Nellie Cashman

Who was Nellie Cashman?

Ellen Cashman, better known as Nellie Cashman, became noted across the American and Canadian west as a nurse, businesswoman, Catholic philanthropist in Arizona, and gold prospector in Alaska. A native of County Cork, Ireland, she and her sister were brought as young children to the United States by their mother around 1850 to escape the poverty of the Great Famine. The family lived first in Boston, where the girls also worked when old enough, before migrating to San Francisco in 1865.

Cashman established her first boarding house for miners in British Columbia during the Klondike Gold Rush, asking for donations to the Sisters of St. Anne in return. During her time there, she led a rescue of tens of miners in the Cassiar Mountains. After moving to Tombstone, Arizona about 1880, Cashman built the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and did charity work with the Sisters of St. Joseph. She raised the five children of her sister Fanny after they were orphaned in 1883. In the late 1880s, Cashman set up several restaurants and boardinghouses in Arizona.