October 3, 2024 • 17 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, relatively few women went with the initial stampedes to new mineral discoveries throughout the American frontiers. None went unescorted to so many remote, perilous places as Nellie Cashman—or until the age 80, as Nellie did.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show.
And we love to tell stories about our own history
and always are this day in histories, and our historical
segments were brought to us by the great folks at
Hillsdale College. Here's Roger McGrath to tell us the story
(00:31):
of a mining woman who sought her fortunes in a
man's world and became one of the greatest women of
the Old West. Doctor McGrath is a professor in southern
California and the author of Gunfighters, I Women and Vigilantes.
Violence on the Frontier. Here's Roger.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Known as a frontier Angel or the Saint of the Sourdoos,
Lillie Cashman was one of the greatest women who helped
make America's conquest to the frontier our Homeric era. She
ranged far and wide on every mining frontier, from Arizona
and Mexico in the south to Alaska and the Klondike
in the far north. She has not forgotten. She's an
(01:14):
inductee of the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame, the Arizona
Women's Hall of Fame, and Arizona Women's Heritage trail. There's
also a Nellie Cashman Day in Tombstone. She was a
character in the nineteen fifties TV series The Life and
Legend of Wyatt Earp, and the US Postal Service honored
(01:35):
her with a stamp in nineteen ninety four. Born in
County Cork, Ireland in eighteen forty five, Nellie is only
a teenager when she her sister Francis, and her widowed
mother leave Ireland sailed to Boston in eighteen sixty. When
the Civil War erupts, a shortage of young men allows
Nelly to find work as a bellop in a hotel.
(01:58):
Not many bellops look like Nelly, a beautiful and finally
featured young woman with waist length, brunette hair, flawless fair skin,
and sparkling expressive eyes. Here's Jane Baker, author of the
Nellie Cashman biography tough Nut Angel, the tale of her
real life adventures of the Old West.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
There's a legend that says that Nelly met generally Ulis's
f's Grant and had a conversation with him that ended
in him suggesting that she go to the West because
she would fit better there.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
With the end of the Civil War, the cashman decide
it's California for them. They arrive in San Francisco after
sailing on steamships and crossing through the jungles and mountains
of Panama on burrows Francis or Fanny as she's called,
Mary's irishman Tom Cunningham and starts a family. Nelly is
(02:55):
off for mining strikes in Arizona, Nevada, and Idaho. In
each new mining camp, she establishes a boarding house in
a restaurant, builds it into a profitable enterprise, then sells
out and moves on. Any miner down on his luck
eats for free at Nelly's, and Nellie is always ready
to grub stake a prospector. She also has a talent
(03:18):
for the healing arts and nurses many an injured or
ill miner back to health. Here's the story of the
Old West Marshall Trimble, otherwise known as the will Rogers
of Arizona.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Nellie took great pride in the fact that she never
turned away a hungry miner who had no money to
pay for his meal or board. And when there was
a need to raise money, whether it's for churches and schools,
or hospitals or a family of a miner killed in
a mining accident. Oh Nellie would head downtown for the
saloons or the brothels with her hat turned upside down,
(03:55):
and she always left with a hat full of money.
The source of these donations never bothered her, she said
one time. Whether the money comes from an upstanding citizen
or a member of an outlaw faction makes no difference
to me, and the money doesn't know the difference either.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
In eighteen seventy four, and Nelly joins a party of
two hundred Nevada miners headed for the Cassiar Mountains in
northern British Columbia, near the border of the Yukon. The
region is practically unknown and all but inaccessible, but the miners,
including Nellie, the only female, reached their destination in straight
(04:36):
gold on the upper reaches of the Stickeen River and
long its major tributary, Deece Creek. It's only fall when
winter comes to the Cassiars. The miners are caught unprepared
for the heavy snowfalls and severe cold, as their supplies
dwindow doesn't begin falling ill with scurvy their blood. Nelly
(04:58):
is not among them. He left earlier for a vacation
in Victoria on Vancouver Island. When Reard reaches Victoria, the
miners are entrapped by snow and ice and suffering terribly.
Nelly purchases two thousand pounds of supplies, including plenty of
lime juice, hires six men, and heads for Deese Creek
(05:21):
at Wrangell, Alaska. US customs officers try to dissuade her
from what they term a mad trip, but Nelly pushes on.
