Ellen (Nellie) Cashman

Ellen Cashman (1845 – 4 January 1925

Cashman led a rescue party to miners to the Cassiar Country gold mine in the Cassiar Mountains of British Columbia. In Tombstone, Arizona, Cashman raised money to build the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and did charitable work with the Sisters of St. Joseph. She went to the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush for gold prospecting, working there until 1905. She became nationally known as a frontierswoman, with the Associated Press covering a later trip. A devout Catholic, she raised funds for hospitals, schools, and churches wherever she settled.

In 2006, Cashman was inducted into the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame.

Early life Ellen "Nellie" O'Kissane was born in County Cork in the mid 1840s to Frances and Patrick O'Kissane. Their surname was later anglicized to Cashman. Her family lived on Free School Lane (now known as Mc Donaghs Lane). After Nellie was born, the Cashmans had another, Frances (known as Fanny). Likely while Fanny was still a baby, Patrick Cashman died. This was possibly due to starvation or another disease related to the Great Famine (Ireland).

In 1865 or 1866, Cashman and her family moved to San Francisco, California.

Cashman was travelling to Victoria to deliver 500 dollars to the sisters of St. Anne when she heard that a snowstorm had descended on the Cassiar Mountains, stranding and injuring 26 miners, who were also suffering from scurvy. She took charge of a six-man search party and collected food and medicine to take to the stranded miners. Conditions in the Cassiar Mountains were so dangerous that the Canadian Army advised against attempting the rescue.

By 1876, there was considerably less production from Cassiar prospecting. Cashman left Cassiar for good. She went to Victoria again to deliver $543 to the Sisters of St Anne, which helped fund St. Joseph's Hospital.

Another legend claims that Cashman learning the local mine superintendent was to be kidnapped and possibly hanged by protesting miners, quickly drove him out of town. He went to Tucson until things had calmed. Grace Lee Whitney played Cashman in "The Angel of Tombstone" of the syndicated western series Death Valley Days, hosted by Robert Taylor. In 1982, the Puget Sound-based group Women Business Owner established the Nellie Cashman Award, or the "Nellie," now known as the Women Business Owners of the Year Awards.

On 18 October 1994, Cashman was featured on a United States postage stamp as part of the Legends of the West series. On 15 March 2006, Nellie Cashman was inducted posthumously into the Alaska Mining Hall of Fame. In 2007, she was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas. In June 2014, a monument in Nellie's honour was erected near her home in Midleton County Cork.