Alison "Eilley" Oram Bowers (September 6, 1826 â€" October 27, 1903)
was a Scottish American woman who was, in her time, one of the richest
women in the United States, and owner of the Bowers Mansion, one of
the largest houses in the western United States. A farmer's daughter,
Bowers married as a teenager, and her husband converted to Mormonism
before the couple immigrated to the United States. After briefly
living in Nauvoo, Illinois, she became an early Nevada pioneer, farmer
and miner, and was made a millionaire by the Comstock Lode mining
boom. Married and divorced two times, she married a third time and
became a mother of three children but outlived them all.Following the
deaths of her first 2 children in infancy then her husband, with the
third child dying a few short years after, and with the collapse of
the Nevada mining economy, Eilley Bowers became bankrupt and
destitute. Eilley reinvented herself as "The Famous Washoe Seeress", a
professional scryer and fortune-teller in Nevada and California. Worth
over $4 million at the height of the Nevada mining boom,[citation
needed] she died penniless in a care home in Oakland,
California.Alison Oram (sometimes spelled "Orrum"), commonly called
Eilley, was born on September 6, 1826, in Forfar, Scotland. Her only
brother John was born in 1821, and it appears that her father's work
forced them to move frequently. John was born in Dunfermline and at
some point during their childhood, they moved eighty miles southwest
of Forfar to Clackmannan. It was here that she married Stephen Hunter
in the Church of Scotland at the age of fifteen. Stephen soon met some
Mormon missionaries and became a believer. He was baptized into the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and agreed to immigrate to
America. Eilley never converted but traveled with her husband. They
sailed for America on January 29, 1849. By the time the Hunters
reached Salt Lake City, the strain on their marriage was evident.
After eight years of marriage, Bowers and Stephen separated in early
1850.In 1853, Bowers married farmer Alexander Cowan. Two years later
the couple joined a mission to Mormon Station, near the western edge
of Utah Territory. They brought with them Alexander's 12-year-old
nephew who had recently been orphaned by the death of Alexander's
sister. The following year, the mission relocated to Washoe Valley in
a settlement they named Franktown. The Cowans purchased 320 acres (130
ha) of land for $100 (approximately $2700 today). The existing ranch
contained a dwelling house and coral. They stayed for two seasons. Eilley Bowers Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter