United States Revenue Cutter Service Officer.
Michael Augustine Healy was born to and Irish immigrant and a mother who was a mulatto slave. He attended the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts and was unhappy and rebellious. He was sent at the age of 15 to a seminary in France. He preferred a more adventurous life, and fled the school the following year. In England, he signed aboard the American East Indian Clipper Jumna as a cabin boy in 1854. He quickly became an expert seaman. Soon he rose to the rank of officer on merchant vessels.
In 1864, Michael Healy returned to his family, by then based in Boston.
Michael's whiteness was confirmed by his marriage in 1865 to Mary Jane Roach, the daughter of Irish immigrants, and by the birth of their fair-skinned son. Despite 18 pregnancies, she bore only one child who survived, a son named Frederick who was born in 1870.
Michael applied for a commission in the US Revenue Cutter Service (US Coast Guard) and was accepted as a Third Lieutenant, with a commission signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Michael served with the US Revenue Service along the 20,000-mile (32,000 km) coastline of the new territory following the Alaska Purchase of 1867. In 1880, he became the first American of African descent to be assigned command of a US government ship. During the last two decades of the 19th century, Captain Healy was essentially the federal government's law enforcement presence in the vast territory. In his twenty years of service between San Francisco and Point Barrow, he acted as: judge, doctor, and policeman to Alaskan natives, merchant seamen and whaling crews. Commissioned in 1999, the US Coast Guard research icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) is named in his honor.
Michael Augustine Healy was born to and Irish immigrant and a mother who was a mulatto slave. He attended the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts and was unhappy and rebellious. He was sent at the age of 15 to a seminary in France. He preferred a more adventurous life, and fled the school the following year. In England, he signed aboard the American East Indian Clipper Jumna as a cabin boy in 1854. He quickly became an expert seaman. Soon he rose to the rank of officer on merchant vessels.
In 1864, Michael Healy returned to his family, by then based in Boston.
Michael's whiteness was confirmed by his marriage in 1865 to Mary Jane Roach, the daughter of Irish immigrants, and by the birth of their fair-skinned son. Despite 18 pregnancies, she bore only one child who survived, a son named Frederick who was born in 1870.
Michael applied for a commission in the US Revenue Cutter Service (US Coast Guard) and was accepted as a Third Lieutenant, with a commission signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Michael served with the US Revenue Service along the 20,000-mile (32,000 km) coastline of the new territory following the Alaska Purchase of 1867. In 1880, he became the first American of African descent to be assigned command of a US government ship. During the last two decades of the 19th century, Captain Healy was essentially the federal government's law enforcement presence in the vast territory. In his twenty years of service between San Francisco and Point Barrow, he acted as: judge, doctor, and policeman to Alaskan natives, merchant seamen and whaling crews. Commissioned in 1999, the US Coast Guard research icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) is named in his honor.
United States Revenue Cutter Service Officer.
Michael Augustine Healy was born to and Irish immigrant and a mother who was a mulatto slave. He attended the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts and was unhappy and rebellious. He was sent at the age of 15 to a seminary in France. He preferred a more adventurous life, and fled the school the following year. In England, he signed aboard the American East Indian Clipper Jumna as a cabin boy in 1854. He quickly became an expert seaman. Soon he rose to the rank of officer on merchant vessels.
In 1864, Michael Healy returned to his family, by then based in Boston.
Michael's whiteness was confirmed by his marriage in 1865 to Mary Jane Roach, the daughter of Irish immigrants, and by the birth of their fair-skinned son. Despite 18 pregnancies, she bore only one child who survived, a son named Frederick who was born in 1870.
Michael applied for a commission in the US Revenue Cutter Service (US Coast Guard) and was accepted as a Third Lieutenant, with a commission signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Michael served with the US Revenue Service along the 20,000-mile (32,000 km) coastline of the new territory following the Alaska Purchase of 1867. In 1880, he became the first American of African descent to be assigned command of a US government ship. During the last two decades of the 19th century, Captain Healy was essentially the federal government's law enforcement presence in the vast territory. In his twenty years of service between San Francisco and Point Barrow, he acted as: judge, doctor, and policeman to Alaskan natives, merchant seamen and whaling crews. Commissioned in 1999, the US Coast Guard research icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) is named in his honor.
Michael Augustine Healy was born to and Irish immigrant and a mother who was a mulatto slave. He attended the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts and was unhappy and rebellious. He was sent at the age of 15 to a seminary in France. He preferred a more adventurous life, and fled the school the following year. In England, he signed aboard the American East Indian Clipper Jumna as a cabin boy in 1854. He quickly became an expert seaman. Soon he rose to the rank of officer on merchant vessels.
In 1864, Michael Healy returned to his family, by then based in Boston.
Michael's whiteness was confirmed by his marriage in 1865 to Mary Jane Roach, the daughter of Irish immigrants, and by the birth of their fair-skinned son. Despite 18 pregnancies, she bore only one child who survived, a son named Frederick who was born in 1870.
Michael applied for a commission in the US Revenue Cutter Service (US Coast Guard) and was accepted as a Third Lieutenant, with a commission signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Michael served with the US Revenue Service along the 20,000-mile (32,000 km) coastline of the new territory following the Alaska Purchase of 1867. In 1880, he became the first American of African descent to be assigned command of a US government ship. During the last two decades of the 19th century, Captain Healy was essentially the federal government's law enforcement presence in the vast territory. In his twenty years of service between San Francisco and Point Barrow, he acted as: judge, doctor, and policeman to Alaskan natives, merchant seamen and whaling crews. Commissioned in 1999, the US Coast Guard research icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) is named in his honor.
