They called it Potter's Bay, after one of the whaling captains.
Capt. David Hand, a whaling captain who died in 1840, is buried surrounded by the graves of his five wives.
In his journals, Stefansson wrote often of his relationship with the early whaling captain.
While in Alaska, the whaling captain enjoyed a routine domestic life when not off chasing his prey.
His mother, Anna Wilhelmina Smith, was the daughter of a whaling captain.
He was out of work in 1892 when a whaling captain offered to give him a sailboat, the Spray, cautioning that "she wants some repairs."
It was built by a whaling captain in the sixteen-nineties as a gift for his bride.
He lived in the Nathan P. Hand house, which dates to the 1600's and is named for a whaling captain who once owned it.
The whaling captain William Adams was the first to prove the island's insular nature in 1872.
After 17 years it was sold to Lyman Allyn, a whaling captain, for $7,150.