepted the position for 1922-1923. The Rev. Paul H. Prouty held the position from 1944 to 1950.

After the major reorganization of 1923 that consolidated the various boards, the Board of National Missions administered work in Alaska. The work of the former Board of Home Missions was continued by the Board of National Mission’s Department of Town and Country Work, and later the Office/Department of Work in Alaska. The work that had been established by the Woman's Board came under the direction of the Division of Schools and Hospitals. The new Department of Sunday School Missions conducted Sunday School work in Alaska. The executives were as follows:

Department of Town and Country Work, 1924-1932: Dr. Andrew Montgomery, Director.

Unit of Work in Alaska, 1932-1948: John M. Somerndike, Secretary, 1932-1939; Everett B. King, Secretary, 1939-1943; J. Earl Jackman, Secretary, 1944-1948.

Department of Work in Alaska, 1949-1972: J. Earl Jackman, Secretary, 1949-.

The educational and medical missions were administered as follows:

Division of Schools and Hospitals, 1924-1932: Edna R. Voss, Secretary.

Unit of Schools and Hospitals, 1932-1934: Edna R. Voss, Secretary.

Department of Educational and Medical Work, 1935-1948: Edna R. Voss, Secretary until 1947; Katharine E. Gladfelter, 1948.

Division of Educational and Medical Work, 1949-1972: Katharine E. Gladfelter, 1949-.

Southeastern Alaska was organized as the Presbytery of Alaska and the vast interior of the territory as the Presbytery of the Yukon. These presbyteries were part of the Synod of Washington and later of the Synod of Washington-Alaska and the Synod of Alaska-Northwest. With the major denominational reorganization of 1972, the presbyteries assumed responsibility for the mission work in Alaska. The Board of Home Missions/Board of National Missions built and maintained a fleet of small motor boats that served as floating ambulances and clinics and transported workers and natives Natives among the waterways of southeastern Alaska. A total of nine boats were put into operation from 1909 until the sale of the last boat in 1983.

The Board of National Missions provided missionaries specialized ministries as the occasion arose. In 1935, during the Great Depression the Federal Government settled families from the lower States in Matanuska Valley at Palmer; Presbyterian missionaries were sent to the area. When the Alaska Highway was built, the Alaska Highway Parish was established and when, during the Cold War, a radar system for early warning (the DEW Line) was constructed in the northern region, the Presbyterians conducted ministry to the construction workers and servicemen.