When the commander of Fort Wrangell here's a woman is
headed into the cassiars, he dispatches the lieutenant with a
squad of soldiers to rescue her. They don't catch up
(05:42):
with Nelly until high up on the Stickeen River. Nearly
exhausted and suffering greatly from the cold, the soldiers find
Nelly camp comfortably on the ice of this frozen sticken.
The lieutenant says she is cooking her evening meal by
the heat of a wood fire and humming a lively air.
(06:03):
The soldiers greatly accept her offer of hot coffee and
food and return without her. The winter weather is so
severe that people in coastal settlements think Nelly must have died.
Here again is Jane Baker.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
There was a small avalanche and Nellie's tent was buried
ten feet deep in snow. Now when I heard about this,
I wondered, how did she figure out how to get
out of there? Well, if you spit your spit will
go down. So what she did was spit and climb
the opposite directions, and she climbed out of the hole.
(06:40):
She does herself up out of it.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
After seventy seven days on the trail and digging herself
out of a snowslide, Nelly reaches Dese Creek. Upon hearing
of Nelly's trek, a newspaper called it an extraordinary feet
by an indomitable female who possesses all the vi facity
as well as the push and energy inherent to her race.
(07:04):
With lime, juice and good food, Nellie nurses every one
of the two hundred snowed in miners back to good health.
She is called the Angel of the Cassiars.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And when we come back, we'll continue with the story
of Nellie Cashman here on our American Stories. Lieh Habib
here the host of our American Stories. Every day on
this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country.
(07:40):
Stories from our big cities and small towns. But we
truly can't do the show without you. Our stories are
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love what you hear, go to Auramericanstories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
a lot. Go to Alamericanstories dot com and give, and
(08:10):
we return to our American Stories to continue with Roger
McGrath and the story of Nellie Cashman.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Nellie stays in British Columbia for another three years, operating
her businesses and raising money to build Saint Joseph's Hospital
in Victoria. In eighteen seventy eight, Nelly returns to San
Francisco to visit her mother in the Cunninghams Fanny and
her husband, now of three boys and two girls, who
love their aunt nell and are fascinated by her many adventures.
(08:41):
A new mining strike soon sends Nellie to Tucson in
Arizona Territory. She opens the Delmonico Restaurant, the first business
in Tucson owned by a woman, but in eighteen eighty
she heads for the new silver strike at Tombstone. She
takes over operation of the Russhouse hotel, and within weeks
(09:02):
becomes part owner. One of the prospectors she feeds for
free and grubstakes is Edward Doheny, who later becomes one
of America's great oilmen. Not long after Nelly begins operating
the House hotel, her sister's husband dies of tuberculosis. Nelly
rushes to San Francisco and brings Fanny and her children
(09:24):
to Tombstone to live in the home immediately behind the
Russ House. In eighteen eighty three, Fanny dies at tuberculosis
and that Nell finishes a job of rearing the Cunningham children.
When Nelly arrives in Tombstone, there is no Catholic church
here again as Marshall Trimble.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
In eighteen eighty there was an article into Tombstone Epitah
that said Nellie Cashman, the irrepressible, started out yesterday to
raise funds for the building of a Catholic church. We
don't know what success attended her first effort, but there
is going to be a Catholic church in Tombstone before
many more days, if Nelly has to build it herself.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
She convinces the owners of the Crystal Palace Saloon. One
of the owners is Wyatt herb to allow Sunday services
to be held there until the church is built. Nelly
leads the way in fundraising for what becomes a Sacred
Heart Church. Nelly also helps build the first school in
Tombstone and the first non military hospital in Arizona, Saint
(10:31):
Mary's in Tucson. She also establishes a fund for prospectors
injured in mining accidents and serves as treasurer of Tombstone's
chapter of the Land League of Ireland. Nelly becomes one
of the most influential and respected figures in Tombstone. Here
again is Jane Baker.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
During the time she was raising those kids in Tombstone,
the gunfight at the Ok Corral happened, and Nellie knew
all of those players, Doc Holliday Wyatt or all his brothers.
She knew the mayor of Tombstone named John Clumb, who
thought she was absolutely wonderful and wrote glowing reports of her.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
John Clum, the publisher of the Tombstone Epitaph and Tombstone's
first mayor, said of Nelly her frank manner, her self
reliant spirit, and her emphatic and fascinating Celtic brogue impressed
me very much and indicated that she was a woman
of strong character and marked individuality. Here's Marshall Tremble with
(11:39):
another story exemplifying Nelly's servant's heart.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
During the Christmas season of eighteen eighty three in Bisbee,
five men pulled a robbery, killing four people, including a
pregnant woman. They were caught, tried and convicted, and sentenced
to hang. Nellie took it upon herself to be their
mother confined, and just before the hanging, an entrepreneur had
built a grand stand outside the high walls of the
(12:06):
Tombstone Courthouse and was selling tickets to watch the hanging.
The outlaws pleaded with Nelly not to let their hanging
become a public spectacle, so the night before the event,
Nelly and some friends arrived late late in the evening
with tools in hand, and they tore it down. After
the five men were hanged, the authorities had planned to
(12:29):
donate their bodies to medical science, but the condemned men
protested to Nelly, so she sought to it that they
were given a proper burial and hired a guard to
protect their graves for several days.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
One day, a dying Mexican stumbles into tombstone and collapses
at the entrance to the russhouse. Nella has them carried
inside and put on a bed. Before he dies, he
mutters to her, Moulay, go to Moulay. Gold nuggets are
found in his pockets. Nelly and some twenty two stone
(13:04):
miners are soon exploring the desert inland from Moulay in
Baja California. The party runs out of water and several
of the men are on the verge of death from dehydration.
The Phoenix Herald newspaper reports that Nellie and two others
have died of thirst. Actually, Nelli is in better shape
(13:26):
than any of the men. She volunteers to go off
on her own, assuring her fellow prospectors a good angel
will guide her to water. She crosses miles of scorching
desert and miraculously comes upon an isolated mission. Not pausing
to rest, she organizes a rescue party and helps drive
(13:49):
burrows loaded with goat skin sacks of water back to
the miners. She arrives just in the Nico time in
eighteen ninety five, the age of fifty, Nelly is still
going strong when she arrives in Tucson, a newspaper reports
yesterday Tucson was visited by one of the most extraordinary
(14:10):
women in America, Nellie Cashman, whose name and face had
been familiar to every important mining camp or district on
the coast for more than twenty years. She rode into
the town from Casa Grande and horseback, a jount that
would nearly have prostrated the average man with fatigue. She
showed no sign of weariness and went about town in
(14:32):
that calm, business like manner that blogs particularly to her.
When news of the great strike in the Klondike reaches
the States, Nelly is off for the far North immediately.
She arrives in Daie, Alaska, during March eighteen ninety eight
and becomes one of the first women to take the
steep huell Coot Pass trail.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
At the summit on the Canadian border. The Mounties required
each stamp feeder to pack two thousand pounds of supplies
so they wouldn't let him in. I guess he didn't
want American citizens to perish on Canadian soil. Well. Fifty
four year old Nelly had to make several trips up
the snowpacked trail, but she was able to pass inspection,
(15:15):
and then while waiting for the eyes to thall, she
built a raft and then floated five hundred miles down
the Yukon River to reach Dawson, braving in a series
of fierce rapids along the way.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Nelle soon opens a restaurant and a grocery store, which
includes a small library. It becomes known as the Prospector's
Haven of Rest. A newspaper reports her entrance into a
saloon or dance hall is the signal for every man
in the place to stand. Nellie has always done well,
(15:47):
but she really strikes it rich in the Klondike. Her
claim on Bonanza Creek pays her more than one hundred
thousand dollars, equivalent to three million in today's money. Nelly
continues living and prospecting in the Yukon in Alaska for
another twenty five years. She becomes an expert musher, more
(16:10):
than once driving teams of dogs through the snow for
hundreds of miles. Here's Marshall.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
In nineteen twenty three, at the age of seventy eight,
she mushed a dog's lead team three hundred and fifty
miles in just seventeen days. Newspapers all over Alaska cared
the story of that intrepid lady named Nellie Cashman.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
During the fall of nineteen twenty four, her fabled health
finally begins to fail. She dies at age seventy nine
in January nineteen twenty five in Saint Joseph's Hospital, which
she had helped build nearly fifty years earlier.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Nellie was single all her life. She had several proposals.
She was a very pretty woman, but she never married,
and when asked if she ever feared for her sake
being the only woman among the many rough hewn men,
she replied, sweetly, if you act like a lady, men
will always treat you like one.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Shortly before she dies, a reporter asks her if she
ever feared for her virtue while living in all male
mining camps or prospecting on wild frontiers. She replies, bless
your soul, no, I never have had a word said
to me out of the way. The boys would sure
(17:32):
see to it that anyone who ever offered to insult
me could never be able to repeat the offense.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And thanks to Roger McGrath for that storytelling, and he's
told so many good ones here on this show. Also
thanks to Greg Hangler Nellie Cashman's story Here on our
American Stories.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show.
And we love to tell stories about our own history
and always are this day in histories, and our historical
segments were brought to us by the great folks at
Hillsdale College. Here's Roger McGrath to tell us the story
(00:31):
of a mining woman who sought her fortunes in a
man's world and became one of the greatest women of
the Old West. Doctor McGrath is a professor in southern
California and the author of Gunfighters, I Women and Vigilantes.
Violence on the Frontier. Here's Roger.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Known as a frontier Angel or the Saint of the Sourdoos,
Lillie Cashman was one of the greatest women who helped
make America's conquest to the frontier our Homeric era. She
ranged far and wide on every mining frontier, from Arizona
and Mexico in the south to Alaska and the Klondike
in the far north. She has not forgotten. She's an
(01:14):
inductee of the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame, the Arizona
Women's Hall of Fame, and Arizona Women's Heritage trail. There's
also a Nellie Cashman Day in Tombstone. She was a
character in the nineteen fifties TV series The Life and
Legend of Wyatt Earp, and the US Postal Service honored
(01:35):
her with a stamp in nineteen ninety four. Born in
County Cork, Ireland in eighteen forty five, Nellie is only
a teenager when she her sister Francis, and her widowed
mother leave Ireland sailed to Boston in eighteen sixty. When
the Civil War erupts, a shortage of young men allows
Nelly to find work as a bellop in a hotel.
(01:58):
Not many bellops look like Nelly, a beautiful and finally
featured young woman with waist length, brunette hair, flawless fair skin,
and sparkling expressive eyes. Here's Jane Baker, author of the
Nellie Cashman biography tough Nut Angel, the tale of her
real life adventures of the Old West.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
There's a legend that says that Nelly met generally Ulis's
f's Grant and had a conversation with him that ended
in him suggesting that she go to the West because
she would fit better there.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
With the end of the Civil War, the cashman decide
it's California for them. They arrive in San Francisco after
sailing on steamships and crossing through the jungles and mountains
of Panama on burrows Francis or Fanny as she's called,
Mary's irishman Tom Cunningham and starts a family. Nelly is
(02:55):
off for mining strikes in Arizona, Nevada, and Idaho. In
each new mining camp, she establishes a boarding house in
a restaurant, builds it into a profitable enterprise, then sells
out and moves on. Any miner down on his luck
eats for free at Nelly's, and Nellie is always ready
to grub stake a prospector. She also has a talent
(03:18):
for the healing arts and nurses many an injured or
ill miner back to health. Here's the story of the
Old West Marshall Trimble, otherwise known as the will Rogers
of Arizona.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Nellie took great pride in the fact that she never
turned away a hungry miner who had no money to
pay for his meal or board. And when there was
a need to raise money, whether it's for churches and schools,
or hospitals or a family of a miner killed in
a mining accident. Oh Nellie would head downtown for the
saloons or the brothels with her hat turned upside down,
(03:55):
and she always left with a hat full of money.
The source of these donations never bothered her, she said
one time. Whether the money comes from an upstanding citizen
or a member of an outlaw faction makes no difference
to me, and the money doesn't know the difference either.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
In eighteen seventy four, and Nelly joins a party of
two hundred Nevada miners headed for the Cassiar Mountains in
northern British Columbia, near the border of the Yukon. The
region is practically unknown and all but inaccessible, but the miners,
including Nellie, the only female, reached their destination in straight
(04:36):
gold on the upper reaches of the Stickeen River and
long its major tributary, Deece Creek. It's only fall when
winter comes to the Cassiars. The miners are caught unprepared
for the heavy snowfalls and severe cold, as their supplies
dwindow doesn't begin falling ill with scurvy their blood. Nelly
(04:58):
is not among them. He left earlier for a vacation
in Victoria on Vancouver Island. When Reard reaches Victoria, the
miners are entrapped by snow and ice and suffering terribly.
Nelly purchases two thousand pounds of supplies, including plenty of
lime juice, hires six men, and heads for Deese Creek
(05:21):
at Wrangell, Alaska. US customs officers try to dissuade her
from what they term a mad trip, but Nelly pushes on.
When the commander of Fort Wrangell here's a woman is
headed into the cassiars, he dispatches the lieutenant with a
squad of soldiers to rescue her. They don't catch up
(05:42):
with Nelly until high up on the Stickeen River. Nearly
exhausted and suffering greatly from the cold, the soldiers find
Nelly camp comfortably on the ice of this frozen sticken.
