Reservist

ISS2 2015

Reservist Magazine is the award-winning official publication of the United States Coast Guard Reserve. Quarterly issues include news and feature articles about the men and women who comprise America's premier national maritime safety and security

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Cutters, cannibals and Siberian reindeer: The fourth Healy brother got his education on the frozen ocean Story by John M. O'Toole Editor's Note: Mr. O'Toole retired from the Coast Guard Reserve in 1986 at the rank of Lt. Cmdr. He is the author of Tornado! 84 Minutes, 94 Lives. This article originally appeared in the September 7, 1994, issue of the Worcester Magazine. I greatly enjoyed Albert Southwick's account of the Healy brothers ("The Black Irishmen of Holy Cross" – WM 8/10), who received Jesuit educations at fledgling Holy Cross College and who went on to distinguished service in the Catholic Church, including, in one case, the attainment of a bishopric. Unmentioned by Southwick, however, was the fourth son of Georgia planter Michael Healy and his emancipated wife, Eliza. Named for his father, young Michael Healy had no interest in pursuing formal education, so while still a youth he went to sea, joining the Revenue Cutter Service, the seagoing law enforcement branch of the U.S. Treasury. Although a believing and practicing Catholic, Mike utterly lacked the genteel polish of his educated siblings. He swore ferociously, drank heavily, and was both handy and ready with his fists. By 1868, the year after the U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia, Healy had worked his way up to commissioned status as third lieutenant aboard the cutter RuSH, as he made his first voyage into Arctic waters and witnessed first hand the decimation of the seal population through wanton and illegal slaughter. The year 1879 saw Healy commanding officer of the cutter CORwin, and the major representative of the United States government in Alaskan waters. His areas of responsibility were broad, as was his discretionary authority. Although it had been acquired from Russia a dozen years earlier, the United States had made no systematic or sustained effort to bring American law to the huge northern territory. Mike Healy now found himself given that responsibility and he quickly began proving himself equal to the task. A portrait photograph of Captain Healy taken on the quarterdeck of his most famous command, the Revenue Cutter Bear, with his pet parrot, 1895. ReseRvist Magazine a LigHt on YesteRYeaR 36 RESERVIST � Issue 2 • 2015

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