Description
7.5 mi. SW of Kodiak, Kodiak I.
History
Named in 1940 by U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS) for Captain Melville Cox Erskine, 1835-1909, master of the first American vessel, the Fideleter, owned by the Alaska Commercial Company, to be registered in the new Territory of Alaska in 1867. Captain Erskine superintended the building of the steamer St. Paul at Philadelphia in 1875. The St. Paul was the first iron ship to sail in the Bering Sea, and it was commanded by Captain Erskine until 1893 when he was appointed as a San Francisco bar pilot.