Susan Bowen, nee Mellett (1870 – 1962)

Susan Mellett was born in Dublin, Ireland.((Colin Beairsto, "Making Camp: Rampart House on the Porcupine River." Prepared for the Yukon Heritage Branch, March 1997: 112, 115.)) She taught in the "Ragged Schools" on the streets during a time of political unrest. A prolonged period of unrest started in 1879 when Irish tenant farmers protested the practices of their British landlords.((Hannah Tolman, //Women of the Anglican Church in the Yukon.// Whitehorse: The Old Log Church Museum, 2019: 2-3.))  

Mellett was the first single woman hired by the Church Missionary Society to go and teach in a northern Canadian mission.((Ken Spotswood, //The Rush for Souls,// St. Paul’s Anglican Pro-Cathedral, Dawson City, 2002: 34-35.)) She was twenty-two in 1893 when Bishop Bompas met her at St. Michael and escorted her up the Yukon River to Forty Mile. Susan Millet taught at the mission day school for people of all sorts, sizes and ages - men, women and children. It was their first school and they were eager to learn.((“Reminiscences of Rev. R.J. Bowen.” //Northern Lights,// XXX, August 1941: 2-5.))

Susan also helped Mrs. Bompas with the household work [and presumably the eleven children that the Bompas’ had living in the house].((//Five Pioneer Women in the Anglican Church in the Yukon.// Whitehorse: Women's Auxiliary of the Anglican Church, 1983: 1-5.)) In 1898, when Mrs. Bompas was away, Susan nursed the bishop through a severe bout of scurvy.((Hannah Tolman, //Women of the Anglican Church in the Yukon.// Whitehorse: The Old Log Church Museum, 2019: 2-3.)) Bishop Bompas spent many hours teaching Mellett Tukudh, Archdeacon McDonald’s translation of the Gwichin language.((Myra Rutherdale, //Women and the White Man’s God.// UBC Press, 2002: 66.))   
In 1894, Mellett accompanied the Canhams, a missionary couple, to Rampart House as Mrs. Canham was in poor health. Mellett remembered an active school when the Gwichin were in town, but they were often away hunting and fishing. The winter of 1895/96 was harsh, and she reported near famine conditions. She also went eighteen months without mail as the trading post was closed and there was no regular traffic. In June 1896 the Canhams left on furlough and Mellett returned to Forty Mile.((Colin Beairsto, "Making Camp: Rampart House on the Porcupine River.” Prepared for the Yukon Heritage Branch, March 1997: 112, 115.)) 

Richard Bowen met Susan Mellett before he settled at Circle in 1896 and they did not meet again until June 1897 when Bowen was on his way to Dawson for the first time. Susan was suffering poor health and decided to return to Ireland. Bowen saw her off and then took the next boat to Dawson, arriving on 17 June 1897. Susan made it to St. Michael and received treatment from the medical officer of the Revenue Cutter Bear of the United States Navy. She then returned to Forty Mile where she had charge of the mission while Bompas travelled to Fort Selkirk.((Richard Bowen, “Incidents in the Life of The Reverend Richard John Bowen.” Pages 170, 173-174. Government of Canada, Libraries and Archives, 2025 website: Collection search - Richard John Bowen fonds [textual record]))
In early 1897, Bowen moved the house out of the area chosen by Constantine for the Police Reserve and rebuilt it at the current site of St. Paul’s Anglican church. The First Nation community was moved down to Moosehide. The rectory had three rooms, kitchen, bedroom and living room. The door was always open to any tired traveller.((Richard Bowen, “Incidents in the Life of The Reverend Richard John Bowen.” Page 183-184. Government of Canada, Libraries and Archives, 2025 website: Collection search - Richard John Bowen fonds [textual record]))

Hearing that Bompas was unwell, Bowen travelled from Dawson to see him. Bompas proposed that Bowen and Mellett marry and take charge of the Buxton Mission and school. Bompas would go to Dawson and take over from Bowen and where he might get much-needed medical treatment. Bowen travelled to Forty Mile from Dawson in the winter [of 1897] and proposed.((Richard Bowen, “Incidents in the Life of The Reverend Richard John Bowen.” Pages 170, 173-174. Government of Canada, Libraries and Archives, 2025 website: Collection search - Richard John Bowen fonds [textual record]))

