“Feed My Sheep:” The Letter That Brought Sheldon Jackson to Alaska

Nov 12

In March 1877, Fort Wrangel soldier Josiah Sawyer Brown watched as the first congregation of Tlingit Christians formed under a Tsimshian Methodist named Philip “Clah” McKay. Brown wrote a powerful, fateful letter pleading for an organized church to send missionaries to help this group.

For the Rev. Sheldon Jackson, the letter would change his life and Alaska forever.

(Photo of J.S. Brown courtesy Candace Wells-Sehorn)

Josiah Sawyer Brown in Fort Wrangel

*Fort Wrangel, Alaska showing the garrison built by the U.S. Army on the hill. Photo taken sometime in the later 19th century.*

Gold Rush Tumult

Josiah Sawyer Brown was originally from New Brunswick, Canada, but he served in the U.S. Civil War from Maine. After the war, the Army sent him to Fort Wrangel, a post recently reoccupied after the Cassiar Gold Rush brought an onslaught of fortune seekers. He arrived in Fort Wrangel on November 27, 1875 at the age of 30 years old. He worked in the commissary, serving rations to the men in the fort. The Army’s mission was to keep order during the bedlam of the Cassiar Gold Rush.

Congress provided no civil government in Alaska — no courts, no judges, and no justices of the peace. In the fall of 1876, Josiah Sawyer Brown and over one-hundred settlers signed a petition to Congress, asking for civil government for Alaska. They wrote, “The fixed population of Fort Wrangel is about 800, i.e., 300 whites an 500 Indians, independently of which a large foreign Indian trade is continually kept up; from 500 to 700 foreign Indians constantly visiting Fort Wrangel for the purpose of trading and proceeding to the mines, many of whom remain at and about Fort Wrangel during the summer.”

First Converts

That same summer of 1876, a group of Tsimshian men found work chopping wood for the Army in Fort Wrangel. The men were Methodists, having converted at their home in British Columbia. When local Tlingit leader T’owyaat observed this group in prayer on the beach, he became curious and invited them into his home to learn more about Christianity. Under the leadership of Philip “Clah” McKay, this group of Tsimshian men became Christian missionaries among the Tlingit of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw.

Through the winter of 1876 and into the spring of 1877, Clah’s congregation gathered for worship and church school and created the community’s first cemetery. This “spontaneous evangelism” caught the attention of the soldiers inside the fort, including Josiah Sawyer Brown.

But the Army’s days in Alaska were numbered. The fever of the Cassiar Gold Rush was subsiding. Once again, the question of the U.S. Army’s purpose in Alaska—especially Fort Wrangel—threatened to end the Army’s occupation of Alaska.

With the Army’s time in Fort Wrangel ticking down, Josiah Sawyer Brown penned a letter (see original) to the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Portland, Oregon. Even though he was an active member of U.S. Army, Josiah Sawyer Brown wrote on his own behalf.

Brown’s Letter

Fort Wrangel, Alaska
March 20th 1877
To the: Secretary, Y.M.C.A. Portland, Ogn.
Dear Sir:
I write you on behalf of the Indians in this section of Alaska; Hoping you may be able to present their case to some Board, Conference or other body who will be able and willing to assist these poor creatures in their endeavors to discern the high road to Christianity, where they may walk according to the precepts of that good Saviour of whom they have learned, but recently. About last June a party of Indians from Fort Simpson B.C. arrived at Wrangel and instituted a series of meetings for divine worship. The Stickeens and other tribes here really knew nothing of Christianity.
These Indians have patriotic ideas, have been proud to Call themselves "Boston Siwashes," and glory in the possession of a "Star Spangled Banner," But they feel bad when they learn how much better off the Indians in British Columbia are than themselves. Schools and Churches abound, and nearly all the Indians in B.C. can ready and write to some extend, and consequently appear to better advantage and do business in more of a "Smart" way than their neighbors in Alaska.
This fact seems to speak much for the Christian people of Canada, and little for those of our own Glorious Republic; who nearly send so much money to Foreign Countries to convert the heathen, while they allow our own countrymen who certainly are just as deserving, to go down, down to the lowest Hell for aught they seem to care. I am not a Christian according to the orthodox definition of the word, belonging to no Church or Sect, But am making this appeal for these poor unfortunates from the dictates of a heart that I trust may never be deaf to the cry for help from the heathen. And I ask you, Can not you make it one of your aims to foster and build up a Mission in Alaska? If not, can not you place the matter before somebody that will? A man is needed to make the field, who is willing to work for the masters sake. Money is needed, to some extent, to maintain that man in his labors. A large amount and a number of men could be employed advantageously. A small sum and one whole man can do much, and have the way for doing much more. Will you not endeavor to aid in sending out a Shepherd who may reclaim a mighty flock from the error of their ways, And gather there to that true fold, The master of which said "feed my Sheep."
The doctrines taught thus far, have been those of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, I hope this letter may be considered in all Charity, blemishes excluded. And now with faith in the justness of the cause for which I so feebly plead, I trust the matter in your hands, trusting that a brighter day may soon dawn for the poor benighted natives of Alaska.
Yours sincerely,
J.S. Brown

