 In one version of the story they hacked it to pieces and burned it to the ground and escaped back to Alaska before they could face prosecution.Not all histories of Old Metlakatla record this as the cause of the fire that destroyed the church in 1901; the story may arise from a much earlier incident.Simpson along with another Metlakatla Tsimshian, Mark Hamilton, were the principal investors in the sawmill community of Port Gravina, near Ketchikan, Alaska, from its founding in 1892 until it burned in 1904.