[This is my Faith Post for January 2025.]
This post is adapted from my Christmas Eve Sermon from 2024.
The year was 1867. The Russian Empire was deciding what to do with the great Territory of Alaska. The land was thought to be mostly barren and uninhabitable. There was little interest in settling it further and so they looked to sell it off. Enter US Secretary of State William Seward. He began negotiations with the Russian diplomat and eventually a treaty was signed for the sale of Alaska to the United States. It was sold for the sum of $7.2 million which amounted to about $0.02 per acre. Many in America thought the purchase to be useless and a fool’s bargain, it was called by some Seward’s Folly.
