Angel of Cassiar they called her.
A remote gold mining district in northern British Columbia, Cassiar attracted a party of 200 prospectors up from Nevada to try their luck. Nellie Cashman came with them, opened a boarding house, and set about prospecting just like the men.
Strikes, Gold Strikes, in the Far North
Unlike the men, when winter came, Nellie, decided to spend it in the milder climate of the coast and made her way 800 miles south to Victoria, BC.
Good decision.
Cassiar suffered a horrendous winter. And the men snowed in there had not put by sufficient supplies. In addition to simple starvation, they suffered from scurvy.
When news of their ordeal reached Nellie in Victoria, she sprang into action. She talked six men into going with her on a relief run. They assembled, at Nellie’s expense, emergency supplies, food, and lemons to fight the scurvy, loaded all that on pack animals and started the long walk to Cassiar.
Deep snow, avalanches, extreme cold and storm after storm slowed but did not stop them. Seventy-seven days after they left Victoria they arrived in Cassiar. Nellie didn’t even slow down. She distributed the food and supplies and nursed the sick men.
Nellie’s philanthropy and, more, her heroic journey earned her two nicknames that would stick with her. “Miner’s Angel” and “Angel of the Cassiar”. Nellie’s rescue at Cassiar caught the attention of reporters and her colorful personality, her quick wit and her propensity for adventure kept their attention for the rest of her life. The Angel of Cassiar became famous.
Not bad for a dirt poor Irish immigrant.
Nellie and her mother and sister, along with thousands of other desperate Irish Catholics had come to Boston in1860. By 1869 they had made their way to San Francisco and Nellie had contracted mining fever.
Before her trip to Cassiar, Nellie had lived in the silver camps of Nevada, Virginia City, the Comstock and Pioche. And she had become an entrepreneur in addition to a miner. In each new location she opened a small business to support her mining ventures.
In Cassiar she alternately mined and kept her boarding house for miners.
Stand by for more about “Irish Nellie” (over the years she accumulated a lot of nicknames.