The San Francisco call., 1899-05-07

and among the mountains and
~ canyons in the Southwest Terrific
L u ries deserve to be we'll up to-
ward the top of the catalogue of
those who have succeeded in fields Of hu-
man energy for years occupied exclusive
ly by men. While women in the cities
and more populous parts of the Union are
winning success in the professions, in
business, and in trades alongside of their
husbands and brothers, there are women
IN every part of the Territories who are
not only adapting themselves to crude
and strange environments, but also win
ming fortune and fame in pursuits that
were thought to be out of the question
for women a dozen years ago. The immi-
grafton into the Territories in the last two
decades from New England and the Mid
die States has developed many a heroine
An army of young women, carefully and
tenGerly reared in old-fashioned homes In
the East, have come out here with hus-
bands and brothers, and when they have
adapted themselves to their new situa-
tions and nerved themselves to a brave
struggle for a livelihood in a strange
land, remote from everything connected
with their early training, some pictur-
esque and extraordinary results have
been brought about
For instance, there is the case of Mrs.
Marion Phelps, who has become an ex-
cellent gold mining prospector in the
Chloride and White Hills region in Mo-
jave County, Arizona Ex-Governor
Wolhey of Arizona is authority for the
statement that she is as good a Judge
as there is in the Southwest of the value
of lodges of low grade gold ore. Her hus-
band was graduate Of a New England
scientific school. and marrying when but
% years of age, he came West with his
70 10 oIIl III
fortune in a placer mine that had been
abundantly salted for his benefit His
wife tramped over the mountains, tray-
eled across burning deserts, lived in lone
ly canyons, camped on bleak and barren
mountain sides. slept in chaparral and
dwelt among Indians for several years
while young Phelps searched for gold
nnines. Mrs. Phelps shared every hard
ship with her husband, and in time she
developed into a correct and quick OBJ
server Of pay rock, and became as well
versed as any one in that region in all
the formations of auriferous rocks, the
slant, Tranquility and dip of ledges
When her husband fell from cliff one
day in Williams Canyon and was killed
the young woman was left with two small
children and a few dollars During the
years that she and her husband had been
barely subsistng, while they prospected
for mines neither of them had ever writ
ten to relative in the East about their
condition and their struggle with poV-
erty. Not a word old she write now
about her distress. Pride is a powerful
characteristic in the new woman of the
West.
With the help Of several miner friends.
Mrs. Phelps built rude cabin, sufficient
for comfort in the semi-tropic latitudes
of Arizona, and with her own hands culti-
waited an area of valley land about her
cabin. She grew vegetables and made a
market for all she could raise at the min
ing town of Kingman, few miles away
She never lost her interest in seeking
mines, and when her children were year
or two older and could be left with others
she went forth to prospect through Will
liams Canyon, where she and her husband
had once found evidence of gold bearing
rock She prospected there for several
weeks at time during the summer; going
back to her cabin home occasionally to
look after her children and their Indian
suuaw nurse and to cultivate anew her
vegetable farm ALONG in the fall she
located two claims, selling one for $4,000.
This gave her the capital she needed,
and from the day in March 1898, when the
money was paid her, she has been an as
sayer and an expert in low grade gold
quartz Her opinions are sought after
from Yuma to Albuquerque, and she