Charles N. Anway was born May 1, 1857 in Ionia County Michigan and died December 11, 1949 in Juneau. Mostly he lived in Haines and loved to garden.
“Strawberries were the first crop that Anway grew. He got his start from Jack Dalton’s garden at Porcupine (up valley from Haines). Dalton told him that he got the berry from a man named Dixon about twenty years before. This strawberry is without a rival in size or quality and it does well almost everywhere in the valley, as the climate and soil seem well suited for the plant. During the picking season, Anway would hire as many as 20 women and girls. Pickers were paid 5 cents per box, and they could often earn five dollars a day picking as many as 150 crates. The crates sold for $4.50 each so he was grossing about $720 per day. He continued this for about 25 years, shipping berries to Skagway, then north on the train, and also shipping to Juneau when ships were available. Haines became known as the Strawberry Capital of Alaska. In the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle, Anway won a certificate of honor for his “strawberries in glass.” His obituaries called him Alaska’s the “Strawberry King of Alaska”. The community of Haines held an annual “Strawberry Festival” in his honor for many years.”
Rootsweb – Bob Henderson, Haines (Notes by R. T. Edwards).