The Sheldon Jackson Museum’s July Artifact of the Month is a Tlingit spruce root basket (SJ-I-A-830). The basket was collected by Aaron Taylor Simson while he was in Sitka and was generously donated to the museum, along with over forty other artifacts, by Simson’s granddaughter, Grayce C. Alexander. The basket is a fine example of 19th century twined spruce root weaving and false embroidery.
The spruce root basket is cylindrical in shape and features two kind of weaving and a colorful design band with dyed weft and false embroidery work. The base of the basket,done in “between weave” has a central spiral of purple dyed weft, a median band of red dyed weft and a band of black dyed weft at the turn. The dyed red, yellow, and black is done in the strawberry weave. The design band’s false embroidery in natural and orange dyed grass combined with the dyed weft forms a row of “butterfly pattern (Emmons design 4) at the top and bottom and a variation of the “wave” pattern (Emmons design 37) in between. The rim of the basket is Emmons border 4 with a broken band of false embroidery just below the rim.
Originally from Rayne Township, Pennsylvania, Aaron Taylor Simson was born in 1848. He lived in Sitka from 1889 until 1894 when he and his wife, Margaret had to move due to the latter’s poor health. While in Alaska, Simson taught shoemaking at the Industrial Training School, the forerunner of Sheldon Jackson High School and later, College, and collected artifacts and photographs.
The July Artifact of the Month is just one of many artifacts that make up the Aaron Taylor Simson/William Albert Simson Collection donated by Grace Alexander. In addition to this basket and several other Tlingit and Unangan (Aleut) basketry pieces, Alexander gave the museum forty- three other artifacts including several pairs of old style Tlingit moccasins, two carved Tlingit grease dishes, a small Tlingit bentwood box with lid and corners painted red, Inupiaq children’s mukluks, and an Inupiaq bird snare. Shortly after donating these artifacts to the Sheldon Jackson Museum, Alexander donated her grandfather’s photographs from his time in Alaska to the Alaska
State Library Historical Collections. The wonderful collection of photographs (PCA 382D) are mostly of the Sitka mission school and students and are available for viewing on VILDA.
The Sheldon Jackson Museum has more than two-hundred and fifty Tlingit baskets in its collection. The July Artifact of the Month and many other examples of Tlingit artifacts may be seen at the museum during operating hours – every day between 9am and 4:30pm, except some holidays. General admission is $7, $6 for seniors, and free for those 18 and under or members of either the Friends of the Sheldon Jackson Museum or Friends of the Alaska State Museum.
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