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=                            Hudson_Stuck                            =
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                            Introduction
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Hudson Stuck (November 4, 1863 - October 10, 1920) was a British
native who became an Episcopal priest, social reformer and mountain
climber in the United States. With Harry P. Karstens, he co-led the
first expedition to successfully climb Denali in June 1913, via the
South Summit. He published five books about his years in Alaska. Two
memoirs were issued in new editions in 1988, including his account of
the ascent of Denali.

Stuck was born in London and graduated from King's College London. He
immigrated to the United States in 1885 and lived there for the rest
of his life. After working as a cowboy and teacher for several years
in Texas, he went to University of the South to study theology. After
graduation, he was ordained as an Episcopal priest. Moving to Alaska
in 1904, he served as Archdeacon of the Yukon, acting as a missionary
for the church and a proponent of "muscular Christianity". He died of
pneumonia in Fort Yukon, Alaska.


                      Early life and education
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Stuck was born in Paddington, London, England to James and Jane
(Hudson) Stuck. He attended Westbourne Park Public School and King's
College London.  Yearning for a bigger life, he immigrated to Texas in
1885, where he worked as a cowboy near Junction City. He also taught
in one-room schools at Copperas Creek, San Angelo, and San Marcos.

In 1889 he enrolled to study theology at the University of the South
in Sewanee, Tennessee.  After completing his studies, Stuck became an
Episcopal priest in 1892. He first served a congregation in Cuero,
Texas for two years.

He was called to St. Matthew's Cathedral in Dallas in 1894.  Two years
later, he became dean. He stressed progressive goals in his sermons
and regularly published articles related to his causes. There he
founded a night school for millworkers, a home for indigent women, and
St. Matthew's Children's Home. In 1903 he gained passage in Texas of
the first state law against child labor. He regularly preached and
wrote against lynching. It was at an all-time high in the South around
the turn of the century, which was also the period when state
legislatures were passing legislation and constitutions that
disfranchised blacks and many poor whites.


                           Alaska mission
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In 1904 Stuck moved to Alaska to serve with Missionary Bishop Peter
Trimble Rowe. Under the title Archdeacon of the Yukon and the Arctic,
with a territory of 250,000 square miles, Stuck traveled between the
scattered parishes and missions by dogsled and boat as well as foot
and snowshoe. In his first year, Stuck established a church, mission
and hospital at Fairbanks, the new boomtown filling up with miners and
associated hangers on. Some staff came from Klondike, where the gold
rush had ended. The small hospital treated epidemics of meningitis and
typhoid fever, as well as pneumonia common in the North.

In 1905, Rev. Charles E. Betticher, Jr joined Stuck in Alaska as a
missionary. They founded numerous missions in the Tanana Valley over
the next decade: at Nenana (St. Mark's Mission and Tortella School at
Nenana, the school in 1907), St. Barnabas at Chena Native Village, St.
Luke's at Salcha, and St. Timothy's at Tanacross (near Tok, formerly
known as the Tanana Crossing). All served the Alaska Natives of the
region. Tortella School was the only boarding school to serve native
children in the Interior of Alaska, and was supported by scholarships
and offerings raised by the Episcopal Church. Missionary Anne Cragg
Farthing ran the school and was the primary teacher.
Her brother was bishop of Toronto, Ontario.

Five hundred miles up the Koyukuk River from its confluence with the
Yukon, at its junction with its tributary the Alatna River, in 1907
Stuck founded a mission he called 'Allakaket' (Koyukon for "at the
mouth of the Alatna") but others called St. John's in the Woods for
the several hundred Indians here.  For years Episcopal woman
missionaries ran the remote station just above the Arctic Circle,
including Deaconess Clara M. Carter and Clara Heintz. The mission
served both Koyukon and Iñupiat, who were settled on opposite sides of
the river. The latter had come up the Kobuk River from lower areas.
Thus the missioners had two Native languages to learn.

To reach the scattered populations of miners and other frontiersmen,
Stuck started the Church Periodical Club. Based in Fairbanks, it
collected and distributed periodicals to all the missions and to other
settlements where Americans gathered. It did not have only church
literature, and in some locations, it provided almost the only reading
material around.

Stuck traveled each winter more than 1500-2000 miles by dogsled to
visit the missions and villages. In 1908, he acquired the launch
called 'The Pelican', a shallow riverboat. He used it on the Yukon
River and tributaries to visit the Athabascans in their summer camps,
where they fished and hunted. He reported that in twelve seasons'
cruises, ranging from i,800 to 5,200 miles each summer, he traveled a
total of up to 30,000 miles along the rivers.

