Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-09-21
A Wealthy Alaskan.

The palace of Siwash Town is the
residence of "Mrs. Thorn" painted
cabin with green blinds. and a green
railing across the front porch. Mrs.
Thorn is a character, celebrity. and a
person OF great authority among her
Siwash neighbors, and yields greater
power and influence among her people
than al the war-chiefs and medicine
men put together. Even savage in
stincts bow down to wealth, and Mrs.
Thorn is the reputed possessor of S1O,-
600, accumulated by her own energy
and shrewdness. We heard of Mrs.
Thorn long before we reached Sitka,
and realizing her to be such potentate
among her people, we were shocked to
meet that lady by the roadside Sunday
morning, offering to sell bracelets to
some of the passengers. As became us
ENJOYS from a Christian land, we read
her small moral lecture, and severely
said that we would buy her bracelets on
Monday morning; and Mrs. Thorn then
and there invited us 10 come to her
grcen-galleried chalet in Siwash Town,
next door to No. H. at any time we
pleased.
The rainiest morning in all the week
we set our dripping umbrella-points in
that direction and found the great 7yes
lady at home. 1t was raw and chill as
n New York November, but Mrs. Thorn
strOlled about barefOoted, wearing a
single calico garment, and wrapping
herself in a white blanket with red and
blue stripes across the ends. Her black
hair was brushed to satiny smoothness,
braided and tied at the end with CO.
quettish blue ribbon, and her arms were
covered with bracelets up to her elbows.
She is plump matron-fat, fair and
forty, in fact-and her house is model
of neatness and order Her palatial
residence is built after the general plan,
the one large room having raised
platform around the sides, and small,
cabin-like bedroom in one corner, with
glass doors and calico curtains. The
square fireplace of stones, in the center
of the main living-room, is about to be
done away with, an improved cooking
stove having arrived by this steamer for
this great lady of Tyee. When Mrs.
Thorn had reluctantly brought out a
dozen pairs or more of silver bracelets
TO show us. we began to believe that
her wealth was really as boundless a.
her neighbors say. Her arms were
covered with silver strips, as if with
jointed mail, and there seemed no limit
to the riches her dozens of trunks and
chests contained. Like all Indians, she
puts her faith in blankets, and her
house is n magazine of such items OF
wealth. while deep in her cedar boxes
are such triiies of the toilet as velvet
dresses and fur robes of wonderful quail
ity. When the steamer left here in
June Mrs. Thorn commissioned the
Captain to buy her bonnet of the latest
style. The gallant skipper muddled
himself with millinery all the while he
was in Portland, and evolved therefrom
broad-brimmed, gray-straw hat, faced
with dark-green velvet and trimmed
with wreath of red peoples and q
trailing, crimson feather Mrs. Thorn's
face beamed with pleasure ut sight OF
it, but the accompanying bill of twelve
dollars put her economical soul to tor
ture, and it was with mingled pride and
regret that she brought out the new
bonnet to show it to u.s. When she set
it atop of her broad, plump face and
cast down her eyes with conscious air
of becomingness, the scene was worth
photographing.-Sitka (Alaska) Cor.
81. Louis Globe Democrat.