Harriet arrives in Skagway


Although we have covered Harriet Pullen before, it was on this day, September 8, 1897 that she arrived in Skagway full of hope for a new life. She left behind a bankrupt farm and four children to join her husband here to scratch out a living. Starting a restaurant in a tent and cooking meals, her husband ran a string of horses across White Pass. After earning enough money, she bought a log cabin and then sent for her boys to help her.
Soon after, she and her husband split and sold the packing business. She told people that she was a widow. She purchased a large frame house from Captain Moore and named it the Pullen House. All that is left today is the chimney, which is now more clearly seen since the city has cut down all the trees in the area in the past month. Nasty trees, who needs them?

from Alaska: Saga of a Born Land by Borneman

Annie Maria Maltby

Annie Maria Hanson was born in 1860 in Canada and married John Robert Maltby in 1882 in New Brunswick. John was an attorney who practiced in Dawson until 1903 when he died of tuberculosis. Annie moved to Skagway and roomed at Ma Pullen’s Hotel where she died on this day, June 18, 1910 of heart disease (she was 50).

census; family obituary online.