 When Simpson was a young man, he was one of the eight people sent in a canoe by Duncan from New Metlakatla to dismantle the church they had left behind at Old Metlakatla.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.