Bompas became seriously ill with scurvy and so Bowen left Dawson on 12 January 1898 in very cold weather. The party had to camp due to a storm and Bowen was due to be married on 13 January, so he hurried ahead of his companions. Bowen awake the next day as the head of a household of twelve persons with a store of flour and spoiled bacon. Bompas hurried to Dawson to hold services on the next Sunday. He handed over $40 before he left and promised to pay Susan Mellett in the next summer for services rendered. Bowen managed to trade or buy enough food and the bishop received medical treatment.((Richard Bowen, “Incidents in the Life of The Reverend Richard John Bowen.” Pages 175-179. Government of Canada, Libraries and Archives, 2025 website: Collection search - Richard John Bowen fonds [textual record])) 	Bompas’ condition worsened and he asked Bowen to relieve him so Bowen travelled back to Dawson, leaving Bompas in the care of Mrs. Bowen until the arrival of the first boat in the spring. The school children were sent out to look for lamb’s quarters, the only green shoots in the country, and Bompas improved, much to delight of Mrs. Bowen and the school children. The spring boat brought Mrs. Bompas from Fort Yukon, where she had been stranded all winter, and Susan Bowen joined Rev. Bowen in Dawson.((Richard Bowen, “Incidents in the Life of The Reverend Richard John Bowen.” Page 182. Government of Canada, Libraries and Archives, 2025 website: Collection search - Richard John Bowen fonds [textual record])) 

Mrs. Bowen arrived in Dawson in the summer of 1898 and applied herself to the work with great energy. She commented on the lack of cleanliness in Bowen’s house and the amount of rubbish collected although Bowen and his friends had done their best to tidy up. Bowen collected paper of any kind and tins of screws and nails from the dump as they were difficult to obtain in the north. They lived in Flewelling’s 20’ x 16’ log rectory, probably the first house built in Dawson, erected in 1896.((Richard Bowen, “Incidents in the Life of The Reverend Richard John Bowen.” Page 183-184. Government of Canada, Libraries and Archives, 2025 website: Collection search - Richard John Bowen fonds [textual record]))

Reverend Bowen contracted typhoid in May 1898, and they returned to England for his convalescence. Bishop Bompas promised not to call them unless he was desperate, and the call came within the year to build a church at Whitehorse. The Bowens came in on the second passenger train after the railroad was finished. The first Anglican church in Whitehorse was finished in the autumn of 1900 and was used for the next sixty years.((//Five Pioneer Women in the Anglican Church in the Yukon.// Whitehorse: Women's Auxiliary of the Anglican Church, 1983: 1-5.))
The first school in Whitehorse was started in 1901 in the Presbyterian Church. There were forty-one students of school age in town. The interim school ran for a year with increasing enrollment. Patrick Campbell was the first teacher. A junior division was created in January 1902 and Susan Bowen stepped in to teach the primary pupils. After the new two-room school was built on Lambert Street, two teachers were brought in to take over the classes.((Marjorie E. Almstrom, “A Century of Schooling: Education in the Yukon 1861 – 1961.” Whitehorse, 1991: 90.)) 
In the spring of 1903, Reverend Bowen became seriously ill again, and the Bowens left the Yukon for good. They worked in Nanaimo and Ladysmith in British Columbia, and then moved to London, Ontario.((//Five Pioneer Women in the Anglican Church in the Yukon.// Whitehorse: Women's Auxiliary of the Anglican Church, 1983: 1-5.)) Susan Bowen kept her interest in the Yukon, and the Christ Church Branch of the Women’s Auxiliary made her a Diocesan Life Member of the organization for her lifetime of work helping others.((Hannah Tolman, //Women of the Anglican Church in the Yukon.// Whitehorse: The Old Log Church Museum, 2019: 6.))