The lieutenant says she is cooking her evening meal by
the heat of a wood fire and humming a lively air.
(06:03):
The soldiers greatly accept her offer of hot coffee and
food and return without her. The winter weather is so
severe that people in coastal settlements think Nelly must have died.
Here again is Jane Baker.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
There was a small avalanche and Nellie's tent was buried
ten feet deep in snow. Now when I heard about this,
I wondered, how did she figure out how to get
out of there? Well, if you spit your spit will
go down. So what she did was spit and climb
the opposite directions, and she climbed out of the hole.
(06:40):
She does herself up out of it.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
After seventy seven days on the trail and digging herself
out of a snowslide, Nelly reaches Dese Creek. Upon hearing
of Nelly's trek, a newspaper called it an extraordinary feet
by an indomitable female who possesses all the vi facity
as well as the push and energy inherent to her race.
(07:04):
With lime, juice and good food, Nellie nurses every one
of the two hundred snowed in miners back to good health.
She is called the Angel of the Cassiars.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And when we come back, we'll continue with the story
of Nellie Cashman here on our American Stories. Lieh Habib
here the host of our American Stories. Every day on
this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country.
(07:40):
Stories from our big cities and small towns. But we
truly can't do the show without you. Our stories are
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love what you hear, go to Auramericanstories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
a lot. Go to Alamericanstories dot com and give, and
(08:10):
we return to our American Stories to continue with Roger
McGrath and the story of Nellie Cashman.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Nellie stays in British Columbia for another three years, operating
her businesses and raising money to build Saint Joseph's Hospital
in Victoria. In eighteen seventy eight, Nelly returns to San
Francisco to visit her mother in the Cunninghams Fanny and
her husband, now of three boys and two girls, who
love their aunt nell and are fascinated by her many adventures.
(08:41):
A new mining strike soon sends Nellie to Tucson in
Arizona Territory. She opens the Delmonico Restaurant, the first business
in Tucson owned by a woman, but in eighteen eighty
she heads for the new silver strike at Tombstone. She
takes over operation of the Russhouse hotel, and within weeks
(09:02):
becomes part owner. One of the prospectors she feeds for
free and grubstakes is Edward Doheny, who later becomes one
of America's great oilmen. Not long after Nelly begins operating
the House hotel, her sister's husband dies of tuberculosis. Nelly
rushes to San Francisco and brings Fanny and her children
(09:24):
to Tombstone to live in the home immediately behind the
Russ House. In eighteen eighty three, Fanny dies at tuberculosis
and that Nell finishes a job of rearing the Cunningham children.
When Nelly arrives in Tombstone, there is no Catholic church
here again as Marshall Trimble.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
In eighteen eighty there was an article into Tombstone Epitah
that said Nellie Cashman, the irrepressible, started out yesterday to
raise funds for the building of a Catholic church. We
don't know what success attended her first effort, but there
is going to be a Catholic church in Tombstone before
many more days, if Nelly has to build it herself.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
She convinces the owners of the Crystal Palace Saloon. One
of the owners is Wyatt herb to allow Sunday services
to be held there until the church is built. Nelly
leads the way in fundraising for what becomes a Sacred
Heart Church. Nelly also helps build the first school in
Tombstone and the first non military hospital in Arizona, Saint
(10:31):
Mary's in Tucson. She also establishes a fund for prospectors
injured in mining accidents and serves as treasurer of Tombstone's
chapter of the Land League of Ireland. Nelly becomes one
of the most influential and respected figures in Tombstone. Here
again is Jane Baker.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
During the time she was raising those kids in Tombstone,
the gunfight at the Ok Corral happened, and Nellie knew
all of those players, Doc Holliday Wyatt or all his brothers.
She knew the mayor of Tombstone named John Clumb, who
thought she was absolutely wonderful and wrote glowing reports of her.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
John Clum, the publisher of the Tombstone Epitaph and Tombstone's
first mayor, said of Nelly her frank manner, her self
reliant spirit, and her emphatic and fascinating Celtic brogue impressed
me very much and indicated that she was a woman
of strong character and marked individuality. Here's Marshall Tremble with
(11:39):
another story exemplifying Nelly's servant's heart.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
During the Christmas season of eighteen eighty three in Bisbee,
five men pulled a robbery, killing four people, including a
pregnant woman. They were caught, tried and convicted, and sentenced
to hang. Nellie took it upon herself to be their
mother confined, and just before the hanging, an entrepreneur had
built a grand stand outside the high walls of the
(12:06):
Tombstone Courthouse and was selling tickets to watch the hanging.
