 Whaling, a school, and a Russian Orthodox church attracted many Tlingits to neighboring Killisnoo.In October 1882 of the village was destroyed in the Angoon Bombardment by US Naval forces under the command Commander Edgar C. Merriman and the "USRC Thomas Corwin" under the command of Michael A. Healy.The Tlingit villagers had taken white hostages and property and demanded two hundred blankets in compensation from the North West Trading Company following the accidental death of a Tlingit shaman who died in a whaling bomb accident while working on the whaler.