Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1909-09-02
JEWETT CITY
Miss Marie ReidesseIle Wins in Con-
in Contest for Alaskan Claims---Rev.
T. p. Joynt's Death Regretted.

Miss Marie Reidesselle, who lived in
4 this town some years ago, owned a
! fine farm which she sold and left for
Alaska, where through some of her
| ancestors she inherited valuable min
| ing country, rich in gold. She found
her claim contested and came back TO
Jewett City, but a few years since re-
turned to southern California to push
the fight legally for her rights in
Alaska. Fred S. Leonard of this place
received this week a copy of recent
Los Angeles paper giving the following
interesting story:
| SANTA ANITA CANYON WOMAN
HERMIT WINS. The woman hermit
of Santa Anita Canyon has become an
heiress- She is about to leave the
| little mountain hut which she built
with her own hands and where she
lived all alone. She is going to Alaska
to collect fortune there awaiting her.
When she returns she will have a
new house, but it will still be her
mitage. Wealth she insists, will not
| induce her to go back to live among
men.
She is planning a fine stone her
mitage. more forbidding and lonesome
than this one, and less accessible.
1t is not exactly a heritage that
awaits her in Alaska; as the outcome
of a big lawsuit. she has come into
possession of very valuable mining
claims near Nome and Dawson. She
was one of the women pioneers who
rushed into the Klondike in the early
days of the mining excitement.
She is vivacious French woman
named Marie Reidesselle.
She says she led the life of pioneer
there. enduring fearful hardships. She
went out into the wilderness like the
men, driving her own dog teams. fend-
ing for herself From the life of ease
and shelter she learned to fight for
existence in the grim old Arctic
Somewhere in the midst Of her tu-
multuous life of ups and downs. she
found some fine mines; also she got a
crouch of civilization that seems
strong enough to last her through the
balance of her life.
The winters got too severe, or rather
her vitality becacme unable to stand
their severity. She came out" as the
Alaska people say, and Baldwin gave
her permission TO erect a little hermit
age in the Santa Anita. There she
has lived for several years.
She spent weeks and months build
ing house. 1t is one of the tourists
sights-to her rage. Imagine the ex-
asperation of hermit trying to bury
herself from the world and building
such an attractive house that all the
tourists make a bee line for it,
Her bedroom is a tiny roohess cor
raj made of gunny sack with a floor
ing of pine needles. Her dining room
is a quaint little ramada. So you see
her bedroom has walls, but no roof,
and her dining room has a roof, but
no walls.
Her drawing room is beautiful. She
built it of cobblestones picked up in
the wash of Santa Anita creek Around
the bottom she has banked the earth
up high. and the roof has an artistic
sweep that would be the envy of a
bungalow architect.
Inside the drawing room she has a
piano. which she plays with technique
and rare skill. Nothing but classical
music is heard by the coyotes of the
Santa Anita wash. If any one of her
occasional guests asks for rag time.
she abruptly closes the piano-and
ends the recital.
Strewn over the floor she has rare
Arctic skins for rugs Among the other
rugs are four plain dog skins which she
cherishes most of all. When she
came out" she killed her dog team
with her own hands and skinned their
carcasses by way of memento.
She says that her claims have been
in litigation for some years: that the
lawsuit has now been decided in her
favor. and from now she win be a