Category: Skagway families

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Unsolved mystery: the lost location of a 1922 painting by Eliza Barchus…

I recently acquired a remarkable oil painting from a friend and longtime Skagway resident, depicting a sawtooth mountain range and the foot of a glacier in the foreground. According to the previous owner, it was painted here in Skagway in 1922 by Eliza Barchus, a prolific American landscape painter (1857-1959). We know that Barchus was visiting her local friends, the Dedman family.

Here’s the mystery: the precise location which it depicts is not known. The sawtooth range looks awfully familiar to me, but no one I’ve spoken to so far can quite place it. It’s likely that the glacier in the foreground has receded significantly in the century since it was put to canvas. So now I open this question to all you art history sleuths: where exactly was this painted?!

You can contact me through the comment section below, or by sending a DM to my husband Reed McCluskey on Facebook. Once we crack the mystery, I’ll post the names (if you like) of the winning guesses.

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Mary Edith Dell

The Dell family lived in Skagway in 1948: Father Edwin, mother Elizabeth and their 3 children. Edwin and Elizabeth were teachers at the Skagway School until 1957. During their time in Skagway, Mary Edith was born to join her siblings Ralph Dell and Dorothy Dell. Mary was born June 1, 1948 and when the family moved to Morocco and then the Philippines she enjoyed the international life. Her father worked for the federal government. They eventually moved back to California where she eventually settled in Tuolumne County with her husband Bob Louis and their children.

Mary died December 23, 2023 in Sonora and lived at the same senior facility as my mother-in-law, Sally McCluskey! I really wish I would have known her background and been able to compare notes on Skagway. I found her obituary in the paper this morning and was amazed of the journeys that people from Skagway take in their lifetimes!

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Laura Matthews

We’ve been hanging out in Skagway this summer, and working on cleaning up the Pioneer Cemetery both online at Findagrave and physically in the cemetery. Lately the mosquitoes up there are fierce! So we will wait until a really windy day or a freezing temperature to continue. Here’s a picture of me repainting the name on the board of Laura Matthews 1923-1926, That Findagrave memorial # is 116980137

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Mr. & Mrs John H. McIntyre

I recently saw this Case and Draper photograph of Mr & Mrs McIntyre online. John was a postal carrier for White Pass on November 28, 1902 when he drowned in Atlin Lake. This according to an account by Graves in his book “On the White Pass Payroll” and also on a Rootsweb posting. His grave is in the Atlin Cemetery – Findagrave # 78004440

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Thomas Marshall Word Jr.

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I have received enquiries about Thomas Marshall Word Jr. or Tom Word from a woman who purchased historic photos of the Word family at an estate many years ago. She contacted me because she intends to put them up for sale on Ebay, which is great, so that everyone who is interested can have a chance to acquire them. It was several years ago that I was doing some research on him, but apparently I never wrote up the story. I quote here from Jeff Smith on his Soapy Website:

“For a few years now I have been exchanging interesting e-mails with Fred Wood, a great-grandson of Skagway’s Thomas Marshall Word. If Fred and I are correct Word is the man who acted as the go-between for Soapy and the vigilante’s after John Fay shot and killed Deputy U.S. Marshal Rowan and Andy McGrath. Word was involved in the hunt for the gang after Soapy had been killed and came real close to becoming famous as the man who captured the three top gangsters, Bowers, Foster, and Wilder. Hours later he was one of the guards protecting those same three bunco steerers locked away on the third floor of the Burkhard Hotel. Tom Word twice aided in keeping a blood thirsty vigilante mob from orchestrating a wholesale slaughter and that’s something his g-grandson can be proud of.”

Jeff has an excellent write up of the information that he has gathered here:

http://soapysmiths.blogspot.com/2010/03/tom-word-skagway-vigilante-1898.html

Anyway, for those of you who are interested, below and above here are a couple of photos of the photos.IMG_0200[1] IMG_0201[1]

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Ernest J. Matthews

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The other day I was at an estate sale in Skagway and picked up this old postcard. After doing a little research I found that the author was indeed related to Bud Matthews who recently passed away here in Skagway.

Ernest J. Matthews was born about 1893 in Idaho. He married Catherine A. Lowe from Utah and they moved to Skagway around 1924 when their first son was born, James, known to everyone here as Bud.

Before they moved to Skagway however, they went to St. Michael’s, Alaska and apparently opened a Bakery Store there. Pictured above in the postcard is Ernest and Catherine. Ernest wrote this little card to Catherine’s brother, Lynn Hardy Lowe who lived in Salt Lake City. At the time it was written, 1920, he was about 7. Sadly Little Lynn died in 1925 from appendicitis. (My own son had a ruptured appendix at age 7 and how lucky we are today that surgery and an excellent hospital in Albuquerque saved his life.)

The card is signed E.M. and was written on December 7, 1920.

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Vernette Allis Longuet – First Teacher in Skagway 1898

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Vernette Allis was born on July 6, 1867 in Elyria, Ohio. Her father, Spencer Franklin Allis was a farmer. He and his wife Elizabeth Kales,  had two sons and two daughters. She moved out west to Washinton and on June 28, 1892 she married Maxine L. Longuet in Seattle, King County, Washington.  They had a son, Louis Leonard Longuet born 1 Sep 1893 in Seattle, Washington who registered for the draft in both WW1 and WW2 and died January 12, 1958 in Portland, Oregon.

In 1898 the little family came to Skagway and Vernette was the first teacher in a little cabin against the hill according to a photo in the Edith Feero collection of photos in Washington. Her Husband, Max, entered the Yukon in May 1898, and presumably she stayed here in Skagway with little Louis to teach. They returned to Oregon after the gold rush and Mr. Longuet died in 1950 and Vernette died on June 1, 1955 in Marion, Oregon.  Above is a picture of her as a baby in 1867, hope to find a later pic sometime.

She wrote a book called “My trip to Alaska in ’98” which I have not seen, but would be very interesting.

 

 

Puget Sound Regional Archives; Edith Feero photo collection Washington Digital Library; Family Search for 1875 NY census; Rootsweb contribution by Kathy Gies;