page_title: Michael A. Healy
section_title: "Hell Roaring Mike"
hierarchical_section_title: Michael A. Healy / Career / "Hell Roaring Mike"
caption_attribution_description: Map of USA with Alaska highlighted and shown in true position
context_page_description: Michael Augustine Healy was a career officer with the United States Revenue Cutter Service, reaching the rank of captain. He commanded several vessels within the territory of the Alaskan coastline.
  Following U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward's Alaska purchase of the vast region in 1867, Healy patrolled the 20,000 miles of Alaskan coastline for more than 20 years, earning great respect from the natives and seafarers alike. After commercial fishing had depleted the whale and seal populations, his assistance with the introduction of Siberian reindeer helped prevent starvation among the native Alaskans. The author Jack London was inspired by Healy's command of the renowned USRC Bear. It was a thick wooden hulled, steam-and-sail powered proto-icebreaker, which had been put into service as a cutter, in 1884.
  Nicknamed "Hell Roaring Mike," Healy was the fifth of 10 children of the Healy family of Georgia, known for their achievements in the North after being born into slavery. Their parents were an Irish-born planter and his African-American mixed-race slave, with whom he had a common-law marriage.
context_section_description: Healy returned to Alaskan waters aboard the newly built USRC Rush in 1875. In 1880, by request of the captain of Corwin, he was transferred to serve as executive officer, but the assignment did not last long. In August 1881 he assumed his first command on the Rush. Renowned naturalist John Muir made one voyage with Healy as First Officer of the Corwin during the summer of 1881 as part of an ambitious government scientific program.
  By 1882 Healy was given command of the USRC Thomas Corwin and was thoroughly familiar with the Bering Sea and Alaska. In this command, he enforced liquor laws, protected seal and whale populations under treaty; delivered supplies, mail and medicines to remote villages; returned deserters to merchant ships, collected weather data, rendered medical assistance, conducted search and rescue, enforced federal laws, and accomplished exploration work. In October 1882 he took part in the Angoon Bombardment in which the village of Angoon, Alaska was destroyed following hostage taking by the Tlingit. He attained the rank of captain on March 3, 1883.
  At this point in his career, Healy earned a reputation as a person thoroughly familiar with Alaskan waters and as a commander who expected the most from his vessel and crew. He was at the same time known to be a hard drinker, and most of his junior officers found him difficult. He was respected for his efforts to rescue vessels and crews in peril. Healy was often recognized for his humanitarian efforts, including being recognized by Congress for his life-saving work in the Arctic in 1885.
  He took command of the Bear in 1887. His reputation with the whalers was so well established that when the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Seaman's Union requested a board of inquiry to consider charges of drunkenness and cruelty against him, the whaler skippers quickly got the drunkenness charges dismissed. The cruelty charges stemmed from an incident aboard the whaler Estrella in 1889: Healy had a seaman "triced up" to restore order. Healy defended his actions as an effort to quell a mutiny, and the charge was eventually dismissed.
  In July 1889, Healy paid a courtesy call to the skipper of USRC Rush, Captain Leonard G. Shepard, in an intoxicated state, a serious breach of naval etiquette. Shortly thereafter, Shepard became the Chief of the Revenue Cutter Bureau and he wrote Healy warning him that if he could not control his drinking, he could face loss of command. Healy replied stating that he "pledge[d] to you by all I hold most sacred that while I live never to touch intoxicants of any kind or description....One thing I will hate and that is to give up my command of the Bear. I love the ship, tho [it is] hard work."
  During the last two decades of the 19th century, Healy was essentially the federal government's law enforcement presence in the vast territory. In his twenty years of service between San Francisco and Point Barrow, he acted as judge, doctor, and policeman to Alaskan natives, merchant seamen and whaling crews. The Native Americans throughout the vast regions of the north came to know and respect him and called his ship "Healy's Fire Canoe." During visits to Siberia, across the Bering Sea from the Alaskan coast, Healy observed that the Chukchi people had domesticated caribou (reindeer), and used them for food, travel, and clothing. He had noted the reduction in the seal and whale populations in Alaska from commercial fishing activities. To compensate for this and aid in transportation, working with Reverend Sheldon Jackson, a Presbyterian missionary and political leader in the territory, Healy helped introduce reindeer from Siberia to Alaska as a source of food, clothing and other necessities for the Native peoples. This work was noted in the New York Sun newspaper in 1894. Healy's compassion for the native population was expressed in many deeds and in his standing order: "Never make a promise to a native you do not intend to keep to the letter."
caption: Map showing Alaska's position relative to the 48 lower states
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