Evening journal., 1897-01-02
-CC0UNT OF A HOAX.
TORY OF TIE MOAlcAN'S LOSS IN
THE NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN.

!. ow "IyfsS Tom Barrett" Came to Tell
the Nlvr-A Rivalry Had Grown Up
II Among the Munchausens, but the Mo.
hicsn Lie Was a Little TOO Much.
M Very many persons may remember
le story that was telegraphed and ca
led all over the world in the summer
/ 1895 Of the sinking Of the United
tates revenue cutter Mohican by the
4. ritish seal pirate Belle Of the Pacific
NJ pmewhere in that indefinite part of the
s. orth Pacific ocean known to all Alas
" ans as "the westward. y Not so many
Y robably will remember that the story
# as fake. because it is the lamentable
istory Of such things that the truth
ever completely oyertakes the lie. 1t
# vas a lie out of whole cloth. as was
NJ demonstrated when the Mohican turned
Up all right that fall at the end of the
"a patrol season, but the manner of its pub
ication has not been told.
This lie began to have its being years
go when the steamers first began to
AXE tourists from down below, " as
Alaskans call the States, up through the
gorgeous scenery Of the north Pacific
II 'oast line for peep at the northern ter.
U 'itory. As usual thing the tourists
ykpend eight or ten hours ashore at Ju-
leau and as much more in Sitka. Some
& times they make dash up to Muir gla.
,ler. Altogether they see lot of the
Il country in a panoramic sort of way, and
they hear great deal more about it. 1t
q IS one OF the lands where the blindest
Il bluffs hold good and the widest tales
are true. So when they get back to the
Z States again, the tourists begin to un-
3 fold to their friends and their friends
friends and to their acquaintances and
to anybody who will listen, particularly
to overcredulous newspaper men, the
widest tales that human ingenuity can
4 devise.
For long time the Alaskans did
j their best to chase down these lies, but
1 they failed. The liar had all the advan-
: tages OF telegraphs and daily mails and
I the widespread publicity given by the
Il too credulous newspaper men. Then the
/ Alaskans gave up the direct attack and
took up the gentle art of lying them
selves. They had so much time to prac-
tice when there was nothing else to in
terfere that every two weeks, when the
mailboat came in, fine new crop of
marvellous stories had been carefully
harvested for dissemination in the
States. The steamship men were always
the medium through which these stories
were communicated to the credulous
~ y.
fornia. These steamship men rapidly
acquired a large reputation with the
readers Of thrilling newspaper accounts
OF brave newspaper deeds. The people
on the Pacific coast seem to be singular
ly open minded and receptive. But even
they caught on after awhile to the fact
that the Alaskans We're jollying them.
Then resentment took the natural form,
and you couldn't find a Pacific coast
man with a horse rake who would be-
lieve an Alaska steamship mans story
if the narrator was literally incased in
Bibles.
1t developed through the somewhat
general competition that as q compound
er of able tales Tom Barrett was easily
at the head. He won his distinction and
his title at the same time, springing
from comparative obscurity in the ranks
OF liars by one successful coup. Barrett
was in the employ of trading company
at the westward. He rolled into Sitka
one day with the most astonishing sto-
ries of the auriferous riches of Middle
ton island, little chunk of rock and
sand that had been heaved up above the
water by some submarine volcanic erup-
tion far out in the middle Of the north
Pacific ocean. All Alaska that could 20
started for Middleton island on the
strength of Barrett's yarns, and all
Alaska that couldn't go grub staked
somebody who could. When the excite
ment was over and those who went to
Middleton island had got back and those
who didn't go were out their grub
stakes, the man who had started the
rush spontaneously became known to all
Alaska as Lying Tom Barrett. "
Lying Tom Barrett" told the yarn
about the Mohican to the newspaper man
in Port Townshend, who telegraphed
a column of it to his paper in Seattle
and started it around the world. Bar
@NAe WNS SoALAnH NOWu AA0ll Aldhhh anu
on the way put up the job with the
steamship men to spring a yarn that
should make sensation in the States.
The steamship men knew they couldn't
make it go themselves, but they agreed
TO back Barrett up in whatever he said
and to give him good send off if there
was effort at verification. So when the
steamer put in at Port Townshend, Bar.
rett got himself interviewed, and the
next day the world was reading Gap
tain Thomas Barrett's'' remarkable sto-
ry Of the loss of the Mohican. When
the yarn got back TO juneau and Sitka,
there were some Alaskans who laughed
nightly at the hoax, but others, who
knew the officers of the Mohican thought
of the cruelty of it TO the relatives and
friends of the cutter men, and on the
whole Barrett's story did not meet with
the approval even of the liars. That
was carrying the thing too far. Harm