Stuck wrote and published five books, memoirs of his times in Alaska,
in part to reveal the exploitation of the Alaska Native peoples that
he witnessed in his work. Two of Stuck's books were edited by Maxwell
Perkins, the legendary Scribner's editor who also edited Ernest
Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe.

Stuck had experience mountain climbing, including having ascended
Mount Rainier in Washington state.


                          Ascent of Denali
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Stuck recruited Harry Karstens, a respected guide, to join his
expedition. Other members were Walter Harper and Robert G. Tatum, both
21, and two student volunteers from the mission school, John Fredson
and Esaias George. They departed from Nenana on March 17, 1913. They
reached the summit of Denali on June 7, 1913. Harper, of mixed Alaska
Native and Scots descent, reached the summit first. Fredson, then 14,
acted as their base camp manager, hunting caribou and Dall sheep to
keep them supplied with food.

The party made atmospheric measurements at the peak of the mountain
for purposes of determining its elevation. At the summit, their
aneroid barometer read 13.175 inches, their boiling-point thermometer
read 174.9 degrees, their mercurial barometer read 13.617 inches. The
alcohol minimum recording thermometer read 7 °F. These measurements,
with others taken at Fort Gibbon and Valdez, were reduced by C. E.
Griffin, Topographic Engineer of the United States Geological Survey,
to produce an elevation for Denali of 20,384 feet. The precise figure
measured by the United States Geological Survey in 2015 is 20,310
feet.



They also erected a six-foot high cross at the summit.

When the party returned to base camp, Stuck sent a messenger to
Fairbanks to announce their success in reaching the peak of the
mountain. His achievement was announced on June 21, 1913, by 'The New
York Times' and carried nationally.

Stuck was scheduled to go to New York City in October for a General
Convention of the Episcopal Church. This gave him another opportunity
to talk about the ascent. He was awarded the Back Award of the Royal
Geographical Society in 1919.


                             Later life
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Several of the mission churches established by the Episcopal Church in
remote areas of the Interior during the early 20th century have been
listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stuck continued to urge Alaska Native youths in their education,
helping arrange scholarships and sponsors for education in the Lower
48. For instance, John Fredson was the first Alaska Native to finish
high school and graduate from college. Sponsored by Stuck and the
Episcopal Church, he went to the University of the South in Tennessee.
After returning to Alaska, he developed as a Gwich'in leader. In 1941
he gained federal recognition of the Venetie Indian Reserve to protect
his people's traditional territory. Walter Harper was accepted at
medical school in Philadelphia, but died en route when his ship sank
off the coast of Alaska.

Stuck worked as a priest in Alaska for the rest of his life, serving
both Alaska Natives and American settlers. Like many other
missionaries, he never married. He died of pneumonia in Fort Yukon. By
his request, he was buried in the native cemetery there.


                         Legacy and honors
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*A memorial service was conducted at the Cathedral of St. John the
Divine in New York City in his honor.
*Stuck and the naturalist John Muir are honored with a feast day on
April 22 of the liturgical calendar of the US Episcopal Church.


                               Books
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*
*'Voyages on the Yukon and its Tributaries.' 1917.
*'A Winter Circuit of Our Arctic Coast.' 1920.
*


                          Further reading
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*David Dean, 'Breaking Trail: Hudson Stuck of Texas and Alaska'
(Athens: Ohio University Press, 1988).
*Dean, Patrick (2021). 'A Window to Heaven: The Daring First Ascent of
Denali: America's Wildest Peak'. New York: Pegasus Books. ISBN
978-1643136424


                           External links
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*
*
*
*Hudson Stuck,
[https://archive.org/stream/tenthousandmiles00stuc#page/n11/mode/2up
'Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled'], 1914, Internet Archive
*Hudson Stuck, '[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22965 Ten Thousand
Miles with a Dog Sled]', 1916, Project Gutenberg
*Hudson Stuck, 'Voyages on the Yukon and its Tributaries,' 1917
(available through google books and hathitrust.org)
*Hudson Stuck, '[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26059 The Ascent of
Denali (Mount McKinley)]', 1918, Project Gutenberg
*Hudson Stuck, 'Baccaulaureate Sermon Given at Columbia University,'
1916 (available through google books)
*[https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fst86 David M. Dean,
"Hudson Stuck biography] - Texas State Historical Association


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