Show american heroines by LOUISE M K COMSTOCK nellie cashman UT of uie the boisterous red blooded 0 OUT days of the alaskan gold rush comes the story of nellie cashman ta sliman woman sourdough queen of the mines who could mush her way behind the dogs over endless miles of 0 trackless snow with the best of them and gained more gold to show for it than most an old maid was nellie by her own definition she needed no DO man about to help her when she undertook a mans job nellie had bad come west with her family in ISM then the wanderlust seized her with a party of sli six men adventurers all she went to san francisco here the flip of a coin COID sent them north at victoria british columbia she learned that the was spreading disaster among the miners in the casslar district with her six followers and as many men more and with pounds of supplies and medicine she went to the rescue it was a twenty seven day trip on snowshoes when news of her undertaking reached a neighboring military post the commander was S so sure nellie could not aurvie survie he sent a detail of soldiers to the mines to bring back her body for Chrls christian tinn burial nellie heard beard they were corn com ing and climbed a tree to watch their approach she considered it a good jokel such was her success at stamping out the scurvy scurry that nellie spent two years near the mines in 1876 she returned to the states and opened a store at tombstone ariz here she prospered and was able to stake several of Ari zonas present millionaires on the gamble they would find gold in the mines then being developed near tombstone nellie seemed to have settled down but in 1897 word of the discovery of gold in alaska summoned her irresistibly north again she was among the first to reach dawson and subsequently into the interior prospecting and staking out claims she Is said to have realized over one million dollars from her claims on bonanza creek during the world war she secured the aid of five citizens of wiseman Wl seman which she then made her inome and started south to enlist as a red cross nurse before she reached the outside however the war was over in 1921 1021 when she was a woman of seventy nellie made her last trip to the states miles of it the distance between nolan and fairbanks by dog sled she came she then explained pla ined to raise capital for the development of her claims at nolan and to in the district from which she was confident she could get a couple of million nellie cashman died in ID 1925 1025 and Is burled buried in victoria grace parsons T THE HE very first long distance horse back ride in american history was nae made long before the days of paul revere and by a woman and alle vialle the feat of paul revere has been glen ghen wide publicity has been dramatized poetized burlesqued the career of grace parsons heroine of the days when pennsylvania was still fr outler and rife with indian warfare remains shrouded in ID mystery we know that she lived in easton in northampton county pa the daugh ter of an english cobbler who migrated to this country in 1719 and sub rose from the shoemakers bench to be appointed surveyor general of the state with the outbreak of the french and indian wars pennsylvania still a border state was plunged into the horrors of massacre and pillage the settlers lived in constant terror of the red men lurking in the surrounding forests fori ats one day word was brought to easton of the massacre at gnaden huten in the lehigh valley not so many miles away and the prediction that the indians indiana spurred onward by their horrible success here were bent on further raids to the east panic descended upon easton every resident who could deserted the town transporting his tai fat ni and household goods goode through the wilderness to safety to in philadelphia only william parsons or and his family and a few other settlers mostly older men and women and children remained in the defenseless fen seless town with neither stockade for refuge nor ammunition their only hope of survival toy lay in getting g a 8 messenger through to philadelphia with nn an appeal for aid no man able to make the lourney journey could be spared grace persons volunteered to take the message from the tense moment at which she set out from her fathers house horseback on her perilous lourney journey grace parsons name disappears from historic record no inspired writer found time in those days of turmoil to set down the details of her lone ride through the trackless wilderness alive with menacing indians to reach tier her goal no poet has sting ming her bravery in tripping couplets we do hare letters however which relate how word of the plight of the little band remaining in easton caston was nos received two days davs and two nights inter at the military headquarters in philadelphia and record that the he needed arms anus and troops were subsequently dispatched and reached the harrasser harr assed town cul but the indians changing their minds neg lecter to attack baston after sill worn union |