Note 86 — Chapter IX · WONDERFUL SEAL ISLANDS.

Pribylov, the discoverer of the Seal Islands, was a native of “old Russia.” His father was one of the surviving sailors of the St. Peter, which was wrecked, with Bering in command, November 4, 1741, on Bering Island. The only reference which I can find to him is the vague incidental expressions, used here and there throughout an extended series of lengthy Russian letters published by Techmainov, as illustrative of the condition of affairs in regard to the Russian American Company. Pribylov was, when cruising in 1783-86 for the rumored seal-grounds, merely the first mate of the sloop St. George. The captain and part owner was one M. Subov, who was a member of a trading association then well organized in Alaska, and widely known as the “Laybaidev Lastochin” Company. It does not appear that Pribylov took any part in the business of sealing other than that of remaining in charge of the company’s vessels. He died while in discharge of these duties at Sitka, March, 1796, on his ship The Three Saints.

Pribylov himself called these islands of his discovery after Subov; but the Russians then, and soon after unanimously, indicated the group by its present well-deserved title, “Ostrovie Pribylova.”