Peter Adolf Larsen - (1864, Denmark - 1940, Unga Island, Alaska)
Mary HUBLEY Larsen (1876, Aleutian Islands, Alaska - 1945, Unga Island, Alaska)
Two of the women buried in the Seldovia City Cemetery, Alice LARSEN Nutbeem and Elizabeth LARSEN McIntire, are sisters who are daughters of Peter and Mary Hubley Larsen of Unga Island, Alaska. Their sister, Clara LARSEN Oaks lived in Seldovia form many years after her husband’s death and was a long-time companion of Kenny Masters. After he and her sisters died, she moved to Washington State to be near her children.
Peter Adolf Larsen was from Denmark. He left his home when he was 12, to go to sea. Peter first came to Alaska in 1886. He went south in the fall and returned in the spring of 1887 to become a sea otter hunter. The 1900 US census for Unga Village, Unga Island, Shumagin Islands, Alaska, records that Peter had been in America for 25 years and that his home post office box was San Francisco, California, where he was a sailor. He went south again and came back to Alaska on the sailing ship Argo in 1908 to mine gold on Unga Island. Peter tried an independent mining venture before becoming an employee of Unga Apollo Gold Mine.
Peter married, first, Tatiana Ivanovna Sorokovikov in Unga Village. They lived at the Apollo Mine site and had no children.
Peter married Mary Hubley May 24, 1893. They lived in Unga Village and had 12 children: five sons, Peter II, James, Peter III, Edmund and Norman; seven daughters, Zenia, Grace, Alicce, Emily, Gladys, Clara, and [Elizabeth]. Son Peter II died as an infant during an influenza epidemic, daughter Emily died from severe burns at age 12. Peter became a citizen of the United States in Unga court on 11 Sept 1899.
In 1900, Peter left the mining business and began a career as a bear hunting guide. He became well known as a successful hunter, helping sportsmen bag over 70 bears. He scored many of the bears himself during a hunting career that lasted more than 30 years, hunting on mainland Alaska and Kodiak Island. One of the Larsen Bay’s on Kodiak Island is named in his honor. Peter also transplanted blue fox from the westward Aleutian Islands onto Big Konuji Island in the Shumagin Islands, which he leased from the federal government. He farmed fox for its valuable fur.
In his later years Peter and his wife Mary separated. He then moved to a small house in Unga Village known as the bachelor house. Peter was very fond of his grandson little Norman and visited him often, bringing a Hersey Bar as a special treat. It was to little Norman that he legally willed his boat, Alice. Peter was survived by Mary and his living children. He is interred in the Unga American Cemetery.
Mary HUBLEY Larsen was the daughter of Isaac and Tatiana (Nekrasov) Hubley, her father was from Nova Scotia, Canada, and her mother was from Afognak, Afognak Island, Alaska. Being an older daughter she stayed at home to help her mother with the younger children, unable to attend school she taught herself to read and write. Her mother’s first language was Russian, Mary spoke both English and Russian.
She married Peter Adolf Larsen from Denmark on 29 May 1893, in Unga Village, Unga Island, Shumagin Islands, Alaska, they had five sons, Peter II, James, Peter III, Edmund, and Norman; seven daughters, Zenia, Grace, Alice, Emily, Gladys, Clara, and Elisabeth. Mary was raised in Unga Village and that is where