The Angel of Tombstone

In southern Arizona, amidst the scrubby desert where temperatures often exceed 100 degrees, and about 30 miles from Mexico, lies a town called Tombstone.  Tombstone got its unusual name from a United States Cavalry scout at nearby Fort Huachuca who quit the military to prospect for gold and silver in the area.  A friend told him “The only thing you’re gonna find out there is your tombstone!”  But the scout found silver, and named his grubstake “Tombstone.”  In 1879, the boomtown was born.  Today, Tombstone is a well preserved tourist town known for the 1881 “Gunfight at OK Corral.” But Tombstone had a gentler side, exemplified by “The Angel of Tombstone,” Nellie Cashman.

Nellie Cashman was born in Ireland in 1845 and after the Potato Famine of 1849 immigrated with her sister and mother to the United States.  She worked as a housemaid and a hotel worker, and in 1869 moved to San Francisco with her sister and mother.  Here, her sister married, but Nellie wanted to strike it rich by finding gold or silver.  Her goal was “to make a lot of money and to help those in need.”  In 1872, she opened a miners’ boarding house near Pioche, Nevada, but by early 1874 her search led her to Dease Lake, Canada, about 1100 miles north of Seattle.  In the winter of 1874-5, Nellie had left her camp and was headed to Victoria to deliver $500 she had raised for a new hospital being built by the Sisters of St. Ann, when she heard that the miners back at her camp were snowbound, suffering from scurvy, and low on food.  Nellie turned around, led a 77 day dog-sled rescue mission, and saved the lives of 75 men. 

In 1880, she moved to Tombstone and set up a boarding house and café, using the income from these to fund her prospecting activities.  Sometimes she traded down-on-their-luck miners room and board for a percent of their grubstake. Here, she helped nurse sick miners back to health.  She raised funds for a hospital and to build Sacred Heart Catholic Church.  She continued to send money to the Sisters of St. Ann for their hospital.  In 1881 Nellie’s brother-in-law died, and her sister and children moved to Tombstone to live with Nellie.  Then, in 1883, her sister died, and Nellie undertook raising her five children aged 4-12. 

In 1884, five men guilty of murder were scheduled to hang on the same day.  A carpenter built a viewing stand hoping to charge $.25 to spectators.  The condemned men complained to Nellie about this humiliation.  Nellie convinced the five to repent of their sins and the three who weren’t Catholic to convert.  She then hired men to destroy the viewing stand in the wee hours the night before the hanging.

By the late 1880’s the mines in Tombstone had become unproductive due to flooding.  Nellie moved again, and in 1898 traveled to Dawson, Canada, where she opened a boarding house.  It’s difficult for us to appreciate the hardship this involved.  The distance from Seattle to Dawson is almost 1900 miles.  Assuming she traveled by ship to Skagway, Alaska, it was still 440 miles via dogsled to Dawson.  The average January temperature in Dawson is -16 degrees!  Nonetheless, in her eight years in Dawson, Nellie again raised funds for the local Catholic church and hospital, helped the sisters running the hospital, and worked her claims. 

From there Nellie moved on to Fairbanks, again raising funds for a hospital and the church, and then to a camp of about 100 or 200 miners in Coldfoot, Alaska.  Miners would get to this particular camp (2500 miles north of Seattle) and plan to go still further north, but they would get “cold feet” and return, hence the name.  Coldfoot’s temperature averages -27 degrees in January, and today it has a population of 34. In 1924, Nellie caught pneumonia at her cabin in Coldfoot and was brought back to the hospital run by the Sisters of St. Ann, to whom she had first sent donations in 1875.  There she died, in January, 1925. 

Though Nellie was successful in her business dealings, she never did “strike it rich.”  She appears, however, to have achieved her goal of “making a lot of money and helping those in need.”  She was generous with her money, and tended to the spiritual and material needs of those she met--- such as the doomed murderers in Tombstone and the snowbound miners in British Columbia--- and likely she did “strike it rich,” by “seeking first the Kingdom of God.”

We, the volunteers at St. Michael Broadcasting, hope that this station helps you bring Christ to others in your words and deeds. Please help bring the faith to others by supporting the station through word-of-mouth, by praying for its success, and if possible, a financial contribution.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam