Alison "Eilley" Oram Bowers | |
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| Born | Alison Oram September 6, 1826 Forfar, Scotland |
| Died | October 27, 1903 (aged 77) Oakland, California, USA |
| Nationality | Scottish-American |
| Known for | miner, socialite, fortune-teller |
| Spouse(s) | Stephen Hunter (1842–1850) Alexander Cowan (1853–1860) Lemuel Sanford "Sandy" Bowers (1859–1868) |
Alison "Eilley" Oram Bowers (September 6, 1826 – 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.
Her first two children died in infancy; then her husband; and the third child a few years after. 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. She died penniless in a care home in Oakland, California.