Sheldon Jackson’s Version

Missionary of the West

In 1876, Jackson was a 43 year-old fixture of Presbyterian missionary work on Indigenous lands of the American West. According to Jackson’s autobiographical Alaska, And Missions on the North Pacific, he received Brown’s letter:

This letter was placed in my hands at the General Assembly of 1877 at Chicago. I immediately published it in the Chicago Tribune and soon after in the leading Presbyterian newspapers. I also sent a copy to the Board of Home Missions, with an urgent appeal for action.

For Jackson, Brown’s letter represented an invitation to a expand further into Indigenous country. Jackson had quarrels with his superiors in the Presbyterian Church, and Brown’s letter served as an opening for Jackson to move into Alaska — on his own.

Chicago Tribune

Sheldon Jackson reprinted Josiah Sawyer Brown’s letter in the May 25, 1877 Chicago Tribune, but Jackson took the liberty of making edits. He rearranged sentences and made Brown’s wording more compact and impactful. The version Jackson published in the Chicago Tribune also featured two lengthy passages not found in Brown’s letter, suggesting they may have been written by Jackson himself:

They soon became interested in the proceedings of their Christian visitors, and a few, after many inquiries, concluded to try the "new life" of which they had heard. Since then the few have become a hundred, and the tribe are asking for a Christian teacher, for some one to explain to them more fully the way.
The Rev. Mr. Crosby, of Fort Simpson, came here last fall and did noble work for a few days, but his own Mission demanded his presence, and he could only leave two young men (Indians) of his church to continue their work. It has been manfully carried on during the winter, and could you, gentlemen, be present during some of their services, I know your hearts would go out to them at the earnestness of their prayers and their intense mental struggles between the prejudices of their tribal teachings and the new doctrines of Christianity. They are poor financially, and while their country is unfitted for anything like agriculture, the waters are rich in fish, and the land full of game, and heavily covered with timber. Since the advent of traders and miners among them, lewdness and debauchery have held high carnival, and the decimation of their numbers is the result. If a school and mission were establishment at Wrangel there would no doubt an Indian population of over 1,000 souls locate within reach of its benefits. And one whole-souled, energetic worker here could sow seed that would bear fruit from British Columbia to Behring Straits.

Jackson’s Reply

Several days after publishing Brown’s edited letter, Sheldon Jackson wrote to Josiah Sawyer Brown on June 1, 1877 (see original):

Dear Sir
Your appeal to the Y.M.C.A. for a missionary to the Alaska Indians has been referred to me, + I think I can send you a man.
Please write me, what salary will be necessary to support a minister + his wife there?
What is the least amount of money that will be needed for mission premises?
Please send me any information that is necessary.
What language will the missionary need to learn?
Very truly yours,
Sheldon Jackson

But Jackson’s letter may not have reached Brown in Fort Wrangel. By the end of June 1877, the U.S. Army abandoned Fort Wrangel for the second time. In its absence, the Army left behind a fledgling community of Tlingit Christian followers under Philip “Clah” McKay and questions about who was in charge.

First Presbyterian Mission

By the end of that summer, Sheldon Jackson arrived in Fort Wrangel in August 1877 with the missionary that Brown desperately pleaded for, with one exception. While Brown asked for “one whole man,” Jackson brought a woman, Amanda R. McFarland, an experienced Presbyterian missionary of the Western frontier. It was the beginning of the first Christian mission in Alaska under the United States, one that would include the first Indigenous boarding school and many other firsts.

Though Sheldon Jackson left several days after depositing McFarland to Fort Wrangel, he remained a key figure in its development for decades to come. Sheldon Jackson’s influence went to reach far and wide across Alaska, “from British Columbia to the Behring Straits” as he added into his version of Brown’s letter.

Wrangell’s Tlingit community changed Sheldon Jackson’s life forever. They gave him a purpose and a platform upon which to build his vast sphere of influence. Josiah Sawyer Brown’s letter showed Sheldon Jackson the door, and Jackson walked through it.

Josiah Sawyer Brown died in June 1932 at the age of 87.

His time in Fort Wrangel was short, but his letter was consequential. Brown provided the key piece of the puzzle Jackson need to take the leap into Alaska.

(Photo of J.S. Brown courtesy Candace Wells-Sehorn)

Ronan Rooney