William H. Seward, Political Fixer

In recognition of Seward's Day this month, we're posting the following column by Tom Kizzia that was first published in the Anchorage Daily News and is reprinted here with the author’s permission. Kizzia’s book “Pilgrim's Wilderness” will be published later this year.

In the years just after the American Civil War, were bribes paid to win congressional approval for the purchase of Alaska? And did the American politician credited by history with making the deal know about the payments?

The answer to both questions is almost certainly yes, according to a major new biography of William H. Seward.

The first juicy political corruption scandal in Alaska's history has been disinterred by biographer Walter Stahr. The author bases his claim on two pieces of strong evidence—private jottings by two political associates of Seward, each saying he'd been told about the bribes by the Secretary of State himself.

The $7.2 million purchase price for Russian America, so familiar to Alaska school kids, apparently included $7 million for the czar and $200,000 for the Russian ambassador to cover miscellaneous "expenses" associated with the sale.

The man behind the deal was one of the leading American politicians of his era. Through the war years, Seward was Abraham Lincoln's closest cabinet adviser. His memory has been enshrined here in the name of a town, a major highway, and a day off for state workers.

Lately, Seward has also returned to national attention, thanks to the Civil War's sesquicentennial and a bestselling book by Doris Kearns Goodwin about Lincoln's management style, "Team of Rivals." In the new Steven Spielberg movie, "Lincoln," Seward is one of the principal characters, played by the actor David Strathairn.

But lurking in the shadows of Seward's reputation has long been the question of whether the signature accomplishment of his career, the Alaska purchase, was achieved through less-than-noble means.

Questions about the money were raised even at the time of the territorial deal. A congressional investigation concluded in 1869 that money had passed secretly from Russian ambassador Edouard de Stoeckl—known around Washington as "the Baron," though he held no such formal title—to a trio of powerful lobbyists. The lobbyists paid off journalists for favorable coverage, the investigating committee was told.

Edouard de Stoeckl

Did they pay off members of Congress as well? Allegations to that effect were rampant, but the investigating committee sidestepped these claims as "nebulous gossip."

It turned out, however, that Seward spoke openly of such payments at least twice, telling his boss, President Andrew Johnson, that the bribes had been as high as $10,000.

That was a lot of money back then, especially measured against the change pocketed by Alaska legislators in the recent Veco political scandal.

Seward's private comments were never reported to investigators. Later, historians did uncover the private journals, but for whatever reason did not give them much credit. In time, questions about Alaska's corrupt legacy were laid quietly to rest.

Until now.

Stahr's genteel and readable 547-page biography, "Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man," is a generally admiring portrait, which perhaps adds credibility to his head-shaking conclusion that Seward perjured himself before Congress when he testified he knew nothing about Alaska payoffs.

"Seward knew that . . . his opponents would use every weapon available in order to defeat Johnson and the Alaska purchase," Stahr writes. "In short, Seward was not a saint, he was a practical politician, and he was prepared if necessary to use dubious means to achieve great goals.

CHANGE OF HEART BY TWO KEY CHAIRMEN

The son of a small-town northern slave-holding family, a U.S. senator and former progressive governor of New York, Seward became a leading anti-slavery Republican in the years before the war. He was the favorite to win the party's presidential nomination in 1860, only to be upset at the convention by a small-town lawyer from Illinois. Seward joined his rival's cabinet and to some observers became, as Stahr puts it, "the real power in the administration"—if not its moral force, then its cagey political veteran. He was particularly credited with the tricky maneuvering necessary to keep England and France from entering the war on the side of the Confederacy.

Lincoln and Seward became close confidantes and friends. On the night Lincoln was assassinated, Seward was wounded by a knife-wielding conspirator. Seward recovered, and stayed on with Vice President Johnson as a steadying influence through the volatile period of Reconstruction politics and impeachment that followed.

Seward negotiated the treaty for Russia's colony in 1867. It was part of the secretary's expansionist ambition for the United States, according to Stahr, one that also coveted Panama, islands in the Pacific and the Carribean, and even Greenland and British Columbia. Alaska was seen as important, not only for its resources, but as a forward naval and steamship refueling base on the "great circle" trading route to Asia, a point expanded on in Stephen Haycox's book "Alaska: An American Colony."

The Alaska purchase idea was popular in its day, historians say, despite being mocked by a few as "Seward's Folly." But the atmosphere in Washington at the time was poisonous: President Johnson was in the midst of being impeached by the House of Representatives for resisting the so-called Radical Republicans over handling of the post-war South.

The Alaska treaty was signed in secret on March 30, 1867—the occasion now celebrated as Seward's Day—but the purchase money could not be wrestled out of Congress until July 1868. The final debate and vote, on a summer day when the temperature in pre-air-conditioned Washington was above 100 degrees, inspired many predictable jokes.

