Guide to the Haines House Records

Haines House in Haines (Deishú in the Tlingit language), Alaska was a Native American / Alaska Native orphanage that was created as part of the Presbyterian Haines Mission. Established in the late 1870s and early 1880s through a land grant from the United States federal government¹ to the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA)'s Board of Home Missions (BHM), the Haines Mission's goals were to culturally assimilate the Chilkat Tlingit people into white American society and convert them to Christianity. Founding and early missionaries included Samuel Hall Young, Sheldon Jackson, and Eugene and Caroline Willard. Day school and boarding school facilities were built and operated at the mission, with the U.S. Government overseeing school operations starting in the mid-1880s. A separate government school, the Haines Government Indian School (also called the B.I.A. (Bureau of Indian Affairs) School), was constructed in 1906 in the town of Haines. In the early 1900s, the Haines Mission's educational facilities were used for hospital functions, including a training school for nurses and a government tuberculosis sanitarium.

In 1921, the Haines Mission's educational facilities were reopened as Haines House, an orphanage for Indigenous children (chiefly Alaska Native children). Many of the children were biracial/multiracial. Haines House was administered by the PCUSA Board of National Missions (BNM), specifically the Division of Schools and Hospitals (and its successor entities). The children living at Haines House attended the Government Indian School until it closed in the mid-1940s, after which they attended the area public school. Some children attended Sheldon Jackson School in Sitka, Alaska after leaving Haines House. Records in the collection show that Haines House charged "tuition" and other fees for its room and board, medical services, and supplies purchasing. Children's family members would often be requested to pay tuition fees, but governmental entities would reimburse Haines House as well (like the Territory of Alaska's Department of Public Welfare and Board of Juvenile Institutions and the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs). Much like at the Tucson Indian Training School (a Presbyterian, non-reservation/off-reservation Native American boarding school) in Arizona, administrators and staff at Haines House enforced assimilationist practices to separate Indigenous children from their cultures and languages and to erase their Indigenous identities.

The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA) BNM closed Haines House in 1960. In a printed statement (circa 1960), BNM general secretary Kenneth G. Neigh said "In spite of the high rating the Alaska welfare department has given the new Haines program, Haines House recently received only a six-month renewal of its license because its building facilities are inadequate. It would require a minimum of $100,000 to bring the mission facilities up to licensing standards."² A 1960 report/recommendation to the BNM from the Special Committee on Children's Work in Alaska reported that "From what the committee has been able to learn, there have always been children among those taken at Haines House who might be described as 'problem', 'predelinquent' or 'delinquent'. The difficulty arose when the work in Alaska divided the children up among different bureaus and departments, assigning them labels ... The criticism, however, that the Board was attempting to do too much in taking on too many disturbed children seems to be valid. This has been expressed by the Board, the community and public officials in Juneau ..."³ The committee also commented on issues with Haines House administrators and staff, stating "The present executive [William D. Wiley] of the home partially through his own inadequacies and partially through the failure of the Board to give him the advice and support which he desperately needed when he was sent as a comparatively young man to Haines, must in the opinion of the committee be changed ... The social worker [Isabel Miller] ... has developed a sense of responsibility far beyond those of her assigned duties and this has created some difficulty in relationships with Haines House, the community, and with the government agencies."⁴

Bibliography/Work Cited

1. United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of National Missions Department of Work in Alaska Records, RG 301.3, PHS. Box 9, Folder 34. Correspondence, Inquiry regarding Closing of Haines House - October 30, 1967 letter from J. Earl Jackman to Robert T. McDill discussing the history of the Haines Mission land.

2. Tucson Indian Training School Records, RG 103, PHS. Box 1, Folder 35. Promotional Leaflets and Releases, 1960.

3. United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of National Missions Department of Work in Alaska Records, RG 301.3, PHS. Box 6, Folder 33. Special Committee on Children's Work in Alaska, BNM, Reports regarding Closing of Haines House, 1960.

4. Ibid.