“For many years they lived in peace and prospered.
“But the Red Man forgets not. The Tongass Indians were grateful to their white brothers. They listened when Chief Sewrard visited them and told them of the great white chief who loved the Red Man.
“ ‘We are thankful,’ they said. ‘Our hearts salute him. No longer need we fear lest we be made slaves and buried beneath the totem poles of our enemies.’
“One day Chief Ebbetts summoned his sub-chief Tsa-kad and said, ‘I am weary. Soon I shall sleep the long sleep of the old. But my heart turns to my brother, the great white chief Abraham Lincoln, for what he has done for my people. We shall make a lofty totem pole and above the Raven, the crest of our tribe, we shall carve a statue of Chief Lincoln.’
“So Thle-da, my father’s brother—he who could talk so marvelously with his fingers—was given a picture of Chief Lincoln from which to carve the statue. He worked while others slept and in the moon of nesting birds it was finished.
“Then Chief Ebbetts gave a big potlatch to which all the people in the village were invited. The great totem pole was erected and for many days there was dancing and feasting. Around the camp fire the elders again told how Abraham Lincoln had stretched out his hands to them and saved them.
“But,” and the Story Teller shook his head mournfully, “the ancient village of my people is now deserted. Their lodges are overgrown with weeds. Even our Abraham Lincoln totem is crumbling away.
“In these days when men fly like birds and the voice travels swifter than an arrow to its mark, surely Alaska is no longer [[23]]thought a shak-nah-ahm (foreign) country, and our white chief in Washington will listen and grant the wish of his children that this island with the first statue ever erected to Abraham Lincoln be cared for so we may bring our children’s children to look upon it.”
“We shall erect a totem in honor of the great white chief, Lincoln”