The Alaska daily empire., 1916-11-02
Crossed the American Line in 1874 in a Search for Gold
 in Alaska.
IS 60, BUT VIGOROUS
Nellie Cashman Was One of Pioneers with the SOurdoughS-NoW
 in Seattle.

SEATTLE, Oct 2y.-(By maiD- The first white woman to cross tn, American line into the Klondike.
 pioneer of the pioneers, Miss Mel lie Cashman, is in Seattle. A slight
 little woman, with gray hair brushed
 straight back from her forehead
 and big hands roughened and muscu
 lar from doing the work of men
 along the trail and in the camps ol
 the North, now past 60 years Of age
 she is as active and eager to g
 back to the claims she has stake !
 in the big Koyukuk region as she
 was in the days of "A, slip of a girl fresh from Ireland.
 Nearly twenty years before the Klondike rush from which thousands returned entitled to the name of sourdough. Miss Cashmen first hit the trails of the North country
 seventy-seven-Day Trip on Snow
 Shoes
 She was telling yesterday of a trip she made in 1S75-only one Of many and any one of which would give the ordinary woman her fil Of adventure for life-a seventy-seven day trip on snowshoes over 200 miles of snow and ice to carry medical aid Co the 15O American men who were down with scuryy in the Kassiak country
 Miss Cashmen, with six men to help her, mushed 'out of Wrangen Co their rescue, and nursed them so efficiently that not a man died She had been a few weeks on her jour- ney when Indians brought word to Wrangell that a white woman was in danger out on the trail and that help should be sent. A detail of United States soldiers went to her rescue and found her comfortably | settled in a camp ministering to tho scurvy-stricken band of miners.
 Doesn't Know Meaning of Fear
 q don't think I ever knew the ! meaning of fear" said Miss Cash 1 men, and was always restless and wanted to see new anu far away 1 places.
 q came to this country a young girl from Ireland and went first to never saw another white in tho months that ] stayed there. That was in '73. And then ] went north.
 'Tm going back now for a visit To Arizona, to stay with a nephew of mine He'll take me all around he country in an automobile. and |; lnOw he'll want me to stay there put he might as well try to keep he sun from rising as to try to keep ne from going back North"
 Eleven Years in Koyukuk After her first trip into the inter- or in '74, when Miss Cashmen nushed in from Wrangeu over the 1 ;tickine river route, she opened a ( business in Dawson. which ' he carried along with mining in- 5 erests that she formed in that re- 2 ion Later she entered the Fair ' anks field Then the ambition to o 1ake strike seized her and she ( oIlowed the trail into the Koyukuk C egion. where she spent most Of the 8 lst eleven years. She reports that ( here are probably 2.5OO or 5000 l laims staken in that region and 8 hat at least 1000 of them are work z ig or are in the process of devel- c pment. It is her opinion that next C ear will see many big strikes in S nat region. & As she stood at the door of her 8 pom in the Hotel Northern she q ,oked down at the skirts she wore 8. nd spoke as if she regarded them , a necessary inconvenience of her F sit to the outside. These things L. ill go pretty quick when l get back - D there" she said. Fine time I'd we with skirts on the trail"