The outlaws pleaded with Nelly not to let their hanging
become a public spectacle, so the night before the event,
Nelly and some friends arrived late late in the evening
with tools in hand, and they tore it down. After
the five men were hanged, the authorities had planned to
(12:29):
donate their bodies to medical science, but the condemned men
protested to Nelly, so she sought to it that they
were given a proper burial and hired a guard to
protect their graves for several days.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
One day, a dying Mexican stumbles into tombstone and collapses
at the entrance to the russhouse. Nella has them carried
inside and put on a bed. Before he dies, he
mutters to her, Moulay, go to Moulay. Gold nuggets are
found in his pockets. Nelly and some twenty two stone
(13:04):
miners are soon exploring the desert inland from Moulay in
Baja California. The party runs out of water and several
of the men are on the verge of death from dehydration.
The Phoenix Herald newspaper reports that Nellie and two others
have died of thirst. Actually, Nelli is in better shape
(13:26):
than any of the men. She volunteers to go off
on her own, assuring her fellow prospectors a good angel
will guide her to water. She crosses miles of scorching
desert and miraculously comes upon an isolated mission. Not pausing
to rest, she organizes a rescue party and helps drive
(13:49):
burrows loaded with goat skin sacks of water back to
the miners. She arrives just in the Nico time in
eighteen ninety five, the age of fifty, Nelly is still
going strong when she arrives in Tucson, a newspaper reports
yesterday Tucson was visited by one of the most extraordinary
(14:10):
women in America, Nellie Cashman, whose name and face had
been familiar to every important mining camp or district on
the coast for more than twenty years. She rode into
the town from Casa Grande and horseback, a jount that
would nearly have prostrated the average man with fatigue. She
showed no sign of weariness and went about town in
(14:32):
that calm, business like manner that blogs particularly to her.
When news of the great strike in the Klondike reaches
the States, Nelly is off for the far North immediately.
She arrives in Daie, Alaska, during March eighteen ninety eight
and becomes one of the first women to take the
steep huell Coot Pass trail.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
At the summit on the Canadian border. The Mounties required
each stamp feeder to pack two thousand pounds of supplies
so they wouldn't let him in. I guess he didn't
want American citizens to perish on Canadian soil. Well. Fifty
four year old Nelly had to make several trips up
the snowpacked trail, but she was able to pass inspection,
(15:15):
and then while waiting for the eyes to thall, she
built a raft and then floated five hundred miles down
the Yukon River to reach Dawson, braving in a series
of fierce rapids along the way.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Nelle soon opens a restaurant and a grocery store, which
includes a small library. It becomes known as the Prospector's
Haven of Rest. A newspaper reports her entrance into a
saloon or dance hall is the signal for every man
in the place to stand. Nellie has always done well,
(15:47):
but she really strikes it rich in the Klondike. Her
claim on Bonanza Creek pays her more than one hundred
thousand dollars, equivalent to three million in today's money. Nelly
continues living and prospecting in the Yukon in Alaska for
another twenty five years. She becomes an expert musher, more
(16:10):
than once driving teams of dogs through the snow for
hundreds of miles. Here's Marshall.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
In nineteen twenty three, at the age of seventy eight,
she mushed a dog's lead team three hundred and fifty
miles in just seventeen days. Newspapers all over Alaska cared
the story of that intrepid lady named Nellie Cashman.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
During the fall of nineteen twenty four, her fabled health
finally begins to fail. She dies at age seventy nine
in January nineteen twenty five in Saint Joseph's Hospital, which
she had helped build nearly fifty years earlier.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Nellie was single all her life. She had several proposals.
She was a very pretty woman, but she never married,
and when asked if she ever feared for her sake
being the only woman among the many rough hewn men,
she replied, sweetly, if you act like a lady, men
will always treat you like one.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Shortly before she dies, a reporter asks her if she
ever feared for her virtue while living in all male
mining camps or prospecting on wild frontiers. She replies, bless
your soul, no, I never have had a word said
to me out of the way. The boys would sure
(17:32):
see to it that anyone who ever offered to insult
me could never be able to repeat the offense.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And thanks to Roger McGrath for that storytelling, and he's
told so many good ones here on this show. Also
thanks to Greg Hangler Nellie Cashman's story Here on our
American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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