Captain C. L. Hooper.

The U.S. Revenue Marine Steamer Thomas Corwin, also known as simply Corwin, was completed in 1876 and was commissioned on 17 July 1877 in San Francisco, California, which remained her home port during her career with the Revenue Marine. She was then under the command of Revenue Captain J. W. White. She sailed for Sitka, Alaska on 30 July 1877 where she began a patrol in the Arctic Ocean, returning to San Francisco on 28 August 1877.
She then made annual cruises to Alaskan waters. She also patrolled the waters off Washington and Oregon when not in the Arctic. She enforced fishing regulations, customs laws, prevented the trafficking of liquor with the local native populations, established the authority of the U.S. Government on the new territory, and assisted mariners in distress, among other duties. In 1882 she participated in the controversial bombardment of the village of Angoon, Alaska, while under the command of First Lieutenant Michael Healy, one of the more famous officers of the Revenue Marine. On 22 October 1882, a Northwest Trading Company whaleboat chased a whale into the waters near the Tlingit Indian village of Angoon, on Kootznahoo Inlet, Admiralty Island. The whaling gun aboard exploded, killing Tith Klane, a Tlingit shaman who worked for the company. The other natives aboard the whaling boat took two company employees, E. H. Bayne and S. S. Stulzman, who were also crewmen on the boat, hostage in an effort to extract payment from the company for the death of their shaman. They landed at Angoon. There they, along with the villagers, sought payment of 40 blankets.… (més)