Sistersville daily oil review. [volume] (Sistersville, W. Va.) 1902-1905, 1903-08-20
THE HERMIT 5 COLLECTION
Remarkable Museum In a Wes-
tern Desert.
BUT HE HAS NO SNAKES
Log Cabin in Washington a Treasure
House of Relics from All Parts
of the WorId-Has Taken over
Forty Years to Gather the Curios.

Fifty miles northwest OIL "dild
Walla, buried away among the SAND
and sage of the vast semi-arld stretch
of Eastern Washington, is one OF the
finest and rarest collections OF curlos
in the United States. amassed by de-
sert dweller after forty years or con-
slant gathering. d. w. Owen, OF Ken
newick, Yakima County, Washington,
is the man whose unflagging energy
and great pains have brought to-
getber this unique collection. After
a lifetime in collecting this griZzled
pioneer sits in his four-room desert
shack amid his curios, a strange spec
tacle to the occasional passer by. AS
the miser boards his gold and counts
it over day by day, so Mr.. Owen re-
wells in the treasures he has gathered
from the Arctic Ocean to the anti
podes.
Over 10000 separate pieces are
massed together within the narrow
confines of Old Man Owens CABIN. so
small is the desert habitation, and so
large the collection, that every avail
BILE SPOT has been utilized for curios.
They line the walls, the floors, the
ceilings and even cluster around the
pantry shelves. Picture frames are
covered with them, and the crude Ia
bles of what passes for the sitting
room groan under the weight OF every
thing conceivable that is strange
Owen has certainly followed his mania
to the bitter end. AS one sits down to
eat at his rough board table stuffed
tarantulas and centipedes seem to be
coming down the wall to mingle with
the feast, while weird shapes and
forms dragged from Pacific depths, or
brought by sailors from the far South
Seas, contribute to ones appetite. Be-
side his bed are things enough 10
make the ghost, walk.
Born in the Far East-in Massa-
old man belongs to the
yeriest type Of Westerner. In early
life he came to Iowa, and later pushed
on among the Indians and flying sand
of the Columbia River near kenne-
wick, half a mile from the banks or
the great Columbia. Owen is seventy
years of age, but spry and active. The
free life of the sparsely settled sage
brush country seems to have endowed
him with lasting vigor, and six mile
walk over the hot sand Of eastern va
kima is nothing to him. His looks be-
lie his age, despite his long white
beard and wrinkled face. Owen might
easily pass for fifty.
For forty years the old bachelor has
been collecting. He started when he
was a boy and every curious stone or
shell he saw was carefully gathered
I'D and laid away. Twice in his life
he has amassed museums OF great
scope and value, and twice he has Civ
en- them away to friends and rela-
tiyes. The extraordinary gathering
which now graces his sand surrounded
house is the third and last Of his
great efforts.
Probably the most interesting and
instructive section of his museum is
that relating to the aborigines. He
has Indian relics from the north half
of Greenland to the South Seas. Skulls
of Indians from the Colville reserva-
ton, skulls Of Flathead Indians Sc
cured from graves in Oregon after
great difficulty and danger, elks' teeth
from the grave of a primeval chief
found far up the tortuous Snake IN
Western Idaho, Indian pipes repre-
senting the tribes of America from
Mexico to the Eskimo, relics OF the
Indians of the Hudson Bay in Can
ada, pipes of all descriptions from the
primitive peoples of Alaska, and all
kinds of heads from a score Of tribes
are some of the articles in the Indian
department. Perhaps the most valua-
BILE part Of this division is the pipes
whose varieties are most interesting,
showing as they do, the development
Of the aborigines from the stone age
down to the present.
One feature is lacking in the muse
I'm of the desert. There are no
snakes.
Il have seen all kinds Of snakes"
soliloQuized this grizzled bachelor, as
he smoked his old wood pipe: IL have
killed the critters by the dozen, bat l
never could bring myself to put them
in the collection Terror had evil
IDENTIFY no place in this omission as
the presence Of ella lizards from
Arizona, acknowledged creatures
from the rainless deserts of the South
west, centipedes and tarantulas, horn
ed toads and other hideous beasts,
will testify. The snake department
and the stamp field are the only two
fields the old collector has not broken
into.-N. Y. Mail and Express.