Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Biography & Autobiography Women

Gold Rush Queen

The Extraordinary Life of Nellie Cashman

by (author) Thora Illing

Publisher
TouchWood Editions
Initial publish date
Sep 2016
Category
Women, Historical
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781771511605
    Publish Date
    Sep 2016
    List Price
    $18.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

A biography of the extraordinary Nellie Cashman, a well-loved miner, entrepreneur and philanthropist who lived and worked in the roughest boomtowns of the West in the late-nineteenth century.

At a time when well-bred women wore tight corsets and entertained each other at tea, Nellie Cashman (1845–1925) was trekking for hundreds of miles through blizzard conditions to deliver food and supplies to trapped miners in northern BC.

An Irish immigrant, Cashman travelled from Boston to San Francisco in search of opportunity. She followed the mining boomtowns, all the way from California to northern BC, and Arizona to Alaska opening up restaurants and boarding houses, and staking mining claims. She was friends with the likes of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday during her years in Tombstone, and was known among them for her kind heartedness and charitable acts. This biography is a fresh look at the fascinating life of an underappreciated historical character.

About the author

Thora Illing is a former journalist and librarian. She immigrated to Canada as a young woman and fell in love with the space, the fjords, and the forests of the west. Now retired, she lives in Sidney, BC, and loves travel, books, nature and animals.

Thora Illing's profile page

Related lists