Erina Ellen Cherosky Callahan, nee Pavlof
Sergai and Erinia Cherosky worked for many years in the 1880s as translators for Jack McQuesten at his trading posts on the Yukon River.1) Francois Mercier established Belle Isle, an Alaska Commercial Co. (ACCo) post at Eagle, Alaska in 1882/83. The ACCo was a successor to the Russian company and many of their employees were of Russian-native parentage. Sergai Cherosky (Chiroski) was an interpreter for Mercier at Eagle for one year. The next year Sergai and his wife Erina stayed at Tanana and Erina met traders McQuesten, Harper, and Mayo. (Donald W. Clark, Fort Reliance, Yukon: An Archaeological Assessment. Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1995: 1, 28.)) Erina was the sister of Minook, a long-time translator for McQuesten.2)
For the next three years, Cherosky was again interpreter at Eagle for Harper and Mayo.3) Sergai discovered gold in the Birch Creek, Alaska area but lost his claims to white miners. Erina and Sergai divorced, and Sergai returned to Koyukuk. Erina's sister Kate married Chris Sonnickson, a miner on the Fortymile River.4) Erina married freighter Dan Callahan at Circle City in 1904 and they had children Richard and Helen. Callahan was a Fairbanks city councilman from 1906 to 1915 and was associate editor of the Fairbanks Times in 1907.5) When Kate McQuesten visited the north after Jack’s death, she stayed from 1910 to 1912. It was reported that she visited Fairbanks and was entertained by Mrs. Dan Callahan, the former Erinia Cherosky. The two travelled the old haunts of their families along the Yukon for the next two years.6)