Seward daily gateway., 1924-10-25
(Stroller's Weekly.)


 man who prevented wholesale mas sacre of the white residents of Sitka in the year 1879 when her cousin, Chief Katlean, was out for revenge for the loss of five Indians drowned from the fishing schooner San Dieyo and who has spent the past three weeks in Juneau, left for Sitka with a party of Indians in a small boat Thursday morning. Much of the three weeks Mary spent in Juneau was with the family of Rev. Father Kashevaroff, having, as she says, known Mrs. Kashevaroff since she was lone leetle girl" Accompanied by Mrs. Kashevaroff she paid visit to the editor of the Strollers Week ly at his office Wednesday evening when the following interesting story of her life was obtained. Inciden- tally, Mary speaks English fairly we'll but when she failed to under stand questions propounded Mrs Kashevaroff would come to the res cue in the Thlinget language, which made it easy both for the interviewer and the interviewed.
 Becomes Chiefs Bride.
 Mary Thlantich was the daughter of Thlinget chief and was born at Hoonah about 75 years ago. Mary is not certain as to her exact age. When she reached young womanhood .she thinks she was 15 or 16 years of age-she was given in marriage to the young chief of tribe of h. dians living at Fort Simpson, Brit ish Columbia, the bridal trip being made from Hoonah in a canoe. Short ly thereafter the young couple went to Seattle to purchase a sloop, the trip being made in a canoe in which padded instead of oars were used. Mary thinks it was 5S or 60 years ago that they visited Seattle, which she says was just little village, only few houses"
 The young King George chief and his bride returned to the North. The following year was sad one for Mary, who lost the only child she ever had and also lost her chief hus- band, the latter being drowned Toys I to her own tribe and shortly there after the seat of the Thlinget gov ernment was moved from Hoonah to Sitka, where it has ever since re- mained
 No. 3 Joins No. 1.
 Shortly after going to Sitka Mary married a white man, an eX-sOldier by the name of Michael Travers. Michael was not long spared to en- joy marital bliss and he passed away within few years. Mary, in due time, married again and white man by the name of Jennings. But again the cruel waters robbed her of her own, Jennings being drowned as was her first husband, the chief of the Port Simpsons.
 But Time is a wonderful healer of shattered hearts and when an other white man won and wooed Mary the memory of her previous husbands became sacred reminis- censes to be reviewed in her heart alone and she yielded to the blan- of No. and again be- came the wife of a white man. But the grim reaper was still on the job and within a few years Mary was a widow once more, two of her hus- bands having been drowned and their bodies claimed by the sea and two of them buried at Sitka where their relic could visit their graves and drop silent tears thereon when overcome with emotion.
 Returns to Her Own.
 But being four ties a widow had evidently not robbed Mary of her at for she was again sought in marriage-not by a white man but by no less a parsonage than Chief Thlantich of the Thlinget for the fifth time she was led to the altar. For many years she presided over the home of her chief and as first lady oe the small but select realm she reigned with becoming dignity and with an eye single to the welfare of the white population which she had ever befriended. But there came day when the relentless angel of death stalked abroad and touched Chief Thlantich with his dart. Sadness spread her mantle over Government House of the Thlingets and Mary was once more a widow and as such she has remained and probably will as she gently but firmly denies that she contemplates any further mat rimonial venture.
 When Mary's Friendship Counted
 It was while Mary was the wife of Travers and when Chief Katlean presided over the destinies of the Thlingets that Mary averted what would have probably wiped out the white inhabitants of Sitka. Five Indians had lost their lives, which while the whites were in no way responsible for it, was charged up to them by Katlean and in his narrow-gauge mind only white blood would atone for the loss. A final tribal council was in prog