Call, Samuel J., photographer

Dr. Samuel Johnson Call was born in Missouri in 1858 and lived most of his early years in California. He went to work for the Alaska Commercial Company (headquartered in San Francisco) in 1880 and was sent to Unalaska where he worked for about 5 years. In 1890 he left the Alaska Commercial Company to work as a company surgeon aboard the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear. He played an active role in the 1892 reindeer acquisition program in Siberia. The Bear was based in San Francisco but traveled to Sitka, Kodiak, and spent summers and early falls in the Arctic. In August of 1899, Dr. Call resigned from the US Revenue Cutter Service and sometime later went to Nome. There he practiced medicine and served as Quarantine Officer for the Marine Hospital Service and later as City Health Officer of Nome. In 1902 he became Collector and Inspector at the subport of Nome. He left Nome in August 1903 to go back to sea as surgeon on the U.S. Revenue Service Cutter Thetis and, later, in 1905, on the McCulloch. That year he received a gold medal for heroic service in the whalers' relief expedition to the Arctic. He was forced to retire for health reasons during 1908 and died in Hollister, California, February 6, 1909, five days before his 51st birthday. [From: "Dr Samuel J. Call," by Albert K. Cocke. The Alaska Journal, v. 4, no. 3, Summer 1974, pp. 181-188.]