For a year, the main obstacle to the appropriation had not been Johnson's impeachment or concern about American imperialism but an objection from a well-connected Massachusetts family named Perkins, who said the Russians owed them money from an arms deal during the Crimean War. They wanted part of the purchase price set aside for their claim.

Stahr's new book points at two key committee chairman, early supporters of the Perkins claim, who reversed themselves to support the Alaska appropriation with no strings attached: Rep. Nathaniel Banks, head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, head of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Responding to newspaper reports and rumors at the time, the 1869 congressional inquiry focused its attention on secret payments to lobbyists and journalists. An investigative reporter for the New York Sun named Uriah Painter found the tables turned when one of the exposed lobbyists, a former senator from Mississippi, told Congress that Painter had written his exposes only after asking for a bribe and being turned down. Painter, who may have tried leading on the lobbyists to test his suspicions, denied the charge as a low tactic. The resulting kerfuffle proved highly entertaining to official Washington, while distracting attention from any evidence of wrongdoing by members of Congress themselves.

"TARNISHED LOBBYISTS"

What about that evidence? Stahr quotes from notes kept by President Johnson of a September 6, 1868 conversation with Seward, in which he was told that the bill succeeded thanks to payments made through Stoeckl, the Russian ambassador. Seward told him the money went to lobbyist Robert J. Walker, a friend of Seward's, and to the editor of a powerful Washington newspaper, but also to Banks and the "incorruptible Thaddeus Stevens."

Seward revealed something similar to his old friend John Bigelow two weeks later, which Bigelow recorded in his private diary. This time Seward also referred to ten unnamed congressmen.

Meanwhile Stoeckl was writing confidentially to Russia, Stahr says, asserting that Seward was working with Walker to employ "all sorts of means" to win support, all the while working "with the greatest circumspection."

By the time he gets to his account of Alaska, Stahr has already recounted Seward's role in raising funds, dangling patronage jobs and working with "tarnished lobbyists" to secure passage of the 13th Amendment, banning slavery under the Constitution, and to prevent conviction of the president on trumped-up impeachment charges. As in the Alaska case, these forays into the dark political arts were in pursuit of higher political goals, never personal enrichment, according to Stahr.

"NOT GUILTY, OR AT LEAST NOT PROVEN"

Congressional investigators may have never heard what Seward admitted privately, but later historians did. Haycox, in his 2002 Alaska history, notes the bribery rumors but concludes Seward did nothing more than wine and dine his colleagues. Haycox largely based his conclusion on a short 1983 book by historian Paul S. Holbo that examined the scandal in detail.

In "Tarnished Expansion," Holbo quoted the Johnson and Bigelow diaries, but then dismissed them as unreliable. Johnson, known as a tippler, might have been drunk at the time, and the names and dollar figures in the two accounts were inconsistent, Holbo wrote.

The historian cited biographers of Stevens, who doubted the ailing firebrand would have taken a bribe in the last year of his life, despite his need for money. The case against Banks was stronger, Holbo conceded, but also circumstantial. Having found no evidence of money problems or sudden wealth in Banks' letters and family records, Holbo concluded the verdict on Banks should be "not guilty, or at least not proven." He surmised that Stoeckl may have kept the "lion's share" of expense money for himself.

Unfortunately, Stahr doesn't delve into this historical dispute, or take a prosecutorial run at the defense evidence. So the case must remain open. The private records of Johnson and Bigelow, consistent in important ways, are treated by Stahr as evidence lying in plain sight. A lawyer himself, he couches his accusation carefully before moving on with his story: "If we believe Bigelow and Johnson, Seward's testimony was perjury."

The one other person who could have shed light on these matters at the time was the Russian ambassador, Stoeckl. Unfortunately, he was not available to congressional investigators. Two months after the appropriation was approved, the Baron left Washington for Europe on a vacation, and once there announced his retirement, never to return to the United States.

Honoring Melvin Dempsey: Part II

A continuation of the story of Melvin Dempsey, a half-African-American, half Cherokee prospector who contributed much to the establishment of early Valdez.

by Andrew Goldstein

With George Hazelet and A.J. Meals, Dempsey discovered gold on Chistochina River in the fall of 1899. Starting for the interior via the glacier route, he arrived at Chisna, placing numerous claims along the Chistochina River between 1899 and 1901. In March 1898, Dempsey became the center of a controversy. Since 1897, the Valdez town site had been a part of the Prince William Sound Mining District, located on Bligh and Busby Islands where the population of prospectors was then centered and the district recorder made his home. Melvin Dempsey and others who at that time had decided not to go over the glacier began staking claims in Port Valdez. In the face of criticisms about the legality of these claims, Dempsey and others called a meeting at the Christian Endeavor Hall to declare the formation of a separate mining district. Nancy Lethcoe writes, “On January 16, 1899, the Port Valdez Mining District was formed. All claims within Port Valdez would be filed with the new district, those outside the Port with the Prince William Sound Mining District.”

