AEMI

90 AEMI JOURNAL 2015
2005:85-86). Additionally Constance
Furuhjelm, sister to the governor, resided
at Sitka as a family member from 1859
September 14 onward. She was attended
to by her personal chamber-maid Vendla
Gustava Pernell who several years earlier
had been hired at Helsingfors, Finland,
and did so up 1861 November 29 when
Constance Furuhjelm died at Sitka of a
massive fit of Grand Mal (Christensen
2005:108,172, 213). Pernell is by now
also fully identified.
During Furuhjelm’s fourth 1865-
1871 term now as Military Governor
with seat at Nikolajefsk-on-the-Amur,
Pacific Siberia, Furuhjelm’s personal
valet, the Borgå city born Gustaf Adolf
Lönnqvist, hired at Helsingfors, is fully
identified. But Madame Furuhjelm’s
chamber-maid, Mina (Wilhelmina)
___?, as well as Household Matron Lotta
(Charlotta) Nordström, and the family’s
njanja Greta (Margaretha) ____? born
in Finland, a former convict condemned
to life in Siberia, hired at Nikolajefskon-the-Amur,
are all yet unidentified
(Furuhjelm1932:164, 167, 169).
Johan Joachim von Bartram’s and
his wife Margaretha Charlotta Swartz’s
two household servants: von Bartram’s
valet the Helsingfor born Johan Fredrik
Forstén hired 1839 at Helsingfors (Enckell
1996:43), and Madame von Bartram’s
chamber-maid Helena Catharina
Ruuth born in Jorois parish, have also
been identified (Enckell 2002b:103).
There is a small sun-shine story attached
to the Etholén’s, and the Furuhjelm’s
personal servants, and a sad one
attached to the von Bartram one.
On the Etholéns’ return to Finland
the former governor’s valet Carl Jacob
Enberg married in the spring of 1846
at Helsingfors Madame Etholén’s chamber-maid
Henrika Lovisa Sahlström,
one of those two great female beauties at
Sitka in the early part of the 1840s. Two
sons were born to them before Enberg
died of TB. A few years later his widow
stepped into a second marriage.
In the summer of 1860? Governor
Furuhjelm’s valet Petter Wilhelm Wikström
married at Sitka Constance Furuhjelm’s
chamber-maid Wendla Gustava
Pernell. In 1861 on November 29 a
son was born to them at Sitka (Enckell
1996:55). After the Furuhjelms’ departure
from Sitka in April of 1864 the
young Wikström family chose to remain
at Sitka up to the time Russian America
was sold, and then in 1867 on October
18 was handed over to the USA. Sometimes
thereafter the Wikström family returned
back to Finland. Here the family
prospered. After the death of Wikström’s
wife Wendla Gustava, Wikström remarried
and had a second child born shortly
before he himself died in the late 1800.
Their first-born son inherited it-all and
at age 30 he sold everything at auction.
Naval Lieutenant Captain von Bartram’s
valet Johan Fredrik Forstén married
at Sitka in the fall of 1843 Madame
von Bartram’s chamber-maid Helena
Catharina Ruuth the other one of those
two great female beauties at Sitka in
the early 1840s. In 1844 on March 1
the couple’s first child was born at Sitka
and named Helena Margaretha (Enckell
1996:52). A few days later the mother
died in the aftermaths of child birth,
and was buried at Sitka’s small Evangelical
Lutheran cemetery. Nothing sure is
known about the child’s where-about,
beyond the fact that Madame von Bartram
had valiantly cared for her, at least