Nellie Cashman: Prospector and Trailblazer

While the 19th century's rules of ladylike demeanor were as straitlaced as whalebone corsets. Nellie Cashman didn't depart her beloved Ireland and adopt America as her homeland to be shackled by Victorian convention. Incurably stricken with gold fever, Cashman became a prospector and thrived on adventure. She saved Grand Central Mining Company magnate E.B. Gage from an Old West-style "necktie party," prevented five men convicted in the Bisbee Massacre from the degradation of a circus-style execution, was the first white woman to trek British Columbia's rugged Cassiar Mountain region and -a half-century later- was the first woman to y there in an airplane. When not searching tor the Mother Lode, she established and protably managed businesses in Tucson Tombstone. and Dawson. in the Yukon Territory, foster-mothered five nieces and nephews and contributed time and money to numerous charities. Arizona: novelist Jeanne Williams said of this book. "This is a lively. well dune and long overdue tribute to one oi the West's must fascinating women."