Map of claims in Chisna district placed by Melvin
Dempsey, most likely hand-drawn by Dempsey
himself. Photographed by P.S. Hunt c. 1905.

In 1900, Dempsey was elected recorder for Chisna (Cherokee) Mining District, as most of Dempsey’s claims were on Slate Creek trail. Dempsey became the postmaster of the new mining town of Chisna, which was renamed Dempsey in his honor. In 1902, Dempsey had accumulated enough wealth to warrant an expansion of the Christian Endeavor Church in Valdez, and became the chairman for the Valdez Mining District the following year. Dempsey also helped to form Valdez’s first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This achievement was well warranted, as the treacherous conditions of travel to the Interior applied equally to horses and dogs as well as the prospectors who owned them.

Beginning in 1903, Dempsey’s involvement with Valdez waned. A falling out with the church over financial matters led to him stepping down from his post as the Valdez Christian Endeavor Society president, and resigning from the church altogether the following year. Dempsey spent some of his time traveling between Alaska and the mainland U.S. during the following years, trying to interest investors in his property. Curiously, he was reported as having drowned in the Chistochina River in 1915.

Melvin Dempsey helped to establish the “Everyman’s Clubhouse”,
Alaska’s first free reading room. The room housed newspapers,
religious publications, popular contemporary books, as well as
games and musical instruments.

However, Dempsey’s story doesn’t end there. In 2006, descendants of Melvin Dempsey arrived at the Valdez Museum to learn about Dempsey’s adventures in Alaska. In attendance was Melvin Dempsey’s nephew, Avery Chandler, Sr., an elderly gentleman with childhood memories of having met his uncle. According to Mr. Chandler, Dempsey did travel back and forth between Alaska and his family in Michigan in the late 1910s and early 1920s. At one point Dempsey had stopped writing home to his family, and the family hired the law firm of Wilkes & Stone to investigate. The story of the Chistochina drowning may have been fabricated by the firm, based either on hearsay or to cover up a lack of findings. Whatever the reason, Mr. Chandler clearly remembered Dempsey staying with his sister Sarah Chandler, of Battle Creek. Dempsey attempted to get family members to join him in his mining operations because he “couldn’t find an honest man” to help him.

The sad coda to this story is that Dempsey, despite his numerous contributions to Valdez history, was regarded as an outcast by his sister, culminating in her burning a large stack of the letters he had written home. This information is truly heartbreaking to any historian. As the saying goes, “History is written by the winners,” but it is the mission of scholarship to recover that which has been lost. Who knows what may have been revealed by these valuable documents? We may never know.

Do you have questions or answers about Dempsey’s story? Contact Andrew Goldstein, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Valdez Museum, at curator@valdezmuseum.org, or call 907-835-8905.

Honoring Melvin Dempsey: Part I

by Andrew Goldstein

In recognition of Black History Month, we’d like to honor one of Old Valdez’s fascinating and influential early residents. Melvin Dempsey was a prospector of African-American and Cherokee descent and an educated man who remains an “unsung hero” in his accomplishments establishing the town’s early infrastructure.

Melvin Dempsey, circa 1905

Dempsey was born a slave in 1857 in North Carolina, the son of a Cherokee plantation owner and an African-American slave. He moved around in his early life, living in the Michigan towns of Allegan, Holland, and Battle Creek. As a young adult, Dempsey moved to Colorado, where he became Deadwood’s first barber; one Deadwood newspaper described him as “…one of finest men in the hills” and a “model man.” It was around this time that Dempsey established the interests which would influence his life in Alaska: politics, business, firefighting, ministry, and mining. Becoming involved in various mining interests and the 1898 Klondike gold rush, Dempsey turned his attention to Alaska, arriving in Valdez in February of 1898 on the S.S. Alliance.

Dempsey’s family was religious, which may have gotten him involved with the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, a nondenominational evangelical society founded in Portland, Maine, in 1881 by Francis Edward Clark. Its professed object was "to promote an earnest Christian life among its members, to increase their mutual acquaintanceship, and to make them more useful in the service of God." By 1906, 67,000 youth-led Christian Endeavor societies had been organized worldwide, with over four million members. Various causes championed by both the Society and Dempsey included the education of African-Americans, literacy, youth ministry, and temperance.

Months within his arrival in Valdez, Dempsey had founded the Valdez branch of the Christian Endeavor Society and was appointed a town trustee. Among Dempsey’s numerous accomplishments during his stay in Valdez were the founding of Alaska’s first free reading room, founding Valdez’s first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, establishment of a relief station on Valdez Glacier, and proprietorship of one of the town’s first restaurants, which also outfitted prospectors heading over the glacier route. In October of 1898, Dempsey was elected a marshal and justice, and was a member of both the town’s volunteer fire department and the Pioneers of Alaska.

Dempsey in front of the Christian Endeavor meeting hall.

The relief stations founded by Dempsey’s group were modest 10’x12’ huts located both on the beach used as a debarkation point for prospectors, and on glacier’s 5th bench, with food, fuel, and bedding. Establishment of the relief stations was a town-wide effort, with contributions from corporations and the military. A 1906 publication by Reverend James S. Dennis, titled Christian Missions and Social Progress: A Sociological Study of Foreign Missions, had this to say:

"Alaska has also seventeen Christian Endeavor Societies, the one at Point Barrow being, it is stated, the most northerly Christian Endeavor group in the world. An interesting statement is made concerning the heroic services rendered by the intrepid members of the Endeavor Society at Valdez. It was organized in 1898, and among its charter members was Melvin Dempsey, a Cherokee Indian. Nearby is the great Valdez glacier, twenty-eight miles long, with an average of over two miles in width. This became the pathway of the venturesome prospectors in their attempts to reach the Copper River Valley. It was a journey of terrible hardships and perils. Fierce winds, with the thermometer from fifty to seventy degrees below zero, bewildered the traveler, and in many instances doomed him to perish without hope of rescue. The brave members of the Endeavor Society at Valdez, acting upon the suggestion of Mr. Dempsey, built a series of rescue stations, with the Red Cross flag as a signal of encouragement and cheer. At these relief stations the society provided stoves, fuel, provisions, and medicines, for the imperiled travelers, and has thus been the means of saving hundreds of lives. When men are lost in the snow-storms this valiant Endeavor band attempts a rescue, but, alas! often too late to save life; in which case it provides for a Christian burial, and makes special efforts to communicate, if possible, with the friends of the deceased. It is a reproduction, in the wintry wilds of Alaska, of the humanitarian work of the Alpine rescue stations."

To be continued…

Anchorage 100 Lecture Series

Under the banner “Celebrating a Century of Anchorage History,” the Anchorage 100 lecture series features Friday evening talks by a number of local experts now through April 26. Here are the remaining lectures in the series. The series is hosted at UAA’s Chugiak-Eagle River Campus at the Eagle River Center Building, Room 150. All lectures begin at 6:30 pm and are open to the public.

Friday, February 22

“Captain Cook in Alaska and the North Pacific,” Jim Barnett

Jim Barnett is an attorney and former deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of National Resources and elected member of the Anchorage Municipal Assembly. He currently serves as the longtime president of the Cook Inlet Historical Society. Jim will be discussing his latest book, Captain Cook in Alaska and the North Pacific.

Friday, March 1

“A Salmon Cannery in Cook Inlet,” Katie Ringsmuth

Katie Ringsmuth is a historian with the National Park Service and a history instructor at UAA in Eagle River. She will be discussing the history of a Cook Inlet salmon fishery and the multicultural and mixed gender cannery crews who labored within it. The lecture provides an overview of her book, Beacon on the Forgotten Shore: Snug Harbor Cannery, 1919-1980.

Friday, March 8

“From Tents to Towers: Anchorage’s Built History,” Jo Antonson

Jo Antonson is Alaska’s State Historian, assistant State Historic Preservation Officer, and Executive Director of the Alaska Historical Society. She is the author of numerous articles and co-wrote the textbook, Alaska’s Heritage. Jo will be discussing how Anchorage evolved from a railroad construction camp to Alaska’s urban center.

Friday, March 29

“Attu Boy and the Lost Villagers project,” Rachel Mason

During WWII, Attu village residents were captured by the Japanese and taken to Hokkaido, where they were held prisoner. Dr. Rachel Mason, a cultural anthropologist at the National Park Service, will talk about her collaboration with Mr. Nick Golodoff, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese when he was six years old, and the compilation of their book, Attu Boy.

Friday April 12

“Anchorage and the 1964 Earthquake,” Kristen Crossen

Dr. Kristine Crossen is the head of the Geology Department at UAA. She teaches numerous classes that explain how geology shapes the northern landscape, and how those geological features and forces influence the course of Alaska’s human history. Dr. Crossen’s lecture will look at how Alaska’s largest recorded earthquake transformed Anchorage nearly 50 years ago.

Friday, April 26

“The Dena’ina of Cook Inlet,” Karen Evanoff

Karen Evanoff is the editor of the book Dena’ina Elnena: a Celebration, Voices of the Dena’ina, a linguistic and cultural treasure trove of Dena’ina history. She grew up in the Lake Clark / Lake Iliamna region of southwest Alaska, but currently resides in Eagle River where she works as the cultural anthropologist for Lake Clark National Park and Preserve.