Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1897-07-02
ACCOUNT OF A HOAX.
STORY OF THE MoHlcAN,s LOSS IN
THE NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN.

STORY OF THE MOtiCAN'S LOSS IN
THE NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN.
How 'Lying Tom Barrett" Came to Tell
the Yarn-A Rivalry Had Grown Up
Among the Munchausens, but the MO.
hican Lie Was Little Too Much,
Very many persons may remember
ths story that was telegraphed and ca
bled all over the world in the summer
of 1895 Of the sinking of the United
States revenue cutter Mohican by the
British seal pirate Belle of the Pacific
somewhere i'll that indefinite part of the
north Pacific ocean known to all Alas
kans as "the westward. Not so many
probably will remember that the story
was fake, because it is the lamentable
history of such things that the truth
never completely overtakcs the lie. 1t
was lie out of whole cloth, as was
demonstrated when the Mohican turned
up all right that fall at the end of the
patrol season, but the manner of its pub
lication has not been told.
This lie began to hpye its being years
ago when the steamers Ryst began to
take tourists from down 6es1aw," as
Alaskans call the Sites up thrc,,Sg gh the
gorgeous scenery OF the north Pacific
coast line for peep at the northern ter
ritory. AS u usual thing the tourists
spend eight or ten hours ashore at Ju-
mean and as much more in Sitka. Some
times they make q dash up to Muir gla-
cier. Altogether they see lot of the
country i'll q panoramic sort of way, and
they hear a great deal more about it. 1t
is one of the lands where the blindest
bluffs hold good and the widest tales
are true. So when they get back to the
States again, tho tourists begin to un-
fold to their friends and their friends
friends and to their acquaintances and
to anybody who will listen. particularly
to overcreuulous newspaper men, the
| widest tales that human ingenuity can
devise.
For q long time the Alaskans did
their best to chase down these lies, but
they failed. The liar had all the advan-
taSes of telcsraphs and daily mails and
the widespread publicity given by the
too credulous newspaper men. Then the
Alasllans gave up the direct attack and
took up the gentle art of lying them
selves. They had so much time to prac-
ticc when there was nothing else to in
tcrfere that every two weeks, when the
malboat came in, q 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
public OF Oregon, Washington and Cali
fornia. These steamship men rapidly
acquired large reputation with the
readers of thrilling newspaper accounts
of brave newspaper deeds. The people
OH the Pacific coast seem to be singular
ly open minded and receptive. But even
they caught on after awhile to tho fact
that the Alaskans We're jollying them.
Then resentment took the natural form,
and you couldn't find IL Pacific coast
man with Il horse rake who would be-
lievc an Alaska steamship mans story
if the narrator was literally inc;Ased in
/ Bibles.
1t developed through the somewhat
!
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 i'll the employ of IL 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, IL 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 go
started for Middleton island OH 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
q column of it to his paper i'll Seattle
and started it around the world. Bar
rett was coming down from Alaska and
OH tho way put up the job with the
steamship men to spring yarn that
should make a sensation i'll the States.
The steamship men knew they couldn't
make it go themselves, but they agreed
to back Barrett up i'll whatever he said
and to give him good send off if there
was effort at verifcation. So when the
steamer put in at Port Townshend, Bar.
rett got himself interviewed, and the
next day the world was reading "Cap-
tain Thomas Barrett's'' remarkable sto-
~ of the loss Of the Mohican. When
the yarn got back to juneau and Sitka,
there We're 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 tho cutters men, and on the